And Sometimes There Are Tears is the second book in the innovative new series In Words of Our Own: Black Women and Being, by and about Black Canadian women that centres Black feminist perspectives. This engaging text explores Black women's journeys toward well-being, healing, and collective liberation, while also challenging narrow Eurocentric and individualistic definitions of wellness that routinely overlook Black women's lived realities, particularly within Canadian contexts shaped by systemic anti-Black racism and sexism. Through interdisciplinary and multi-genre contributions, including academic research, personal narratives, poetry, and dialogue, the contributing scholars explore how wellness is shaped by experiences such as misogynoir, internalized anti-Blackness, the "Strong Black Woman" archetype, and inequities within the health and social systems. Rather than treating well-being as a fixed or purely clinical outcome, this collection presents it as a dynamic, relational process rooted in history, embodiment, and community. And Sometimes There Are Tears reimagines healing as a form of political resistance. Contributors foreground spiritual practice, ancestral connection, storytelling, and community care as essential strategies for surviving and flourishing within Black spaces. By honouring diverse ways of knowing and refusing rigid boundaries between academic and creative work, this powerful and deeply reflective text offers students and scholars a powerful framework for understanding wellness as inseparable from justice, care, and collective action.
