Highly Textured

Every day, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, or just randomly surfing around the web, I see another woman who's gone natural. Some say it's a trend (and for a few girls, it may be just that), but I can't help but think it's becoming a growing lifestyle shift for scores of black women. It's exciting!

So imagine my delight when, in the space of a week, two of my favorite writers posted their natural hair stories on their blogs. The first is Erica Kennedy, author of Bling and the recently-released, fiercely-funny Feminista. (Buy both! Great reads.)

On her blog, she talks about getting used to her natural texture, and about wearing long, silky, clip-in hair for her author photo. An interesting tidbit:

"The third reason [for using the silky-hair picture] is, I will admit, that I felt it might be better to present an image that was more palatable to the mainstream chick literati since I already know I'm going to get shit for writing this un-chick litty chick lit, which Publisher's Weekly is calling 'bitch lit'."

Still, she made sure to post a pic of her TWA on the blog (as atonement for the silky pic. Lol).

The other writer who documented her hair journey is Aliya S. King, who's written for just about every major urban magazine and runs a blog that's a fantastic resource for aspiring writers. A pictorial of her hair - long, short, krinkly, curly and straight -- appears on Black Voices Hair Talk. She remembers the styles she wore when she was single, married, pregnant, and as a new mother, all the while trying to find something that was simple and looked good. She ends with a series of pics of her TWA, and writes:

"Am I happy with it? I’m not sure. I don’t have a forehead. I have an eighthead. And this cut just emphasizes my HUGE noggin. So hopefully, it’ll grow in and take a little attention away from the projector screen I’ve got going on up there.

But I do know I was out of Lynn’s chair in record time yesterday.

And when I woke up this morning, I felt like... me."

Make sure to check out both their blogs, and their work. Erica and Aliya are pretty friggin' fly.