Author & Speaker
Biography
Austin Channing Brown is an author and speaker providing inspired leadership on racial justice in America. She is the New York Times Bestselling author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness and the USA Today Bestseller Full of Myself: Black womanhood and the Journey to Self-Possession. Her workshops are incisive, fun, disarming, and transformative. By using an intentional mix of humor, pop-culture, story-telling, and audience engagement, she awakens people to the current realities of systemic racism and the everyday actions which make it possible. Whether she is being interviewed, lecturing, preaching or leading a workshop, Austin is sure to evoke thought, feeling and action as she celebrates Blackness and the possibility of justice in our organizations, teams and communities.
Her first book, I’m Still Here received acclaim from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. It has also been featured in On Being, The Chicago Tribune, Popsugar, BitchMedia, WNYC, with Shondaland declaring it “[a] deeply personal celebration of blackness that simultaneously sheds new light on racial injustice and inequality while offering hope for a better future.” Reese Witherspoon chose it for her book club in July 2020, and it has even appeared on the popular show Bel-Air.
Austin released her second memoir, Full of Myself: Black Womanhood and the Journey to Self Possession in August 2025. Kiese Laymon declared “Austin Channing Brown is in absolute control of her literary superpowers, and absolutely free enough to reckon with not feeling super at all. Here we have a spectrum of fullness, and peculiar longinging, that is born of rugged honesty and tender care. Exquisite work.” Full of Myself was also a USA Today bestseller.
In addition to these two books, Austin has also released a young readers edition entitled Im Still Here: Loving Myself in a World Not Made for Me. Her contributions to anthologies include the New York Times bestselling book, You Are Your Best Thing, edited by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown and Hungry Hearts: Essays on Courage, Desire and Belonging.
Austin has a Bachelor of Arts in business management from North Park University as well as a Masters of Arts in social justice from Marygrove College in Detroit. Due to her work and her writing, Austin has been awarded an an honorary doctorate from Oakland University in Michigan. She has also been given a Key to the City in her hometown, Toledo, OH.
You can support Austin’s racial justice work by becoming a patreon member or newsletter subscriber.
Reviews
“Most people say, ‘that books has legs;’ I measure the impact of a book by how often I throw it across the room. [Austin’s book] has serious wings. It broke me open.”
“Austin is fierce with the truth because she knows that only the truth will make us free. Without a doubt, Austin Channing Brown is one of the most gifted speakers of her generation and those who hear her speak leave knowing that freedom, life and liberation are possible for all people!”
Austin Has SPoken At:
