The Saturday Evening Quill: Stories, Poems & Plays by Boston’s Women of the Harlem Renaissance

Discover the vibrant short stories, one-act plays, and poems by African American women who wrote for The Saturday Evening Quill, a pioneering Harlem Renaissance journal. Honest, sharp, and moving, these works explore race, gender, love, and ambition—offering a rare glimpse into the creative lives of Black women in the 1920s and ’30s.W.E.B. Du Bois said of The Saturday Evening Quill, “Of the booklets issued by young Negro writers in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere, this collection from Boston is by far the most interesting and the best.”14 Stories, 2 Plays, 75 Poems, and 2 Illustrated Poems for Children by Dorothy West, Helene Johnson, Edythe Mae Gordon, Alvira Hazzard, Gertrude Schalk, Florida Ruffin Ridley, Alice E. Furlong, Florence Marion Harmon, Marion G. Conover, Gertrude Parthenia McBrown, Grace Vera Postles, and Lois M. Jones