First celebrated in Texas, Juneteenth is now a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining June and nineteenth, it is celebrated on the anniversary of the order by Major General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865. Learn more about the history of Juneteenth here. Enjoy this list of select Torch Features The Cottage by Gail Upchurch word time by devorah major Something Wonderful by Victoria Adams-Kennedy Am I Beautiful? by Arianne Elena Payne Old Blood, Still Running by Angela Redmond-Theodore Join Torch Tuesday, June 20th for a special Juneteenth event. RSVP on Eventbrite Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Time & Location Jun 24, 2:00 PM CDT Fanm Djanm, 2055 South Lamar Boulevard Austin, TX 78704 About the event Join Torch Literary Arts and Fanm Djanm for this special event. All are welcome to experience this afternoon of verse and enjoy light bites and sparkling wine. BIPOC women writers are invited to sign up for the open mic and share original poetry, prose, or any other form of literary expression. This is a safe and supportive space where your voice will be heard and celebrated. 10 spots are available for the open mic. Get there early to get on the list! This event will take place on June 24th from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm, and will be held at Fanm Djanm at 2055 South Lamar Austin, Texas 78704. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided. RSVP on Eventbrite We can't wait to hear your stories and share in this celebration of diverse voices in literature. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.

Time & Location Jun 24, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM CDT George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX 78702 Learn more about the 17th Annual Austin African American Book Festival! Visit Torch and many vendors from across Central Texas. Enjoy lectures and readings by Kwame Alexander, Gayle Jessup White, Dr. Peniel Joseph, Anne Wynter, Patrick Oliver, and kYmberly Keeton. The festival is free and open to the public. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.

Taylor Lena McTootle is a Boston-based educator, writer, and Creative Non-Fiction MFA candidate at Emerson College. Her work can be found in The Independent Magazine, The Periplus Collective Call & Response Anthology, and Boston Hassle. Follow Taylor on Instagram and Twitter. The Invitation She watched it from her living room, with the volume on low and incense burning by the door. She dipped one long finger into the towel-wrapped can of grease in her lap and let blue light drip into her eyes as she worked the thin plait along her head, from temple to just behind the ear. And when she finished the last cross of hairs and curled the end around her finger, she still had her whole head to go. But she had time, the fight hadn’t started yet. The stadium lights blinked through, hard and ready, becoming thin indigo on the walls, on her skin, on the curtains behind her. She wiped her hands on the towel and lifted the remote to raise the volume a bit. The static crowd crackled, and she was glad she hadn’t taken up the invitation to go in person. They were almost giddy about the whole thing as they sat at her kitchen table days earlier. It was a rare visit– the boys, together at their childhood home, and on a Saturday morning, no less. That should have been the first tell. “I would’ve made breakfast if I had known you all were coming.” She pushed two pieces of wheat bread down in the toaster and perched at the table to get a better look at the two. Khalid’s eyes twinkled, giving something away, and she looked at him steadily, then at Shane, who paused before unfolding a white envelope and sliding it toward her across the woodgrain. He smiled an afterthought, and Charlotte looked down at the slip of paper—a ticket. It read: Chariot Arena Boxing Match in large black letters. And then, Thursday evening, March 25th, 1992. “Your seat is up close.” Khalid’s gold cap embellished his voice. He rested the bulk of his forearms on the frail wooden table, and Charlotte feared it might break under the weight. He was the oldest of the two, her firstborn, from a love gone too quickly awry. Nearly 20 years ago, within the first month of moving to the city with her cousin Crystal, Charlotte met a man. His mother managed the store where Charlotte got paid to stand at a cash register and spray pretty perfumes on pale, wrinkled wrists. The son would bring his mother lunch on Wednesdays. He took classes just down the street. A beautiful boy, bright beige with two-toned eyes, as mischievous as Khalid would one day be. He took to Charlotte with a quickness and made no attempt to hide his liking. It turned the mother’s kindness sour. She still got her Wednesday lunches, but the son’s company, for a short time, belonged to Charlotte. He’d grin, cheek to cheek, and call her beautiful. In the vertigo of a new city, his affections steadied her, but it wouldn’t last. When she told him she was pregnant—-they’d met only a handful of times outside of the store—his smile faded, the city began to spin again, and the beautiful boy’s mother returned to her stinging sweetness. Charlotte quit and worked at a bar with her cousin until her belly began to show. In the center of the bent, fluttering ticket bill, spaced-out letters spelled “Khalid Malone vs. Shane Greene.” She looked up at the boys and back at the paper, wishing it would up and flutter away. “Why?” her voice hoarse with concern. Khalid’s smile faded, and he lowered his eyes, glancing sideways at Shane, who paused. There was no real answer to give, none his mother needed to worry herself with outright. He gave her the thin veil of satisfactory words instead. He was well practiced in this, “It’s sports, Ma. Siblings play each other all the time.” But so was Charlotte at deciphering. She let the voice of her youngest deflate and fall to the floor as something in the house seared and hummed its high pitch. She searched Shane’s face, deep brown, strong lines, honest eyes, and gapped teeth. It was funny how of the two boys, she fretted for him the least. He was born two and a half years after Khalid. Shane’s father was a much different man. A songbird, a wayward star. He was shot in another lover’s house days before Charlotte discovered she was pregnant. There were no delusions of romance or monogamy between them. They were true friends and had been since their teenage years back in the same county, different towns, about a ten-minute drive apart. They’d reconnected in the city at a party she and Crystal threw at their shared apartment. Charlotte was coming out from laying Khalid down when she ran into her old friend. He was coming out of the washroom, recognized her, and smiled big. They hugged like home. Finding pieces of it here in this cold place was something special. Their lovemaking was like that, too—youthful, safe, nostalgic. Charlotte understood that he was never meant to stay, but she hadn’t guessed he would go that way. She grieved viciously for him, for home, for the time she’d never get back. And when Shane arrived all plump and healthy, she saw it as a resurrection. Charlotte struggled with the boys for as long as she could. She held on until she couldn't. Working three jobs, getting fired from one to pick up another. Food stamps helped, and so did Crystal, but there was a point, Khalid was about 15, and Shane, 13, when Charlotte knew. She couldn’t take the hungry look in their eyes. Didn’t want her boys to see their mother that way. Khalid had already started to turn, saying words more stinging than sweet. He left first, of his own volition. His grandmother’s baby, his father’s clone. To them, she knew Khalid was nothing short of a gilded angel. He would soar there easily, too easily. She fretted for him the most. Shane floundered after he left. He had half brothers, children of his father, who let him sleep on their couch. Charlotte knew the situation, how they were raised over there, how, inevitably, it would turn bad for Shane. And it did. But it was beyond her control to care for her boys the way another mother might have been able, beyond her to sway them with anything other than the gentleness of a Sunday morning breakfast and distant, prayerful love. She didn’t intervene when she knew Shane was selling, perhaps said a word when she knew he was using. She was present at his trial, visited, and put money on his books. All years 16 and 17. But it ended up being for the best. He came out clean, better. Resurrected. It comforted her, too, that the boys stayed so close through it all. She’d hang up the receiver after a call with Khalid feeling uneasy, “Maureen’s pregnant…”, “Mawmaw’s helping us get a house”... “I won the fight, did you watch?” and Charlotte would say dreamy, encouraging words, but something, always, in his soft, embellished voice sounded off. She couldn’t shake the feeling. She’d end the call with, “you seen your brother?” and when he’d tell her that they’d sparred the day before or that Shane was bringing some tapes over later, Charlotte could finally stop holding her breath. Boxing was the boys’ shared love, so none of this business on the tv should have been a surprise to her, but it all made Charlotte feel just as uneasy. So she sat, gut turned, but trying to ignore it, as her hands worked indigo hue and grease into wooly hair. She sat, toes curled, dutifully waiting for the end to near, for the blood to streak, for her boys to rest. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help Torch continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Join Torch Literary Arts for this special event to acknowledge the historical significance of Juneteenth and celebrate the accomplishments of the African American community. Poets, writers, and guest speakers will share original work to acknowledge the federal holiday and celebrate the future of African Americans in Texas. Note: This event takes place at 2 locations. 7 pm - Texas African American History Memorial at the Texas Capitol (speeches & readings) 8 pm - African American Cultural and Historical Facility (readings, dancing, and food) FREE. Please RSVP on Eventbrite. Questions? Email contact@torchliteraryarts.org SPEAKERS Amanda Johnston is the Founder/Executive Director of Torch Literary Arts and the 2024 Poet Laureate of Texas. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem Foundation, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation and a member of the Affrilachian Poets. Stephanie L. Lang is a writer and community curator who uses the power of storytelling to explore concepts of home, resistance, and spirituality. Currently, Stephanie is working on a book of short stories centered around Black Women community organizers in the early 1900’s. After the success of her curatorial debut of the photography exhibition, Seen & Unseen: A Sunday Afternoon in Clarksville she founded RECLAIM, an organization that reimagines the archives and uses them to discover and recover hidden, stolen and lost narratives of black people throughout the diaspora and presents these findings through an artistic and thought-provoking lens. Ebony Stewart is an international touring interdisciplinary poet, writer, and performance artist. Her work speaks to the Black experience, with emphasis on gender, sexuality, womanhood, queer-positivity, and race, with the hopes to be relatable, remove shame, heal minds, encourage dialogue, and inspire folks in marginalized communities. As one of the most decorated poets in Texas, Ebony is a respected coach & mentor, one of the top touring poets in the country, and the 2017 Woman of the World Poetry Slam Champion. She has shared stages with many prestigious figures in the art world such as the late-Amiri Baraka, Carmen Carerra, Marsha Ambrosius, Patricia Smith, Rudy Francisco, Ariana Brown, Lupe Mendez, and so many more. She has performed in 48 states, at over 200 colleges and universities across the country, as well as featured internationally in Canada, Australia, and Ghana. She is the author of BloodFresh, Home.Girl.Hood., and Love Letters to Balled Fists. Her work has been featured in Button Poetry, AfroPunk, For Harriet, Teen Vogue, The Texas Observer, Houston Public Media, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic, 2021 Colorism Healing Writing Contest, Write About Now Poetry, plus countless others. As a playwright, Ebony’s one-woman shows, Hunger and Ocean, have received B. Iden Payne Awards & the David Mark Cohen New Play Award. Ebony is also a mental health advocate and former sexual health educator. With her recent Master's in Clinical Social Work, she is also soon, the hood's favorite therapist. Tova Charles is a powerhouse-performing spoken word artist who has been taking the slam poetry community by storm since 2008. Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and raised in Austin, Texas, and daughter of a librarian and Zydeco percussionist, her childhood was never boring! She acquired a passion for writing from her mother and for performing from her father. In the spring of 2003, she was inducted into the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., one of the original historically Black national collegiate sororities in the U.S. An award-winning writer and dynamic performer, Tova is mother to two busy children, Harper and Harlem, serves as a primary-level literacy achievement specialist and is the creative director, CEO, and host of Austin Poetry Slam. Florinda Bryant is the Program Coordinator for the Austin African American Cultural Heritage Facility and an interdisciplinary artist and arts educator who calls Austin home. Holding it down in every aspect of performance, whether writing, performing, or directing, Florinda’s passion and dedication to her craft is evident. As a performer and director, she is no stranger to many stages in Austin, having worked with Salvage Vanguard Theater, the Rude Mechs, the Vortex, Paper Chairs, and Teatro Vivo. Some of her favorite performances include Am I White ( by Adrienne Dawes), The Panza Monologues ( by Virginia Grise), Bright Now Beyond ( By Daniel Alexander Jones and Bobby Halverson), and Fixing King John ( adapted by Kirk Lynn). As a writer and poet, Florinda enjoys engaging audiences in explorations around identity, body, and community. Her award-winning one-woman show Half-Breed Southern Fried was produced as part of the Performing Blackness Series at UT and was directed by Laurie Carlos. DJ Aquamanchill - Host of Afrobonics Radio Session on KAZI. SOUL FOOD by Mashae’s Catering Menu: Smothered Chicken, BBQ Beef Sausage, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Collard Greens, Four Mac & Cheese, Jalapeños Cheddar Muffins, Mini Red Velvet Bundt Cakes, Peach Tea, and Rum Punch BOOK GIVEAWAY Take home a signed copy of Juneteenth: Our Day of Freedom by Sharon Dennis Wyeth. Books available while supply lasts. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.

Yael Valencia Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx writer and poet. She is a descendant of the indigenous people of modern-day Colombia. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Typehouse, South Florida Poetry Journal, Cutbank Journal, and Slag Glass City, among others. She teaches creative writing in South Florida, where she lives with her son and too many pets. Visit her website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. Black Person Head Bob I still count. How many of us are in here? Five? Six? Two including me? Why? Are we going to fight somebody? Our backs against their gilded walls. Have we made progress? We made it yet? If we stare too-too long, sometimes we head bob. I see you. You see me. I see you, a woman on a Philadelphia street. I stare for half a second too long. You stare for a half second too long. Your houndstooth jacket just so. Your gray hair just so. Like my mother would have done. You see me. We do not speak. We pass a silent Go on girl as we cross. She is cleaning the University bathroom in her blue uniform. She sees me. I see her. We head bob. We do not speak. Pass a silent Go on girl as we cross. I ask my colleague, twenty-four to my forty-four, Do y’all still count how many black people are in the room? Do y’all still hold each other’s gaze half a second too long? I see you. You see me. I got you. You got me. Or is that old woman stuff? Old Black woman stuff I learned from my mother? I saw you, he says. I counted you, he says. I got you. You got me. For our ancestors below the sea from our ancestors across the sea I see you, you see me. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by emerging and experienced writers alike. Our programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Torch Literary Arts is thrilled to announce that Kameryn Alexa Carter has been awarded the Pushcart Prize for “Self Portrait as Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy in the Style of Gentileschi” published July 8, 2022 as a Torch Friday Feature! Her poem will be published in Pushcart Prize XLVIII, the 2024 edition. Congratulations to Kameryn and all of the nominees. Torch considers all accepted features for award nominations. We accept submissions of poetry, fiction, hybrid genre, and script (plays and screenplays) by Black women writers on a rolling basis. Learn more about our submission guidelines here. The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America - including Highest Honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry, and essays have been represented in our annual collections. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Give in June and be eligible for prizes donated by Torch Features! JOIN THE TORCH DONATION DRIVE We are halfway through the year and Torch needs your help to fulfill our mission to amplify Black women writers. Our 2023 goal for individual donations is $30,000. We need your help to reach that goal. As an incentive, we have some giveaways gifted to us by Torch Features! Donate by June 15 for a chance to win. Any donation amount is greatly appreciated. Please consider becoming a Monthly Donor to sustain Torch for years to come. GIVEAWAYS - A signed copy of bull-jean& dem/dey back by 2023 United States Artists Fellow and Yale's Windham Campbell Prize in Drama winner, Sharon Bridgforth - dat Black Mermaid Man Lady dem Blessings decks by Sharon Bridgforth - A signed copy of Juneteenth: Our Day of Freedom by celebrated children's book author, Sharon Dennis Wyeth CLICK HERE TO DONATE TODAY

Happy Pride! Torch Literary Arts is dedicated to amplifying Black women writers across our intersecting identities all year long. Through online Features and curated readings and workshops, Torch celebrates Black LGBTQIA+ voices. Check out this sample of Featured writers. c.r. glasgow (doc/she/we) is a non-binary, queer, first-generation Afro-Caribbean-American interdisciplinary healing artist. c has received fellowships and support from Hugo House, VONA, The Watering Hole, Hurston/Wright, and Anaphora. doc has been the recipient of VONA’s 2021 Haitian Heritage Scholarship. Their chapbook the Devils that raised Us was longlisted at Frontier Poetry. c’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Lawrence Press, Moko: Caribbean Arts & Letters, Rigorous Magazine, Lion’s Roar, Obsidian, Torch Literary, and other cross-genre spaces. Follow c’s multidisciplinary healing arts online and on Twitter and Instagram. Shay Youngblood is a writer, visual artist, and educator. She is the author of several novels including Black Girl in Paris, collections of short stories and numerous essays. Her first two children’s books Mama’s Home (Make Me A World) and A Family Prayer (Convergent) will both be published by Random House. Her published plays have been widely produced and her short stories have been performed at Symphony Space and recorded for NPR’s Selected Shorts. In 2021 she was appointed Commissioner to the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and serves as a board member of the Yaddo artists’ community. Her current projects include a novel in progress, a superhero graphic novel collaboration, and The Architecture of Soul Sound a multi-media performance work about architecture, memory, and the environment inspired by research in Japan, China, and the U.S. She teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at City College New York. Visit her website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. Ebony Stewart is a Black woman, an award-winning writer, spoken word artist, playwright, actress, and world slam champion. She is a Houston native and one of Baytown's finest. Ebony has a BA in English & Communication Studies and is currently obtaining her Master’s in Clinical Social Work Therapy where she hopes to work with and provide affordable therapy to artists. She is the author of The Queen’s Glory & The Pussy’s Box, Love Letters to Balled Fists, and Home.Girl.Hood. Her newest manuscript, BloodFresh, will be published by Button Poetry and released in February 2022. Her work aims to validate the human experience and provide a layered perspective of mental wellness by recalling through poetry, storytelling, and reflection. You can learn more about Ebony Stewart's work at EbPoetry.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Anastacia-Reneé (She/They)is a queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker, and podcaster. She is the author of(v.)(Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish), Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere, and Side Notes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). They were selected by NBC News as part of the list of "Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021's Must-See LGBTQ Art Shows." Anastacia-Reneé was a former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017), Arc Artist Fellow (2020), and Jack Straw Curator (2020). Her work has been anthologized in: Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, Furious Flower Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Afrofuturism, Black Comics, And Superhero Poetry, Joy Has a Sound, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and Seismic: Seattle City of Literature. Her work has appeared in, Hobart, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, Poetry Northwest, A-Line, Cascadia Magazine, Hennepin Review, Ms. Magazine, and others. Renee has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Follow Anastacia-Reneé on anastacia-renee.com and on Instagram. Faylita Hicks (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx activist, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. Born in South Central California and raised in Central Texas, they use their intersectional experiences to advocate for the rights of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people. They are the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. They are the Editor-in-Chief of Black Femme Collective and a new voting member of the Recording Academy. Hicks is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Black Mountain Institute, the Tony-Award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Civil Rights Corps, The Dots Between, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Lambda Literary, Texas After Violence Project, Tin House, and the Right of Return USA. Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work is featured in Plume, Hobart Pulp, Barrelhouse, Auburn Avenue, amongst others. Saida’s work can be found in several anthologies, including Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Sexuality and Joy, The Future of Black, and Plume Poetry 9. She is the author of STUNT (Neon Hemlock, October 2020), a chapbook reimagining the life of Nellie Jackson, a Black madam and FBI spy from Natchez Mississippi. Her first full-length collection, let the dead in (Alan Squire Publishing) was released in Spring 2022. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective, Saida is a two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Finalist. Her work has received support from the Ruby Artist Grants, and the Blue Mountain Center, amongst others. Visit Saida's website and follow her on Instagram and Twitter. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Torch Literary Arts is proud to announce the 2023 Torch Retreat Fellows! The six inaugural Fellows were selected by a committee from 133 applications with works in progress across poetry, fiction, and script (plays, screenplays). Torch is honored to support these writers with a week-long stay at the Colton House Hotel in Austin, TX, where they will receive dedicated time and space to rest, dream, and continue working toward their literary goals. Introducing the 2023 Torch Retreat Fellows Ashley M. Coleman is a writer, author, and music industry executive. While working in the music industry for more than ten years, she also wrote for Essence.com, The Cut, Apartment Therapy, and GRAMMY.com, among others. Her debut novel, Good Morning, Love, was released in June of 2022. Her passion, whether working with music makers or writers from marginalized communities, is in creating safe gathering spaces and providing educational opportunities for creatives. In 2017, she launched a community for Black writers and writers of color entitled Permission to Write. A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband. Ajanaé Dawkins is an interdisciplinary poet, theologian, performer, and educator. She writes about the lived experiences of Black women and their relationships to each other to explore the politics of faith, grief, sisterhood, and sensuality. She has been published in The Rumpus, Frontier Poetry, For Harriet, underbelly, the EcoTheo Review, The Offing, The BreakBeat Poets Black Girl Magic Anthology, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and was a contributing writer for the Theatre Lila theatre company. Ajanae is the winner of the Tinderbox Poetry Journal’s Editors Prize. She was a finalist for the Cave Canem Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize, the Frontier Poetry chapbook prize, and the Brett Elizabeth Jenkins poetry prize. She was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and is a fellow of The Watering Hole and Pink Door. She received her MFA from Randolph College and will receive her Master's of Theology from Methodist Theological School of Ohio in May. Ajanae is currently a co-host of the VS Podcast and the Theology Editor for the EcoTheo Review. You can find her in the middle of the dance floor, at the skate rink, the local winery, library, karaoke night, or in her kitchen cooking something slow. Victoria Newton Ford is a poet from Memphis, Tennessee. She is a MacDowell and Lambda Literary Fellow, and her work has been supported by Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, the Vermont Studio Center, and The Hurston/Wright Writers Workshop. She earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently working on her first manuscript about Black mothers and their daughters, captivity, and haunting. Ashunda Norris is a Black feminist multidisciplinary artist currently living and creating in Los Angeles. Her work is preoccupied with ancestral inheritance, spiritual traditions of the Black South, futuristic maroon expressions, and fugitivity. She has written, directed, and produced several short films, including her most recent multi-award-winning cinematic gesture, MINO: A Diasporic Myth; now streaming on kweliTV and The OutMusuem’s film exhibition. Ashunda’s films have screened at festivals internationally including Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; London, England; Berlin, Germany, and Amsterdam. Her honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, the California Arts Council, Hurston/Wright Foundation, and Brooklyn Poets. In 2022, Ashunda participated in the James Baldwin Conference as a Writer in Residence in Saint Paul de Vence, France. A proud alumna of Howard University and Paine College, the artist holds MFAs in both Poetry and Screenwriting. Ashunda loves hot water cornbread, obscure cinema, and playing UNO with her family. Learn more at ashunda.com Obinwanne Nwizu received her MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University in the United Kingdom. Born in Anambra State, Nigeria, raised in Atlanta, Georgia, but currently calling Harlem home, Obi is a lover of month-long international vacations, vegan food, afrobeat, and romantic comedies. When not writing, she teaches English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, edits the stories of her friends and strangers, tries to get through her bookcase readings, and frolics around the city in six-inch heels. Her latest short story collection, “Residue,” is currently available on Amazon. Keya Vance is a San Bernardino, California native, screenwriter, and freelance photographer who uses art to challenge society to have difficult, but necessary, conversations. With humanity and vulnerability at the core of her work, she explores the dynamic nature of relationships, both the healing and destructive power of people. In 2018, Vance co-founded KayJo Creatives, an innovative media company with a mission to create community. They host engaging workshops and events that empower diverse creators at all stages of development in Southern California. KayJo Creatives is currently producing a documentary film, I, Too, which highlights a series of 100 interviews with African American men from Florida and California. These interviews ask men about masculinity, relationships, and their own identity. In February 2020, Vance was the primary investigator for a two-day multi-genre creative arts workshop, “Imagining Home: The Stories Photos Tell,” funded by Cal Humanities. Her workshop examined the historical and contemporary representation of African Americans through photographs. In 2021 she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship grant by the California Arts Council. Vance has a B.A. in African American Studies, has completed significant course work in the performing arts, and is currently a screenwriting MFA candidate at Loyola Marymount University. The 2023 Torch Retreat is made possible with support from the Tingari-Silverton Foundation, the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and individual donors. Learn more about how to support Torch Literary Arts at TorchLiteraryArts.org/support. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.

Camille Hernandez is a Black and Filipina author, educator, and public theologian. She writes speculative poetry about Black women’s multilayered approaches towards healing from violence. Camille is endlessly inspired by Toni Morrison’s quote, “There was a lot of activism, & I thought, 'I will publish these voices instead of marching.' I thought it was my responsibility to publish African American & African writers who would not be published, published well, or edited well." She believes that books are tangible messages left behind by our ancestors, and it is our responsibility to use their legacy to cultivate our voices and produce more works that will equip our descendants. In all her avenues, Camille uses care-centered leadership models to help people tell their stories, develop self-compassion practices, and expand their capacity for hope in order to birth new liberated realities into existence. Her debut book, The Hero and the Whore: Reclaiming Healing and Liberation through Stories of Sexual Exploitation in the Bible, will be released on November 7, 2023. Follow Camille on her website and on Instagram and Twitter. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Gail Upchurch is a writer of young adult and adult fiction. She is a 2022 Kimbilio Fellow, WINNER of the 2022 Taint Taint Taint James Baldwin Fiction Prize, a finalist for the 2022 Pen Parentis Fellowship, a 2021 Tin House YA Scholar, a 2021 Community of Writers Scholar, a finalist for the 2021 Crystal Wilkinson Creative Writing Prize, and WINNER of the 2021 Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Prize. Gail holds a Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University’s program for writers (SUNY), an MFA in fiction from Chicago State University, and a BA in English from Howard University (The Mecca!). Gail has recent short stories published or forthcoming in The Missouri Review, Obsidian: Journal & Ideas in the African Diaspora, Tupelo Quarterly, and Taint Taint Taint Magazine and is currently at work on two young adult novels and a collection of linked short stories for an adult audience. Originally from the south side of Chicago, Gail now lives in Maryland with three kiddos and a hubs. When she’s not making up stories, she serves as an assistant nonfiction editor at Tupelo Press and organizer of the Maryland chapter of Women Who Submit; teaches composition and literature at a small community college in Maryland; and keeps up with Academy Awards buzz. Follow Gail on her website and on Twitter. The Cottage At the beginning of summer, when crickets argued at all times of day and night, Jimmy appeared on the porch of Mrs. Emily’s Vayle’s Dress Shop just as Mabel pulled blue thread through a delicate organza. Sweat and exhaustion met up together and settled on his golden face. Jimmy pushed the damp, dark curls from his forehead with back of his wrist and rapped on the wooden door frame three times. He didn’t need to do that, though. Jimmy already had her attention in the palm of his hand. “Hello, Mabel.” He waved his hand at her through the screen, which only offered the promise of breeze—the air so thick and humid you could scoop it into a cup and stir it around with your finger. “Come on in, Jimmy. Mrs. Vayle out at the beauty parlor. You can put the paper on the table there.” Mabel’s scalp sweated beneath her thick, unruly hair. She stopped stitching to cover her mouth with a few fingers. Dresses and petticoats she had sewn with her own hands crowded the walls, which upped the temperature in the shop at least three degrees. “You know when Emily—,” he stopped to clear his throat, “when Mrs. Vayle’ll be back in the shop?” “I suppose she’ll be back when her hair is done.” Mabel’s knee bobbed up and down. She couldn’t help it. Jimmy made her feel like fizz, and not because he did anything all that special. To anybody else, he was a plain boy, wiry and ordinary, holding a newspaper with one hand and a cap in the other. But to Mabel, he was someone who could pull her apart limb by limb with the slightest smile. She liked the fullness of his lips, so different from the other boys she had met in Boston since she started working on this side of town. She liked the dip right above Jimmy’s upper lip which right now was a fleshy bowl made for catching his sweat. She even liked the small, smooth keloid scar on his upper right cheek. She liked that it worried her. How long did that thing bleed? Who tended to him? What would it feel like underneath my tongue? “Right. Well, just tell her I come in to . . . drop off her paper.” Even though Jimmy spoke parting words, he sat across from Mabel and squinted his eyes. “I don’t mean to disturb you. I see you working and whatnot.” She got this feeling like somebody sprinkled tinsel in her chest. Before she could say another word, a young, dark-skinned woman approached the door holding a full-length garment over her forearm. Mabel’s heartbeat quickened as she left her stool to answer the door. “You do alterations?” From the sound of her, Mabel could tell this woman wasn’t too far from the countryside where her mother had lived as a girl, maybe South Carolina or Virginia. “I’m sorry. We don’t serve coloreds here,” Mabel said, low. The woman gave Mabel a face, cocked her head to the side. “Well, you know some place that do?” Mabel sucked her teeth. “Come back at closing. Come around back, and I’ll see what you need done.” The woman nodded her head and disappeared down the steps. Mabel breathed deeply, relieved to be rid of her. When she turned to face Jimmy, his body seemed to lean in to her. “Mrs. Vayle know you serve coloreds out the back of the store?” he asked. “That’s my business, Jimmy. And that’s my money. Mrs. Vayle doesn’t need to know.” Jimmy held up both his hands. “I understand you, Mabel. Don’t worry. I can tell you got your share of secrets. And I’m not just talking about that back door thing you doing with your colored customers.” Mabel stopped pulling the thread. “Secrets?” She covered her mouth. “Emily, I mean Mrs. Vayle, thinks it’s awfully strange you don’t ever talk about your people. I mean, everybody has people. She thinks you might have gotten turned out or something.” Mabel stopped sewing and covered her full mouth with her hand. Mrs. Vayle had talked about her to him? Mabel couldn’t lose her job. She was on her own, and she had to eat somehow. A flash of her mama came to her— skin the color of Alaga Syrup, fingers long and tough, voice as deep as a grave. She didn’t want to think about her mama because it made her miss her too much, and there was no solving that problem. Mabel had made her choice. She rose from her chair and put a hand under Jimmy’s elbow to help him up from the stool. She blinked the water away from her eyes. “I don’t have any of those kinds of secrets, Jimmy, and I haven’t been turned out.” She gently shoved him toward the door. “Now, I got to get back to this hemming.” He stopped. “Okay. Lord have mercy.” Mabel thought a few more words might be dangling on the threshold of Jimmy’s mouth, but he shut himself up. He gave Mabel a lingering look before leaving. When she sat down again, Mabel pricked her finger with the needle, forming a tiny, round drop of blood that fell on her skirt before she had a chance to suck it down her throat. She stared at that one dot of crimson spreading out into the cotton fibers. Blood was a hard stain to wash out. # By the fall, Jimmy was off to that fancy college in Poughkeepsie, New York. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving that he came around to Mrs. Emily Vayle’s Dress Shop again. When Mabel saw Jimmy all dressed up in his suit and tie, his hair clean and parted on one side, she felt her stomach wave inside. “Jimmy, you look like you washed up for a change. Is that what you’ve been learning at that college of yours?” Mabel looked to the floor, smiled. Jimmy laughed, rared back on his heels. “Now see, why do you have to talk to me like that?” Mabel stood in front of him, looked down, twisted her foot into the maple floor board. He had never just come to see her before without a newspaper in his hand. “Hey,” Jimmy said, soft. “Why are you here?” Mabel’s voice quivered. She glanced up at him then closed her eyes before sitting back in the chair. The gentle brush on her hand startled her. If Jimmy wasn’t standing there in front of her, she might have mistaken the feeling for an ant scurrying across her hand looking for an old tea cake crumb or a roaming thread from a discarded spool she used the day before. When her eyes popped open she found Jimmy’s all-grown-up body still there. He smiled, but not with his mouth. Dear God. She refused to smile back because that would mean she was sure enough crazy, that she was inviting trouble. When Jimmy touched her again, this time on the shoulder, she let her better judgment get lost somewhere between the moment he kissed her lips and when he unfastened her brassiere. # In early spring, Jimmy found a dilapidated cottage with only two rooms made to feed their bodies: a bedroom and a kitchen. They would steal away to sate themselves on every firm surface. When they bored of the claustrophobic indoors, they found places outdoors to drink one another. She plucked a blood-greedy tick from her hip after one inconvenient moment of desire in tall, prickly blades of grass. By the end of May, Mabel’s initial uneasiness about their lovemaking had waned. When Mabel got as close as she could to Jimmy’s skin, the fuzz on his shoulders, the broad back that lightly smelled of sweat and Castille soap, his warm-sticky breath on her milky neck, she only thought about how good it felt. In that cottage, under the deep blue cover of night and blanket, he plunged into her, raising her fur to meet his. During these moments, she barely even worried anymore about her nasty, graying tooth. Never worried that the curl that tightened at the nape of her neck with perspiration might betray her. And she almost didn’t waste her time anymore wondering about whether or not he thought about how her skin managed to be so tanned, like baked bread, after only a week in the sun. By summer’s end, as Jimmy prepared to go back to Poughkeepsie, a smell as simple as well-water made Mabel’s stomach curdle. She dozed at work, nearly falling off her sewing chair twice in one day. Despite Jimmy’s clumsy attempts to snatch himself out of her before finishing, he put a baby in her. “A penny for every one of your thoughts,” Jimmy said, after sneezing again. He circled her navel with the bulbs of his first two fingers. Lost, Mabel shook her head, focused on the wild ivy vine that had sprung up outside the window. She wanted to tell Jimmy everything right then and there, but how could she? She sat up with her bare back facing him. “Mabel, where are you going, honey? We still have a little time. Mrs. Vayle won’t be looking for you until nine or so. C’mon now. Don’t go. I’ll be gone in a week.” “I have to move on, Jimmy. There are some things I need to do before then.” “Alright, but let me look at you first before you go scrambling away.” He ran his dry, warm hands down the length of Mabel’s back, causing her to shiver. “I don’t care that you’ve gained a little weight. I like it. Really, I do. You were too skinny before. Now, you’re more . . . womanly.” “Please, Jimmy.” “I wish I could, but I think you’ve put some witchcraft on me because I can’t think of much else besides you. I wonder what you eat, where you go after work, who your people are.” That talk of people again. “Jimmy—” “—not because I want to tell you what to do or anything like that but because I want to know you. You and your mama have a falling out or something?” “What?” “That’s important information when you want to marry somebody.” Mabel leapt off the bed like it was on fire. “Marry somebody.” Mabel backed away from him, knocking into the chifferobe. She covered her tooth with one hand, rubbing her stinging hip with the other. He scrunched his eyebrows in toward his nose. “Careful, honey. Slow down, now. I’m not trying to marry you today or anything, but we can’t keep going around like this. Can’t stay in this little house forever,” he whispered, reaching his hands out to her. She had to get out that stuffy cottage and breathe in fresh air. She ran for the door and barely opened it before vomiting on the bushy grass that met her toes. Mabel hung on to the doorframe with abandon, the fresh breeze penetrating her skin, making her engorged nipples harden and throb. “Here. Drink this,” Jimmy whispered, holding a glass of water, pushing Mabel’s hair away from her face. “You got too hot, I think.” Mable drank and then leaned over her knees to stave off another wave of nausea. “You got yourself all worked up,” he said, taking the glass from her. “I bet you’re worried your parents are going to think I’m too poor. It’s true. I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen years old, and it wasn’t always easy for me to get by. But I’m going to be a lawyer one day. You can tell your people that. All folks tend to like me once they get to know me. And, I love you Mabel. I don’t even care if you get all fat. I’m still going to love you. You see, I can’t help it.” Jimmy pulled her in to him and wrapped his arms around her. And for a second Mabel thought she might believe him. She had just puked something thick and beige, and he didn’t flinch. Maybe they could do this another kind of way. Maybe a body is a just body is just a body. “I’m colored,” Mabel whispered into the fine hairs that lay on his chest. Time stuttered. Jimmy put a finger under her chin, tilted her head up, eyes big as two oven-warm biscuits. “You’re what?” Mabel knew by the sound of his voice it was a mistake for her to have said anything. She shook her head. “And I’m expecting,” she blurted. It was terrible news but better than the former. Jimmy put his hands on both shoulders and gently pushed her back a step, far enough to get a good look at her face. Then holding her face so she could not avert his gaze, his mouth formed the letter “W” without making a sound. Mabel worked to get her face free of his grasp, but Jimmy held her firm, his chest heaving. “You can’t say nothing more about it,” he said. “Which one? Which ‘it’?” “Lord, have mercy, Mabel, the first one. Not to anybody, not ever.” Mabel nodded. “But Jimmy—” Jimmy shushed her. “Not another word, I swear.” His eyes went soft and sad. “Lord have mercy, Mabel.” As if not saying the thing makes the thing not true, she did as he told her. For a few minutes, they stood and stared at each other. Mabel covered her mouth. A softness passed over Jimmy’s face as he pulled Mabel in to him again, lowering his arms to her waist. “I’m sorry I talked to you like that just now,” he said and held her tight, resting his chin on top of her head. Her ear against his chest, Mabel heard something deep in him crash and break, like water against rocks. “I shouldn’t have, but this a mess,” he whispered into the air over her head. After a long pause he said, “I guess I ought to tell you something.” She looked up at him. “My own mother was colored, so, yeah, you and me are in a royal-sized mess.” This time it was Mabel who pulled back. Jimmy put a finger to her lips. “Shhh.” She saw him more clearly now. Curly dark brown hair. Thick lips. Flat nose. My God. Jimmy—colored? A wave of something came over her, not nausea this time. This time it was disgust, disappointment. Mabel knew how to get a colored boy in bed with her. She thought Jimmy was something special. But no. He was caught up in his own blood story, same as her. And blood was a hard stain to wash out. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.