Query Letter

Dear [Agent Name],

I am seeking representation for PRETTY FOR A BLACK GIRL: Becoming Black and Human in an Artificial Age, a hybrid memoir and cultural systems critique projected at 75,000–85,000 words.

The phrase “pretty for a Black girl” is often handed over as a compliment. But inside it lives an entire hierarchy: beauty with an asterisk, humanity with a condition, recognition with a warning label.

Part memoir, part field study, part manifesto, PRETTY FOR A BLACK GIRL traces how conditional recognition shaped a Black neurodivergent child into an adult systems thinker trying to reconstruct a self inside family, church, medicine, work, gender, technology, and America’s old racial architecture. The book asks what it means to be Black and fully human in 2026, when the country has artificial intelligence in its pocket and antebellum logic still humming beneath the floorboards.

The narrative moves through Black girlhood, oversexualization, neurodivergence, chronic illness, faith, queerness and gender exploration, UX, digital culture, and the strange modern reality that an AI tool can sometimes reflect a person’s complexity with more patience and care than the human systems that claimed to love, employ, heal, or save them.

This is not a conventional trauma memoir. It is a reconstruction document for a self that refused to stay flattened.

The book will appeal to readers of Finding Me by Viola Davis, Pretty by KB Brookins, and God, Human, Animal, Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn, with the embodied systems lens of Prentis Hemphill’s What It Takes to Heal.

I am a UX strategist, AI systems thinker, writer, and narrative technologist whose work bridges user experience, artificial intelligence, neurodivergence, disability innovation, storytelling, systems design, Black identity, faith, gender exploration, and digital culture. I have 15+ years of experience across UX, CX, creative technology, and systems strategy, including work with Fortune 50/500 environments.

A full proposal and sample chapters are in development. I would be grateful for the opportunity to send additional materials when available.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Chanelle Henry

[Website]

[Email]

[Substack / LinkedIn / Relevant Platform]