I desperately wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t know how to make money writing. Like hooks, I felt like I had to leave behind certain negative images of Arkansas, the stereotypes that others recounted to me about impoverished, uneducated mountain folk. I read the biographies of authors I respected obsessively, and many of them reflected the idea that New York and San Francisco – cities that I had never visited – were the epicenter of the writing world, of intellect and ideas. I deeply respected her decision to return to Kentucky as I had similarly complicated feelings about Arkansas, where I grew up.

It is just these negative images of Kentucky that I had left behind.” In 2016, hooks wrote that when her dear friend Gloria Steinem had asked her why she was returning to Kentucky, she realized: “Although it was not her intent, these words conjured stereotypical images of Kentucky – tin can trailer parks, poor White trash rednecks, broken-down pickup trucks, dirty, uneducated folks – Black and White – and even more profoundly the absence of any progressive face. She was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952, when the town was still segregated. The author's copy of 'Communion: The Female Search for Love' by bell hooks Courtesy Louise Halsey When I think of hooks, who died Wednesday at age 69, I am reminded of the way she made Black feminist theory accessible to the different communities she inhabited, changing lives with her inclusive and radiant energy and words. At that time, I had only sold one article for $20, and I did not feel like one yet. I was afraid to admit how badly I wanted to be a writer.

I wanted to ask hooks for writing advice and have her sign a book for me, but I had to build up my courage to approach her. Berea hired hooks after I graduated, so I did not get to take a class with her, but I did see her radiant self regularly at the coffee shop. I had graduated from Berea College with an English major in 2003. I found hooks – as a woman from rural Kentucky – relatable, her essays and criticism as inviting as they were incisive. Growing up in Arkansas, I struggled to find writers whose stories reflected the challenges of being a woman in rural America. I remember waiting for hooks to enter the coffee shop so I could meet her in person and ask her to sign her book.

Bell hooks on theory