fayemi shakur, a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and arts advocate based in Newark, New Jersey, described A Womb of Violet: An Anthology (2019) as “an ode to Black womanhood.” The publication was created by a New Jersey–based collective that shakur founded in 2019 while “Feminist in Residence” at the nonprofit Project for Empty Space. In the introduction, shakur writes that the anthology represents “a collective of Black women across generations, and identities speaking our truth in the form of poetry, prose, and visual art. … This is a thick healing love letter to Black women, our city, Newark, and beyond.”

The hand-cut, risograph artbook features an introduction by Dr. Antoinette Ellis-Williams, Chair, Department of Women's and Gender Studies at New Jersey City University. The book begins with five previously unpublished poems by Amina Baraka and pays homage to Black feminist writers and thinkers. 

Contributors include: Amina Baraka, Jennifer Coard, Dominique Duroseau, Dr. Antoinette Ellis-Williams, Bimpé Fageyinbo, Margie 'Mia X' Johnson, Breya 'Blkbrry Molassez' Knight, Jennifer Mack-Watkins, Jasmine Mans, K. Desireé Milwood, Kween Moore, K. Eleven Muldrow, Sheikia S. Norris, Angela Pilgrim, Jillian M. Rock, tarah douglas and cover photography by Adama Delphine Fawundu.

“Writer Gwendolyn Brooks contributes another text reflecting on the importance of community. She writes, “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” The artist Angela Pilgrims responds to Brooks with two visual works that highlight women in quotidian life: one depicts a woman tending to her natural hair and the other two women embracing and smiling joyfully.”