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Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic works are widely published and produced, appearing in Midnight

Heller's writing has appeared in the Georgia Review , BOMB , Modern Poetry in Translation , the Guardian amongst other places, their debut poetry collection, Ar:range:ments is forthcoming with Fonograf Editions

Dr. Yunina Barbour-Payne is a scholar/artist whose interdisciplinary scholarship involves Africana studies, Appalachian studies, folklore, and performance. Her teaching and research areas include Black performance theory, Black theatre and performance, Theatre with and for Youth, Black feminisms, Black Appalachian performance traditions, and Affrilachian (Black artists' experiences in Appalachia) aesthetics. Barbour-Payne is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Rising Scholar at the University of Virginia. She earned a Ph.D. in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin where she was a Donald D. Harrington Fellow.  As a scholar/artist, Barbour-Payne has experience as a performer, dramaturg, director, and playwright. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, she locates the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas as her artistic home, being the first theatre to support her work as an actor on stage, director, and writer of theatre for and with youth. As an actor, some of her favorite roles include Clyde in Ground Floor Theatre’s production of Lynn Nottage’s Clydes , Edna Thomas in Penfold Theatre’s world premiere of  War of the World s , and Sally Mae in the Ensemble Theatre’s production of  Too Heavy for Your Pocket .  In addition to her stage work, Barbour-Payne combines her love of history, art, and performance through her commitment to museum theatre.  In addition to her museum theatre work, she is a dramaturg with Gesel Mason’s Performance Project’s Yes AND ,  a performance project that recenters Black womanhood as the norm and operating force in the creative process. Her life long work merges her artistry and scholarship as the founder of the Affrilachian Memory Plays , an archived-based performance inquiry for celebrating Affrilachian identity in its various creative iterations.  Tobacco Fields CHARACTERS: GIRL #9 “NINE”: An eighteen-year-old Black Kentucky GIRL. Though she has a tomboy demeanor “NINE” has glimmering potential of being fine as Dandelion wine, and everyone knows. She is often disheveled in appearance, yet lively in spirit. GIRL #7 “SEV”: A twenty-one-year-old Black Kentucky young woman. She is gentle and nurturing in her demeanor. She has a great talent for storytelling. MAMA: A Black Kentucky woman in her late thirties. She is visibly with child. She has spent her entire life in the country. She is a talented cook, quilter, and homemaker. BOY #5: A twenty–three–year–old Black Kentucky young man. He has spent his entire life working the land and is exceptional in the fields. He has a roguish demeanor. He is a twin. Scene Various locations on a family tobacco farm in rural Kentucky Time Late August 1967 SCENE 1 SETTING: We are in a shabby, bare country home. The home takes up a very small amount of space. It has only one room, with a rocking chair, a bed, a table for the kitchen and the rest is field. A t RISE: It is nighttime, and GIRL #7 and GIRL #9 are curled in a bed together, giggling. MAMA has fallen asleep in the rocking chair. An older boy sleeps on the floor. It is well past bedtime. The room is small and swells with the excitement from the girls. GIRL #7 is reading GIRL #9 a story from a personal notebook. GIRL #7 (whispering) In the beginning was the Word GIRL #9 And the word was loud GIRL #7: (GIRL #7 shushes and giggles) With a long A…. GIRL #9: Two legs, two arms and a small head GIRL #7: Some high and low points GIRL #9: Low like valleys and high like mountains! BOY #5: (grumbles) GIRL #9: Shhh GIRL #7: (whispering) Long as the Ohio river (she moves to the hallway) GIRL #9: (following) Moving like curvy mountains on a page GIRL #7 With 2 F’s GIRL #9: And 5 A’s GIRL #7: (counting) 5 A’s? GIRL #9: (re-counts) 3 A’s GIRL #7: And the word stuttered GIRL #9: Af-f-f-- GIRL #7: And struggled GIRL #9: Af-f-f r-il -Affril - ach GIRL #7: And stumbled GIRL #9: A-f-r-r-i-l-a-c-h-i-a-? BOY #5: (grumbles, Dreaming) No GIRL #7: And finally stuck GIRL #9: Affrilachia GIRL #7: And the word was GIRL #9: Affrilachia! GIRL #7: And the Word was! GIRL #7 and GRIL #9: Affrila- (They both Scream) MAMA: (off) Girls! (Enter MAMA, in a worn night gown and slippers.) MAMA: (reprimanding) Girls! Now you know you are supposed to be in bed. GIRL#9: It was a snake mama! MAMA: Snake? GIRL #7: Yes ma’am, there on the floor and it’s humongous! MAMA: A humongous snake on the floor? If that isn’t the… (she sees the snake) Oh my… Clyde! (TRANSITION OF TIME) (Later that day in the tobacco fields at sunset. A Tractor is heard. The girls are coming in from the field) (GIRL #7 GIRL #9 enter visibly exhausted) GIRL #9: My eyes burn. GIRL #7: (fixing her hair) It’s alright, here use this, it’ll get better in a week. GIRL #9: A week! I hate the fields. I hate them. I hate them! GIRL #7: Remember the story? (pulling the notebook from her pants.) -Long as the Ohio river (grabbing GIRL #9 in a dance) GIRL #9: Moving like curvy mountains on a page GIRL #7: With 2 F’s GIRL #9: 3 A’s GIRL #7 and GIRL #9: Affrilachia! (They both laugh and stumble to the ground overwhelmed with good feelings.) GIRL #7: Here, come listen. (She reads to her in a big sister performance kind of way.) I call it ‘raised by women … (GIRL #9 looks unimpressed. GIRL #7 puts down her book.) Let’s play a game. I’ll start by saying “I was raised by,” and you finish it. Ready? I was raised by Some high yellow, red bone, red-haired Green eyed Cherokee knowing- (prompting GIRL #9) GIRL #9: cherry eating, tobacco cutting Will rush you off the phone in a heart-beat kind of women GIRL #7: (laughing) Mmmhmm! I was raised by … Some macaroni and cheese making Polk picking GIRL #9: Pimple popping GIRL #7: Bible reading GIRL #9: Church going GIRL #7: (laughs and sings) Choir singing GIRL #9: Ushers .. AND Sunday school teaching GIRL #7: Sister of the preacher seating -“isn’t it funny that they don’t believe in women in the pulpit- (GIRL #9 delights at the truths in her statements) Kind of sisters I was raised by women. (GIRL #7 and GIRL #9 delight together in their story) (beat) GIRL #9: You got your stories, but me I don’t have talents like that. GIRL #7: Sure, you do GIRL #9: Nuh uh- none that I know of. GIRL #7: Have you ever tried writing? GIRL #9: No, hate it. GIRL #7: What don’t you hate? GIRL #9: I dunno, dunno what to write GIRL #7: All you have to do is imagine. GIRL #9: Imagine what? GIRL #7: Anything. Close your eyes. Close them. Now what do you see? GIRL #9: black GIRL #7: not literally… GIRL #9: …..I see… I see….A woman… from the city. GIRL #7: A what? GIRL #9: A city woman. She’s tall, bigger than daddy, and has hair and her skin- like mine. GIRL #7: And what does this fine city woman do? GIRL #9: -Did I say she was big, way bigger than #5 and athletic, and smart. She never misses school and never even seen tobacco-only mountains. GIRL #7: Mountains? GIRL#9: City-woman was born on a mountain top. OH AND She saves people. GIRL #7: Is that right GIRL #9: Mmhmm and she’s a snake killer, she travels the world killing snakes -and she’s comin’ GIRL #7: Comin’ where? GIRL #9: Comin’ here. GIRL #7: Here? GIRL #9: Yep, she’s on her way right now. She’s coming to save me from these fields. GIRL #7: Oh just you! What about me? You gonna leave me here? GIRL #9: (she opens one eye) I’ll ask her to bring you too. GIRL #7: Oh good, just make sure my hair is done first. (Beat) I think you might just have a talent. You’ll be alright. GIRL #9: You sure? MAMA: (off) Sev come in here GIRL #7: I’ll be right back. (She places her notebook down on the ground) (The stage is left empty with GIRL #9. She picks up GIRL #7’s notebook and pen from the ground and begins to write.) GIRL #9: Dear City-woman, (pause) I was raised…… I was raised….. I was raised working in tobacco. I was raised working on 80 acres of farmland in a family of 11. And we work. All 1- 11 of us. We raise chickens, pigs, cattle to sell, milking cows- in tobacco, corn and wheat fields. (She thinks) When it tobacco cutting season- girls not treated like girls in the country. Is it like that where you’re from? A body is just a body— #5: (#5 enters from behind her) What you writing girl? GIRL #9: Nothing. #5: Don’t look like nothing. ( he takes the notebook ) What you doing with Sev’s notebook?- You stole it! I’m going to tell her you stole it. GIRL #9: I didn’t, she let me see it! #5: Did she really? No, she didn’t- I can tell you lying. I’m going to tell her. GIRL #9: I didn’t! #5: What reason I got to believe you? GIRL #9: -please! #5: You don’t want me to tell her? GIRL #9: (GIRL #9 shakes her head no.) #5: What you going to do? What you going to do to make me believe you? GIRL #9: (pause)(She looks around for an answer) --- #5: (laughing) You gonna give me a kiss ain’t you – you gonna give me a kiss right here- (He holds his finger on his cheek.) —then I’ll believe you. (GIRL #9 reluctantly kisses him quickly) (#5 gives the book back to her by pressing the book to her breast. The book slides to the ground as his hand stays pressed. GIRL #9 snatches the book from the ground.) Well then, I guess I believe you. (GIRL #9 nods.) (He exits.) (GIRL #9 watches him leave, anxiously picks up the notebook and opens the notebook back to her page) GIRL #9: Sometimes… (she thinks about telling) Sometimes…(looking at the tobacco around her) Sometimes… #4-9 go working on our neighbor’s farm- picking the ground leaves for tobacco. See with tobacco, the lower leaves ripen and have to be harvested first. I usually do alright. I can stay low to the ground— GIRL #7: What you writing? (GIRL #9 screams) Girl you screaming like you just saw a snake! GIRL #9: I didn’t take it, you left it and I just started looking through it, and writing like you said, but I didn’t take it - swear. GIRL #7: You’re all right, here, you can have it. To distract yourself from the work. GIRL #9: Sev, You sure? GIRL #7: Sure. MAMA: (Hollering, as if she is about to go into labor) Sev— come heh- I need you. (GIRL #7 exits. GIRL #9 works then distracts herself. At first she thinks aloud. GIRL #9 is in the thick of the field. Exhausted from work, she finds a spot, pulls out her notebook from her pants and begins to write.) GIRL #9: You gotta get the ground leaves before they turn brown otherwise that’s money that you loose -that’s what daddy say. So I get low to the ground, and I done invented this technique where I can use my fingers and my teeth. And I hum a song while I’m doing it, so it feels like a game. So I hum and pick, and hum and pick and hum and pick. And I was doing alright til- #5 GIRL shouldn’t be dreaming in the tobacco fields. (He snatches the book.) GIRL #9: I’m not sleeping. #5: Don’t look like that way. I’m going to tell daddy you was sleeping in the fields. GIRL #9: No, I wasn’t #5: (taunting) You was just lying down. (She shushes him.) (He mocks her shushing) You don’t want me to tell him? GIRL #9: (she shakes her head no pleading for the book back.) (GIRL #9 and #5 FREEZE) GIRL #9: GIRL ain’t safe anywhere in the country, ‘specially not in no tobacco field,’ #5 come up on me. And afterward, I was still. I lay out in the tobacco field next to the ground leaves pricking my back and in my hair. I laid there while my mind left my body. I laid there with my hands outreached hoping someone would be there to help me. (Whispering) It doesn’t sound as painful as it is. Hoping someone would place their hand in mine and pull me close. I closed my eyes, thinking on city-woman. She’s coming to rescue me from the tobacco fields. I see my city-woman- all black on, leather gloves, that briefcase and sunglasses. My city woman never goes to the field ‘cept this time when she’s come here to save me. I reach my hand out to my city-woman who is coming to surprise me with flowers in hand. I can hear her talking love to me. Her voice is deep like water wells. I lay there, tears hard on my face and I can feel city-woman’s presence blowing them dry. And she’s humming my song and drying my tears/I even feel heat next to my hand and I know it’s city-woman’s glove. I’ve never felt leather before but I feel it now as the heat from her hand slides in mine. I open my eyes to see city-woman. Instead- #5: You gonna give me a kiss to make sure I don’t tell. Ain’t you? (She goes for his cheek.) Naw Right here – (He kisses her long, too long on the lips. Then drops her book.) Well then, I guess I won’t be telling this time. (#5 exits.) (GIRL #9’s screams) GIRL #7: (runs to her) What is it!? GIRL #9: I seen a Black copper head! it slid in place of city woman’s hand. GIRL #7: What? GIRL #9: When I realized it wasn’t city-woman I jumped, and me and the snake both fly into the air. GIRL #7: You dreaming Nine.. when I said find a distraction I didn’t mean go to sleep. Daddy’s gonna get you. GIRL #9: It’s true! and While I’m flying, I turn my head and see daddy and #5 standing side by side at the end of the field. Both me and the snake hit the ground. And I hear daddy laughing at me. In between laughs he’s scolding me for laying down on the job. He laughed and I laid there. Said he didn’t know who was higher.. me or the snake. #5 was laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach. And I was there, lying in a field of tobacco. GIRL #7: You gotta be smarter next time. (GIRL #7 exits) GIRL #9: Like I said - Nothing good happen in the field. ‘Cept sweat and tears.(beat)I ain’t staying here. I ‘m leaving soon as my city woman come. And when she do -I ain’t coming back…. (She sits, opens the book and continues to write. GIRL #7 is hidden in her own corner of the field revising.) GIRL #7 In the beginning was the word GIRL #9 I was raised by … GIRL #7 Long A GIRL #9 Some multitasking Independent thinking Cooking and Cleaning Feeding the whole family and then some because “You don’t take things for granted’ Kind of women GIRL #7 (said like a curse word) Two F’s GIRL #9 Some snake fighting Field surviving Tobacco pulling Achieve every dream because “You’ll be alright” Kind of women GIRL#7 Three A’s GIRL #9 Some – GIRL #7 AND GIRL #9 Heart county, Country living GIRL#7 And the word stuttered GIRL #9 City Moving GIRL #7 And struggled GIRL #9 Memory of an elephant I’m going write a Story GIRL#7 And stumble GIRL #9 Call you a snake And tell all the family business kind of women GIRL#7 And finally stuck. GIRL #9 I was raised by women. GIRL #7 Affrilachia. (MAMA looks into the fields from the kitchen of her home, with a new baby girl in hand. MAMA, GIRL #7 and GIRL #9 are standing on three sides still and silent.) (Blackout) (END OF PLAY) ### 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.

blues legacy (Broadside Lotus Press, 2019), Jacquese was the recipient of the 2019 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry

Venus Alemanji is a Cameroonian writer and software engineer currently based in Austin, Tx. She studied Computer Science and Creative Writing at Rice University. Multilingual in spoken word and code, she has always been fascinated by how computers, no matter how complex, ultimately speak in ones or zeros, binary, and humans, no matter how simple, often exist in contradictory, ambiguous states. She writes about queerness, lives whose very existence trouble binaries, the loop of love and grief, and renewal. Habanero Peppers is her first published story. You can connect with her on Instagram. Habanero Peppers As Antoine’s aunt informs him of his father’s death, his eyes water, tongue sags heavy, sweat pores spill from the thought of habanero peppers. If Antoine knew one thing about his father, it was his disdain for the peppers. He disliked heat in general. A hint of paprika created an awkward chew. Jalapenos, he barely touched. Habaneros and above? Whewww, war. When his mom cooked them, his father was nowhere to be found. This disappearance Antoine saw and applauded as an act of resistance. A resistance sweetened further because although the peppers spun his senses dizzy too, being a child, Antoine could not run away as freely as his father. After his aunt drops the call, Antoine sits on his bed naked, ashy, in need of heat. His aunt called shortly after he got out of the shower. Before him lies a floor-length mirror. He examines his face, his father’s really. Mama eh il resemble son pere, he was often told. The eyes and hands observing him were usually tender with wonder. A few times, though, he caught confusing hints of pity and sorrow in them. He’d later find out it was because he was an out-of-wedlock child, the result of an “unholy” union, as such a hollowed, dirtied thing to some Cameroonians. This wasn’t painful so much as astonishing. The hypocrisy of it all. How many of them were even married according to the laws of the Christian world, how many of them had children outside of those marriages, how many of these marriages were skeletons glorified by bored metal? Mama eh il resemble son pere, from the caterpillar brows, nosy eyes, generous lips, moonlit skin, to the swayed walk that suggested sin: him, his father. Even down to those confused toes, damn it. - Tears finally rain loose. Antoine leaps for that thing pain always makes us seek. Thinking about this childhood admiration for his father, he tries to joke, little me would kill writing my dad’s obituary. Listen, my dad was an anti-pepper activist, ok… His resistance taught me to draw boundaries early… Rest in- He stops abruptly. The variables of the joke—death, a little boy, albeit him, and his father—remind him he can’t run away from his pain. A galah flies onto the ledge of Antoine’s window stealing him away, gratefully, from the mirror. The bird used to belong to his neighbor till it escaped. Occasionally it reappears; the subject of many theories in that household. Antoine’s favorite is the explanation of the neighbor’s 12-year-old son—maybe he comes back to say hey I’m good, just checking in, hope there are no hard feelings. The bird has this beautiful rose-colored body, which after its departure, shifts Antoine’s mind to the floor where a skirt of the same color lies. He had planned to wear it today. Where the color is bold, the silhouette is simple, chic, a savvy advertiser might say. In this piece of thrifted cotton lies a portal to a person Antoine had been wanting to meet—the woman in him. Lord, his father would be turning in the morgue if he heard this. - When his father caught him at 15 with another boy’s tongue in his mouth, Antoine convulsed, begging the air to swallow him before his father’s wrath could. After flinging the boy down the stairs, he turned to his son, body shaking, voice steeled, are you the man or the woman? Wow, that question confused Antoine. His father repeated, are you the man or the woman, stepping closer. Man, he instinctively vomited what he thought the weapon before him wanted to hear. Oh my son, so that’s your source of pride? When my friends ask, I will say, ha at least my son doesn’t get fucked in the ass, he is the one fucking. That’s what you gift your father. You are no man. You are an abomination, not even worthy of my violence. This is how his father left him. Never did they exchange words again. - The fourth toe on each of Antoine’s feet climbs over the third, pushing it down, the way the absent father is said to suppress Black men like him. When memories like these suffocate him, he is grateful for the absence, though. For many years, the wish that his father would fly back and say hey how are you, just checking in, hope you’re good, like the rose-colored bird, according to the boy, stung him. As he grew, he came to conclude that his early feelings for the man was a mirage in an emotional desert. In truth, their shared hate of peppers was as close as they’d ever get. Even in the idealized version of his childhood, where he was no excuse for his father’s flight, the man still loved vanishing. This is why big Antoine can not write an obituary for his father. They shared enough time to share a face, not feelings. Silence, not prayer. Politeness, not love. It has been too long to hate his father either. He is stuck: there are no funeral manuals for ambivalence. - Though Antoine does not believe his parents dignify that stupid phrase “opposites attract,” his mother did love habanero peppers. When Antoine helped his mom in the kitchen, she would sway to her favorites—Ben Decca, Angelique Kidjo, Tracy Chapman, and memory, telling him stories about her mother’s famous pepper soup. It made the other children sweaatt, she emphasized, smiling. But I enjoyed it. I was always excited to go to the farm to pick the peppers with my mom. On cue, Antoine would crunch his face. She laughed, Tu es commes les autres enfants. It wasn’t so much the picking of peppers; I enjoyed it cause my mom would tell me many stories during our breaks and when we were finished she would always buy me something special. These peppers, joyous in the kitchen’s imagination, were weapons steps away on the dinner table. When Antoine’s father had crossed too many lines, his mother cooked them to draw hers. And like eucalyptus oil to mosquitoes or garlic to the vampires in her son’s cartoons, they repelled him from the house. - When, on his return home, Antoine sees his mother rubbing habanero peppers on his father’s lifeless clothes, he assumes, then, this bizarre act is one of revenge. He almost smiles because this woman, expected by her world to roll and somersault cause her husband is dead, has some right to seek her own pound of, if not flesh, cloth. Maybe he does too. She performs this new ritual seated on the floor of her bedroom with a dignified stoicism. Tired of watching her through the crevice of her bedroom window, he enters. She turns around startled, but importantly not startled the way a child caught in a bad act, acts. There is no worry in her eye, no lunge to cajole him into keeping some secret. I know you're worried, ‘Ntoine, she says. Your dad was evil. I didn’t love him. You’re a man now, I won’t lie to you. But I cared about him. These habanero peppers...Quand tu mange les habanero, tu recontre ce qui passe. Your eyes water, your tongue sizzles, mucus exits your nose. You release. You heal. Your father never ate these peppers because he didn’t want to release. Control was his only love. Anything that took it away, he ran away from. I don’t know where your father is now. Be it the Jewish man’s hell or our ancestors’ spirit land, he is suffering for his sins. In the absence of his body, we put these habanero peppers on his clothes so he may release. Release all the people whose destinies he ate. So that they too may release all the righteous hate they have for him. Release so that his spirit may someday heal. ### 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.

TORCH has featured work by Colleen J.

Bev’s screenplay, PRINCE OF LAVENDALE STREET, was the feature winner in the 2021 BlueCat Screenplay Competition TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia

Her poetry, academic papers, and personal essays have been published in anthologies, literary and online Sina , her first novel created after challenging herself creatively to grow outside of her first love, poetry

She is the winner of the 2016 Droste Poetry Award and a Best of the Net nominee. Her first poetry chapbook, titled Nostos Algos, is being published through Ethel Zine and Micro-Press

Her writing has appeared in ARC Poetry, GEIST, the Ex-Puritan, Carousel, CBC Books, Quill and Quire,

Photo credit: Katherine Tejada Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is a mother who writes beside forests and waters. She fantasizes about living in Anne Spencer’s garden and she strives to write poems that instigate action in service to world-building. Her work is forthcoming or appears in MAYDAY , Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora , Honey Literary , sin cesar , Elysium Review , Rise Up Review , and other portals. She is a fellow of In Surreal Life, Anaphora Writing Residency, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Her first full-length collection, DREAMS FOR EARTH , is forthcoming from Deep Vellum Publishing. Travel with her at fatimaayanmalikahirsi.com or on Instagram @fatimaayanmalika. She wants you to scream FREE PALESTINE with your whole body. Tornado Sirens When You Have A Sleeping Baby a singing refrigerator / a baritone front door / the porch door / metal songs of a cabinet door releasing scents of cinnamon coriander cloves  QAnon in school boards / judges robes / Congress  any and all doors ever made / the creaking wood of the floor / silverware on a plate / the fall of Roe v. Wade / the metal top scraping a glass jar of peanut butter / baby birds nesting outside the chimney / a sneeze / a neighbor mowing or blowing leaves / a neighbor parking / Juno barking / the taste of sepia smoke swallowing sky / the kitchen faucet / the toilet flushing / a mouse exploring the kitchen / some rodent reading in the walls / sudden jitterbug of a fly / a phone you thought was set to quiet / a phone falling off the bed / fingernails scratching your head / the fall of affirmative action / Proud Boys / Women Talking / truths behind horrifying fictions / horrifying truths collections of collective griefs the gasp during that first new episode of Black Mirror where FATIMA  appears across the screen in Netflix Graphique / terms and conditions each time we sign / and haven’t they been doing this since forever / make it look like a choice / contracts in unknown languages / listen to them tell us to recycle as if in that lies our redemption / Google recycle plants near me  then find maps of race and wealth / this / everywhere / ours is the air they poison Cop City / 61 protestors indicted for waging love / SB 63 come to stomp on mutual aid your landlord bowling above in his living room / your shriek at reading news / silence about genocide from tiny town neighbors / this silence is a tornado siren / what is this world I give my daughter / what is this world / what is this world she wakes to each day / sirens everywhere ### 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.

In 2023, Brandy was named a Hurston/Wright Foundation Fellow and was a featured playwright in the literary All about revolution and hookah and poetry and good vibes. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia