Company Description
BEM | books & more is a literary destination at the intersection of food and Blackness. Established by two sisters in January 2021 as an online bookstore, we are proud to serve as a home for readers, writers, cooks, and eaters passionate about Black cultures in all their diversity. Taking an expansive approach to the nexus of food, literature, and culture, BEM celebrates Black food by bringing works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry for readers of all ages into conversation with cookbooks and culinary studies to explore how what feeds us defines us.
Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Gabrielle Davenport
Co-Founder
Gabrielleis an Oakland-raised, Brooklyn-based curator & creative producer whose work centers on forging community through music and food. She has programmed performance for tiny clubs and large-scale venues alike since 2015. As part of the curatorial team at theBRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, she is proud to introduce early-career and local artists to 200,000+ fans every summer alongside living legends across genres.
Gabrielle is also the former board chair of the Central Brooklyn Food Coop, a Black food sovereignty organizing project. Other producing credits includeYemandjawith Angélique Kidjo, The Kennedy Center, Joe's Pub, and the Mile-Long Opera. She graduated with honors from Barnard College with a BA in Africana Studies and a minor in Spanish & Latin American Cultures.
Danielle Davenport
Co-Founder
Danielleis a Brooklyn-based actor and writer who has worked at theaters including The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, Theater for a New Audience, New York Theater Workshop, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, INTAR, New York Stage and Film, MCC, The Lark, Playwrights’ Realm and others, with favorite performance credits includingAn Octoroon(Theater for a New Audience/Soho Rep),Men on Boats(Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb),Neighbors(The Public Theater),Adoration of the Old Woman(INTAR) andBe the Death of Me(The Civilians). Film and television credits includeBlue Bloods(CBS),The Blacklist(NBC),Power(Starz),Sneaky Pete(Amazon), Netflix’sUnbreakable Kimmy SchmidtandMaster of None, HBO’sHigh MaintenanceandBoardwalk Empire,The Breaks(VH1) and others.
Current and recent writing projects include a television pilot set in the world of reproductive justice and developed during New York Stage and Film’s Filmmakers’ Workshop and co-authoring an article on microaggressions in simulated legal practice published in theVillanova Law Review.
Fluent in Spanish, French and Portuguese, she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Mellon fellow, an Experiential Learning Lab fellow at the NYU School of Law, and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College with a B.A. in Theater (Honors) and Comparative Literature and Society with a focus on the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Alongside her creative pursuits, she’s accumulated experience as a communications consultant; a freelance tutor, editor, and translator; and in a number of NYC restaurants.
