Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Take My Hand (2022), which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and a Fiction award from the Black Caucus American Library Association, and was long-listed for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a preeminent chronicler of American historical life.