Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and most recently Take My Hand (2022). Take My Hand was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and named a Top 20 Book of the Year by the Editors at Amazon. It was awarded the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction, the 2023 BCALA Award for Fiction, and received the prestigious Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. Dolen is currently Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University and lives in Washington, DC with her family.