Photo credit: Amy DuBois Barnett (Instagram)
Amy DuBois Barnett’s appearance at the 2026 ESSENCE Festival of Culture carried the warmth of a genuine homecoming. The celebrated author and seasoned media executive got her start at ESSENCE early in her career before making history as the first Black woman to serve as editor-in-chief at a major mainstream magazine, Teen People. She later led Honey and Ebony magazines as editor-in-chief and held senior roles at Harper’s Bazaar, BET and The Grio. Her journey from magazine editor to novelist has been remarkable. When asked about lifting other women along the way, she offered a response as direct as her career path. We are all we have.
At this year’s festival, Barnett participated in a lively panel discussion about her new novel If I Ruled the World, a story set in late-1990s New York City that follows an ambitious Black woman navigating a fast-paced world. The novel is also heading to Hulu as a television adaptation. Additionally, the proud Delta Sigma Theta Sorority member made sure to shout out her Sorors from the stage.
We also got Barnett to open up about the books that have defined her life, her unexpected literary loves and exactly what she does with a page she needs to remember.
Her all-time favorite book
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston holds the top spot without hesitation. Barnett first read it as a young woman and describes being immediately captivated by Janie’s fierce determination to build a life that belonged entirely to herself. For an honorary mention, she names W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, calling it one of the most brilliant works of American nonfiction ever written and noting with a smile that namesake loyalty aside, it genuinely earns its place.
The book that made her feel most seen as a Black woman
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones resonated with Barnett on a deeply personal level. What moved her was not a single character but the emotional landscape of the entire novel. She describes it as a portrait of ambitious Black people trying to build meaningful lives, careers, marriages and identities while carrying expectations from both inside and outside their community. She saw pieces of her own experiences and those of Black professionals she knows and loves reflected throughout its pages.
The first book that resonated with her as a child
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery was the one. Barnett reflects that she has apparently spent her entire life gravitating toward smart, plucky and ambitious heroines. Anne, she says, made her feel seen long before she had the language to explain why.
Her favorite genre and how she reads
Literary fiction has always held her heart. She notes that if she had not loved writing so much, she might have pursued a PhD in literature rather than an MFA in creative writing. For most of her life she was firmly committed to print books. Over the last several years, however, she has converted to audiobooks and now keeps two books going simultaneously. Print stays reserved for literary fiction. Audio, she has discovered, works beautifully for fantasy. Dragons, witches, elves and all of it, she says, land differently when heard aloud.
The book that surprised her most
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy was not exactly at the top of her reading list. She was not rushing toward a novel about gritty cowboys in the American West. Nevertheless, McCarthy’s prose won her over completely. She describes his writing as elegant, restrained and beautiful, and says the book became one of her favorites almost by surprise.
What she is reading now and next
She recently finished Tia Williams’s latest novel, The Missed Connection, which she describes as smart, funny and emotionally resonant. Next on her list is Robinne Lee’s second novel, Crash Into Me, a book she has been anticipating for years.
Bookmark or dog-ear?
Definitively and unapologetically, she dog-ears. Books, she says, are meant to be lived in.
Source: Essence
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