Meet Kristal Brent Zook
Kristal Brent Zook is an award-winning journalist and the author of six books including The Girl in the Yellow Poncho, a coming-of-age story about being biracial in America, searching for her missing white father, and finding her own authentic identity. The memoir was chosen as a favorite book by Vanity Fair, BET, PEOPLE, Ms., and The Root, and received praise in The New York Times Book Review and Kirkus.
She is a former contributor to the Washington Post and ESSENCE, and her writing on race, women, culture, and social justice has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, LIFE, and The Guardian, among other outlets.
Her most recent book, Tulsa Speaks, was published in June 2026. Her next book, Black Women’s Lives: Stories of Power and Pain – Twenty Years Later, will be available February 9, 2027.
Dr. Zook is also a tenured professor of journalism at Hofstra University in New York, where she has taught for nearly twenty years. Find her @kbzook on Instagram, or feel free to reach out directly on her contact page.
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