Photo of Jeannine, a black woman with long, luxuriant hair & a black beret, and black tee that says "Harriett's" on it

Jeannine A. Cook

BSR Contributor Since September 27, 2022

Jeannine A. Cook (any pronouns) is a writer and shopkeeper at Harriett’s Bookshop in Philadelphia and Ida’s Bookshop in Collingswood.

For the last 10 years Jeannine A. Cook has worked as a trusted writer for several startups, corporations, non-profits, influencers, and most recently herself.

In addition to a holding a master’s degree from The University of the Arts, Jeannine is also a Leeway Art & Transformation grantee and winner of the Black Girl Magic Award, South Philly Review Difference Maker Award, Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly, Women Leading the 175th, the PACDC Equitable Entrepreneur Award, and the Metro’s Power Women Award.

Jeannine’s work has been recognized by several national and international news outlets including New York Times, Vogue Magazine, Google, Forbes, Inc., Washington Post, Oprah’s Magazine, MSNBC, and the Today Show. She is a proud educator and mother with 8 years of teaching creative storytelling in alternative schools and on city blocks.

She recently returned from Nairobi, Kenya and Birmingham, UK where she facilitated art and social change workshops with youth from 15 countries around the world.

Jeannine writes about the complex intersections of motherhood, activism, and the arts. Her pieces are featured in several publications including a column in Philadelphia Stories and articles/short stories in Princeton University Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Mothering Magazine, Girl God, Mahogany Baby, Good Mother Project, Printworks, Adelaide Magazine and midnight & indigo.

In February 2020, Jeannine completed her first book of short stories, Conversations With Harriett and opened Harriett’s Bookshop in the Fishtown section of North Philadelphia & Ida’s Bookshop in Collingswood, NJ with the mission to celebrate women authors, women artists, and women activists.

She is currently working on a memoir.

By this Author

7 results
Page 1
In dramatic red lighting, Davis listens to the phone he holds to his ear. A painting of a Black woman is behind him.

Philly Fringe 2022: Philadelphia Artists Collective and theBlackBestFriend present Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness

A love poem to us

Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness, a play about the realities and illusions of race, class, and gender, is onstage in North Philly for this year’s Fringe. Jeannine A. Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 5 minute read
6 Black men playing 1940s Air Force members, in tan military uniforms, pose onstage in front of a blue-lit backdrop & US flag

Delaware Theatre Company presents Layon Gray’s Black Angels Over Tuskegee

A brilliant brotherhood

Delaware Theatre Company mounts writer/director Layon Gray’s Black Angels Over Tuskegee, a show about the men who trained to become the US Air Force’s first Black pilots. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 5 minute read
In profile, Davis, a Black man in striped orange shirt, clinks bottles with Gold, a white woman with a French braid & boots

InterAct Theatre Company presents Will Snider’s Death of a Driver

Five reasons to go to Kenya with this regional premiere

Death of a Driver, now onstage at InterAct, speaks eloquently to our shared global reality in its story about a Kenyan taxi driver and a white American engineer. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 5 minute read
Four people, 2 white and 2 Black, face different directions in an opulent, high-ceilinged room with a candle chandelier

Theatre in the X and EgoPo Classic Theater present Langston Hughes’s The Ways of White Folks

Philly’s own Renaissance

Theatre in the X and EgoPo's immersive adaptation of The Ways of White Folks, a classic Langston Hughes story collection, deserves the buzz it’s been getting at Glen Foerd mansion. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 5 minute read
Kemnew stands, hands in pockets looking troubled, in a large, messy office that appears in dramatic yellowed shadows.

Arden Theatre Company presents August Wilson’s Radio Golf

An open letter to Mr. Wilson

This new production of August Wilson’s Radio Golf, the final work of an epic 10-play opus spanning 100 years, is perfectly positioned in the Philly season as we face the primary election for Philly’s 100th mayor. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 6 minute read
St. Clair, in a gray suit, and Dickinson, in a red dress, holding a fan, pose thoughtfully on low chairs onstage.

McCarter Theatre presents Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky

What do we lose, when our folks “escape?"

Josephine Baker presides in spirit over McCarter’s new production of Blues for an Alabama Sky, in which friends in a 1930s Harlem tenement ask what we gain and lose when we stay or leave. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 3 minute read
Tyson, in colorful button-down & wide blue capri pants, wades in a reedy waterway created onstage.

McCarter Theatre Center and Berkeley Repertory Theatre present Eisa Davis’s Bulrusher

Something in the water

A new production of Eisa Davis’s Bulrusher at McCarter Theatre Center delivers on the playwright’s vision: welcoming, submerging, and transforming us. Jeannine Cook reviews.
Jeannine A. Cook

Jeannine A. Cook

Reviews 4 minute read