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Celebrating 15 years of Torch Literary Arts and the future of Black women writers. Photo L-R: E.J. Antonio, Hallie Hobson, Tayari Jones at the first TORCH reading, November 2006, cosponsored by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc. We started with fire. We continue with fire. Thank you for your continued support of Torch Literary Arts and the Black women writers we serve. We are thrilled to announce that our initial TORCH Relaunch Fundraiser was a success! Your donations exceeded our $5,000 goal. These funds will help pay features and publish their work on TorchLiteraryArts.org, resume planning for our Wildfire Reading Series and workshops, and begin planning our inaugural retreat for 2023 in Austin, TX. Because of you, Black women writers will have a table reserved just for them where they can grow and cultivate their craft. We know the impact of supporting one’s creative passion extends far beyond the work produced. It provides hope for the possibility of living a life of one’s own creation. It empowers writers to express themselves freely on and off the page with encouragement and support. And we know that when Black women share their stories, readers and educators benefit from a more representative and inclusive depiction of the world we live in and imagine. To fulfill our mission, TORCH has set a goal of $15,000 in individual giving by the end of 2022. We are already a third of the way there! With your help, we can reach our goal and provide advancement opportunities to Black women writers. Please consider making a monthly contribution or including us in your end-of-year giving plans. You can give via our GoFundMe page or Venmo. Here are other ways you can help TORCH today: Subscribe to our newsletter. Receive news, announcements, and read new work. Follow us on social media. You can find TORCH on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Be sure to like and share our posts to help spread the good word. Tell a friend about TORCH. Writers, readers, and educators everywhere will enjoy the work we publish. New features are published every Friday! There are many ways to support Torch Literary Arts. Contact us for partnership opportunities. We look forward to building with you in 2022 and beyond. Thank you for your support. Onward together! ### Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Angel C. Dye is a poet, scholar of African American Literature, and the author of BREATHE (Central Square Press ‘21). She is from Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas/Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a graduate of Howard University, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Kentucky, where she was a Nikky Finney fellow. Dye has received fellowships from The Watering Hole and Furious Flower Poetry Center and her work has appeared in About Place Journal, The Pierian Journal, African Voices Magazine, Blue Mountain Review, Tahoma Literary Review, and A Gathering Together Journal, among other places. Dye writes in the tradition of Lucille Clifton, Amiri Baraka, and Sterling A. Brown, striving to carry on their legacies of unapologetic blackness in the face of oppression, radical self-love, and artistic activism. She aims to discover, as Audre Lorde explains, “the words [she does] not yet have,” and is currently a Ph.D. in English student at Rutgers University. Follow her online at her website and on Twitter and Instagram. The New Normal a Gigan by Angel C. Dye there is a series of words we never said 20 months ago: pandemic, quarantine, isolation, asymptomatic, asynchronous, hybrid, virtual learning, mask, vaccine, variant, virus how could we have known that fall before the outbreak would upend our sense of normalcy we might have gathered more than leaves and thanked God for only angels made of snow now there are angels more numerous than snowflakes there were too many words left unsaid if we had known we would have sent the text and made the amends, hugged tighter not cancelled on our friends instead we have hidden our faces, kept our distance in hopes of keeping ourselves ### Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Elizabeth de Souza is a writer and curator with a special focus on the arts emerging from the African diaspora. She is particularly interested in the mysterious link between artistic genius and mental health. Elizabeth earned her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and has received awards, fellowships, and grants from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Twelve Literary Arts, and Creative Capital, among others. Her essays have appeared in print and online publications such as Southern Indiana Review, Callaloo, Surface Design Journal, Solstice, and the Journal of Baha’i Studies. Her first book, Sleeping in the Fire: Reclaiming the Lost Legacy of M. Bunch Washington and Other Seminal Black Visual Artists in America, is forthcoming. She is the Director of the Bunch Washington Foundation, which she co-founded in 2021 with her brother, journalist and filmmaker, Jesse Washington, to support Black painters and sculptors. Elizabeth currently lives in the Pittsburgh area with her husband and two young children. Follow her online at her website and on Twitter and Instagram. THE COLOR OF NANA’S WISH By Elizabeth de Souza “Can you believe,” she asked from across our dorm room, “that my Nana is like that?” The only light came from the clock radio, a small plastic box with green glowing numbers that made an odd clicking sound each time a minute passed, like a fingernail flicking against a ceramic button. “Well, she’s from that generation.” We paused, our thoughts drifting together like summer clouds, trying to imagine ourselves in sepia instead of full color. The present moment was stamped around us in various forms; a coffee mug, a T-shirt, even encircling a rose quartz set in a beveled ring: Class of 1994. “When I was dating a guy who was dark-skinned, Nana’s only comment was: “Why in the world would you want go backwards?!” I gasped, sharp and high. “And when my little brother brought that cute gymnast home, Nana had the nerve to say the girl looked like a runaway slave!” My hand flew to my mouth. “She did not!” Our laughter, dark and guilty, spilled between us. I shifted in my narrow twin bed, tugging the fitted white sheet back onto the impermeable blue-green plastic-coated mattress. I thought of the proud way my father sometimes carried himself; shoulders stiff, everything held taut. His skin was blacker than Southern sharecropping on an empty stomach. “They used to call me liver lips,” he’d told me so many times, eyebrows comically raised. Folks were often surprised he had a daughter who looked like me. When I met my roommate’s Nana at their family barbecue, she lifted a bony, jeweled hand to my cheek, then gently pressed my long, silky, heat-straightened tresses between her thumb and the crook of her pointer finger as if she were handling new money, her light eyes bright as a young girl’s. ___ Someone passed the story to me casually, like a discarded banana peel. Right away I called, although we’d drifted apart after graduation. It’d been five years. She was in Texas, I was back in Brooklyn. “How did you know to call me?” she asked. “Did you hear…?” The rumor was true, but incomplete; deathly wrong. Yes, she was pregnant. She’d also spent a month in the hospital with fractures and broken bones. The man was a familiar stranger. He’d made deliveries to the office where she’d worked for two years. A white man. It happened in her car, a new Nissan with leather seats. Right outside her workplace. After the hospital, she’d stopped talking to just about everyone. They all said the same thing. “I tried to do it,” she confided that day on the phone. “But I couldn’t. I walked out of the waiting room. Everyone thinks I’m insane. I just can’t force myself to do it.” I said everything I could think of. She was silent. I pushed on and on blindly, not knowing what to grasp and what to let slip away. The moment I thought I’d lost her for sure, she spoke. It was only one word, but in the smallness of her voice a note of certainty rang clear and true. “Yes.” And again, when I stumbled toward an empty word, I could hear her nodding: Yes. The photo came in a little white envelope months later. I was transfixed by the tiny face and copper ringlets, loose and dreamy as a future memory. Heavenly seawater eyes gazed into mine. With a jolt, I realized that Nana’s wish had survived the passage of time, even though it was the ordeal of the journey that had first conceived it. ### Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

New Website, New Publishing Model, New Programs, and More! For over 15 years, Torch Literary Arts has provided a space for Black women writers to take risks in their work and grow their literary careers. We are excited to continue our work with you and relaunch TORCH in 2022! Our new website will feature Monthly and Friday features year-round and new programs beginning in the fall. Thanks to our partners and individual donors like you, all contributors will be paid for their work. Follow TORCH on social media and subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements from Torch Literary Arts. TORCH LITERARY ARTS is a 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, Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and retreats. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Torch Literary Arts is accepting submissions for Friday Features. WHAT WE PUBLISH Torch Literary Arts seeks original creative work by Black women writers. We are interested in work that challenges and disrupts preconceived notions of what Black women’s contemporary writing should be. Your stories and poems are valuable and necessary. Write freely and submit work you are excited to share with the world. We accept submissions of poetry, prose/hybrid genre, and drama/screenwriting for consideration for our Friday Feature. Thanks to our partners and individual donors, all selected features are paid upon publication. Visit our submission page for guidelines. TORCH LITERARY ARTS is a 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, Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and retreats. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

The grant, made possible by Future Front Texas provides a gift of unrestricted funds and professional support. Based in different cities around Texas, each recipient has received a $1000 micro-grant and a year of educational support from FFTX, so they can continue to nurture creativity and community-building in their own work as women and LGBTQ+ founders. Torch Literary Arts is thankful for this gift of financial and professional support. Funds will be used to relaunch TORCH in 2022, pay artist fees, and cover administrative expenses. FUTURE FRONT TEXAS IS A 501C3 NONPROFIT, HOMEGROWN IN AUSTIN, TEXAS. Started as a grassroots meet-up series called Boss Babes ATX (bbatx) in 2015, Future Front is run by a four-person staff and a network of amazing volunteers. Alongside members, collaborators and partners, Future Front nurtures creativity, community-building and professional resilience in Texas and cultivates spaces where women and queer creatives, founders and leaders can grow together. Currently, Future Front produces an annual festival and market, a year-round learning club and conference, as well as multiple community-care initiatives. Learn more about Future Front. TORCH LITERARY ARTS is a 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, Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and retreats. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Photo: Jeff Swensen / Getty With so many organizations doing incredible work, we at Torch Literary Arts are thankful to be included on NewsOne's list of institutions to support that uplift Black people through cultural events and social justice organizing. Other organizations listed include Michelle Obama's call for Girls Alliance, The King Center, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the NAACP. Your gift to TORCH helps us to fulfill our mission to publish and promote Black women writers at all stages of their literary careers. Make your donation today via Venmo. Thank you for your support! TORCH LITERARY ARTS is a 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, Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and retreats. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Photo by Cindy Elizabeth Dear Friends, Welcome to Torch Literary Arts! I founded TORCH in 2006 with the goal of creating a space reserved for Black women writers. I wanted a space where we could share our work and uplift each other at all stages of our literary careers. I wanted to build a place where readers and educators could find contemporary writing that celebrates the creativity of Black women across the diaspora. In our 15-year history, we have published and featured over 100 writers on our website and at our Wildfire Reading Series. In that time, we’ve also learned a lot, especially during the pandemic, about how to preserve and grow the organization to better serve our community. I’m excited to announce that Torch Literary Arts will officially relaunch in January of 2022! This relaunch comes with a new website, publishing model, programs, and partnerships. Monthly and Friday features will be published year-round, and all contributors will be paid for their work. This is only possible with support from our partners and individual donors like you. Thank you for being on this journey with us and investing in Black women writers. Together, we can amplify these poems and stories across the world and light the way for generations of readers and writers to come. Onward, Amanda Johnston Founder/Executive Director Torch Literary Arts TORCH LITERARY ARTS is a 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, Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, workshops, and retreats. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Torch Literary Arts joins Vuka / Impact Hub in Austin, TX. In the fall of 2021, Torch Literary Arts received a full sponsorship from Vuka / Impact Hub and joined their beautiful shared workspace. Located in Austin, TX, named the "fastest growing major metro in the US," Vuka is ideally situated with North and South locations near outdoor attractions and TORCH's partners and friends - Bookwoman, Black Pearl Books, Malvern Books, and Resistencia. “In Zulu, Vuka means to wake up. It's a verb that symbolizes resurrection and understanding. When we live a life that is more awake, we can be more connected to ourselves and to our communities.” With Vuka's generous sponsorship, Torch Literary Arts will have access to flexible spaces perfect for workshops, readings, events, and celebrations. As part of the Impact Hub, Vuka offers access to a global network of locations broadening the reach of nonprofit organizations to make a difference near and far. Learn more about Vuka online and subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive future updates and announcements from Torch Literary Arts. Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based poet who studied Africology and creative writing at Temple University. She loves neo-soul, battle rap, and long walks through old poetry journals. Edythe has received fellowships from The Watering Hole, Brooklyn Poets, and Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Obsidian, Sonku, Emergent Literary, and Call and Response Journal. Follow Edythe online at EdytheRodriguez.com and on Instagram. The Spook Who Poemed by Her Altar and Not at the Feet of Academia by Edythe Rodriguez PDF version available as the formatting may not be compatible with all devices. and the poets say: we speak English there is no escaping the West in our poems they say: there is no escaping form though I never asked them to do so, exactly. what I asked was: what did a sonnet ever do for you? what I asked was: do villanelles let you burn down the Vatican? what I asked was: when you write colonial limericks about decolonization does the poem self-destruct? what I said was: their forms measure nooses in iambic pentameter, they lynch lines that snap necks and dance in the soundwork, they split couples and ask for couplets, they have the most tragic enjambments, break ing lines across your back, their hooded chants become your refrain, they put ten lines between you and the auction block and say sell or be sold. and the poets say: there is no escaping the West in our poems there is no outrunning the white man in our heads and I have to ask them: How you do know? Did you even try? Did you even run? and I had to ask them: when they light their torches, when they come to burn Ethiopia to the ground, why do you join them? why do you cry for your people and still set us ablaze? and the poets answer: when in Rome Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

Called an "honest and authentic voice" by Tressie McMillan Cotton, Shayla Lawson kicks off Torch Literary Arts' relaunch as our inaugural monthly feature. Photo by Nicholas Nichols Shayla Lawson is the author of This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope (Harper Perennial, 2020) and three poetry collections: I Think I'm Ready To See Frank Ocean, A Speed Education in Human Being and PANTONE. She has also recently appeared on OPB with Tiffany Camhi, NPR’s Live Wire Radio broadcast, The Special Report with Areva Martin, Salon Talks with D. Watkins, The True Romance Podcast, at The Center for Fiction with 2 Dope Queens’ Phoebe Robinson, Storybound by LitHub, at The Strand with Ashley C. Ford, Memoir Monday, and the Tanz Im August Art Festival in Berlin, Germany. She is a regular columnist at Bustle magazine and has written for ESPN, Guernica, Vulture, New York, and The Cut. Shayla is a MacDowell and Yaddo Artist Colony Fellow and a 2020 National Book Critics Circle Finalist. Still image of Shayla Lawson performing "Blond" on Instagram. Watch the video. BLOND by Shayla Lawson Why do all the boys we love love white boys Why do all the joys Not love ya back why do all the boys we love love white boys Like I’ve been living in a dream no bigger than a day dream and damn that’s fucked up I’ve been living in a fantasy Of a boy who would notice me All my long blonde ire shining in the sun I watch all the makeup tutorials I go out and body corporeal I watch Reels and Reels of girls sayin: I’M NOT A SNACK I’M NOT A SANDWICH I’M THE WHOLE DAMN MEAL because not a single one of us really believes that we’re enough That’s why that all the joys we love love white boys Because we’ve been trying to pave a wet dream out of milk We’ve been trying to wheedle seduction out our images for profits & I’m a fancy lil slut so if I’m sayin that’s what’s up TikTok, we’re fucked & Sometimes all I wanna do is fuck to frank ocean & Sometimes all I wanna do is say fuck myself & Some days I really wanna fuck up the system But I’ve been living in a dream no bigger than a day dream and that’s what’s fucked up and when i die all they gonna do is toss my skin care products and when i die all they gonna say is that I was someone else O Homer O Bard O Sweet Green Alien God, i don’t wanna go out like that all cards and surfaces and uncertains i don’t wanna be an Instagram death & sometimes all I wanna do is fuck to frank ocean & Sometimes all I wanna do is say fuck myself i say fuck the boys kiss all the pretty joys yes that’s for certain cuz we’re living in a day no bigger than a dream and that’s what’s up. THE INTERVIEW Your latest book, This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope, takes us into your personal life, Black womanhood, and pop culture. What was your process like preparing this collection? I spent a lot of time thinking about what I’d like the world to know about the inner worlds of Black women in America. Since, even in our best attempts, our stories are often told from the lens of being a minority I had to reframe my own conception of what it meant to center us within a narrative. It took a lot of listening to women’s stories and a lot of research into the women I wrote about but have yet to speak to. Was it different from your previous collections of poetry? Since my poetry collections have been projects, they were pretty extensively researched as well. And with I Think I’m Ready To See Frank Ocean, I was definitely interested in seeing what it would feel like to archive our love instead of our disenfranchisement in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. I see it more as a continuation of my calling than a departure from it. What didn’t make it into This Is Major? Only one essay—about the time I ended up in an anti-American protest rally in Barcelona—but now I’m writing a book of travel essays, so it may have a renaissance. You’ve spoken publicly about your recent diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. How has that impacted your creative work? I’m still figuring out how greatly it’ll impact my work. I’ve been open about my struggles with a rare illness in order to get ahead of the narrative—what people don’t understand, they fear, and what they fear they often misinterpret. Having such a specific illness makes me acutely aware of my environment, deeply sensory, which has shown up in my work even before my diagnosis. You often incorporate music into your poetry. Tell us about that connection for you. Lol. Pretty simple. I like to sing and poetry is musical. So I play it in ways to partner my love of both. If you could have a supergroup of writers and musicians, who would be in the band? Moses Sumney, Minnie Ripperton, June Jordan What projects are you currently working on? It’s On, a collection of decolonized travel essays. I’m also hoping to get back to my romance novel this year… What’s your current vibe - who are you reading, listening to, sitting with at the moment? I’m not reading or listening to much at the moment—since I’m recovering from a few injuries related to my EDS, I’m giving my senses time to heal. What I’m sitting with is a lot of meditation. I guess I could say much of what I’m listening to is the G note on my singing bowl, music to my soul. Who is another Black woman writer people should be reading? Read Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Learn more about Shayla on her website, ShaylaLawson.net, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Buy her books here. You can also support her fight against Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome by making a donation to her GoFundMe page: Help Shayla Lawson Fight for Her Life. Torch Literary Arts is a 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. Help TORCH continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.

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