Trelani Michelle explores the power of customs and what they represent. In her travels, she found that even the simple greeting, “Cousin!” was a way of connecting with those like her. When she gets to know a neighbor who on the surface couldn’t be more different than her, she is challenged by her ideas about connection in surprising ways.

Trelani Michelle is an award-winning writer, oral historian and teaching artist. Voted Savannah’s Best Local Writer by Connect Savannah readers in 2021, Trelani published an oral history about Black Savannah between 1920 and 1970 called Krak Teet and co-authored the New York Times bestselling book, Gullah Geechee Home Cooking. A storyteller and story-gatherer with a bachelor’s degree from Savannah State University and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Trelani interned with the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center to further her work of “Zora Neale Hurstoning.”