Christine Pride & Jo Piazza

Co-Authors of We Are Not Like Them & You Were Always Mine

Christine Pride & Jo Piazza

Co-Authors of We Are Not Like Them & You Were Always Mine

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Biography

With 20-plus years of publishing experience as an editor, novelist, ghostwriter, columnist and teacher, Christine Pride has deep wells of expertise and knowledge (and advice and opinions!) about the book industry, writing and craft, and leveraging story-telling to foster connections. Jo Piazza is a bestselling author, podcast creator and award-winning journalist.

Christine and Jo partnered to write We Are Not Like Them, a story of an interracial friendship upended by a police shooting that hits close to home for two women. Christine and Jo chose to write this novel together, as a Black woman and women, in order to draw from their unique perspectives and experiences. In the writing process, they had to confront their own fears, biases and misunderstandings about race, which then informed the story and ensured it was authentic and relatable to thousands of readers. People magazine called We Are Not Like Them a “powerful and timely tale.” The Washington Post described it as an “emotional literary roller coaster.” And Real Simple deemed it a “book club winner.”

Book clubs embraced the story in a big way. Christine and Jo have participated in hundreds of them, as well as community reads and D&I events, facilitating illuminating conversations about the thorny issues of race they explore in the book, as well as the writing process and world of publishing.

In 2023, the pair released their latest work, You Were Always Mine. It’s a moving and provocative novel about a Black woman who finds an abandoned White baby, sending her on a collision course with her past, her family and a birth mother who doesn’t want to be found.

Once again, these authors bring their “empathetic, riveting, and authentic” (Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling to an unforgettable novel that revolves around provocative and timely questions about race, class and motherhood.

These conversations about how we challenge our biases, how we think about the stories we tell and who gets to tell them and how we can find common ground in a polarized world are more vital than ever.

Speech Topics

We Are Not Like Them for the Workplace: An Evening with Christine Pride & Jo Piazza

Drawing off of their best-selling novel, We Are Not Like Them, authors Christine Pride and Jo Piazza share a tale of race and friendship like no other. In this inspiring keynote, they will tell you the story of Jen and Riley, a Black woman and a White woman, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event. We Are Not Like Them takes us to uncomfortable places while capturing so much of what we are all thinking and feeling about race and gender. In this presentation and Q&A session, Christine and Jo share the importance of vulnerability, how to have hard conversations and navigate friction that comes up with coworkers, leaders, friends and family and the importance of connections at work and home. These are truly applicable lessons for the workplace and powerful conversation starters that anyone can use.

You Were Always Mine: An Evening With Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

In this inspiring keynote, bestselling authors Christine Pride and Jo Piazza share a tale of motherhood based on their newest novel You Were Always Mine. The book revolves around provocative and timely questions about race, class and motherhood and what we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of marriage, friendship and our dreams. Just like their book, this presentation is a powerful way to look at motherhood and family through a new lens and how race plays out in these spaces.