When it comes to delivering book reviews, nobody serves them better than one of the most respected voices in publishing, Kirkus. Long known for brutal honesty with eagle-eyed, razor sharp reviewers, authors know that a single word or an entire sentence has the power to make or break someone’s career. That’s because in the literary world, Kirkus is synonymous with being authoritarian as it relates to publishers, librarians, booksellers, and, oh, serious readers.

So receiving a mention and a favorable exploration are more than just a pat on the back by the esteemed American book review magazine. Let’s be clear that it has been hard earned. It’s no wonder (no pun intended) that Dr. Christian’s book, It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy, received both in recognizing her ability to bring Moy’s quiet genius to life! Not bad for her first major review with the book and her first Kirkus recognition.

Kirkus acknowledges the forthcoming biography and the way it reclaims a pivotal figure in music and in Motown history whose contributions were long overshadowed. “A pioneering musician rescued from obscurity” is how Kirkus declares it. 

The online review was released Friday, August 29, and the printed version will be published in the October magazine.  

Dr. Christian’s distinctive background as a seasoned professional journalist and academic scholar positions her to conduct research through an intersectional lens at the crossroads of media, education, popular culture, and historical inquiry. Her aim has been to do restorative work through education where she strives to address erasure when dominant narratives overlook marginalized, underrepresented female and minority voices in media and in entertainment.

It’s No Wonder, which serves as more than a biography but also as a historical corrective, challenges through an immersive and culturally anchored approach who controls the narrative and determines how history is shaped when her story is excluded.

February 10, 2026, is the official release date, but preorders are available now.









 

​

It's here! Dr. Margena A. Christian's much-anticipated biography about Sylvia Moy, the unassuming musical giant who penned classic Motown tunes for Stevie Wonder such as "Uptight" and "My Cheri Amour" as the label's first certified female in-house songwriter and producer, will be released on February 10, 2026. 

Imagine a world without the music of Stevie Wonder. A world without hits like “I Was Made to Love Her” and “Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day.” That’s the world we would live in had it not been for Sylvia Moy, a woman whose legacy has been carefully tucked away within the annals of music history—until now.
 
It’s No Wonder examines the groundbreaking career of the pioneer who battled sexism and broke down barriers to become Motown’s first certified female in-house songwriter and producer. As the lone woman in a room full of men, the odds were stacked against Moy from the start. Amidst racial strife at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, most African American women who were allowed into the music industry could only dream of a career as a singer. Nevertheless, the Detroit native found unprecedented success as both a songwriter and producer. In addition to single-handedly saving Stevie Wonder’s early career at Motown, Moy solidified herself as one of the label’s most prolific composers, penning many of Wonder’s classic hits as well as songs for other Motown acts like “Honey Chile,” “It Takes Two,” “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You),” “My Baby Loves Me,” “(We’ve Got) Honey Love,” “Forget Me Not,” “With a Child’s Heart,” and countless others.

Meticulously researched, fiercely feminist, and told with the cooperation of Moy’s estate, It’s No Wonder is a historical corrective that restores Sylvia Moy to her rightful place at the forefront of music history.

Publisher: Da Capo
Page Count: 304

Dr. Christian was among nine honorees presented with the 2023 Rhomania Torch Award during the Rhomania, Sigma Explosion Festival & Torch Awards. The event, which took place at Visions Entertainment in Chicago, IL, on Saturday, June 3, was sponsored by Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.'s Delta Sigma Alumnae Chapter. Dr. Christian, who is legacy in the sorority, has been a member since December 16, 2001. 

In the March 7 edition of Chicago Tribune, Dr. Christian explains why menopause doesn't just impact women. Men also feel the wrath from this, so the time has come for them to join in the dialogue if normalizing these kinds of conversations is the goal. 

Behind every great man is an even greater woman. The groundbreaking Sylvia Moy was Motown’s first certified female in-house songwriter and producer to do both simultaneously, consistently, and consecutively alongside her male counterparts in the 1960s. 

​The time has come for Moy’s story to be told. She will take center stage in the biography written by Dr. Christian. The book is officially titled, It's No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown's Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy, with a release date of February 10, 2026 (Da Capo). 

Moy was the mastermind behind classic hits such as The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)”, Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s “It Takes Two,” and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “My Baby Loves Me,” and “Honey Chile,” among just a few. She was most notably known for writing a string of hits for a teen Stevie Wonder that revived his career and launched him into superstardom. This included “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),”“I Was Made to Love Her,” “My Cherie Amour,” and "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day." 

#ItsNoWonder #SylviaMoy #StevieWonder #Motown #ClassicMotown #MotownMuseum  #BMI  #HachetteBooks  #HachetteUS

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee has been schooling moviegoers since he entered the industry in 1983. The time has come for the tenured NYU professor's work to be more widely considered in education, specifically at the collegiate level, starting with Do the Right Thing.

This month I shared my thoughts with Visible Magazine about the necessity of casting a wider net in the classroom to raise awareness and introduce pivotal lessons about race and racial injustices. Check out the article here: visiblemagazine.com/spike-lees-do-the-right-thing-should-be-mandatory-in-higher-ed/
​
​In 2010, I interviewed the late Bill Nunn, a Morehouse College grad like Lee, who portrayed the unforgettable character Radio Raheem in the film. 

The Public Voices Fellowship (PVF) at the University of Illinois System is part of a prestigious national initiative to change who writes history. The 2022-2023 cohort for the system-wide PVF were announced on September 15 by Avijit Ghosh, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for the University of Illinois System.

The PVF is a unique opportunity led by The OpEd Project and designed for tenure-system faculty. The program is part of a national initiative to help faculty amplify their expertise in ways that can contribute to public conversations about pressing issues. The internationally acclaimed curriculum and method explore leadership, power, and action in an unfair world. Using time tested methods of transformational learning, fellows will explore how credibility works, how ideas spread, when and why minds change, and how ideas play out over time and space. 

Now in its fourth year, the program traditionally hosted 20 slots to tenured faculty. For the first time ever, this year two of those slots were reserved for non-tenured faculty at the three universities, which include the University of Chicago (UIC), University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I/UIUC).  

The faculty chosen for the 2022-2023 cohort includes the following:

Chicago

• Xóchitl Bada, Associate Professor in Latin American and Latino Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Cynthia Blair, Associate Professor of Black Studies and History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Director of the African American Cultural Center
• Margena Christian, Media Scholar, Journalist, Author and Senior Lecturer, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Michael Jin, Associate Professor of Global Asian Studies and History,
  Global Asian Studies Program, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Julie Maslowsky, Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health
• Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez, Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research
  Associate, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Christine Park, Professor of Anesthesiology and Medical Education,
  College of Medicine
• Laurie Jo Reynolds, Associate Professor, Department of Art, School of Art and Art History
• Jessica Shaw, Assistant Professor and Community Psychologist, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Springfield

• Jennifer Martin, Associate Professor, School of Education
• Sean McCandless, Assistant Professor, School of Public Management and Policy
• Amy McEuen, Associate Professor, School of Integrated Sciences, Sustainability, and Public Health

 Urbana-Champaign

• Catherine Corr, Associate Professor, Department of Special Education, College of Education
• Marc Doussard, Associate Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, College of Fine and Applied Arts
• Leonard McKinnis, Assistant Professor of Religion and Black Studies, Department of Religion and Department of African American Studies, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
• Rachel McMillian, Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education
• Lissette Piedra, Associate Professor, School of Social Work
• Imanni Sheppard, Teaching Assistant Professor, Co-Director of Bioethics and Medical Humanities Thread, Medical Education Facilitator, Biomedical and Translational Sciences, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
• Helga Varden, Professor, Department of Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Lesley Wexler, John D. Colombo Professor of Law, College of Law

 

Margena A. Christian, a senior lecturer in English at the University of Illinois Chicago, is one of seven educators selected to receive a 2022-2023 Faculty Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellowship from The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit research and educational institution committed to the preservation and accessibility of untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans.

The fellowship is designed to foster classroom innovation and teaching and diversify curricula while broadening student learning and research skills. Award recipients receive a $7,500 award and the opportunity to demonstrate how faculty can creatively incorporate The HistoryMakers Digital Archive into a semester course and syllabus.

Christian’s UIC course, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud! Writing About African Americans in the Media,” will use The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to explore the role of the Black media in political, social and cultural coverage with regards to representation, dissemination, innovation and education. She is the author of Empire: The House That John H. Johnson Built. 

Students will evaluate misconceptions and misrepresentations about African Americans, engage in scholarly research to uncover strategies utilized in contributing to more inclusivity, and identify the diverse narratives employed within The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to understand why who controls the narrative matters in the media.

“The fellowship’s first two years proved The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is a unique electronic resource that works well in-person or over video-sharing platforms like Zoom. This year, I am so pleased by the caliber of applications received and look forward to what engaging discussion and research spring from use of the archive,” said Julieanna L. Richardson, founder and president of The HistoryMakers.

Other recipients include the following:

• Anastasia Bailey, Assistant Professor, Rutgers Business School
• Liseli Fitzpatrick, Lecturer, Department of Africana Studies, Wellesley College
• Danielle Gray-Singh, Professor, Biological Sciences, Clark Atlanta University
• Steven Keener, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology, Christopher Newport University
• Ngozi Ndule, Adjunct Instructor, Howard University School of Law
• Chatee Richardson, Assistant Professor, Education, Spelman College 

Listen to broadcast on WBEZ.org

 Read the full story by Richard Prince at Journal-isms.com

Read the full story at New York Daily News. 

The author of Empire visited Windy City LIVE on June 24 where she discussed the biography with the TV show's co-hosts, Val Warner and  Ryan Chiaverini. A story about the appearance was also featured on the University of Illinois at Chicago's English  news website. 

To read the full newspaper article, visit the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. 

For more information about this upcoming event, visit the Chicago Public Library's official site. 

Chicago Defender June 26, 2019 issue