Read the Room: Go Tell the Community We Heal Together

Asia N. Ashley

In high school, one of my favorite parts of English class was discussing the books we were reading and comparing them to current social topics that we were living in. So many foundational beliefs were born from those conversations with my peers. It was exciting and led to better essays, increased awareness, and expansion. What I learned from those moments was the importance of storytelling and its power to drive change and foster connection beyond the page.

When thinking about ways to curate meaningful connections in my community, a book club was the first thing that came to mind. Communal reading is such a radical space for community building, cultural preservation, and, of course, introspection. In a moment when books are being legislated out of classrooms, and the stories that reflect our lives are being pulled from shelves, gathering around a text becomes an act of resistance and of care. Read the Room offers a space for people who crave connecting outside of high-social, work, or academic environments.

The room created an opportunity to sit with difficult texts and experience literature as a conduit for real understanding of ourselves and each other. The decision to open with James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain stemmed from refusing to let a flawed system keep people from experiencing the work of prolific storytellers. In return, Baldwin gave us so much to hold on to — family, spirituality, identity, Black interior life, the way love and fear can live in the same house. But what made the experience most powerful was the way the room flowed. People showed up with their fullest attention, ready to listen, create, and imagine a world where sharing our stories, no matter the flaws, has a place of belonging. People returned, session after session, and I’m forever grateful for the room that held us all.

Who was in the room?

Read the Room brought together a small but meaningful cross-section of the community from around the world. Among the 24 who RSVP’d and completed feedback, the 12 participants ranged in age from 26 to 42, and the group included people with some college experience through graduate and professional degrees. In terms of identity, most participants self-identified as Black or African American, with additional representation including Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and Black or African American and Asian identities. Participants also brought a range of spiritual frameworks into the conversation, including Spiritual (Non-Religious) and Christianity, with a few folks naming blended practices. That mix mattered, especially with Baldwin, because so much of the novel sits at the intersection of critiques and questions about faith, family, and queer selfhood. Reading in a room like that made the discussion feel deeply layered and, of course, honest.

What we did, and why it mattered

Each session had a simple run. We settled around a grounding question, talked through guided questions, made space for different ways of participating, and then wrote. One of the leading prompts that I shared at the first session asked: “What is one tradition, ritual, or everyday practice from your life or culture that shapes how you show up in community?” This foundational question served as a mirror for the practice we ended up creating for every session. In turn, we created our own ritual — making sure that we went around and shared something beautiful about our week, something that stayed with us, or something that needed a bit more tenderness.

Welcoming Question

“What is one thing from your week, or something you saw in the news, that you want to place in
the room as we begin?”

Session 1: Read the Room

As a facilitator, when asking participants for or sharing resonant lines from Baldwin, the ask really becomes: where does this land in their own life, their body, their own history? The prompts provide just enough structure to make the stakes feel lower, because ultimately, what people do within that structure is entirely their own. That’s the point. Writing becomes a way of processing the text without performing any expertise. In a room full of people doing the same thing, it creates a kind of intimacy that discussion alone rarely reaches. What really worked with reflecting on sections in the book were creative prompts tied to characters and themes. Prompts like: “I want us to write with the women in Part Two who carry fear, memory, desire, and survival in their bodies. Elizabeth, Florence, Deborah, and Esther each live at the edge of longing or some type of pain. Their stories mirror the lines in Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival. Today, we will write in that shared space.” helped open the door to deeper conversations.

One participant, Devin Walker, shared that “making a poem using a line from a passage of text” stayed with them after the session. Another, A. Abena, named the first session as a highlight, when we “ciphered a poem out of a writing prompt we all responded to.” Those are small moments on paper, but in real time, they felt like the grandest permission to keep Read the Room alive. It felt like a reminder that people are allowed to respond to literature with their whole selves, and it doesn’t have to be through an academic lens to be valid.

What no one expected, including me, was that the first session would generate an idea we would want to carry forth. After people shared what they had written, the excitement vibrated from section to section of our session. It felt wrong to let it dissolve. A community zine became the most honest answer, an artifact that could hold the creative work, the reflections, and the voices of everyone who showed up and made something real. The zine became the home for everything we created together.

For the final session, I deliberately chose to step back. Community members were invited to nominate or volunteer someone to lead, and those individuals made the room their own. It mattered to me that our space never became one that only I could cultivate. Good facilitation should eventually make itself unnecessary and should build the conditions for others to steward the work. Letting go of the center also gave me something I hadn’t expected: the chance just to be a participant. Through a news lens, I was able to listen without the need to critique how well the itinerary flowed. I found that it did not matter as much when someone else supported in leading discussions or writing sessions; I was just happy to be a witness, especially writing without watching the clock. That session reminded me that the work isn’t about me. It never was. It’s about what happens when a community trusts itself enough to lead.

What people carried home

When I asked attendees what stood out most, many folks pointed to the same things: the facilitation, the questions, and hearing each other’s perspectives. Someone described the experience as “Generative. Creative. Communal.” Another wrote: “Insightful, Warm, and Thoughtful!” Those words meant a lot to me because warmth is intentionally built through care and safety. You never know the impact of your curation until it’s over, and everyone is wondering when we’ll next meet and with what book.

Some reflections reminded me why Baldwin still lands so hard and shouldn’t be on any banned book lists. Erika C. shared an insight that stayed with her: Spiritual growth can be bigger than any one organized religion, and that finding a personal relationship with God can shape how we engage life. That reflection felt true to Baldwin’s work and to what public scholarship can do when people are allowed to commune and think out loud.

What changed because we read together

A few people said outright that they could have read the book on their own, and that’s fair; of course, they could. But gathering shifted the experience of reading Go Tell It On The Mountain. One person shared that it created space to “peel back layers.” Another name that the community built is “collective accountability.” Someone else said it helped break the book into “digestible pieces.” For me, that is the heart of it. There’s no need to simplify Baldwin; we understood the work and had opinions on it. What mattered most was making Baldwin a fly on our wall in the room.

What I am taking forward as a PAGE Fellow

This book club reminded me that public scholarship cannot exist without analysis and research. It is in connecting, truthfully and vulnerably, but with so much hospitality. It is how we invite people into complex rooms without asking them to leave themselves at the door. It’s important to make the community part of the process and not show up to extract for gain. In this work, you must hold space for nuance, sameness, disagreement, and tenderness in the same conversation, and be prepared for something else entirely to show up, and be okay with decentering yourself.

I am most grateful to everyone who decided to say yes. To everyone who read, instead of scrolling, who listened with their whole hearts to experiences that may not have reflected their own, and said: I see you.” I hear you. I share this moment with you. Read the Room affirmed something I believe deeply: community is one of the greatest methods of healing.

If you’d like to join a future session, I’d love to have you in the room. Reach out to letsreadtheroom@gmail.com.

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