Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Seventeen-year-old Kiara shoulders too much responsibility. Her father recently died after being released from prison. Her mother is in a halfway house. Her brother avoids obligation, preferring to seek fame as a star rapper. And then there’s Trevor, the nine-year-old boy who lives next door, who’s been abandoned by his crack-addicted mother — but not Kiara.

,” deftly portrays the swirl of poverty and trauma Kiara faces in her Oakland apartment, which has a pool filled with putrid water and dog excrement at its center. Written when Mottley herself was only 17, it’s a story that riffs off real-life events of 

Oprah chose “Nightcrawling” as her latest Book Club pick

, catapulting Mottley’s novel to the top of the best-seller charts. On Friday, MPR host Kerri Miller talked with Mottley about what she learned while writing “Nightcrawling” in her spare time between high school classes and the heavy and often unseen burdens young Black girls carry in America.

To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on 

for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Shows

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Host

Author

Leila Mottley was just 17 when she began writing what is already one of the breakout novels of the summer. “Nightcrawling” explores police corruption, patriarchy, poverty and what it means to young Black women who are often expected to carry it all. 

Author Leila Mottley on her breakout first novel, 'Nightcrawling'

Go Deeper.

Like this?