Discipline: Literature – nonfiction

Brooke Newman

Discipline: Literature – nonfiction
Region: Henrico, VA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2023

Brooke Newman is an associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of the award-winning book, A Dark Inheritance: Blood, Race, and Sex in Colonial Jamaica.

Her research on the British monarchy and the history and legacies of slavery has appeared in Slate, Der Spiegel, The Washington Post, The Richmond Times Dispatch, i-news, Sky news, Vox, and Yahoo news. She has served as a historical consultant on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and is currently advising The Guardian on the royal family’s historical ties to the transatlantic slave trade.

While at MacDowell, Newman worked on a chapter of her forthcoming non-fiction book, The Queen's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery (Mariner), an examination into the little-known, centuries-long relationship between the Crown and African slavery.

Studios

New Jersey

Brooke Newman worked in the New Jersey studio.

The yellow clapboard New Jersey Studio, located on a grassy, sloping site, was funded by the New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs and built as an exact replica of Monday Music Studio (1913). The studio’s porch rests on fieldstone piers that increase in height as the ground slopes to the west. Like Monday Music Studio, New Jersey…

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