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Princess Usanga is a Miami-based director and writer with Haitian and Nigerian roots, born in Queens, New York. Her storytelling delves into the nuances of the human experience through the lens of self-discovery, compassion, and situational irony. As an African and Caribbean Black woman, Usanga is intentional about sharing perspectives from intersectional identities. Usanga studied Television and Film Production at St. John’s University and went on to direct her first short film, God’s Atheist . She was later commissioned by Oolite Arts to create her coming-of-age ’90s short film, Hooky , which she wrote and directed. Hooky premiered at Africa Film Society’s Classics in the Park Film Festival in Accra, Ghana. Hooky will air on PBS as part of their Film-maker series (Season 7), which highlights short films from South Florida filmmakers. The film was nominated for Best Short Film at the Key West Film Festival and screened at the Norton Museum of Art. Additionally, Hooky received recognition from ARRI Camera by being featured on their website and social media pages. Usanga recently penned the action film The Poacher Assassin and is c urrently in pre-production for Missed Connections , a surrealistic dramedy and proof-of-concept short for her feature film debut. Hooky EXT. SIDE FENCE OF APARTMENT COMPLEX - DAY - 1995 A BOOK BAG flings over a FENCE. NORA, 15, Haitian-American, straight-laced freshman, climbs the FENCE and reaches the top with her legs on both sides. NORA I don't know about this, Renee. She looks down to RENEE, 17, Cuban-American, a rebellious, baggy jean sophomore, who is catching her breath. RENEE Just jump! Someone might see you. Reluctant, Nora jumps. NORA Pass me your book bag. RENEE I’m gonna keep mine on. I ain’t got shit in there anyway. Renee climbs up after. EXT. FRONT DOOR - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Renee quickly BANGS on an apartment DOOR on the second floor and follows Nora DOWNSTAIRS, leaping over the last steps onto the ground floor. Nora and Renee run down the hallway and hide. EXT. FRONT DOOR - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY NORA'S MOM, 30's, wearing work clothes, makeup, and CURLERS in her hair, opens the door and peeks out. NORA'S MOM Hello? EXT. FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY - NORA'S BUILDING - DAY Nora and Renee are hiding behind the staircase wall. RENEE Fuck. She's still home. Nora shushes Renee. EXT. FRONT DOOR - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY NORA'S MOM Nora?... Is that you?...   EXT. FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY - NORA'S BUILDING - DAY Nora and Renee remain silent. Moments later, a door shuts. They wait for a moment, then head down the hall. EXT. NEIGHBORING APARTMENT BUILDING - LATER - DAY Renee scopes Nora's apartment door from the building across. Nora paces next to her. NORA She said my name! RENEE She doesn't know it's you. NORA Maybe I should just walk to school. I can make it there by 3rd period. I don’t want to be grounded... No phone for a month. I can’t do it! RENEE You're freaking out and shit. Chill! NORA My grandparents are gonna tell my mom to put me on punishment longer. They've been in charge ever since my parents got divorced. RENEE I wish my parents got divorced. NORA Why? RENEE (abruptly) Yo. When the fuck is your mom going to work?! (looks at her watch) It's almost ten. NORA I don't know. Let's go chill somewhere else until she leaves. EXT. PARKING LOT AREA IN NORA’S APARTMENT COMPLEX - DAY Nora is sitting in the GRASS with Renee and fumbling with her WALKMAN. NORA Damn. My batteries died... My mixtape is the bomb too! RENEE For real?! What's on it? NORA Bro, I got like everything! SWV, Jodeci, Aaliyah, Tevin Campbell, Beenie Man, Nirvana... (beat) Side B is the Booty Dancing Mix.   RENEE Haha. "B" for booty. NORA I got Uncle Al, Luke, that Tootsie Roll song, The Puppies... RENEE Yoooo! Hook me up with a copy. NORA I got you! Neighbors passing by give glaring looks at Nora and Renee. Nora taps Renee and points at the neighbors.   RENEE Aight. Let's dip. EXT. PLAYGROUND IN NORA'S APARTMENT COMPLEX - DAY Nora and Renee are sliding down the playground SLIDES. They end up sitting on the swings. NORA You got lipstick and lip liner? RENEE I got you. Renee looks in her book bag and passes the lip liner and lipstick. Nora puts on DARK BROWN LIP LINER, then applies BROWN LIPSTICK. Renee lights up a CIGARETTE and takes a puff. She gestures towards Nora. NORA Nah, I don't smoke. RENEE What about weed? NORA I don't do drugs. RENEE Drugs? (laughs out smoke) It's just weed. You probably won the D.A.R.E medal and shit. NORA I did. They both bust out laughing. Beep. Beep. Beep.  Renee pulls her BEEPER off her hip. RENEE This nigga is always sweatin' me.   NORA I wish I had a beeper. RENEE Get a beeper then! NORA My mom won't let me. She says they're for drug dealers. RENEE What?! NORA My mom's Haitian. They be trippin'. RENEE My mom doesn't care. NORA You're lucky. RENEE Not really... Renee's beeper goes off again and she checks it. NORA I dedicated "Can't You See" to Marco on 99 Jamz. RENEE Gutierrez? NORA Yeah, that nigga is so fine... I gave him a note telling him to listen to the radio that night. RENEE Oh, shit! What happened!? NORA Vanessa asked him the next day if he heard it and he was like, "No." RENEE Forget him. He's being whack as fuck. Renee's beeper goes off again. RENEE  Bro. He needs to chill. NORA I think he's going to the dance. RENEE Never make someone a priority when you're an option. Why you think niggas always be sweating me? NORA Never mind - you don't get it. Renee puts her hands on her knees with her cigarette in her hand and twerks. RENEE Booty dance at the dance like a bad bitch and ignore him. Niggas LOVE to chase. Nora forces a chuckle and swings in silence. RENEE  Damn, you're all depressed and shit. You need some fun. Where's the pool? Renee flicks her cigarette onto the sandy ground and steps on it. EXT. POOL AREA/OTHER PLACES IN NORA'S APT COMPLEX DAY MONTAGE - NORA AND RENEE HIDE IN DIFFERENT PLACES IN THE APARTMENT COMPLEX -- Talking at the edge of the pool while Renee smokes. -- Renee and Nora do the TOOTSIE ROLL dance. -- Renee teaching Nora how to twerk, until SECURITY pulls up in a GOLF CART. Nora and Renee run. -- Nora fans herself with a notebook and Renee flaps the bottom of her shirt. They are sweating. END MONTAGE   INT. LIVING ROOM - NORA’S APARTMENT - DAY Renee is sitting on the floor in front of the TELEVISION while eating tater tots.                     RING. RING. RING.  Renee and Nora look at the phone. RENEE Answer it! It’s probably Killian. NORA Why would Killian call? RENEE They send out an automated call thing to tell your mom you missed school. She has to press a number to show that she got the call. NORA Fine. RENEE Hurry up! They only call once. Then they send a letter! Nora finally picks up the phone that is incessantly ringing. NORA (on phone) Hello. GRANDMA (V.O.) Nora! Oh, oh. Why are you not at school? NORA (talking in an old Spanish lady voice) Alo? Alo? GRANDMA (V.O.) Go to school! Nora. Why are you home? NORA Quien habla? Que? GRANDMA (V.O.) Haaaaaay. I fix you. Se sa! NORA (whispers to Renee) It's my grandma! RENEE Why is she calling during school? NORA I don’t know! RENEE Give me the phone. Renee approaches Nora and takes the phone. RENEE (cont'd) No se. ¿Que me estas diciendo? Tienes el numero equivocado. GRANDMA (V.O.) Nora. Nora. Huh! I’m coming for you. M'ap vini. Ou frekan wi! M'ap vini. Tann mwen. M'ap vini. RENEE (on phone) Que? Renee slams the phone. NORA What did she say? RENEE She kept speaking Haitian- NORA (corrective) Kreyòl. RENEE My bad! KREYÒL. She kept talking about a mop. NORA M'ap vini? RENEE Yeah, that’s it! NORA Shit. That means, “I’m coming.” We have to leave right NOW! Nora gets her book bag and frantically starts cleaning up the place. RENEE We just got here. Doesn’t she live like in B.F.E? NORA She’s gonna ask my Grandpa to drive her here. RENEE Bro, I’m so hungry. Just don’t answer the door. NORA She has the key! Renee grabs some TATER TOTS and puts them in a PAPER TOWEL. EXT. FRONT DOOR - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Nora and Renee walk outside the front door. Nora sees an older Black couple (50's-60's) approaching. The woman is carrying a PURSE and a STRIPED MARKET BAG. INT. LIVING ROOM - NORA’S APARTMENT - DAY Nora sees them and immediately opens the door, grabs Renee's wrist, pulls her back in the apartment, and closes the door. RENEE Yo. What the fuck?! NORA It's them. RENEE Oh, shit. The LOCKS can be seen and heard turning. The door opens, and NORA’S GRANDMA and GRANDPA walk inside. GRANDMA Nora, where are you? Nora! Nora! Nora and Renee can be seen hiding on the balcony. The slightly open BLINDS barely disguise their presence. Grandma walks up to the TV, touches it, feels its warmth, and pauses. She then bends down and picks up a tater tot from the floor. EXT. BALCONY - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Nora and Renee are crouched in the corner of the balcony while whispering. Renee is eating tater tots. NORA As soon as they leave the living room we jump.   RENEE Jump? NORA Off the balcony. RENEE Are you fucking crazy?! NORA I'm not getting caught. If my grandma finds us, I'm scarred until I'm 18. RENEE Chill. Let's just wait here. INT. LIVING ROOM - NORA’S APARTMENT - DAY Grandpa's back is turned towards the balcony. He turns his head slightly after hearing the NOISE  from Nora standing against the railing. Nora quickly ducks. GRANDPA (yells out) Honey, what are you doing back there? INT. NORA’S BEDROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Grandma is on all fours, looking under Nora's BED.   GRANDMA (yelling) I'm checking under the bed. EXT. BALCONY - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY The girls are hiding. Renee's beeper goes off, and she immediately presses a button on her beeper to turn it off.  RENEE Shit! INT. LIVING ROOM - NORA’S APARTMENT - DAY Grandpa turns his head towards the balcony then takes a step towards the balcony. He hears Grandma yelling from Nora's room (the grandparents are speaking to each other in Kreyol the entire time). GRANDMA (V.O.) (yelling from bedroom) Robert!! Come, come, hurry! GRANDPA (yelling out) What happened?! GRANDMA (V.O.) (yelling) I can't get up! My back. Grandpa sucks his teeth and leaves the living room to go attend to Grandma. EXT. BALCONY - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Renee is squatting and peering through the balcony sliding door and sees Nora's Grandpa leave. Renee signals to move. INT. NORA’S BEDROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - DAY Grandpa is helping his wife get off the floor. Grandma stands up and brushes herself off.   GRANDMA Did you hear something? GRANDPA No. GRANDMA Check the balcony. Grandpa annoyingly walks out the room. EXT. SOMEWHERE IN NORA’S APARTMENT COMPLEX - AFTERNOON Nora and Renee are running, and eventually they stop. NORA This is stupid. I didn’t even want to skip school... I could’ve saw Marco. RENEE That nigga doesn’t even notice you. NORA He said “wuzzup” to me yesterday when I passed by him. Maybe he would’ve talked to me today. RENEE Whateva. NORA I was trying to help you, since you didn’t study for your stupid test and your grandma lives at your house. RENEE Mi abuela esta en Cuba. NORA Huh? RENEE My grandma lives in Cuba, and I didn't study for my stupid test, because - there was no test! NORA What?!   RENEE I knew you wouldn’t do it. You’re always like, "No, I can’t. No, no, no, no, no." That’s why your name is Nora. You make a big fucking deal about everything. It’s not even that serious. NORA Not that serious?! My mom's gonna be pissed! RENEE At least your parents give a fuck! NORA I’m not gonna be able to go to the dance anymore. We spent the whole fucking day hiding. This was the stupidest shit ever. RENEE You’re just like my mom. Chasing some guy who doesn't give a shit about you and probably cheats on you. Watch you end up just like her - crying and yelling every fucking day. Nora is silent while absorbing what Renee just revealed. RENEE (cont'd) Fuck Marco and that stupid dance. (beat) You're a bitch! Nora is speechless, then quickly gathers herself. NORA Look who's talking! Nora walks off in the opposite direction with her middle finger in the air. Renee walks off in the other direction holding back tears. Nora stops walking and reluctantly turns her head only to see that Renee is gone. INT. LIVING ROOM - NORA’S APARTMENT - AFTERNOON (4:30PM ISH) Nora opens the front door and finds her brother, SEBASTIAN, 6 years old, in the family room. RING. RING. RING. Nora walks up to the PHONE. NORA (on phone) Hello. Nora listens to the phone, then presses a number on the phone and hangs up. SEBASTIAN Grandma called.   NORA Shut up. SEBASTIAN She said you skipped school. NORA I didn’t skip school, stupid. I just got back from school. SEBASTIAN Grandma said you hung up on her, so she came over. She left dinner in the fridge that mom was supposed to pick up. NORA How can I talk to her if I was at school? SEBASTIAN Grandma said the TV was warm and she found a tater tot in front of the TV. RING RING RING. Nora and her brother look at each other. SEBASTIAN (cont'd) (tauntingly) It’s probably grandma. NORA Answer it. Tell her I’m in the bathroom. Sebastian picks up the phone.   SEBASTIAN (on phone) Hello... Yes, grandma. She’s right here. Sebastian hands Nora the phone with a victorious smile. Nora angrily snatches the phone from his hand. NORA (on phone) Hello. RENEE (on phone) Hey. NORA (on phone) Hold on. SEBASTIAN Grandma says you're becoming a vakabon.   INT. HALLWAY - NORA'S APARTMENT - EARLY EVENING Nora takes the phone into her room while dragging a RIDICULOUSLY LONG PHONE CORD throughout the apartment then talks on the phone with Renee. INT. NORA’S BEDROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - EARLY EVENING NORA sits on her BED. There are POSTERS on her wall of TUPAC, AALIYAH, TLC, and JONATHAN BRANDIS. NORA (on phone) Hey. INT. RENEE'S BEDROOM - RENEE'S HOUSE - EARLY EVENING Renee's parents can be heard arguing in the background. She tries to muffle out the sound with her hand while she talks.   RENEE (on phone) You straight? INT. NORA’S BEDROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - EARLY EVENING NORA (on phone) The school called and I picked up. RENEE (on phone) Good... What happened with your Grandma? NORA (on phone) She told my brother she saw food and that the TV was warm. RENEE (on phone) That's some X-Files shit. Nora sighs with a deep breath... The argument in the background escalates with the sound of GLASS BREAKING. NORA (on phone) You should come over - like now. We're gonna eat dinner. RENEE (on phone) Aight. Cool. Imma dip. INT. NORA’S KITCHEN - NORA'S APARTMENT - EVENING Nora opens the refrigerator and pulls out the Tupperware filled with HAITIAN FOOD. INT. NORA’S DINING ROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - EVENING Sebastian sets the table with SILVERWARE and PAPER NAPKINS. INT. FRONT DOOR - NORA'S APARTMENT - EVENING Sebastian opens the door and Renee walks in. SEBASTIAN Hi. I'm Sebastian. Sebastian extends his hand and Renee shakes his hand. RENEE Aw, he's so cute... Hi. I'm Renee. INT. NORA’S DINING ROOM - NORA'S APARTMENT - EVENING Sebastian looks at Nora and smirks. Nora rolls her eyes. They all sit at the table that has Tupperware filled with Haitian food. The GRIOT is in a COUNTRY CROCK BEIGE PLASTIC CONTAINER. Nora is fixing Renee a plate. NORA This is griot. It's like fried pork. And this is diri blan and saus pwa. Renee starts eating while Nora fixes a plate for Sebastian. RENEE Thank you, girl. This is so good. Renee stops eating upon seeing Nora prepare Sebastian's plate, and smiles, soaking in the familial love surrounding her. Nora looks at Renee and smiles back. Nora takes a seat and the three of them eat, converse, and laugh. FADE TO BLACK   ### 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, retreats, and more. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Schyler Butler is the author of Phantom Hue (forthcoming from CavanKerry Press, 2027). A recipient of funding from the Ohio Arts Council and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, her work appears in Obsidian , African American Review , Transition , swamp pink , and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate at The Ohio State University and lives in Columbus, OH.  Girl Says a Prayer   “…my hero felt so bad about himself once that he lit himself on fire…”   –Dave Chappelle - So I toss salt over my shoulder.    I ask for proof and am given a mirror.    I pour the brown but don’t know who for, light a candle and bless the horn-hiding lost of the earth, feed them leftover cake and wonder why these skin splotches come. I send my spit to a foreign lab  and trust they know how to read me.  --     I ask Amma for clues, and She sends  hungry dogs who know where to bite.    I talk all day about the beginning    and whose people were first,   but I wasn’t there. When She allows confusion, I am not thankful until, with practiced faith no longer fragmented, I choose to forgive Her. --- Death would have me bitter for eternity. Death wants me so dehydrated I choose to drink His piss and sing a lullaby of doubt.        ---- When I shut my eyes, I am a child sitting at Grandmother’s feet. Our fingers weave sustenance from threads.   She scatters false indigo on my shoulders. She reads the sticks left by our dead. She lights a candle and holds my chin, says I will tell a different story, one where I consume the fire. ### 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, retreats, and more. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a New York Times bestselling novelist and essayist, best known for her novels Wench , Balm , and Take My Hand. Her latest novel, Happy Land, debuted in April 2025. Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Take My Hand (2022), which was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and a Fiction award from the Black Caucus American Library Association, and was long-listed for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a preeminent chronicler of American historical life. Happy Land chapter 4 - an excerpt Working together was exactly the balm our souls needed in them early months. At night some of us shared stories, unloading what we had brought up the mountain on our backs. Others merely listened, determined to keep their hurt bottled up. Some of our people wanted to go back to South Carolina. It had been our home, after all. But we couldn’t go back. The lie they’d told about us still rang loudly in our ears. Somebody had gotten their hands on a New York newspaper. For some reason, the lie was being printed far and wide. After word got out about us heading north, it was as if they spit on the trail we left behind. Papa believed we got out in the nick of time. One evening after dinner, just before sunset, a meeting for every member of the community was called. We’d built up the settlement so that it encircled a central tree—a massive oak with gnarled branches that the children loved to climb. We sat on the grass, some of us rolling out pallets. A few of the men fashioned rudimentary sitting posts for the elders. We had been in North Carolina for nearly three months, and we was expecting one of our men, Reverend Couch, to return any day with at least a dozen more people. William was the only one standing, his brother, Robert, sitting attentively at his feet. “Good evening,” William began. “I hope y’all don’t mind me calling this meeting. We been here for a while now, but we been so busy working, we ain’t stopped to rest much.” We turned our attention to him. We numbered over forty, so quieting us was no small feat. “I called y’all here because I got something to say, something to . . . suggest.” He said the word as if it was one he had considered beforehand. “I don’t see no reason for us to run this place like how we lived back in Cross Anchor. We get to make our own rules now.” Suggest. What a pretty word. I could barely follow because I was busy turning the sound of it over in my head. “What you talking about, William?” Hal Whitmire asked. “Me and my brother, Robert, we knew our daddy and our daddy’s daddy. They had memories of the home place, and back over there, our people was royalty. They ruled a kingdom. We here on this mountain, in these woods, away from the white man’s government. We make our own government, our own rules. We need to make this place like Africa.” Africa! Laughter arose among us. Did he say Africa? Sure did. William ignored the chatter. “First, we need a ruling council—a group of men to settle disputes, make laws.” Hal shook his head. “A council, huh? I don’t know, William. Ain’t no place in this country the white man’s laws can’t reach. If you saying we make our own country, the South tried to do that during the war, and it’s a lot of them rolling around in their graves ’cause of it.” “I’m not talking about a country,” William responded. “I’m talking about a kingdom.” We rustled, looked around in confusion. But my papa didn’t move, not one inch. He was all ears. William kept on. “I’m just saying the Widow got a lot of land here. And she can’t handle it alone, not without our help. But we can make our own place on it. Our own rules. A kingdom like what we ruled back in the home place.” “What you talking about? We up here starting from nothing. I sold everything I owned to come up that hill,” Hal bellowed. “Look, Hal!” William pointed into the distance. “That turnpike got travelers on it. Just like the Widow getting money, we can, too.” What he talking about money?  More rumblings. “Second thing. We need a treasury.” “Treasure? Like gold?” somebody shouted. “Treasury. A place for our earnings.” I thought of the cloth pouch where I’d kept Papa’s coins back in Cross Anchor. I had been his treasury. I’d never heard this word before, but it felt nice on my lips. William was sharp as a knife, I was realizing. “Everything we earn, we need to put in the kingdom treasury. Don’t we got more if we put it all together?” Everybody began to murmur in agreement, even the women. We knew the power of money even if most of us had never held a paper note in our hands. But I had just heard William use the word kingdom  for the third time, and I was still confused by what he meant. “Right now we working for the Widow to get the inn back up and running. But I hear tell there’s work nearby. Blacksmithing work. Horseshoeing. Carpentry. I know a lot of y’all can earn something round here. We buy our own seed, plant our own crops. Get the things we need.” Our people in Cross Anchor had been skilled, so we knew we could do what he was asking. “What about voting?” Hal Whitmire asked. “We leave it behind,” William said sharply. “We make our own laws up here.” Not vote? Just the thought scared me. Voting was what it meant to be a citizen, a generational wish passed down from our parents and grandparents. It had been the laws that had enslaved us in the first place. Only way to change the law was to vote. Could we really escape this country and all its disorder up here on this mountain? William’s younger brother turned to the group. “I agree with my brother. We can make a life here. And why can’t we work hard and even buy this land one day? We already tried voting and look where it got us. They killed us for it. It’s better to own land.” Now you could hear a fly buzz. Nobody said a word at that. I stared at Robert, curious. How did he expect us to buy land? John Earl Casey, Jola’s daddy, chimed in quietly, his voice shaking with emotion. “The Klan killed my pa for voting. He was eighty-three years old. Eighty-three! I ain’t going back. You tell me how to make a life here for my family and I’ll make it out of nothing with my own two hands.” Papa stood. “I’m with you, William. I’ll help set up the council.” We got real quiet at that, because while William was taking charge, we trusted Papa. He was our spiritual leader. Margaret Couch spoke from her position on top of a blanket. “Whatever the men need, the womenfolk will help,” she said. “But tell me, William. What you mean by kingdom?” At first, William didn’t answer. As I watched the men and women around us digest his dream, his vision for us, I could see that he had inspired belief in the same way he had sold us on the idea of making this trip in the first place. With his words. “I’m saying we make this place a kingdom, just like back in Africa. I’m saying we need to claim our royal robes.” His voice boomed in the clearing. It would be a few more weeks before the council gathered for the first time. But that night William Montgomery planted the seed. And it was a seed that would grow. Excerpt from HAPPY LAND by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Text copyright (c) 2025 by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House. All rights reserved. THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Dolen Perkins-Valdez and Jae Nichelle on March 24th, 2025. This excerpt from Happy Land is so captivating. What is exciting you most about this latest novel getting into the world? Thank you for the kind words. With this fourth novel, I finally feel that I have settled into my voice as a writer. I know the kinds of stories I want to tell. This novel means a lot to me because it reflects my evolution as a person. It’s so important for all of us to know our family history, myself included. In an Essence interview  about Take My Hand , you mentioned that historical fiction became your life’s work because you “kept getting pulled back into the archives.” Can you share what specifically led you to the subjects you address in Happy Land ? The imagination and audacity of these freedpeople was remarkable. So often this period of Reconstruction, which was certainly marked by violence and intimidation, isn’t portrayed as an era also marked by Black ambition and industriousness. These people dared to live freely among themselves. They dared to purchase over two hundred acres of land. In what ways has your research process for writing projects changed over the years? I used to do all the research alone, with minimal input from local people. Now I know the importance of working with and consulting the locals. This is their story as much as it is America’s story. They have been working to hold these narratives up for many decades before me, and they are due my respect before I set out to write a book about it. For Happy Land , I made the dearest friends with Hendersonville residents who enriched not only this book, but also my life.  You’ve spoken previously about feeling very supported by the Black women writers around you. How early do you share the details of your new work with others? I have a couple of confidants I trust to give me honest opinions about my ideas. One of them, my dear friend Regina Freer, is a professor at Occidental College. She is the reason I wrote Wench , and I have consulted her on every book idea since. If her eyes don’t light up, I’m not writing it. What do you keep on your writing desk or in your workspace that brings you joy? My Palomino Blackwing pencils and Moleskine journals have been my tried-and-true for over a decade. My daughter loves to organize my workspace, and I’m grateful because I’m a bit messy when I’m deep in a project. I always say that my external space may be messy, but my mind is neat. Looking ahead, what themes or stories are you most excited to explore in your future projects? Are there particular aspects of American history or identity that you feel still need more exploration in literature? I don’t know what I’ll encounter in the future. The ideas have to find me because if I go looking for them, the magic can’t happen. I just think it’s important that I continue to read widely, listen thoughtfully, and evolve as a person. Ultimately, what I’m trying to capture is the humanity of Black Americans, and that story always begins with my own humanity. How would you describe your experience of living and teaching in DC? I have the most wonderful students at American University. They teach me far more than I could ever teach them. The celebrated author Edward P. Jones has captured DC far better than I could ever articulate: this place is special. Beyond the political maneuverings of Capitol Hill is a city with heart, love, and tenderness. As a native southerner from Memphis, I have always believed that DC beats with the soul of the South.  How can people support you right now? Thank you for asking this question. Please buy Happy Land  as soon as you’re able. Don’t wait. Early sales are critical for all of us authors. Also, you can join my bookclub by visiting my website . Name another Black woman writer people should know. I’d love to take this opportunity to shout out some debut Black women writers: O.O. Sangoyomi, Sarai Johnson, Afia Atakora, and Kim Coleman Foote. The future of Black women’s novels is bright! ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Jessica Araújo (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of English at the Community College of Rhode Island. She has her MA in Literature and MFA in Creative Writing from William Paterson University.  Her works have been published in Sad Girl Diaries Literary Magazine, Wingless Dreamer, Cathexis Northwest Press, and  Midnight & Indigo. Call More Dead Mama hasn’t rested since the shooting. But not for the same reason as me. When I close my eyes, I see his face disgorging blood on a loop, as if some sick fuck has the VCR remote and keeps rewinding so I can rewatch him spurt blood on his white tee.  Bullet casings littered my driveway, right outside my bedroom window. He could have easily sprayed my bedroom window while he stalked behind my car.  My chest tightens every time I think of it, because what if it happens again and I’m asleep? What if I’m awake? Taking deep breaths to try and relax soon turns into shallow gasps, and I feel like him, like I’m retching on the last breath of life. That’s why I can’t rest.  Mama, she just stares out the window, eyes rooted to where it all went down. “All them candles and pictures, but no one had the sense to put a cross. Calls more dead if there ain’t a cross.” As if Death loitering in the parking lot behind my house is just what I need. Mama squints like she’s trying to see clearer, keeps mumbling to herself. All that squinting she’s doing, I know she can see him. Probably counting how many of the fifty rounds actually hit him. It had sounded like fireworks. We’re used to hearing fireworks. When I heard the racket, I kept sifting through the endless stack of papers analyzing “There Will Come Soft Rains” and how mankind will be its own destruction, and nature will scarcely remember us when we’re gone. The fireworks were a happy distraction. I didn’t clock that it was raining bullets a few yards away.  Until I remembered it was almost October.  Until I looked out the window and saw a black car, headlights off, speed past the stop sign. Until I ran to the window and saw people dust themselves off as they got up off the ground.  Until I saw he was the only one who didn’t get up. “Mmm,” Mama tuts. “That poor boy was no more than nineteen.” “Kevin,” I frown. “The news said his name was Kevin.” “Shame. Look at him, standing there, face covered in blood, disbelieving he’s dead.” Mama doesn’t know I’m scared of ghosts. She could see the dead since she was little, like her mother, her mother’s mother, and the many mothers before them, and like me. I learned conjuring before I learned my ABC’s. I love working with herbs and the elements to heal, to ward, to reverse.  But certain parts of spirit work frighten me. Spirits carry burdens with no vessel to hold them. Sometimes they seep into you and lay anchor, mooring you to their energy—sometimes without permission.  I’m fine with the sporadic visits from my ancestors because they come to protect me. I’m sure they shielded me the night of the shooting. But the dead should stay on the other side. And they mostly do. The ones who tend to linger on this side are the ones who have something gruesome about them, be it their deaths or their intentions. They’re not meant to stay on this side of the veil. Staying too long risks them turning to haunt. That’s why I’m scared of ghosts. A spirit doesn’t stay, but a ghost refuses to go, and it grows more dangerous the longer they’re here.  Mama won’t budge from the window, barely moving like a sentinel on guard. “You need to seek some help, baby. You can’t swallow this and think you won’t fall to shit. I came here because you need me, but you know I can’t stay too long. Besides, some things I can’t protect you from.” “I just need to move out of here,” I groan over my fifth mug of chamomile.  “I didn’t know moving erases traumas. What you need is help.” “What I need is sleep.” They come sometime after midnight. Mama and I watch from the window—from a sliver between the shades—in the kitchen. I had turned off all the lights, hoping to invite sleep. We watch three guys smash the candles lit in vigil for Kevin. One of them is filming it all with his phone. They all laugh when one of them whips out his dick and pees on the large picture of the dead guy whose ghost phases through their unwavering bodies. Kevin roars in the leader’s face, and I feel the ripples through the window, though they feel nothing—or pretend not to. It doesn’t take a conjurer to arrive at my next thought¸  That’s Kevin’s murderer.    The news reported no leads as no one wanted to testify. The neighbors murmured how his brother, who had stormed onto the scene too late for Kevin, and was said to be the real target, would seek “street justice.” But a week later, here the killer is laughing it up with his boys like getting away with murder is the world’s funniest joke. And maybe it is. After all, what is a life worth? He tries to shove them all away from his makeshift memorial. His rage thrums in my chest. Fortunately, he is too recently dead to turn vengeful. We can see it, though, Mama and I, how he wants to be the death of that guy and the losers applauding him. He will turn to haunt if he doesn’t move on.  Choking back sobs of impotence, I wipe my eyes and crouch down by the refrigerator, wanting to scream but scared that the killer might hear. That I might be next. My face is flushed with a million tingles that feel like spiders scurrying across my cheeks. The walls start closing in on me, and suddenly there isn’t enough air in the world for my lungs as I try to gulp enough oxygen to stay afloat, but all I keep thinking is that I might be next, might be next, will be next. “Don’t be silly,” Mama sighs, as if reading my mind. “You don’t even know that guy. Why would he hurt you?” Because he can. He already has my peace in a vice grip and doesn’t even know it. Imagine how he’d act if he knew. He’d piss on my pain for sport. Counting to ten, I focus on the kitchen table, on the vase of wilting roses in dirty water, taking deep inhales and slow exhales in between numbers. Inhale peace, exhale worry. I am safe, I am safe. I am safe.  When I reach ten, my breathing steadies enough for fear to take a backseat to the wave of anger rippling through my body. My upper lip curls as a snarl escapes from behind my gritted teeth. My tongue feels dry and heavy in my mouth, parched with a new thirst. For blood. “Mina,” Mama cautions. “Don’t.” “I need to end this, Mama,” I roar, tired of her just standing there. “You saw the same as me. Kevin’s going to turn vengeful as soon as he’s strong enough. I can end this right now.” What I don’t say is that I don’t blame Kevin for wanting revenge. That bastard stole his life. He shot into a packed park and didn’t care if he hit anyone else. Now he comes back and taunts the living by defacing the dead. Now I want him dead too. “Don’t you go turning vengeful now. You’re still alive. You’d be more dangerous than any old ghost.” “I know,” I smirk, knowing that I am powerful enough to bring a killer to his knees, to bring justice to a ghost. Invigorated by the current of rage, I pop into my bedroom to grab what I know will quench my new thirst. A conjurer has many tools, and I learned to use them all. After collecting what I need into a sling bag, I grab a ski mask and a hoodie from my closet.  “You’ll only fuel him with this, Mina. And you’ll hurt yourself. I can’t guarantee I can help you if you go down this road.” Ignoring her, I disable the security system and crouch out of the side door to the driveway. I slink down behind my car, just like witnesses say the killer did, and watch them. They are passing a blunt between them while Kevin crackles like an old TV. His ghost has grown. His wavelength is like a strong radio signal, and I am tuned all the way in.  I mix a few ingredients—knotted string, High John, and hemlock— into a small cloth bag, whisper a brief incantation, and fling it over my car to the basketball court. I’m right behind the bag, knowing they won’t have a breath to react after the pouch detonates. One of them notices me and reaches for something in his pants, but a silent flash goes off and they are all swept across broken glass and stomped bouquets to the same spot where I watched a cop give Kevin CPR until the ambulance arrived, until he died before it came. “What the fuck?” the murderer exclaims. The others are probably questioning if it is the high, if their blunt was laced, because they look confused, lost. “You murderer!” I hiss, my voice sounding deep, guttural, not my own.  “Who the hell are you? How are you doing this?” He struggles against invisible bonds, but it is futile. Until I release the spell, they can’t move. And they won’t be able to when I release it either.  Like a flower girl at the world’s saddest wedding, I scatter petals of wolf’s bane around us, uttering an incantation to conjure a cloak of invisibility. Even if they squinted hard in our direction, no one would see us, and not even a bat would hear us. “Now, we can have some fun,” I leer. “You ready, Kevin?” He looks at me, confusion spreading across his blood-stained face. I squeeze my eyes together to shut out the memory of him spurting blood and choking on air as he died. “Y-you can see me?” “Better than see you,” I wink, my voice still gruff. “I can help you.” “Yo, who are you talking to?” someone says from the ground.  “Help me what?” Kevin continues, ignoring the grumblings of the others. He approaches slowly, cautiously, his wavelength piercing my skin as he does. “Get revenge,” my lips stay parted as I hiss the words, my tongue firmly rooting to the roof of my mouth. The words are titillating, exciting me for what’s to come next.  Kevin’s ghost flickers brighter as he mirrors my sneer. He gets so close I could wipe the blood from his ashen cheeks if he were still flesh. The current of anger gets stronger, exciting and nauseating like sailing through a hurricane. He reaches for my hand, unable to touch me, but oh, I can feel him. I can feel  him. I can feel him. He lays anchor in me, and I see it all, a game of dice, a livestream from the park, the sound of fireworks, realizing it isn’t fireworks, a pinch in the shoulder, another in the chest, another—I break the connection. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know. I want to let go. I want to… I bowl over and vomit bile that smells like chamomile and regret. What am I doing?  I look back at the guys on the floor, at Kevin who is now hovering over them. I can’t focus. I’ve never channeled the dead, always avoiding mediumship out of fear a ghost would lay hold of me and never leave. Now, Kevin’s rage has latched onto my own, overpowered my own, and has made it foreign, has made my body attempt to eject anything that steals my control. The nausea of fighting possession is too much for me.  “Let’s kill them all,” he says in a grating voice not unlike mine. “Right where he killed me.” Pointing his fingers like a gun, he mock-shoots each guy in turn, but it’s my chest that jolts. Clutching my knees, I bend over and vomit again. This isn’t the way. My body keeps trying to unmoor itself from the weight of Kevin’s energy. I cannot be his vessel.  “Revenge ain’t justice, baby,” Mama’s voice echoes throughout the dome. I look up, relieved that she’s here, come to make me right, but she is focused on Kevin. “Who are you?” He whirls on Mama. “You can see me too?” “I can,” Mama nods, approaching him slowly. “And I can tell you that killing them won’t help you find peace. “I had peace until this asshole came and took it from me,” he says, kicking right through the torso of his killer. But the guy flinches, as if he felt something. Latching onto me has made Kevin stronger. “I shouldn’t be dead!”  “You shouldn’t,” I say, fighting a renewed wave of nausea. “It’s not fair what happened to you. It’s not fair he keeps getting to go around and do more hateful things.” “But,” I continue when I see him clench his fists, his eyes stirring the rage in me once more. I swallow it and continue, “Killing them here would tie them to this place, just like you’re tied to it. And if you stay here and we add them to the mix, horrible things might happen to more innocent people. There’ll be more dead here, more people dying, and some of them might even be your own family.” He softens a bit when I mention his family, easing my nausea a bit, and mutters, “But he can’t get away with this.” “And he won’t. I said I can help you, and I will, but you need to move on. You’ll get justice, I promise.” His ghost dims, the frequency weak enough for me to break it with a quick incantation. Our connection severs, and I gasp for air, lungs heaving as if recovering from almost drowning. My body feels untethered until I focus on a shard of glass on the ground. Inhale peace, exhale worry. I am safe, I am safe. I am safe.   Mama takes the chance to reach for Kevin’s hand. Flinching at first, then dropping into her embrace, Kevin cries into her shoulder, and I want to run and join them, to lose this past week in a hug. Mama calms him so easily, but I know she won’t always be here to ease our hurts. Sighing, I remind myself I can’t fall apart again. Spirit work takes resolve. Living takes resolve. I cast a sleep spell over the three losers on the floor. I’ll deal with them later. “I’ll be right back,” I say as I jog back to my apartment. The dead-end street is dead silent at this hour, and for the first time in a week, it isn’t disquieting. I dart to my room and lift my mattress, leaning it against the wall so I can yank two loose slats from my bed frame. They’re far enough from each other that they won’t disrupt my sleep, if I can ever reclaim it. As I pull at the pieces of wood, I wonder if a mattress can slow a bullet. Each strike of the hammer sounds like a gunshot, startling me each time it hits the nail, even though it’s me doing it. Tears burn in my eyes as I hammer harder than I should, not caring if I hit my hand. When I finish hammering the last nail, I notice the angle of one slat is a little crooked, but a cross is a cross. I fill my sling bag with florida water, rue, ammonia, coffee grounds, a lighter, and a white seven-day candle. The cross is longer than me, but not heavy, so I manage to place it in the crook of my armpit. Back at the basketball court, Mama is holding Kevin’s hands, consoling him in a way she can no longer console me. Whatever she is doing is working. His ghost no longer flickers like an old television. Actually, he’s gaining some of his old color back, with blood smeared across a ruddy brown face. He’s more spirit than ghost now. But he still has to go. The longer he stays among the living, the greater the chance his spirit will get too far gone to be saved.  I take the florida water and sprinkle it on the cross and in a circle around us. Speaking prayer and liberation over the area, I sweep shards of glass and candle wax aside with my sneaker and stand the cross against the fence, positioning it so it won’t fall over, bending over to slap the ground in front of it three times to call on Spirit and my guides. Once I feel myself drop in, connecting to the spiritual energy on the other side, I am separated from the anger and panic of the past week, my tether to Kevin completely severed. I am just a blade of grass swaying in the breeze.  Rubbing rue and coffee grounds together, I call on the most high and my spiritual team to allow me to work in the name of all that is good, to free all the dead holding on to this place past their time, to cleanse this space of any residue of evil here. I sprinkle the rue and coffee mixture in the four directions, followed by three drops of ammonia. After lighting the candle, I hold it above my head, turning as I present it north, east, south, and west. Then, I kneel, eyes closed and palms to the sky, and continue praying as my body continues humming with spiritual energy. A white light grows around Mama and Kevin when I finish my prayer.  Hesitant at first, Kevin takes Mama’s proffered hand and lets her guide him into the veil. He looks back at me, nodding as he dissolves into the brilliance of the beyond. “You find your peace too now. I’m more comfortable protecting you from the other side, so don’t make me come back,” she admonishes with a smile as she fades into light. Body still swaying, I rise from the ground and fight the urge to reach for Mama, knowing it’s futile to try and touch her one last time, so I place my hands over my heart and nod. Breathing deeply as I ground myself, I rub my hands and neck with florida water and walk back to the house. I inhale deeply, feeling more peace than I have in weeks. And more resolve. Back in my apartment, I call the police and report the vandalization of the memorial and how I heard them bragging about killing Kevin.  “They’re still there,” I say to dispatch, which is true—I didn’t undo their bonds. I don’t release the dome of invisibility until I hear the sirens, and I don’t release the binding spell until I see the cops through my kitchen window, struggling to lift them off the ground. Relief manifests itself in the form of tears streaming down my face, and I cry until, for the first time in a week, I collapse onto my bed and finally 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Deanna Whitlow is the founder of Same Faces Collective . She completed her MFA in Fiction at Columbia College Chicago. Pushcart-nominated, her stories and essays have been published by Raging Opossum Press, Allium Journal , Black Fox Literary, Identity Theory, Mulberry Literary,  and others. The Laundress And the work can be beautiful sometimes. I think this as I sip coffee in the darkness of dawn. I believe this in the same tentative, wanting way I believe in God. I look at my hands. I have scrubbed and wrung and ironed so much that my hands are my winter shade all year round. The skin between my index and middle finger could pass the paper bag test. My palms itch. There must be money on the way. Yes, the work is beautiful. I make things clean. Like a pastor. Or a rushing stream. I have even reconciled its endlessness because I am still catching up on my mother’s and her mother’s and her mother’s mother’s old burdens. The ritual of it is a little like prayer so sometimes, the work itself is God. And God is beautiful. So the work is beautiful. I smile. The work is beautiful, so I wake earlier then I need. Before the children and the sun and the radio evangelists. I fill my cup, drink slowly, and pretend I am the sort of woman who gets to wonder what else there is to do when the coffee is finished. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Tanya Shirley is a Jamaican poet, Cave Canem Fellow, and the author of two poetry collections; She Who Sleeps with Bones  and The Merchant of Feathers . photo by Peter Ferguson Studio Tanya Shirley has published two poetry collections with Peepal Tree Press in the UK: She Who Sleeps with Bones  and The Merchant of Feathers . Her work has been featured on BBC World Service, BBC Front Row, Scottish Poetry Library,  www.poetryarchive.org ,  and translated into Spanish and Polish. She received an MFA from the University of Maryland and has been a tertiary-level educator for over twenty years. She is the recipient of a Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica for her outstanding contribution in the field of Literature. She is also a proud Cave Canem Fellow.   Marriage     It is to be broken. It is to be   torn open.    Wendell Berry     After that year when you were sick  then I was sick then we were sick together,  we had to learn again the landscape  of our pleasure,  how to watch water tiding over our bodies  and think of thirst instead of damage  to a bandage, how to stir need into fire  without worry of fever.  We who had grown accustomed to catheters  and the long arm of monitors had to learn again  the appendages of lust: fingers, tongues, the surprise  of toes, how to lock eyes as we lay flesh folding  into flesh and not see a tunnel leading to death,  how to sit in the quiet of just us   without the crutch of the hospital’s TV   coughing out the news. We had to be enough  mouth to mouth, making a new life of yes, yes,   there, there, just like that  and trust   our pressing   deeper into each other   was knocking on the muscular door   of memory,   how before the wounded year  we welcomed the rhythm of hurt   and heal.   Still, My Body   So many doctors have been inside   the experiment of my body.  Tonsil-less, appendix-less, uterus-less,  I am less than I was  but still, I am living in the fullness   of a promise to myself.    Scar tissue hardens over the memory   of the doctor who, as I was going under   for the two for the price of one  endoscopy and colonoscopy,   said to the interns circling like crows   We probably won’t find anything    but too much fat .  Too much fat is every doctor’s first missile  and it always hits the target   of my heart,   an organ real and symbolic.     I imagine a heartless  body   that’s how I get the courage  to laugh and grab my belly   then painstakingly walk every doctor,  in crisp lines of English   through the muscular needs  of my still   breathing body.    The Days of our Years     She's reached her threescore years and ten  and suddenly she's begun to die  if not in her bones, in her mind,  spreading the dining room table  with the obituary pages, circling  photos of people she knew in her wrinkle-  free years and people she spoke to only  last week in the supermarket while  separating avocados from ripe and may   never ripe even in a dark cupboard  like dreams she's had to give up on.  This month four of her former colleagues  died, all younger than her, and she remembers  the factory fumes, the death-smelling sweet  of undiluted disinfectant bubbling up  in giant blue drums and she wonders  how long she can stave off cancer,  the seemingly inevitable disease  of those who had no choice but to work  where their application was accepted.  There's a section in her closet called funeral  attire: long-sleeved, knee-length dresses,  black, black and white and a fistful of floral  patterns for the ones that say bright colors  where they want the congregation to smile  and clap though there's a mother or child  who cries so loudly the family carries them  outside for a taste of fresh air and even there  their wailing sounds over the sermon  and the festive mood falls down a notch,  until the repast where the liquor line snakes  out the hall and the unaccustomed are the first  to get drunk on the idea they could be next.  Stories abound about what the dead did wrong  or the doctors failed to detect and everyone   goes in for a medical in the days to come,  like my nana who's scanned her whole body  and only found a loss of bone density.  You would think she'd be happy but no,  her mind and body are now in sync  both speeding to total annihilation, so   her house must be in order: folders full  of instructions, bank statements, insurance  policies and when you sit for Sunday dinner,  dead faces staring at you from the folded  newspaper in the corner, she says enjoy  the meal, this could be the last time you taste  my cooking and the roast chicken gets stuck  in your throat and you cough and cough  until you cry.        Self-Portrait as a Catastrophizer      I am holding my heart  in the passenger seat  as you maneuver the city   streets.     A taxi throws itself   in front of us and you swerve   into a bus. Despite my poems  and good deeds, I'm nameless  on the midday news.     At the traffic lights,   you point to a lady standing  on the sidewalk with a batty  as big as a front room   which reminds me...    Did I blow out the candles  around the tub after soaking  in chamomile flowers and baking  soda? Our house is on fire:  passports, photos, Oh God —  the dog. I knew she wouldn't live  long pulling up so much pleasure  from sucking herself all day.    My mother, two doors down,  hears the crackling and arrives  shoeless in her house dress.  Not one of the neighbors  can find a hose and the driver  of the fire engine is in bed  with someone else's woman.     My mother faints and is taken  to the hospital where she'll wait  in a corridor for three days  until they find a bed. No catastrophizing  can get me to tell you she's dead.    My sister must now travel  from overseas but the pilot is drunk,  the mist over the mountains mistaken  for the pale blue of sky. I pray  like our ancestors she learns to fly.    We've left the city behind,  arriving at the beach where  like a bloated sea-creature  I climb into a hammock between  two trees, the breeze loosens a coconut  that knocks me over the head.    You are in the water   fighting a shark no one expected  this close to shore, except me.  Last night I dreamed two people  marrying who exchanged a blue   baby instead of rings.    I told you we should have stayed  home. You tell me there are no  sharks, no coconuts; there is no   fire, no danger.   We are clinging to each other  in the water circled by a school  of silver fish.     You lick my neck,  your tongue is a meat cleaver.  My face floats towards the horizon  and the lifeguard looks away  as my headless body jolts and jerks  to shore where I fall on the sand.  Bury me here.  I've always known my ending  would be without song.    You wake to catch me  staring out the window at dawn  slipping into her orange dress.  What are you thinking?   Nothing my love.  Lie back down and rest.   THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Tanya Shirley and Jae Nichelle on January 25th, 2025. Wow, these poems are captivating. Thank you for sharing them. I noticed a throughline of death here—from learning to “not see a tunnel leading to death” in the poem “Marriage” to end-of-life planning in “The Days of our Years.” Yet, the tone in your work is not despairing. These poems are full of tenderness and love. Do you have any philosophies on death and grief that help you cope with them? Thank you. I don’t fear my own death but I still struggle with the knowledge that dealing with the death of loved ones is a part of our experience here on earth and the more you love someone, the more intense the grief. Poetry is my way of practicing grief, learning to sit with it in order to grow in my appreciation of it as an inescapable part of life. I have no profound philosophy except to say that poetry allows me to access language as a coping mechanism even while understanding the limitations of language in the face of grief.  In “Self-Portrait as a Catastrophizer,” there’s a line that reads “Despite my poems/ and good deeds, I'm nameless/ on the midday news.” Whew. As a writer, what are your feelings about the idea of legacy? How do you hope to be remembered? Honestly, I will be dead so I don’t worry about legacy in that way because unless I have the good fortune of being a ghost, I won’t know what’s being said about me when I die. I’m more interested in doing my best to lift people up, to tell their stories, to walk in my purpose and truth, and to nurture other writers while I am alive. If my books live on after I’m gone, that’s great. If they get buried alongside me, I won’t even know, so that’s fine as well.  What has been your most surprising career milestone thus far? Hmmm…I take none of it for granted. Just the other day, a man sitting on the sidewalk in the middle of New Kingston told me I was his favorite poet and that meant as much to me as hearing that my poetry was being taught at a university in Italy. I will say that the two days poetry made me bawl my eyes out were my two book launches in 2009 and 2015 in Jamaica when on both occasions, there were over 200 people in attendance which is usually unheard of for poetry launches. The big moments and the small moments —— they all surprise me.  In a  2012 interview , you mentioned that you used to dance and that dance and music inform your writing style. What is your relationship to dance these days? My relationship to dance has changed because of a chronic medical condition. I can no longer perform on a stage but I can dance around my house in small bursts and those moments remind me that the body always remembers. When I write, I say the words aloud before moving to the next line and I tune in to my breath, my body’s rhythm, its desire to move and I let all of that feed the poem’s direction.  You live and teach in Jamaica, where you’ve spent most of your life. What’s your favorite aspect of your local literary scene? I have taken a short break after teaching for around twenty years at the tertiary level. I am proud of all the creative writing students I got a chance to teach but I got to the stage where I needed to pour more into my own writing. I’m therefore a little out of the loop. However, I love seeing small groups pop up doing their own thing in terms of building a supportive community because my constant grievance is the lack of sufficient financial aid and opportunities available to writers in my country. So, I love seeing people get together and organize their own literary events, book clubs, workshops, etc.  If you could successfully live on the moon or at the bottom of the ocean, which would you choose? Why? Definitely the bottom of the ocean. I love the restorative aspect of water. I would spend the time digging up treasures, communing with our ancestors, and learning the magic of sea creatures.  How can people support you right now? By understanding that writers living in Jamaica are marketable, our stories carry weight and we can travel from here to literary festivals all over the world. When you support writers who live in the Caribbean, I feel supported.  Name another Black woman writer people should know. I could name so many but since you only asked for one, I have to recommend Professor Lorna Goodison because I would not have given myself permission to be a poet if I had not read her work and then met her during my undergraduate years.  ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Nijla Mu'min  is an award-winning writer, performer, and filmmaker whose feature film Jinn premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Award for Writing. She has written and directed episodes of Blindspotting, Insecure, Swagger, Queen Sugar, and more. Nijla Mu'min is an award-winning writer, performer, and filmmaker from the East Bay Area. Her filmmaking is informed by poetry, photography, fiction, music, and dance. Named one of   25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2017 , she tells stories about Black girls and women who find themselves between worlds and identities. Her debut feature film, Jinn , premiered at the 2018 South By Southwest Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Recognition Award for Writing. Jinn , a New York Times Critic’s pick , was released in November 2018 and is currently streaming on Amazon. Her short films have screened at festivals across the country. Her filmmaking and screenwriting have been supported by the Sundance Institute, IFP, Film Independent, Women In Film LA, and the Princess Grace Foundation. She’s written for the Starz series Blindspotting , the Apple series Swagger , and directed episodes of  HBO’s Insecure, Hulu’s  Wu-Tang: An American Saga , Apple’s Swagger , and OWN’s Queen Sugar and  All Rise . She is currently developing her second feature film Mosswood Park , as well as a debut collection of poetry and prose essays. Her poetry has been featured in Aunt Chloe, The Temz Review , The Boston Review , and Mythium Literary Journal . She is a 2013 graduate of CalArts MFA Film Directing and Creative Writing Programs, and a 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, where she studied in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People Program. Noor FADE IN:  INT. SUBWAY - MORNING  A crowded subway train headed for Harlem. PASSENGERS are pressed up against each other. Bodies bounce in unison. A BLACK MAN holds an iPhone and stares at the screen: an international broadcast plays. PEOPLE flood the streets in bloodied clothing. Some chant. SOLDIERS in riot gear rush into the crowd, wielding batons and guns. The man concentrates on the broadcast.  The train makes an abrupt stop, jolting him forward. He rises and exits. With his seat empty, we see NOOR, sitting several rows back, a slender 29-year-old black woman with deep-set brown eyes.  The train roars to a stop and she gets off. She walks with the mass of PASSENGERS, up the slimy subway steps. Sunlight hits their tired faces.  EXT. BUSY STREET - MORNING  Noor paces down the busy street. Several POLICE OFFICERS patrol the block. They talk into their radios. Noor's arm grazes one of theirs as she walks past.  INT. WOMEN'S CLINIC - MORNING  Noor enters a small clinic. WOMEN are packed into connected seats, waiting to be called. "The View" blasts from the overhead television. A chubby WOMAN with sweaty hands, looks away.  Noor walks into the reception area of the clinic. Her coworker, DEBORAH, types something into a computer. She turns around.  DEBORAH  Hey girl.  Noor sits at the reception desk.  NOOR Hey.   She sifts through files on her desk.  DEBORAH  We got a busy one today. Lots of last-minute appointments.   Noor looks out into the sea of people.  A woman, GINA, 31, walks into the clinic and approaches the reception window. Noor smiles at her.  GINA  I'm here for a nine-thirty appointment.  NOOR  Can I get your ID?  Gina rummages through her purse and hands it to Noor.  NOOR (CONT'D)  You're thirty minutes late. The doctor may have canceled it. I'll check.  Gina appears anxious.  GINA  I really need this appointment.  Noor looks at her.  NOOR  I'm sure you do, but we have a full day and a twenty-minute hold policy for late appointments.  Noor gives an agitated smile. The woman appears to be sweating now.  GINA  If I don't get this appointment, I may lose my baby --  NOOR  Okay, you can go have a seat and I'll let you know.  Noor looks at the line forming behind her.  GINA  I need to know now!  NOOR  Ma'am, please have a seat. I will check soon. Thank you.  GINA  You don't have to be so fucking rude. You don't know what's going on --  NOOR  I'm sure you'll be fine.  GINA  I won't if I lose this damn appointment.  NOOR  One moment.  Noor gets up and walks to the back. Gina stands at the desk, sweating.  INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS  Noor stands at the door of a doctor's office, staring at a clipboard with various names on it. Gina’s name has been crossed out, but Noor writes it back in.  INT. WOMEN'S CLINIC RECEPTION AREA - CONTINUOUS Noor walks back to the reception area.  NOOR  Turns out we can fit you in. Now, please have a seat and fill out these forms and bring them back when they're complete.  GINA Thank you.  Gina walks off, still looking at Noor. Noor avoids her glare. Deborah turns to Noor and pats her on the shoulder.  DEBORAH  You okay?  Noor nods, and schedules the next PERSON. A RESIDENT NURSE walks out of adjacent doors and announces the next patient.  RESIDENT NURSE  Diana Gomez.  DIANA GOMEZ looks up. A MAN holds her hand in the next seat. They walk toward the nurse with worry in their eyes. The doors close behind them.  EXT. NOOR'S PARENT'S BROWNSTONE - LATER  Noor unlocks the door to a house and enters.  INT. NOOR'S PARENT'S BROWNSTONE - AFTERNOON  Noor enters a well-decorated, spacious living room. Framed photographs of young Noor in pigtails and a yellow graduation cap and gown, line the walls. Next to them are photos of a young man who resembles Noor. There's an elaborate prayer rug spread out on one side of the floor.  Through the kitchen doorway, Noor sees her mother SHERON, dancing around the kitchen in hot pink rollers and a pink terry cloth robe, while washing dishes.  The faucet runs and hot steam rises into the air. Sheron turns around and notices Noor standing there. She tries to compose herself. Noor laughs.  INT. NOOR'S PARENT'S BROWNSTONE KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS Noor enters the kitchen.  NOOR  Am I interrupting something?  SHERON  Oh no, baby. Just getting ready for tonight. Me and the ladies from the salon are going out.  Sheron walks over to the stereo and turns down the R&B song. Noor smiles.  NOOR  Okay Mom, I see you.  SHERON What's up?  NOOR  Can I get the recipe for the bean pies you used to make?  Something comes over Sheron. She looks away.  SHERON  Yeah. NOOR  I texted you about it, but you didn't respond. I want to surprise Darren, you know? He's been working so hard lately --  SHERON  When is he ever not working hard?  NOOR  Mom, I didn't come over to argue.  Sheron goes to a drawer and pulls out an aged, crumpled piece of lined paper. It is more than ten years old, with grease marks on it. She hands it to Noor.  SHERON  It's all there... And don't go too heavy on the sugar, mash the beans really good --  Sheron is interrupted by the entrance of NASIM, 22, and YUSEF, 58, two good-looking black men in exact resemblance to one another, except one is older.  Yusef has a nicely-shaped beard and wears a black and gold embroidered kufi cap. Nasim kisses his mother and Noor on the cheek. He sets some bags on the counter.  YUSEF  A-salaam-a-laikum ladies.  Sheron doesn't return the greeting. Noor does.  NOOR  Wa-laikum-a-Salaam daddy.  SHERON  Nasim, some girl called here earlier for you.  Noor smiles.  NOOR What girl?  SHERON  Said her name was Jojina.  NOOR  Ooh Jojina, sounds cute! Is that Spanish?  Noor looks at Nasim, who doesn't seem too delighted.  .  NOOR (CONT'D)  Oh, she’s calling the house phone? That’s some throwback high school love affair-type stuff... She must really like you.  He smiles, softly.  YUSEF  What happened to the nice girl from the masjid that Rasheed introduced you to?  NASIM Dad, I told you. She can't even see me unless her pops is in the same room damn near. I can't get down like that.  YUSEF  It's the Islamic way, Nasim.  Sheron shakes her head, laughs.  SHERON  Yeah...I bet the way we met was the Islamic way too, right?  YUSEF  That was different, Sheron. You know that.  Noor and Nasim laugh at their parent's disagreement. Nasim checks his cell phone and walks briskly to his room. Noor starts getting her belongings together.  NOOR  Later y'all. Gotta get home.  SHERON  Bye, baby.  INT. BROWNSTONE HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS  Noor walks past Nasim's room on her way out. She overhears him talking to someone on the phone.  NASIM (O.S.)  Why’d you call my parent’s house though??!.. Wait, don't hang up. I'm sorry. I'm still thinking about what we did last night...    Noor's eyes widen. She's not supposed to be hearing this. She looks confused and curious as she exits.  EXT. SUBWAY STATION - MAGIC HOUR  Noor reemerges from the subway cellar with a mass of PASSENGERS. She carries some grocery bags. An OLD WOMAN hobbles up the stairs next to her, breathing heavily. She can't make it up the stairs. Noor offers her hand. The woman takes it. They walk up the stairs together.  OLD WOMAN Thank you.  NOOR No problem. Noor looks at the woman, then paces down the Brooklyn street, and into a brightly decorated bodega with a sign that reads "House of Hafiz."  INT. BODEGA - EARLY EVENING  The bodega is alive with CUSTOMERS and chatter. SCHOOL KIDS in patterned uniforms grab at bags of Hot Cheetos. A WOMAN jumps and knocks down a roll of toilet paper from atop the beer freezer. A MAN enters, yelling out an order to the deli.  MAN  Give me a turkey sandwich, extra mayo! Extra pickles! You know how I like it.  Noor picks up a few beers, and heads to the front. RAMI, 32, an attractive Palestinian man with a sculpted face and piercing, deep-set eyes, stands at the register.  He laughs with an OLD BLACK WOMAN in a roller set.  OLD BLACK WOMAN  When we gon' go out Rami?  RAMI  I don’t know, Mrs. Johnson. I’m not sure you can keep up.  She hands him some money. Noor looks at him, noticing just how effortlessly sexy he is.  OLD BLACK WOMAN  I can keep up, honey.  Rami laughs, handing her a lottery ticket.  OLD BLACK WOMAN (CONT'D)  I’ll be back. For your fine ass. Hmm, hmm hmm!  Rami can’t hold back a smile. Noor is amused. She giggles.  RAMI  Noor, haven’t seen you around lately. How are you this evening?  NOOR  Long day at work. But I’m good.  Noor fumbles through her purse to retrieve some cash. She hands it to Rami.  RAMI The light. NOOR What? RAMI  That's the meaning of your name. The light --  NOOR  I knew that, but thanks for reminding me.  RAMI  Did I ever tell you that my sister's name is also Noor --  NOOR  No, you didn’t.  RAMI  Any woman with that name, I regard very highly --  An older good-looking Arab man, HAFIZ, comes from the bodega storage room and taps Rami on the shoulder.  HAFIZ  Snap out of it Rami. We got a line going!  RAMI Sorry.  Rami looks at Noor, deeper this time, and returns the ID.  RAMI (CONT'D)  Have a nice night.  NOOR You too.  Noor exits. Rami still stares at her.  EXT. BODEGA - CONTINUOUS  Noor looks back at Rami, and giggles. She walks off smiling to herself, a little turned on.  INT. APARTMENT KITCHEN - EARLY EVENING  Noor stands in the kitchen. She presides over a counter of cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs, navy beans, vanilla, brown sugar, and other baking essentials. She stirs the batter for a bean pie.  DARREN, 30, enters in slacks and a dress shirt. He opens the refrigerator and pours some water.  DARREN Hey.  NOOR  Hey babe, how was work?  He takes a beat.  DARREN Good.  Noor scoops some bean pie batter into a spoon and walks toward Darren. Tries to touch his arm.  NOOR  What's wrong?  DARREN Nothing.  NOOR  I stopped by the store. Got some stuff for dessert tonight.  She holds the spoon closer to his face.  NOOR (CONT'D)  Here, taste this.  She smiles. He opens his mouth and tastes the batter.  DARREN  Almost tastes like my grandmother’s sweet potato pie.  He walks away, leaving Noor holding the spoon of bean pie batter.  NOOR Almost?  DARREN  Not sure what you want me to say. It’s good.  She looks out of the open kitchen doorway as he loosens his tie and walks toward their room.  EXT. STREET - EARLY EVENING  Nasim tries on knitted kufi caps at an outside vendor. He looks at himself in a mirror.  NASIM  Ay, you got this in blue?  HASAN, an Arab man, with an orange beard, nods. He unpacks a blue kufi cap and hands it to Nasim.  HASAN  I got anything you need. What you need? You need bean pies? I got them from the Nation of Islam men in Harlem --  NASIM  Naw, those bean pies are stale as shit. Don't try to play me like last time, Hasan.  Hasan smiles and massages his beard. Nasim continues to look at himself in the blue kufi cap, admiring his baby face in the mirror.  INT. APARTMENT LIVING ROOM - EVENING  Noor sits on the couch watching TV, extremely bored. A live NYC anti-police brutality protest illuminates the screen.  Noor turns it off, uninterested. Darren is consumed with typing something on his laptop, across the room.  Noor puts her face in her hands and sighs. The doorbell rings. She gets up to answer it.  INT. APARTMENT HALLWAY - EVENING  Noor looks through the peephole. She smiles and opens the door.  NASIM  What's up, sis?!  Noor and Nasim hug. He wears the blue kufi cap he just purchased.  NOOR  I wasn't expecting you.  She takes his coat and leads him to the kitchen.  INT. KITCHEN - EVENING  On the counter, two bean pies sit on wire cooling racks, covered in saran wrap. Droplets of moisture cling to the saran wrap. Nasim walks forward.  NOOR  Nasim, who's that girl you were talking to on the --  He instantly cuts her off.  NASIM  Is that.... I fucking love you right now, Noor. For real.  He leans in, inspecting the pies. Grabs a knife on the counter and tears the plastic wrap off the top of one. He shovels some pie into his mouth. Burns his lip.  Noor smiles, happy that someone enjoys her pies.  NOOR  Nasim, they're still hot.  NASIM  You think I care? No, really. I haven't had a good bean pie since mom stopped making them. Remember that?  NOOR  Yeah, I do.  He continues eating the bean pie, dropping crumbs onto the counter.  NASIM  The ones they sell down on 125th don't even touch this shit, Noor.  With each bite, he gets more excited. Darren enters the kitchen.  DARREN  Hey Nasim, what’s up?  They give each other a pound.  NASIM  Nothing much man... You taste this bean pie my sister made?  DARREN  Yeah, I did. It’s good... Do you think you guys can quiet down though? I'm trying to get some work done.  NASIM  On a Friday night? Y'all ain’t gonna go out?  Darren turns around.  DARREN  We went out last weekend.  NASIM  And?... Who stays in the house doing work on Friday night?  DARREN  People with careers.  NASIM  You need to loosen up, man. Take your lady out, dance, eat some of this here bean pie --  He holds some pie to Darren. Darren refuses.  DARREN  We done here?  NOOR  Don't talk to my brother like that, Darren.  DARREN  Well your brother should learn to come by when he's invited.  NOOR  He can come by whenever he damn well pleases.  Nasim, sensing Darren's anger, inches closer to him.  NASIM  We got a problem, man?  NOOR  Nasim, it's okay. Darren just had a rough day at work, that's all.  Darren walks briskly out of the kitchen. Nasim and Noor stare at each other for a brief moment.  NASIM  What the fuck is his problem? Noor avoids the question, and looks away.  NASIM (CONT'D)  I always knew his ass was uptight, but that's just too much --  NOOR  Look, it doesn't matter.  NASIM  Y'all don't do shit anymore. Every time I call or come over it's the same thing. I wanna see you happy Noor.  NOOR  Look, I said it doesn't matter. Just drop it.  The look in her eyes says the conversation is over. They stand in silence for a beat.  NASIM  Come out with us tonight.  Noor looks uninterested.  NOOR Who's us?  NASIM  Me and my boys. The Lux lounge down in Bedstuy. My man is spinnin'. It's gonna be a nice crowd. Some sexy ladies I'm looking to --  NOOR  Okay, I don't need all the details, Nas.  NASIM  You haven't been out in like decades.  NOOR  Yes, I have.  NASIM When?  Noor thinks to herself.  NOOR  Me and Malikah went to that gallery last Friday.  NASIM  A gallery?! You need some bodily contact, sis. Some sweat and shaken' in your life. And if any nigga try to push up on you, I got you sis. Come on.  Nasim does his best little brother pouty face at Noor.  NOOR  Okay, I'll go. But I gotta get ready.  Nasim gives her a once over.  NASIM  Yeah, you do.  Noor pushes him.  NOOR  Shut up Nas!  Nasim grabs a last piece of pie.  NASIM  You need a ride?  NOOR  No, I'll meet y’all there. I'm gonna catch a Lyft.  NASIM  Let me take some of this here bean pie for the road, though.  He puts the pie into some foil. They exchange a quick hug.  NASIM (CONT'D)  I'm out.  He exits.  INT. BODEGA - LATER  Rami stands at the cash register, reading a magazine. Two POLICE OFFICERS enter, with their walkie-talkies blaring. One Officer receives an urgent dispatch.  The officers rush from the bodega. Rami watches them as they exit.  INT. NOOR'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS  Noor admires her body in a full-length mirror. She wears only panties and a bra. She runs her fingers across the top of her breast, causing goosebumps. She smiles at herself.  Darren walks in, and glances at her body.  DARREN  Noor... I lost my job today.  NOOR  What... What happened? I thought you said --  DARREN  I lied. I didn't want to say anything with Nasim here. That’s why I was irritated --  NOOR  I'm sorry. We'll figure it out. With my income we'll be okay.  DARREN  No, we won't.  Noor seems distracted, though Darren needs support. She looks at her phone.  NOOR  I really have to go meet Nasim now. Let's talk later.  Darren looks disappointed as she leaves the room. For a brief second, we see his eyes glaze over as if he might cry, but he holds back.  INT/EXT. BODEGA - CONTINUOUS  Rami grabs two turkey and cheese hot pockets from the freezer and a beer. He puts them in a small paper bag. Hafiz stands on a ladder, restocking toilet paper.  HAFIZ  Nine AM tomorrow. No sleeping in!  LOUD VOICES can be heard from outside the bodega, startling the men. Rami goes to look.  EXT. BODEGA - CONTINUOUS  Several POLICE OFFICERS surround a BLACK MAN two blocks down from the bodega. Rami watches, his vision obscured by all the chaos.  INT. NOOR'S PARENT'S BROWNSTONE - CONTINUOUS  Yusef prostrates as he makes salat in the living room. The light is low, accenting the glittered strands of fabric on the prayer rug.  He brings his hands up to his ears to recite the first verse.  YUSEF  Allah-u Akbar.  EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS  Noor hears a GUNSHOT as she waits for a cab. It shakes her. She looks down the street, where she sees several PEOPLE gathering.  Noor dials Nasim's number as she walks toward the commotion.  NOOR  (into phone)  Nasim! You better answer the phone. I'm almost there. I don't feel like  waiting in no long ass line. Can your DJ friend let me in?  She ends the call. Noor sends Nasim a text message. She calls again. No answer.  She talks to herself, worried.  NOOR (CONT'D)  Come on Nasim.  A large group of people line the corner near the bodega. Some are in a frenzied commotion. There are police cars lined up along the sidewalk.  Noor squints her eyes, confused by the scene. She stands outside of the commotion, then calls Nasim.  Noor sees a WOMAN crying on the corner. Reluctant, Noor nears the crowd. She pushes through PEOPLE. She finally reaches the front of the crowd. An ambulance siren comes from a block away. A ring of POLICE OFFICERS engage in a heated dialogue with several PEOPLE.  On the ground lay a Black man, face down, with blood streaming from his side. He does not move.  Noor jumps back from the initial sight of him. She can't see his face.  Noor looks closer at the man. He wears a blue kufi cap. Noor begins to breathe heavily. She drops her phone.  She walks closer to the body. She bends down and looks into the man's lifeless face. There's a hint of a smile there.  Nasim's smile. She touches his hand. Two police rush toward her.  POLICE OFFICER  Move away, Ma'am!!  She refuses.  NOOR Nasim.  She falls to her knees next to her dead brother. She looks up to see RAMI in the crowd, watching her. They lock eyes.  Noor is copyrighted and registered with WGA-West. Fire. We go to sleep to fire. We wake up to it. I don’t see it anymore, but I know it’s there. On the news. In the souls of us. I’m at Costco buying in bulk, waiting for the next smoke cloud to cover the mountains. I’m in an n95 mask, and folks are eating large beef hotdogs and laughing outside as I push my big cart through the parking lot. Maybe laughter is the only thing we have left. laughter through our confused lungs. Air that seems fresh and fine until we’re coughing specks of ghost homes from our mouths. Our noses burn with the smell of ash in a grandmother’s hands. The house she raised her whole world in. Her family’s cove. I want to hug her. Place the sweet potato pie back on the counter. Caress a lover’s hand on the couch. call the cousin to see if he’s on his way over. The roads are just chalk now.  But you can still hear us singing through the smoke. held. I hold. onto the body I have. In the doctor's office, studying pictures of livers and fallopian tubes on the wall, thin white paper wrapped around me. My mind sings When will it be over ? When will these white walls release me back into summertime. daisy dukes in the Bay. The air was wet & foggy & silver to the touch. I am held. I hold onto the memory of C-- asleep next to me. how he took off his glasses, then kissed me on my forehead. My baby. Him. My island sweetie. I am held by the whispered prayers of my grandmother sprinkling nutmeg in the sky. I am held. Even if I lose part of my body in this twisted medical complex. I hold onto the breath of my father, making Fajr prayer in the morning. how I used to wake up, after nights running wild on Adeline, to hear his recitation. I am held by his love in the sky. I hold my stomach as it aches into the rivers. If my womb must be cut, I hold light in my eyes. I am held. Detroit  I wear this love for you  like an exoskeleton  an armor on all sides  your laughter slips through my mouth  you resemble Malcolm from the side  as you drive  in that black cap and glasses  I wait in the car   while you make salat in the masjid because I did not bring a scarf.  Then I remember that Malcolm proposed  to Betty in this city  over a pay phone so I don’t need flowers just your hands it’s raining and the streets are wider than dreams we drive through the neighborhood  of your youth  your house, three times bigger  than my childhood  Hayward apartment where I read all those novels about love. Is this a movie? where I arrive to reclaim you  I flew to Detroit to get my heart  broken then hugged back together again in a sports bar eating honey-slathered biscuits  as the Lions lift and slam into the ground  bones broken, despite heavy armor I just keep leaning into the hour  me, a steely flower opening up because I don’t want to leave you-  clapping for a team I never clapped for  holding on for a city I thought I might move to  at one time my exoskeleton, hardened  by the weight of unreleased love  THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Nijla Mu'Min and Jae Nichelle on February 21, 2025. It’s exciting to have both poetry and a script excerpt here since you’ve said in interviews that your poetry background influences your filmmaking. Do you also find the opposite true now that writing scripts has influenced how you write poetry? That’s a good question. I started writing poetry when I was a teenager. Then when I was in college at UC Berkeley, I was a student teacher poet in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People Program. My immersion in that program and my study of different poetic traditions really informed my voice as a writer, and later as a screenwriter/filmmaker. Studying and teaching poetry allowed me to strengthen my use of visual imagery in writing, brevity, clarity in language, capturing complete dramatic events, pacing, metaphor and rhythm. These are all elements of my screenwriting and filmmaking as well. I do find that some of my poetry, especially my prose, can mirror dramatic writing for the screen. In both my film writing and poetry, I am concerned with building a world and telling a distinct story, with specific details and active movement. So, I think there’s a fluidity across all of my writing.  Your poem “Fire” addresses living with the constant threat of fires in Los Angeles, yet it ends with “But you can still hear us singing through the smoke.” What’s keeping you hopeful these days? Love keeps me hopeful. The love inside of me, and the possibilities for love in my life. I experience love when I sing. I feel whole and complete when music covers me.  Noor is an incredible script, and you are premiering the short film version of it this year! How was the process of distilling the story into this shorter format? How do you feel? I feel really good about the short film version of Noor . I’m ready to premiere it for audiences. The short film actually consists of some of the first act of the feature script that it’s based on, so it wasn’t challenging to adapt the story into a short film format. However, during the edit, we had to work to make the short film stand alone, and we experimented a little. The short film really captures Noor’s agency as a woman, her yearning, her sensuality, and her light.  So, the short film introduces us to the characters and the world of the feature and ends on an inciting event/cliffhanger that will hopefully have people wanting to see how the feature film unfolds.  Noor, as well as many of your other films (like your short film Jinn), has received many awards. Appearance on The Black List’s Muslim List, winner of The Athena List competition, and a Sundance Talent Forum pick are just a few of them. What impact do you feel these accolades and recognition have had on your career? Those accolades have definitely boosted my profile and recognition as a writer/filmmaker, but I’ve had to put in so much work outside of them, in order to have a career in this industry. This is truly one of the most difficult careers to pursue, especially when trying to tell stories that aren’t considered readily “commercial” or “mainstream.” I’ve been on a continual mission for the last 18 years to make poetic, complicated, hopeful and emotional stories about Black women and girls that show worlds we’ve never seen, and get to the heart of humanity. I’ve been told my stories don’t sell, don’t matter, and aren’t needed. I’ve also seen packed, sold-out audiences in tears from my films. So, while I’m so grateful for the accolades and awards, I’ve really had to fight to keep going, build community, get to know people, fundraise for my work, sacrifice my personal life, stay up late nights, pitch to people, face continual rejection, stand on faith and keep going by any means necessary.  What’s a lesson you’ve learned from a mentor that you’ll never forget? I learned a lot from one of my mentors Reggie Rock Bythewood, who was the showrunner for Swagger, a show I wrote and directed on. I’m not sure I learned lessons, so much as I really appreciated and learned from the example he set as a storyteller, showrunner and human being. He ran such an inclusive, beautiful writers room for Swagger, allowing all voices to be heart and respected. It felt like we were all family in that writers room and I learned so much about building a sense of community. He would also say that having “swagger” was about having a cause bigger than ourselves and that always resonated with me. The art we were making in that show was so much bigger than us, and bigger than basketball. It was about uplifting and humanizing the Black community, particularly our youth.  You’ve worked on both drama series like Queen Sugar  and Wu-Tang: An American Saga , and also in comedy with Insecure . How do you navigate writing or directing for these very different genres and picking up the tone of a show? Most of the shows I’ve directed have been one-hour dramas, with the exception of Insecure , (and Blindspotting , which I wrote for). When I direct a show, I go deep into the world and the characters of the show, and come to the job ready to honor the vision of the showrunner, while also bringing my voice to the story. It’s a delicate balance and one that I enjoy. I was already a fan of most of the shows I’ve directed, so I was pretty familiar with the tone and pacing of the shows before getting the job.  What parts of your upcoming projects are you most excited about? I’m excited to continue exploring different social justice issues through intimate, character-driven stories. I have two projects coming out — a comic book and a short film, that deal with reproductive health and reproductive justice for African American women. And I’m excited for audiences to experience my work in theaters, during screenings. We need more of that. I love sitting with audiences as they watch my work, seeing and feeling their reactions, their whispers, their tears, their laughter, and their love.  If a food critic was coming to your city, where would you tell them to eat? Well, I am from the Bay Area, but I live in Los Angeles so I’ll provide a few places:  In Oakland, there’s a restaurant called MUA. I always love the food, the vibe, and the decor there when I visit home. In Los Angeles, I really enjoy Bacari Silverlake and Two Hommès in Inglewood. One is Mediterranean fusion, and the other is African-inspired.  How can people support you these days? People can support me by following my work, boosting it online, attending screenings when they’re announced, and loving themselves and others. We are also doing a fundraiser to finish post-production on Noor. Contact to learn more at www.nijlamumin.com . Name another Black woman writer people should know.  People should definitely know Nadra Widatalla, a talented film and television writer. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Tatiana Johnson-Boria (she/her) is the author of Nocturne in Joy (2023), winner of the 2024 Julia Ward Howe Book Prize in poetry. She's an educator, artist, and facilitator who uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, and cultivate healing. She's an award-winning writer who has received fellowships from Tin House, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The MacDowell Residency, and others. Tatiana completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College and teaches at Emerson College, GrubStreet, and others. Find her work in or forthcoming at The Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review Online, among others. She's represented by Lauren Scovel at Laura Gross Literary. Notes on Conception I thought I needed to be something else for you to stay. Less cavernous. Less unwell. Less reeling from my childhood. Less inhibited. I thought it would be impossible for you to exist inside of me. Who am I to ask for another to grow from me? What makes me any sort of fertile root?  Once there was nothing but a desire for someone to love something else, alive. This is another way to say I had a mother once. Or another way to say I have some semblance of a mother.  I believed I was good enough for this. As she believed she was. We believed we were capable and responsible and loving enough for what we drew in our own minds. What makes that possible? What makes it possible that you have a beating heart, that beats faster than the one I carry? How are you so far ahead yet so unborn?  There is a beginning and growing I wish upon you. There is a life that is yours alone. You cannot exist without the ending before you.  Your grandmother laughs the first time I tell her I am pregnant. The conversation happens over the phone. “Really?! Really? ” She’s in disbelief. “Wow, wow, wow.” She says and laughs some more.  The laughter settles in me while my body changes. I have headaches and can’t get out of bed. I feel an exhaustion that I’ve never felt before. I spend way too much time on the bathroom floor, trying to survive the nausea. Is this what it felt like for my mother? There are no pictures of my mother pregnant. Sometimes it feels as if I am not real. What was spoken before I knew any semblance of her language? Before truly understanding the cadence of my own voice, the restlessness in hers. What must it have felt like to be one with her? Intertwined and without escape.  After I share the news about the pregnancy, she stops calling for weeks. This pause of us connecting is familiar, yet I still ache from it. I find myself bleeding the morning before teaching a writing class. This is when someone else takes over, a different version of me emerges and teaches the entire three-hour class, knowing something is terribly wrong.  After the class, your father and I drive to the emergency room. He doesn’t want to believe something is wrong, he is upbeat and positive. “I read online that sometimes bleeding happens…what kind of bleeding is it? Is it a lot? Is it spotting?” He’s earnest and innocent. He wants to be right. Something in me knows that he isn’t. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the drive to the hospital is smooth and fast. I stare at each red light we encounter, willing it to change. I am powerless and I know it. When we arrive at the emergency room, we wait in a short line, it moves quickly. “What brings you in?” the front desk nurse asks. “I’m pregnant, but I’ve been bleeding,” I say, afraid of what’s coming out of my mouth. The nurse checks us in. The emergency room is filled with masked people. A young white family with a toddler, an ice pack pressed against their forehead. A woman trying to negotiate being seen with the nurse at the front desk. Us, holding our breath, waiting to be called. When we’re called, we wait in a small room with another nurse. “Congratulations!” she says. “Bleeding happens sometimes, they’ll figure out what is going on. You’ll be okay.”  I don’t believe her. Like your father, I know that she too, is wrong. She takes my vitals and tells me and your dad to wait to be called. It’s loud in the waiting room and the time moves slowly. We wait for almost two hours.  “We’re going to do an ultrasound,” the vitals nurse says. “Sometimes we don’t see anything on an ultrasound because you’re still early, but don’t worry.” She’s so certain and I don’t know why. We walk to the ultrasound.  I lay back on the table while the technician slathers jelly on my stomach. “I’m just going to press a bit, just let me know if anything is uncomfortable,” she says. We sit in silence as the technician moves the ultrasound wand across my abdomen. “We may need to do an internal ultrasound as well, but the doctor will let us know,” the technician says.  I sigh. I’ve experienced this before when my primary care physician was worried that I had fibroids. I dread the experience. We wait some more. She returns five minutes later. “Okay, let’s do the internal ultrasound. Is that okay?” she says. I nod yes.  She readies another ultrasound wand with lubricant. “Okay, do I have your permission to insert this wand for the internal ultrasound?” She is so formal in her asking. I nod yes. I try to think about anything else while she moves the wand around capturing images. It’s over in what feels like a few moments. She leaves the room again. I get dressed. We move to another room. We wait some more. Soon the doctor arrives.  “Okay, we aren’t seeing anything on the ultrasound…but that happens sometimes this early.” My heart sinks.  “Let’s do some bloodwork today to check your HCG levels, if they increase then things are okay. If not, then the pregnancy is no longer viable.”  I know my womb is empty. That the baby that was there, left before I even got to see it for the first time. No one says you’re no longer pregnant. Everyone is so careful with their words, yet I know there’s a truth no one is saying. I get the blood test, and my HCG levels are concerning. “Come back in two days for another test,” the doctor says.  We leave.  In the days following my HCG levels continue to drop while my body continues to bleed. I lay on the bathroom floor wailing until I can’t speak anymore. I don’t think then about having to tell my mother. I don’t want to believe it. There are mysteries in my body. Everyone pretends it's normal and I can’t. There are pregnancies that didn’t continue. I want to scream that there is a pain inside me even when this same pain exists for others. I want someone to know I bled something away. There may never be a birth. And what of me then? I tell your grandmother the news over the phone, more than a month after the miscarriage. “Oh, no, no suh” she says. Then she’s silent. I am too. “What happened?” she asks. She’s concerned.  “I don’t know… they don’t know,” I tell her. Deep down I know this must somehow be my fault.  “Okay,” she says. More silence. “I’ll call you back later. Bye.”  She hangs up the phone. When I first became pregnant, I knew that I could not be happy. There was no reason not to, but most of the things that I strive for are difficult. Arduous. Seemingly undeserved.  My mother once said she felt amazing when I was growing inside of her. It’s the only story I have of her pregnancy with me. It feels like a myth. When I grew you and the others, I felt untrusting of my body.  When I became pregnant again, this time with you, I wanted to be happy. I wanted to exist in a joy of having never lost.  Everyone journals, yet my language for you and the ones before you is different. It rejects prose, it rejects reflection, it rejects the parts of me that try to harness it, that try to write it down.  Carrying you has transformed my tongue. There is nothing and everything to say. It is a secret yet a thing I want to scream. Your presence in my body is a restraining impulse. I push out words and they aren’t the right ones. In the bath, I forget that my body aches, but I can feel you inside of me swimming. Pushing against the womb, reminding me you’re still there. I don’t want to admit that I have been depressed today. I don’t want to admit that my happiness is just as intangible as when there’s no baby inside of me.  I can’t eat or drink anything because the nausea is consuming. I spend my mornings lying on the couch until the last possible second before a work meeting. I’m grateful to work in a way that lets me log onto a computer and not leave the house. Only one person at work knows I’m pregnant, and she is understanding. Sometimes I lay on the couch in the afternoons as well. The fatigue hits my body at inconvenient times. I can fall asleep instantly, the whole thing is compulsory.  One afternoon after sleeping, I notice a white light floating above me. I know it’s them, the ones before you. The glowing light hovers and floats away from me. I must be going crazy.  I don’t look away from it. My eyes follow it as it keeps gliding across the room. I’m home alone. Its presence feels familiar. I vow to keep this moment to myself, but I’m telling you because maybe you saw it too. You were with me; you were inside of me. We experienced it together. The light flew to the door and out of the window. I never saw it again. I should think of them more. It feels easier not to because you are forming. Do they know I’ve stopped thinking of them? Have I stopped? Or have I just been thinking more of other things? When I find myself trapped in sadness about the things I’ve lost or the things that have left me, it’s strange to know that you might feel it too. You are closer to me than any person might ever be. I am afraid you’re already knowing me before I’ve begun to know you. We drive to see you, to see if you’re still there. It’s August and we are hoping your heart is beating. I try not to think of how empty my womb might be, yet I believe you are there. I don’t know why. On the ultrasound, a moving line shows your heartbeat. It’s 143 RPM. We get a picture, and you are a small amorphous shape in a larger black circle. You are alive. We’re in disbelief. Your dad drives us to work. He leaves the parking lot as the AC finally blows cool air. I look to his face and notice it changes. I tell him to pull over.  We park in an empty spot and he turns off the car before crying. I watch him cover his face. “I can’t believe it,” he says. He can’t believe you’re alive. I’m still processing but watching him weep reminds me of the way your presence can wring us from the inside out, even when you are still forming.  Your father stops and stares ahead, a smile grows on his face. I look out the window. There’s a playground with toddlers running around. I want to believe that you’ll be like one of them someday, running with endless energy. Something makes it hard for me to conjure this image. I smile anyway.  “That’s going to be us,” I say.  Your father looks at me, he holds my hand. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is an award-winning author of nonfiction and poetry. Her most recent book Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde  (FSG) has been named a Publisher’s Weekly  Top 10 book of 2024 and a Time Magazine  must-read book of 2024. Photo credit: Sufia Ikbal-Doucet Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings. Her work in this lifetime is to facilitate infinite, unstoppable ancestral love in practice. Her poetic work  in response to the needs of her cherished communities has held space for multitudes in mourning  and movement . Alexis’s co-edited volume Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016) has shifted the conversation on mothering, parenting, and queer transformation. Alexis has transformed the scope of intellectual, creative, and oracular writing with her triptych of experimental works published by Duke University Press ( Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity in 2016, M Archive: After the End of the World   in 2018, and Dub: Finding Ceremony, 2020.) Alexis is a 2023 Windham-Campbell Prize Winner in Poetry. Her book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals  won the 2022 Whiting Award  in Nonfiction. Alexis was a 2020-2021 National Humanities Center Fellow, funded by the Founders Award, and is a 2022 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow. Her most recent book Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde  (FSG) has been named a Publisher’s Weekly Top 10 book of 2024, a Time Magazine must-read book of 2024, a Guardian book of the week, and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal in Nonfiction. *note from Alexis Pauline Gumbs: Each of the following poems is for the painter Alma Thomas.  The footnotes reference the paintings that inspired the poems and in relevant cases the page where you can find them in the catalog for the Alma Thomas retrospective Everything is Beautiful.  theology all of us women held in pieces by our clothes standing on the cobbled gravestones of our names and the light pink world around us a shattered sunrise shaded what we did to our eyes looking for stars we are blood we are rain we are gold bow before us standing tight and close against the cold once upon a time there was a drum it woke us once upon a time  there was a barn we found it once upon a time there was a night we broke it with our gifts* * Three Wise Men, 1966 Acrylic on Canvas, 36 ½ by 23 ½ in. study in sistering this is how light works your face my face lean back into the triangle of sun and reach don’t look away your face my face our tilted heads one smile and reach don’t look away how much i love you our tilted heads one smile framed by the green that knows how much i love you a million leaves framed by the green that knows i am never leaving a million leaves a million stays i am never leaving lean back into the triangle of sun a million stitches million stays that’s how light works* * “Alma and Sister Maurice” 1922/23 Caption by John Maurice Thomas “Alma and Sister Maurice.  The costume made and designed by my Mother.  Picture made in the back yard of our home in DC.” p39 a ceremony for thicker skin first the red dirt they let me breathe it the basins the rags boiled and scrubbed Saturday nights then the gauntlet of weekday Georgia forcefield training a repeated decision  to escape the hanging tree you must grow bark and never bite the hand the land with all its mineral advice would line our pores with memories and salt the lubricated dinners lined us too warm from the inside the thin petaled flowers they planted in a circle but not before they let me touch  the roots* *  Reverse of Antares (detail 1972) and Reverse of The Eclipse (detail 1970) where the ground seeps through the back of the canvas.   Fig 6 and 7 p 98 on being blue I “There is little to make a black officer feel blue; other than sadness…”*  Karl Osborne  (a black NYPD officer and student of Audre Lorde) i learned to call you from underneath and the signal went up in all directions i learned the ocean had hallways where a sound could get lost and the signal went up in all directions and i sunk ever further where a sound could get lost this was my hiding place and i sunk ever further surrendered to depth this was my hiding place this was my peace surrendered to depth i forgot my name this was my peace in blue i forgot my name in the hallways of the sea in blue i learned how to call you** * Audre Lorde Papers, Box 82, Folder 2.  ** Untitled 1977 Acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 in  #169 p 318 on being blue II for Detective Capers and Patrolman Wright (two of the black NYPD officers shot and killed by white NYPD officers in the 1970s) i am the sea monster press my hands into waves they become sharks and sinking ships and this is why i’m blue and this is why i’m strong and this is why you don’t see me at night red lights warn in whispers from my breast  and both my knees i brace myself against the sea as if  it’s ground as if i’m free as if there’s any solid earth for me* * Blue Night (At Sea), 1959 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 1/8 in #155 p305 THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Jae Nichelle on Dec 13th, 2024. It’s an honor to read these pieces from your forthcoming project Primary , which honors the painter Alma Thomas. Can you speak a little bit about how this project came to be? What drew you to her work? I was really just living my Black feminist life.  I was in Nashville for the great Black feminist literary theorist Hortense Spillers’s retirement symposium at Vanderbilt and I remembered that the lesbian feminist photographer Joan E. Biren had advised me to go to the Alma Thomas retrospective “Everything is Beautiful” when it was in Thomas’s hometown of DC, but I missed it.  And so the morning after the symposium my partner and I went to the exhibit.  Right away I knew I was going to need much more than one morning with her work.  There were so many synergies.  Her interest in the cosmos, her work as an educator.  And honestly, I needed time to wrap my head around how in the world a Black girl born in Columbus Georgia in eighteen ninety-one at the height of lynching became one of the most influential theorists of color in contemporary art. What does color even mean when you are a Black girl born in the nadir of blatant racism in the U.S. South? And so I challenged myself to write inspired by her work every morning. Indefinitely. And I found so much.  Her colors took me to so many places, especially in my own childhood and adolescence. The flowers outside my childhood home, my fun-dip and skittle sugar era, my dark lipstick dreams.  But I also started to develop a listening for her life as an art teacher, a community member, an oldest sister (like me!), and a trickster. “Theology” is inspired by Thomas’ painting “Three Wise Men.” You nod to the vibrant colors of the art piece in the poem while simultaneously subverting the story of the wise men. I’m wondering how your relationship to Thomas’ work has felt from poem to poem. Is there tension? Synergy? Surprise? YES!  All of those things are there.  My method has been to surrender and to listen.  I don’t approach the work trying to say something about  the painting with the poem.  The poem is an artifact of what happens when I allow myself to welcome the unexpected associations that her colors and shapes bring to my body, mind, and spirit. I free myself from any mandate to make sense.  Often it was not until I went back and read the poems (after about a year) that I started to almost understand them. Alma Thomas deeply studied the emotional and spiritual resonance of specific colors.  This was core to her practice as a color theorist.  She also intentionally infused her paintings with “energy” and my job was just to move out of my own way, open my heart, and allow it to find me.  Many of the poems in the manuscript are almost maps for where that energy met me.     “On being blue I” begins with a quote from the papers of Audre Lorde, which makes this work feel like it is in conversation with your new book Survival is a Promise: the Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. How are you feeling now that this biography has made its recent debut into the world? For sure.  While I was writing these poems I was also doing the layers and layers of work that resulted in Survival is a Promise .  I wish I could sit and listen to Audre Lorde and Alma Thomas in an actual conversation.  Especially since they were both such impactful educators.  In fact, that epigraph is evidence of Audre Lorde making space in her classroom at John Jay College of Criminal Justice for her students, police officers in this case a Black police officer who had been shot at by his own white colleagues, to theorize what “blue” meant to him and to them. The poem is accountable to that work.   And how do I feel now that Survival is a Promise is actually in the world? It feels like what Beautiful Chorus says “gratitude brings room for more things to be grateful for.”  Survival is a Promise  is a work of gratitude for Audre Lorde and sharing it in the world has expanded the field of gratitude.  The events celebrating the book have been such sacred spaces of love and possibility.  It’s like exactly the inspiration and care that I have experienced from Audre Lorde’s work and her impact through her students…exactly the inspiration that made me want to write a biography that brings her to even more people IS the quality of the response to the book in our communities.  It also is a commitment to anyone who didn’t already know that I am ready to bring Audre Lorde into the conversation at ANY time. You once mentioned that your first three books came “ from the same decision ,” which was to write daily using the words of three scholars. What decisions have you made recently that currently inform your work? Well, I am still in the decision to write daily, which was an admonition from an early mentor asha bandele, who was also a student of Audre Lorde! And it was my community writing teacher Zelda Lockhart who really provided the structure to learn for myself what makes it possible for me to write every day no matter what.  But the decisions to engage in a particular project feel like answering my own attraction.  My own curiosity and queer desire because I really never know what is going to happen inside the work.  The work is teaching me.  Right now in my daily practice, I am inside a decision I made for my daily writing to engage my curiosity about my ancestors.  I am learning so much.  What’s the oldest piece of clothing you have? Why have you kept it this long? I have a lot of old clothes.  For a long time, I could still fit into clothes from my literal childhood, but I have finally come into my thickness so that’s not an excuse anymore.  Praises!   But I do have an archival adornment practice of wearing old clothes.  I think my oldest articles are T-shirts that my grandparents wore.  My grandmother’s NAACP shirt and my grandfather’s logo shirt for the hotel my grandparents founded, Rendezvous Bay Hotel in Anguilla.  They are both blue and I love the feeling of accompaniment I get when I wear them.  You’ve been part of several organizations, projects, and initiatives including UBUNTU and the Mobile Homecoming Project. What work are you currently excited about? So much!  I’m excited about the technology company that my partner Sangodare started.  It’s called QUIRC which is a combination of the words queer and circuit.  It’s about bringing our communities together through this polymatching innovation Sangodare invented that can facilitate us finding each other and transforming the world on purpose.  It blows my mind that Sangodare actually created a technology that makes our work in the Mobile Homecoming project of intergenerational queer black feminist liberation accessible to everyone on the planet as a mode of relation. (more at quirc.app ) I’m also excited to be part of the visioning council for The Embodiment Institute’s new retreat center in North Carolina.  All of it is about being present and profoundly connected to each other.  What are your favorite places to spend your time in Durham? On my office floor.  I have a rug that’s like the ocean.  I really love our home and the sweet small gatherings we have there with our community.  And then we live a couple of blocks away from Tierra Negra, the farm at Earthseed, a Black and brown land collective that Sangodare and I helped to found. I love being on the farm.  I love being in the barn (which is also where I get to participate in Mama Ruby’s West African dance class.). And I also love Duke Gardens.  It feels like part of my reparations to benefit from the WILD amount of money they pour into curating those gardens.   How can people support you right now? Honestly, it would feel supportive if people offered their prayers and magic for my uncle.  I have an uncle recovering from brain surgery right now that is the first thing that came to my heart.  Please send positive energy his way and to my whole family.  And it is tangibly supportive for folks to support our ongoing queer listening and community building with Mobile Homecoming at mobilehomecoming.org .  And of course please read Survival is a Promise  (or listen to the audiobook…it’s me reading it!) we need Audre Lorde as much as we ever have.  Name another Black Woman writer people should know. Well of course I already said Audre Lorde, asha bandele, and Zelda Lockhart.  There are so many.  But I’ll say Cheryl Boyce Taylor, another student of Audre Lorde and mentor of mine. Such a beautiful writer and an example for me of how we can bring writing to every day of our lives. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Camille T. Dungy is a celebrated author and professor whose honors include the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, an Honorary Doctorate from SUNY ESF, and fellowships from the NEA in both prose and poetry. Camille T. Dungy is the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden . Soil was named book of the month by Hudsons Booksellers, received the 2024 Award of Excellence in Garden and Nature Writing from The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, and was on the short list for the PEN/Jean Stein Award. Dungy has also written four collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade , winner of the Colorado Book Award, and the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History , a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, the first anthology to bring African American environmental poetry to national attention. She also co-edited the From the Fishouse poetry anthology and served as assistant editor for Gathering Ground: Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade . Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, 100 Best African American Poems , Best American Essays, The 1619 Project, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, over 40 other anthologies, plus dozens of venues including The New Yorker, Poetry, Literary Hub , The Paris Review , and Poets.org . You may know her as the host of Immaterial , a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Magnificent Noise. A University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s honors include the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, an Honorary Doctorate from SUNY ESF, and fellowships from the NEA in both prose and poetry. This’ll hurt me more Don’t make me send you outside to find a switch, my grandmother used to say. It was years before I had the nerve to ask her why switch was the word her anger reached for when she needed me to act a different way. Still, when I see some branches— wispy ones, like willows, like lilacs, like the tan-yellow forsythia before the brighter yellow buds— I think, these would make perfect switches for a whipping. America, there is not a place I can wander inside you and not feel a little afraid. Did I ever tell you about that time I was seven, buckled into the backseat of the Volvo, before buckles were a thing America required. My parents tried, despite everything, to keep us safe. It’s funny. I remember the brown hills sloping toward the valley. A soft brown welcome I looked for  other places but found only there and in my grandmother’s skin. Yes, I have just compared my grandmother’s body to my childhood’s hills, America. I loved them both,  and they taught me, each, things I needed to learn. You have witnessed, America, how pleasant hillsides can quickly catch fire. My grandmother could be like that. But she protected me, too. There were strawberry fields,  wind guarded in that valley, tarped against the cold. America, you are good at taking care of what you value. Those silver-gray tarps made the fields look like a pond I could skate on. As the policeman questioned my dad, I concentrated on the view outside the back window. America, have you ever noticed how well you stretch the imagination? This was Southern California. I’d lived there all my life and never even seen a frozen pond. But there I was, in 65 degree weather, imagining my skates carving figure eights on a strawberry field. Of course my father fit the description. The imagination can accommodate whoever might happen along. America, if you’ve seen a hillside quickly catch fire you have also seen a river freeze over, the surface looking placid though you know the water deep down, dark as my father, is pushing and pushing, still trying  to get ahead. We were driving home, my father said.  My wife and my daughters, we were just on our way home. I know you want to know what happened next, America. Did my dad make it safely home or not?  Outside this window, lilac blooms show up like a rash decision the bush makes each spring. I haven’t lived in Southern California for decades. A pond here killed a child we all knew. For years after that accident, as spring bloomed and ice thinned, my daughter remembered the child from her preschool. And now, it’s not so much that she’s forgotten. It’s more that it seems she’s never known that child as anything other  than drowned. My grandmother didn’t have an answer.  A switch is what her mother called it and her grandmother before her. She’d been gone from that part of America for over half a century, but still that southern soil sprang up along the contours of her tongue. America, I’ll tell you this much, I cannot understand this mind, where it reaches. Even when she was threatening to beat me, I liked to imagine the swishing sound a branch would make as it whipped toward my body through the resisting air. She’d say, this is hurting me  more than it’s hurting you. I didn’t understand her then, but now I think I do. America, go find me a switch.  *previously published in Literary Hub , and The Best American Poetry 2021, Ed. Tracy K Smith, and There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love . Eds Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman. Penguin/Random House, 2021 in the hallway there used to be a hatch  that opened to the attic.  heat poured out in summer.  one winter, frost collected  around failed seals. we hired  some guys to throw up new  insulation. I wanted to leave the crawl space, keep the hatch  in case we had to hide people  someday, but Ray reminded me  they have infrared goggles now.  so we asked the workers to cover the opening with drywall and paint. most of the time I forget that would-be shelter was ever there. Expectant; or, What the Transition Phase of Labor Confirmed about Being a Black Woman in America I thought I would say, now! and a new life would suddenly crown— another beautiful, ordinary head driven to split me wide open. But look at me. Still  on my hands and knees. Still pushing. *previously published in Buzzfeed True Story The cat wandered between two women. In one house, the kibble and clear water. Sometimes, bits of roast chicken, even, sometimes, translucent fish skin. That’s the house that first called her its own and, for all those nights until  she found the other woman, she’d purred  there without asking for anything more. But, I’ve already told you, she found the other woman. Whose house held  the wondrous calm of no children. A blessing.  Wet food in the kitchen. Catnip growing for her in the yard. The women came to be like sister wives. Accepting, if not companiable. Opening and offering everything when the cat came around.  For years this continued. They lived next door to each other, the women, on the wooded west slope of a mountain whose winding road runners liked to climb. The cat lay her body down first on one bed then on another until the arrangement settled into a system as unremarkable as love. One woman believed, as Issa believed, that in all things, even the small and patient snail, there are perceptible strings that tie each life to all others. The other woman was born in Chicago. There, the lake’s current carried a black boy past some unmarked line and a mob on the white beach threw rocks until the boy was no more. She didn’t  side with the mob, this woman, but she knew where they came from. She came from  there too. When the cat got sick, the woman from Chicago wanted to put her down quickly. Keep her from all this suffering, she said. The other woman wanted not so much for her to live forever as for her to fully live  every second of her allotted time. Meanwhile,  winter rain threatened the shallow-rooted  eucalyptus on the hillside. Meanwhile,  the runners still ran. The women argued  in their divided driveway about how they’d prefer  to die. Until she didn’t anymore, the cat  continued eating in both the women’s houses.    *previously published in Los Angeles Review of Books , June 2021 THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Camille T. Dungy and Jae Nichelle on January 7, 2025. Thank you so much for sharing this brilliant work with us. I feel a deep resonance to “This’ll hurt me more,” especially in lines like “America, you are good at taking care of what you value.” I’m curious to know what you value these days and how you’ve been tending to those values. I value my community, my family, the people who walk through this world alongside me on a regular basis. Sometimes this community I value lives in the same house, or the same town, but I also believe in the community I create through my words and actions. (Torch is part of this community!)  My people show up for me all over the world, and I place value on showing up for them as well. I am committed to being present for these people—my people—in a way that might mean I am less generically present to just any whosehisname out there. My daughter is a teenager, and I am intensely aware that the days of her needing me on a daily basis are numbered. I am committed to not taking this special time with her for granted. Similarly, my parents are in their 80s and though they are strong and healthy, I don’t want to take time with them for granted either. Every commitment I say “yes” to means other commitments I have to say “no” to. I am trying to be more mindful of what I choose to let go of so that I can more completely make space for what and who I need and want to prioritize. These poems are story-driven, and I especially love how “True Story” directly addresses the reader/listener. What would you say is your storytelling philosophy? I don’t know if I have a storytelling philosophy. My mind just works narratively. It’s a thing in our family to ask me first thing in the morning what I dreamt. My dreams are often wild rides, and they are almost always story-based. A couple days ago I had a long complex dream that revolved around taking my daughter to a ballet audition at a hotel and conference center where a friend of mine, who in the wide-awake world is a writer and ornithologist, was also staying. We saw him out on the small hills behind the hotel walking with another man and looking at a flock of female pheasants and their chicks. Between talking to the dance program director about the auditions and watching my husband participate as a stand-In for America’s top taste tester at the International Taste Testers competition (held at the same busy hotel), I thwarted an attempted coup and assassination attempt. My ornithologist friend was the target. He was about to be named president of Birders International, but the old guard didn’t like the idea of a Black man at the helm of their 250-year-old organization. They’d come up with an elaborate scheme to “get rid of him” in a "hunting accident." When I’d seen my friend out on that hill and waved at him and the would-be assassin, I messed up the whole scheme. My friend figured out what was happening and contacted law enforcement, who arrested the plotters. There were a lot more details to the dream than what I’ve just offered (the dance audition thread and the Taste Tester competition both wove back into the coup storyline by the end), but I shared this gloss so you can get a sense of how my unconscious mind naturally organizes information. Maybe it’s the All My Children I watched for the first few decades of my life. Or maybe it’s not the soap opera that caused it. Maybe I watched All My Children nearly every day for decades  because  wild interwoven ongoing storylines feel good to my brain. When it comes to writing, it’s not the stories that are the difficult part. It’s figuring out how to organize the several interconnected stories in ways that can make sense to other people and still retain both their weirdness and rightness. Speaking of true stories, you’ve spoken previously  about writing docupoetry and how “witnessing” is a key component of your work. How do you approach the act of witnessing—especially when it comes to difficult or painful subjects? Witnessing is one of the tasks I believe writing must undertake. Writing must be honest. Writing must be urgent. Writing must mean something. Writing must matter. The world is full enough of fluff and distraction. The world is full enough of lies. If I am asking for your time, I intend to honor the gift you’ve given me by providing something true and substantive. Something worthy of your time. Writing from a place of truthful witness and honesty can be scary and dangerous and exhausting, but it seems to me that anything other than truthful witness and honesty is a fundamental waste of our time. I want to respect you and your time. I intend to offer you the kind of truth you need to read. To do this, I find ways to share the truth in a manner you will want to read. I offer beauty, paths toward joy and love. The world is full enough of unmitigated heartbreak. Truth told well can start to mend a broken heart.  In an interview in 32 Poems , you mentioned that you used to play several instruments! If you had to pick today, what song and instrument would you play? Oh goodness, that’s a curious question. You know, I am surprised by the answer that came first to my mind: I would participate in a bell choir. Maybe it’s because I am writing this so close to the holiday season and all those pretty Christmas carols are still in my head. I like the idea of being in a community of music makers, without whom I could not make the music, or I couldn’t make the music as completely as I could in communion with others. A lot of the other things I do with my time these days are solitary. I like the idea of showing up every Wednesday from 7-9pm to practice making music with a bunch of other people who are all pitching in with their small range of notes to make a sound that will fill a building and spill out onto the street. What are your go-to dance moves? I am raising a dancer, but I’m not the best dancer myself. Since I am raising a teenager who is a very accomplished dancer, I am made painfully aware on a regular basis of how completely not a dancer I am. Still, I do like to dance. I like a low drop and slight pop. I just looked up this move to see what the kids are calling it these days. I don’t appreciate knowing that my favorite move is called a “Slut Drop,” but there you have it. When I’m dancing, I like to drop it like it’s hot. You’ve edited several anthologies in addition to being the poetry editor at Orion Magazine . What’s a lesson you’ve learned from your early editing days that has stuck with you? I learned very early in my editing experience that I am partial to poems that open strong. You can catch or lose me as a reader in the first four lines.  There is such a thing as a slow burn, where the import and impact of the opening lines magnify as I move through the poem, but when I am reading hundreds of poems, if the first four lines aren’t reeling me in I am likely to move on to the next poem, and so will many readers.  I want to add another important lesson, which is that no writer can please all readers, nor should they try. It is entirely possible that the few lines that don’t captivate me might prove utterly captivating to another reader. That’s one of the scariest and most liberating things about creating art. It’s hard to know whether something is working or failing based on anyone else’s opinion. Certainly not one individual reader’s opinion. You must learn to build your own set of criteria for success and failure and decide with each piece whether you’ve lived up to your own expectations or not. Your work has expanded our collective archive and understanding of Black environmental poetry. Thank you! What further progress do you hope to see in this area? I’m working on a project that I hope will offer an exciting answer to this question. More details forthcoming…. For now, I will say that one of the most exciting developments since the publication of Black Nature  is how many Black writers are actively and visibly directly and creatively engaging with the greater than human world. When I edited and published Black Nature back around 2007 to 2010, it was possible for me to complete a thorough survey that identified most of the Black writers and writing that fit the category, even considering the ways that I worked to expand the existing limits of the genre. Such a comprehensive survey would be impossible today. So many writers finding so many ways to write about how we live and love and lose and work and dream in this immensely interconnected planet. That is thrilling to me!  How can people support you these days? Goodness. I love this question so much. Love how you’re always modeling ways we can lift as we climb. I said above that I want to write toward honesty and truth, so here’s one thing: I would really love to see Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden on the NYT best sellers list. Sometimes books show up on the bestseller list through a kind of exponential word of mouth whereby suddenly 8000 people buy a book for themselves and their friends and family and libraries and book groups in the same week. Since you asked, I’ll go ahead and write this wish so the universe (and the internet) can hear. If you’re buying or recommending books in the new year, please add Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden to your list. Name another Black woman writer people should know. I teach literature at the college and graduate school level and am often surprised by how many Black writers students don’t know. Then again, I don’t remember really knowing Audre Lorde’s work until I was in college myself, so I try not to be downcast about it. Everyone meets their heroes at some point, and not everyone can come out of the cradle knowing all the writers who will grow to be important to them. Hopefully, if you don’t already know the work of Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, and Anne Spencer you will find your way to their work soon. Then there are some of my peers who thrill me every time I pick up their books. Evie Shockley, Ruth Ellen Kocher, January Gill O’Neil, Duriel Harris, Remica Bingham-Risher, and CM Burroughs spring immediately to mind. But I’m actually going to use this space to speak to a fascinating book by a beloved peer. Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community , written by Vanessa Holden, uplifts unsung women heroes of our nation’s past. There are some painful truths in this book, but also necessary lessons. We’ve got to be thinking our way towards active resistance and sustaining communities, and Surviving Southampton  is full of truths more of us could benefit from knowing. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Joi’ C. Weathers is an award-winning marketer turned writer and third-generation Chicago South Sider with over 14 years of experience leading creative campaigns for global brands like Microsoft and Meta. She’s been recognized with a Cannes Lion, multiple regional Emmys, Golden Trumpet Awards from the Publicity Club of Chicago (PCC), and ADC and AICP honors. She excels at blending cultural storytelling with business success, but her true passion lies in prose. Currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Temple University, Joi’ amplifies Black voices and celebrates the African Diaspora through her work. A 2025 Project Completion Grant recipient, she is currently finalizing her manuscript for her debut novel, which centers around themes of identity, community, autonomy, and the power of self-acceptance. In addition, she will join the 2025 ‘Black Philadelphia’ symposium as a panelist, hosted by The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1838 Black Metropolis, and UPenn, where she will discuss reclaiming the narrative of Black women. She is the host of the award-winning Obsidian Collection podcast while maintaining her brand Joi Has Questions , dedicated to sharing Black History. Through storytelling and advocacy, Joi’ continues to celebrate the Black Diaspora in all she does. Learn more about Joi’ on her website iamjoicweathers.com and follow her on social media: @Joihasquestions. Redd Ain’t Never Been Just A Color There was never a woman like Ms. Redd. A goddess who required no finery to prove her divinity, she simply was. In human form, she was a woman of high morals, said, “ Mister ”  and “ Ma’am ”  if you were an elder, and shushed her gals if they were talking too loose. One glare was all it took. “Stop talking all crazy like you don’t see these babies walking by us.” Sure enough, the conversation ceased until they were out of earshot and then they’d cut up again. The only time she faltered in her propriety was if she’d drank too much, for even Gods could not always be perfect. She rarely fought. “Fighting was for heathens,” I had once heard her say. And Redd, by no means, was a heathen.  Every day waking no earlier than Noon she surveyed the land and those whom she lorded over. She had a simple routine for meeting people, standing on the East side of the block across the street from the newspaper stand, lazily taking in her days. I’d sometimes catch glances of her when my mother wasn’t hissing at me to not look at her.  “Hope, turn your head. I don’t want you looking at that naked heifer with her tail hanging all out.”  That only made me want to look more at the impossibility of Ms. Redd containing her curves in a cutoff tee and tight Daisy Duke shorts. Ironically, she never wore the color she was named after. She harnessed its power from the depths of her being. It was amazing to see how she drew attention.  Never one to make the first move, if someone whistled at her, she’d look around as if to say, “Who, me?” Then, without uttering a word, she would return to intensely concentrating on whatever mundane task she was attending to. Even though she and her potential friend knew it was a game, this part of the chase had to be abided by. There was decorum to be upheld. It was to be clear that she was the wanted one, even though she had peeped her John from a mile away. She dangled her innocence before her victims, tricking them, literally, into believing they were in charge when they never truly were. The pursuant would become more enthusiastic, panting, “Come on now, baby. Why you  out here being so mean to me?” “Heyyyyyy suga,” she’d purr. “If you want to speak to me, call me Ms. Redd. I ain’t one of these lil’ hoes out here.” Whether she was talking to a man or woman, they would quickly correct themselves to keep in her good graces, “Well, excuse me, Ms. Redd… say how bout’ we go for a ride?” She would stare for a second, probably to do a temperature check and assess if they could turn into a dangerous situation. She never bothered to ask if they were a cop or not. What for? Some of her best clients were police officers, and at the end of the day, the clientele was the clientele. Once she garnered that they wouldn’t test her prowess with her switchblade, she’d meander up to their car real slow-like.  “Well now if you want to ride with Ms. Redd, then a ride you gon’ get.”  Then they’d be off. When she returned, magically there was not a hair out of place, nor a yank of her skirt that had to be rearranged, and her tomato lipstick was just as bright as it was before. She emerged just as perfect as she’d gone. She wasn’t a heathen, indeed. Ms. Redd represented a wildness I didn’t see within my mother. She represented follow-through. My mom always seemed to apologize for her rage, as if it was attached to failing to be her higher self, and it was exhausting. She came off like a damp rag over a fire, her own fire; she’d light it, then panic at what could happen, so she’d quickly suffocate it before it ever became an untamable blaze. With Ms. Redd, there was an acceptance that she could be as destructive as she was wonderful. Even when she apologized for cursing, it never came out as a plea, it was as simple as one plus one, she was wrong, she was sorry, but that was the end of it. I didn’t know how to express to my mother that I saw she was struggling, that whatever she was trying to keep from me was in plain view, and I wondered if I told her that I saw the unhappiness she tried so hard to shield if I’d be in trouble.  I had a feeling that daughters weren’t supposed to tell their mothers, “I know you’re a fraud.” The only reason I was aware was because I was hiding my sorrow, too. My mother would be my future self if I hid for too long. Ms. Redd wasn’t an everyday experience as she had multiple blocks to claim. So seeing her on Prairie Avenue was a special treat. In her line of work, there was no management to report to, no boss who took a cut like a tax collector. She was her very own Kingmaker. She was like a sharp inhalation when it was thirty below.  In my world women around me molded themselves into the life they’d been given, whether they were good little Christian wives, or if they were yelling down the block after some “No accounting ass nigga, who don’t take care of his kids.”  They all rang the same boring bell. Not Ms. Redd, though. Even on one random summer day when I saw her get arrested for slicing my neighbor’s face for not fairly splitting the cost of their favorite malt liquor, she held her head up high, like she ain’t have a care in the world. I didn’t see her again until Mr. Lee’s peonies were blooming the following summer. She carried on as if time had waited for her, and to an extent it had. No one had customer service like her, so the patrons she had lost due to her jail stint eagerly returned. She’d chide them saying, “So what this I hear about you cheating on Ms. Redd? I have a mind to charge you double, just caz’ you forgot about me. You then hurt my feelings. You know you my favorite.”   Of course, her Johns would swear up and down that they had done no such thing, and how could anyone forget about her? How she was the best, what in the world did she think made them drive so far into this neighborhood other than her? She accepted their worship, their apologies, and their money, and continued with her life. That’s what was so magnetic about Ms. Redd, the fact that you could never bring her down when she already claimed what the mirror showed her. She was a whore like water was wet, yet she made sure everyone knew she was worthy of respect. She found a way to command it and did it in a way that other women could not. I never saw Ms. Redd chase after no man and never saw her fight over the love from either. I never saw her make herself small so a man could feel big. Never saw her make pot roast when she had a taste for ribs, never saw her fish for compliments for the very meal she had conceded her own taste buds for. From the crown of her fanned-out beehive to the crimson-colored toes that matched her nails, Ms. Redd was someone to aspire after. Yet, none of the women of my block did. Partly because some of her Johns were actually their men. Since these women were in no position to lash out at them for their misdeeds, they lashed at Redd, because their accountability had to go somewhere. What was the point of confronting a man you knew you weren’t going to leave to begin with? So they laid their shame at her feet. How could their husbands resist when she paraded around the neighborhood like that? What choice did they have to fight her evil ways? In the blink of an eye, these fully-grown able-bodied men became no more than misguided babes, not willing participants. Yet, none of the women ever dared to confront Redd. They might have cut their eyes at her, but it was always once her back was to them. No woman I knew was that crazy, for she would have cut them to smithereens, literally. When it came to my home, the most I ever heard from my mother was a sharp click of her teeth whenever she saw Ms. Redd, but I attributed her disgust more so because of how short her shorts always were. Nothing in the slightest gave me the inclination that my mother had a personal reason to not like her. Her distaste for Ms. Redd was purely out of feminine solidarity. For all the trouble my parents gave one another, infidelity never was an issue I saw them face, and to be honest it is the one situation I think would have fully consumed my mother to a wildfire. Yet, it never stopped my mother from taking part in the bash fest that sprang forth every time Ms. Redd walked by. Not even pruning her tulips could keep her from listening in. “Y’all heard that fight the other night Tisha was having with her man Ronell?” Ms. Lee  would start.   “How could we not, she was throwing all his clothes off the balcony,” Gloria would  chime in. “Well, you know it’s because of you-know-who.” “When ain’t that heifer breaking up someone’s family.” Then as if on cue they’d all look down at me and gasp as they realized they had said too much in front of me. “Hope go upstairs and refill this water pitcher.” “Mommy, but the hose is right–” “Girl I said go upstairs,” My mom cut me off.  Everyone knew I had to go upstairs to get out of “grown folks’ business,”  but it annoyed me to no end that they spoke so harshly of Ms. Redd. From where I stood, she was nice. She always smiled when she saw me and said, “Hey now” when I told her how many A’s I got on my report card. Her encouragement was no different than anyone else’s, even if it did come with a few fewer articles of clothing. Even though I was only twelve, there was something about Ms. Redd that I wanted to be like. It had nothing to do with attention. My encounter with Jason had killed any desire I had to want to be seen by anyone. It was Redd’s power. It was her ability not to care. I wanted that for myself. I wanted my shoulders to be straight like hers. I didn’t want to walk, I wanted to saunter. Those had been my thoughts as I hung my head over the porch one afternoon. It was too hot to play outside and my parents were elsewhere in our apartment. So, I took one of the rare moments to enjoy our balcony alone. I had watched Redd walk past, my eyes following her all the way to the Judah Brothers grocery store. I imagined she would buy her usual Colt 45 and a new pack of Newports. It was then I settled on the one thing that I could do as an homage to her. The next time I had a hair appointment at Yehia’s, I was going to ask the nail tech Ms. Candice to paint my nails red. I had saved up enough money for one bottle of OPI nail polish, and there was a beauty supply store right next to the salon. I felt settled with my decision, even excited at the prospect that it would shock my parents. I was acting more like Ms. Redd already. A few weeks later as I sat in my beautician’s chair, I put my plan in motion. I had already secured the nail polish as Ms. Francela had allowed me to go next door to buy some butterfly clips I wanted to put in my hair. I added the polish to my purchase and calmly walked back into the salon. I knew my parents had promised we were going to dinner that night, so I figured I would have time to persuade them, should they object to my polish choice. Come hell or high water I was going to look like Ms. Redd if it killed me. Time was on my side that day as the nail tech, Ms. Candice, was able to squeeze me in.  She pressed me for confirmation that it was okay to paint my nails that color, and my voice didn’t falter when I responded, “It’s okay my parents won’t mind.” Her slow and deliberate moments told me she didn’t believe me, but she did it anyway.  When she was done, I looked down at my hands with happiness. There was something on my body for me to love again. I was beside myself. *** “Have you lost your mind?” my parents said in unison once my hands emerged from my lap. Nuzzled in a booth in the restaurant, I faced a firing squad of judgment. “Now you know better than to have that lady put red nail polish on your hands. Who you  out here trying to look like some floozy?” “What even possessed Candice to do it is my question,” my daddy was beside himself.  Well, if I was being honest, I was trying to be like one floozy, in particular. My mom seemed genuinely shocked that she even had to bring this error to my attention. My daddy’s eyes were the size of saucers as if he had caught me kissing a boy behind the shed. Their faces seemed to say,  How do you not just know what this means? But I didn’t know their fears. All I knew was the freedom I felt. I wanted something that reminded me of Ms. Redd, of her mightiness. The way she dared to judge the world right back for having the audacity to outcast her in the first place. For some odd reason, I found myself holding back tears, to envision a swab of acetone-doused cotton balls in my hands, would be killing something else within myself. I had already died the day Jason had stripped me of my innocence. I refused to die again. The car ride home was a quiet one but my rage towards my parents' seeming hypocrisy radiated off me like the sun’s rays. I was too proud to plead with them to let me keep my nails as it went without saying that the polish was gone the minute we got upstairs. They stood over me as I wiped any trace of wildness from my body. I saw them nod as I finished on my very last nail, satisfied that I was once again their perfect and obedient daughter. What they didn’t have was the bottle. In their crusade, it hadn’t even crossed their minds that the nail polish was in my possession. So, from that night, and for more days than I could count afterward, I would paint my right pinky nail, as a reminder of who I could be. Even though I had to wipe off the polish before it set, I would still see remnants in my cuticle bed, and it gave me a trill. No, I never spoke to Ms. Redd on the regular, and more times than not it seemed that she didn’t even know I existed and that was the way it was supposed to be. She was sure of her divinity, whereas I had no clue mine could even exist. Yet, the embers I saw growing from the spot of color on my one nail waited patiently for me to blow on them so that one day I would be a fire that wasn’t too scared to burn. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Elisha Mykelti conjures poetry that honors sight. She serves on the editorial board for Sundress Publications. She received the 2023 Emily Morrison Poetry Prize, and her work has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review . Elisha is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Virginia Tech, where she is working on her manuscript, “TWOHEAD: Rootwork.” She holds a BA in English from the University of Tennessee. In her free time, Elisha is a perpetual hobbyist and reads tarot. With Three Fingers, I Point to hell with you , swallowing                 a stiltoned olive and cucumber gin        I learned spades at a family dinner, so that November could sleep; and I could live without you  avid and drinking.  My partner, a good woman,  handled the men by set, witness, and wag. Then the family’s mouth  opened to our plate of eight books. We rode the ninth in our last hand.  The girls spit my husband, my husband into the punch bowl and mine calls me over to cold cut sandwiches What do you think at the sough of my name? Me enid then— my kitty jaw? I have your last name,  inked on the ace’s foot  headside down. ### 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. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.