Author Terah Shelton Harris: Black women must be intentional with healing

Novelist Terah Shelton Harris says Black women need to protect their mental health, especially amid today’s social climate.

Her new book “Where the Wildflowers Grow” centers around the theme of people learning to sift through trauma and heal, that it’s OK to not be OK.

“We think, especially as Black women, that we have to put on a strong face and face the world and be strong,” Shelton Harris said. “It’s OK to be vulnerable. It’s OK to seek whatever type of help it is that you need.”

Ahead of a Monday author talk that she will give during the Roswell Roots festival, Shelton Harris explained that embracing “the soft life” has to be intentional.

“I feel like the 92% have been very intentional on protecting our mental health during this time,” she said, referencing the percentage of Black women who voted for Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election. “​​I’m never going to completely just shy away from what’s happening in this world, but I am being very intentional that I’m just not bringing that inside. I am protecting my mental health.”

The fiction writer said Black women have to learn to limit doomscrolling on social media and back away from constantly immersing themselves in the heaviness that can dominate the news. Even if someone’s livelihood revolves around technology or having a public persona, she said the continuous need to post on social media shouldn’t be to the detriment of their mental health.

“We, as Black women, often are not the center of our own lives,” Shelton Harris said. “Someone else is: our kids, our husband, our job, our parents, the people we’re taking care of. We are never centered.

“I think that is perfectly fine for us to be selfish — to a certain extent — and to choose ourselves.”

In “Where the Wildflowers Grow,” main character Leigh is a runaway convict after escaping from a fatal prison bus crash in South Carolina. She travels to Alabama, where she unexpectedly finds community. With the help of her new chosen family, she is forced to reckon with her tumultuous upbringing and how that lingering trauma has affected her life. Being intimate with nature and emotionally vulnerable with people who have grown to love her are challenges she faces.

“We have to learn to … be more intentional with our healing,” Shelton Harris said. “We are intentional with everything else in our (lives). We have to be intentional on protecting our mental health and intentional on reconnecting with nature.”

Nature is a supporting character in the book, serving as a reminder that a person’s environment is crucial to their well-being.

The novel also touches on inefficiencies of the carceral system, relationships between Black mothers and daughters and abuse.