NitaJade is an Affrilachian Poet and a self-proclaimed weirdo hailing from Asheville, NC. NitaJade earned their B.A. in African and African American Studies from Berea College in 2019. In 2022, they earned their MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Kentucky. During the 2022-2023 academic year, NitaJade served as the Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Centre College. They joined Emory & Henry's faculty as an Assistant Professor of English and co-director of the annual Appalachian Literary Festival in 2023. NitaJade proudly serves as a Narrative Organizer for the Black Appalachian Coalition and as the Vice President of the Kentucky State Poetry Society. They insist that their late O.G. Queen's sweet potato pie epitomizes love. Ultimately, they aspire to embody the aesthetics of sloths and narwhals (slarwhals, if you please.) They laugh loudly and stubbornly. C R O S S F A D E Ancestor visits your sleep   \   asks if you have something to say   \   pauses long enough to hear your answer   \   makes space for you to sit   \   Ancestor challenges your tongue   \   to split in testimony  \\    in waking life   \   when you voice your visitor   \   all your mama hears is  thisisit!   \   her tone insists   \   tellmewhohurtyou!    \   tellme!tellme!tellme!say!   \   call them out and   \   i’ll call away they breath     \\      you can’t remember vividly   \   enough to gamble lives on      \\      yet, you know your molestation(s)   \   the same way you know   \   your names:  one day out the blue   \   they were called on you      \\      syllables swallowed   \   so often   \   you can’t recall   \   the first time   \   you spoke them   \  ( your names    \   not theirs)      \\      your mama needs   \   rescinded-stamped confession   \   your mama needs   \\    un-gulped wine   \   she needs   \   un-inhaled blunt  \   she needs   \   unmarred midnight moon  \   a trick of the light \ illusions of successful safety    \   smoke in mirrors   \   your mama needs erasure      \\      until your tongue reverses  \  or (un)splits  \  she   will   never   stop    \         reaching        \          for   their   names. C R O S S   F A D E Ancestor visits your sleep   \   asks if you have something to say   \   pauses long enough to hear your answer   \   makes space for you to sit   \   Ancestor  challenges your tongue   \   to split in testimony  \\    in waking life   \   when you voice your visitor   \   all your mama hears is  thisisit!   \   her tone insists   \   tellmewhohurtyou!    \   tellme!tellme!tellme!say!   \   call them out and   \   i’ll call away they breath     \\      you can’t remember vividly   \   enough to gamble lives on      \\      yet, you know your mo lest ation(s)   \   the same way you know   \   your names:  one day out the blue   \   they were called on you      \\      syllables swallowed   \   so often   \   you can’t recall   \   the first time   \   you spoke them   \  ( your names    \   not theirs)      \\      your mama needs   \   a rescinded -stamped confession   \   your mama needs   \\    un-gulped   wine   \   she needs   \   un-inhaled blunt  \   she needs   \   unmarred midnight moon  \   a trick of the light \ illusions of successful safety    \   smoke in mirrors    \   your mama needs erasure       \\      until your tongue reverses   \  or (un)splits   \  she   will   never   stop   \          reach ing        \          for    their   names. C R O S S F A D E Ancestor visits your sleep   \   asks if you have something to say   \   pauses long enough to hear your answer   \   makes space for you to sit   \   Ancestor challenges you r tongue   \    to   split in testimony      \\      in waking life   \   when you voice your visitor   \   all your mama hears is   thisisit!   \   her tone insists   \   tellmewhohurtyou!    \   tellme!tellme!tellme!say!   \   call them out and   \   i’ll call away they breath     \\      you can’t remember vividly    \   enough to gamble lives on      \\      yet, you know your molestation(s)   \   the same way you know   \   your names:  one day out the blue   \   they were called on you    \\    syllables swallowed   \   so often   \   you can’t recall   \   the first time   \   you spoke them   \  ( your names    \   not theirs)      \\      your mama needs   \   a rescinded -stamped confession   \   your mama needs   \\    un-gulped wine   \   she needs   \   un-inhale d blunt  \   she needs   \   unmarred midnight  moon  \   a trick of the light \ illusions of successful safety    \   smoke in mirrors   \   your mama needs erasure       \\      un til your tongue reverses   \  or (un)splits   \  she   will   never   stop   \       reaching      \   for   their   names. ### 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.

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.

Dramatist Guild member Mildred Inez Lewis writes for stage, screen, and ears. In 2023, she won the AGE Legacy Award. Other honors include Humanitas’ PLAY LA. With a feature film, three shorts and a UCLA MFA in film producing, Mildred is shopping two pilots: i-CLASS about a fallen Vine star turned substitute teacher, and XO MICKEY inspired by country star Mickey Guyton. Mildred writes with EST-LA, PlayGround-LA, and Towne Street Theatre. She holds commissions with the Lucille Lortel, Finish Line (Chicago), and ReproEco (NYC). Her work is published by Broadway Play Publishing, LazyBee Scripts (UK), and NextStage Press. Recent plays include WE, FOUR, about a conservative Black fraternity for The Road Theatre’s 2023 Under Construction Festival. JUKED, her adaptation of Sophocles’ ELECTRA, will premiere in Asheville, NC in 2025. In 2022, her comedy THE MUSEUM ANNEX, an homage to George C. Wolfe’s THE COLORED MUSEUM ran at Central Works (Berkeley, CA). Her audio work includes $10 AND A TAMBOURINE for the Antaeus Zip Code series which was nominated for an Ambie Award. MEETS PRINCE, LOVES FROG is part of Realm’s Feminist Fairytales series. In 2023, she was part of the Orchard Project’s Audio Lab. LOUISIANA SHOAL SCENE 1 IN DARKNESS, Zydeco music gives way to the sounds of fire burning fish. Perhaps, there is smoke. A weak DAWN lights the stage as EARLENE stomps the fish ashes. Job done, she sits to enjoy her pipe of weed. The lake in front of her is illuminated by the surviving fish. They emit glimmering colored light. EARLENE finishes her pipe, grunts with pleasure, grabs her fishing rod, wades into the lake and casts. Something catches. EARLENE Dinner. LICIA runs in and immediately chokes on the toxic fish smoke. EARLENE (without turning) You all right over there? LICIA coughs, struggles to nod. EARLENE stops to look around. EARLENE Breathe shallow. Try to relax. Want some weed? Purifies the lungs. LICIA vigorously shakes her head ‘no’ , but still can’t quite catch her breath. EARLENE I might have some VapoRub in my bag. That and mom spit will cure close to anything. LICIA (choking) No. EARLENE You sure? Don’t want nothing to happen to you. Something goes down wrong with a dogooder, it stresses everybody out. Doesn’t change anything, but oooo the dust flies. LICIA You’ve got to get out of there! EARLENE Soon as I catch my dinner. LICIA What?! You can’t eat that fish! EARLENE Why not? It’s Friday. This is Louisiana. LICIA They’re poisoned. EARLENE I took out the ones that were bad. LICIA (points to the embers) The smoke? EARLENE I sure wouldn’t leave ‘em for the crows. They don’t know no better. Why should they suffer? The rest are all right. LICIA They’re not. Please believe me. EARLENE Cancer Alley’s not safe? Now there’s some up-to-the-minute news. You must be with the feds. LICIA (angering) Not every “fed” -- Beat. EARLENE You’re too easy. You got kids? LICIA Not yet. EARLENE If you had, you’d know to (sings) “Take a deep breath and count to four.” Smoke’s starting to come out of your ears. (breathes) One, two, three, four. Don’t you love you some Daniel Tiger ? My grandbaby turned me on to it. LICIA I appreciate ..., but we’ve got to move. A storm’s coming. A Cat six. EARLENE Mmm hmm. Felt something coming on a few days ago. LICIA Then may I ask what you’re waiting on? EARLENE You mean wading on ? EARLENE greatly enjoys her own joke. LICIA It’s not that funny. EARLENE slaps her side. She can’t help herself. LICIA You can’t hunker down in a Cat Six. EARLENE We used to. Oops! Not gonna cancel me for that, are ya? LICIA Things change. We’re not built for it anymore. EARLENE Damn straight we’re not. Y’all feds doing something about that? It’s late in the day, but -- LICIA Let’s go! (Beat.) Ma’am. EARLENE doesn’t budge. EARLENE Running through your training? How to deal with non-compliant seniors. LICIA Let’s try again. I’ll talk and you walk to me when you feel ready, okay? I’m Licia. Licia Knowles. What’s your name? EARLENE Mrs. Earlene Iridessa Jackson. Buster’s widow. LICIA Pleased to meet you Missus Jackson. I’m with the EPA. EARLENE That’s a FEMA jacket. LICIA I’m on temporary assignment. EARLENE EPA jacket’s got a better fit. Not that that matters. You’ve got a real, nice figure. See? I notice things. LICIA I’m temporarily assigned to FEMA. This lake, this whole area was declared an irretrievable hazard last night. That means -- EARLENE I know what it means. (softer) Damn. LICIA Everyone else in town’s been evacuated. As of five minutes ago, this officially became a ghost town. EARLENE In the time it took to smoke a pipe. LICIA It’s been coming for a long time. EARLENE Don’t I know it. The bugs are gone. They used to slick my windshield. No more. Last summer, during the heat wave? A pelican dropped from the sky right in front of my car. The state bird, DOA. Never seen anything like it. “Don’t worry,” they said. And now what? Where are we supposed to run to? LICIA The administration’s going to work with the refinery to buy everyone out. It’ll be enough to start over. Somewhere better. In a place that’s sustainable. Maybe with green architecture. EARLENE I’m not talking about buildings. I’m talking about the heart of us. Where’s that supposed to relocate? LICIA I’m so sorry. If we’d done our jobs sooner -- LICIA holds out her hand. EARLENE advances. EARLENE You mean back in the 70s? Or the 20s when Union Carbide and Carbon birthed the Carbide and Chemicals? LICIA You know? EARLENE Everybody round here knows. Looks like you’re the ones slow on the uptake. LICIA Maybe, when this is over, we can find a way to work together. LICIA extends EARLENE a clipboard. LICIA But first, let’s get you to safety. Just sign at the x. EARLENE (reads) What about our personal belongings? I’ve been holding things for my son and his kids. LICIA I’m sure your insurance -- EARLENE Insurance stopped covering us years ago. LICIA Oh. EARLENE Can you give me a personal guarantee? In writing? LICIA The EPA’s not responsible -- EARLENE Hmmm. Then maybe I’ll take my chances. LICIA You can’t. Not with this storm. It’s stirring up things you don’t want to meet. EARLENE Things like what? LICIA We’re not 100% certain so I can’t go on the record. EARLENE Area 51-type situation? LICIA You can trust me. I’m a post-doc in emergency management. I’m here to study the site. But I’m committed to making sure people here get taken care of. (Beat.) A post-doc means -- EARLENE I grew up here, but worked admin at Chicago State till I retired. I understand all about fish and post-docs, ground soil and promises. LICIA It’s personal for me, too. I’m Penny’s girl. Penny Corkle -- EARLENE The school cafeteria. Long time. You got something against Christmas and Easter? LICIA No ma'am. EARLENE She still with us? LICIA Passed. EARLENE Cancer? LICIA nods. EARLENE Explains a lot. Condolences. Know your people. They didn’t deserve. That said M iss Licia, there’s a difference between being from a place and of a place. LICIA You left and came back. EARLENE I took these hallows and swamps with me. They called me back. Not a job assignment. LICIA That doesn’t make my commitment any less real. EARLENE Guess we’ll find out. LICIA This storm’s bad. There’s something malignant about it. Best case scenario, it unleashes bad things for a long time to come. I’ve got a towel and dry clothes in the car. EARLENE Me and the fish and crawdads? We’re good. You go ‘head on. LICIA At least come out of that water. EARLENE I’m good where I’m at. EARLENE stirs the water. EARLENE Look at how they’re lighting around me. We’ve made our own little shoal here every Friday since I got back. This is my happy place and my safety. It won’t betray me. LICIA Shoals aren’t stable in a cat six. EARLENE You’re thinking ‘bout sandbank shoals. This kind’s where fish and other creatures move together. Each one on their own rhythm. Their light’ll let me know what’s up. LICIA The light that comes from those fish isn’t what it used to be. It comes from chemicals now. Toxic chemicals. EARLENE Some of their light still comes from joy. That’s the part that’s safe to eat. I can tell the difference. LICIA How? EARLENE Just do. LICIA You might feel okay, but the poison’s building in your body. EARLENE Air was already bad. Make sense the water would follow. A siren sounds. EARLENE (lightly) That last call? I’ll take a margarita. LICIA No one’s coming back for you. The rest of my team’s gone. EARLENE But you came. LICIA Some kid told me you’d be out here. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t believe him. But he kept tugging on my pants leg. Rich? Ricky? EARLENE Little Ricky Pontcharian. He’s another one. LICIA Another one what? EARLENE Another of this place. Shoot, it might’ve been your mama talking through him to you. LICIA The dead don’t speak. EARLENE The dead never shut up. Teasing us. Warning us, They just don’t speak directly to folks who won’t listen. LICIA I’m counting to ten -- EARLENE Ha! That didn’t work on me when I was seven. Damn sure won’t work now. What else you got? LICIA walks away. EARLENE That it? You just gon’ run off? LICIA I fight through science. I’m not throwing my life away in some overgrown pond. You want to stay. You’re welcome to it. LICIA tosses EARLENE a Sharpie. LICIA Write your Social on your arm so they can identify the body. EARLENE Handy trick. Will do. LICIA You don’t make any sense. EARLENE I make more sense than you do. I’m willing to stay and fight for this place. LICIA There’s nothing left to fight for. EARLENE Says who? What good’s your science if you don’t have the guts to fight for what it shows? Another, more urgent siren. EARLENE Says them? Where’ve they been hanging all this time? While everything was going bad. LICIA The past is past. EARLENE The past is now. The past’s the future. You dig deep enough anywhere round here, you find fossils. That’s the dead living with us. That dead pelican gave its life to warn us about the heat. We’ve got responsibilities to the dead and we owe the past more than another scientific study, ‘specially one telling us what we already know. A crack of thunder. EARLENE See? That’s the earth fighting back. She’s fighting back! And she’ll win. We need her. She doesn’t need us. Stand with me. LICIA And die? EARLENE Fight. As god is my witness, during the last storm I stayed under for two hours. The fish gave me air. LICIA Impossible. EARLENE You study things. I gut know them. That’s the difference. It’s too late to run now anyhow. Time to hunker down. The rain begins. EARLENE holds out her arms. LICIA wades into the water. LICIA We might not survive this. EARLENE Then we bear witness from beyond. This ain’t N’awlins, but laissez les bon temps rouler. (howls to the storm) Let the good times roll, baby. LICIA Oui cher. Oui. EARLENE, then LICIA submerge themselves in the lake as the storm hits. FADE TO BLACK. The sounds pass. EARLENE and LICIA take a sharp, deep breath. The sound of television news anchors reporting the devastation begins. END 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.

Charla Lauriston is a comedian, writer, director, and educator known for People of Earth (TBS, 2016), Ghosted (FOX, 2017), and The Last O.G. (TBS, 2018). Charla Lauriston  is a Haitian-American, Vancouver-based comedian, writer, director, and creative coach. Most recently, she served as Supervising Producer for Grand Crew on NBC and has previously written for The Last OG, Ghosted, People of Earth, and Hoops. Her 2021 episodic short, Witchsters, is the official selection of the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival, New Filmmakers Los Angeles, and the 2021 Austin Film Festival and American Black Film Festival. Charla is also the Creator of The Werking Writer, a career-focused podcast, online course, and community built to help writers and creatives live their best lives. Follow Charla on Instagram . WITCHSTERS "Episode One" EXT. FOURPLEX - DAY Establishing. A woman looks out the window. INT. MICHELLE’S APARTMENT, LIVING ROOM - DAY MICHELLE (kind and naive) looks out the window, then paces her apartment drinking wine, distraught. A young, modern witch, she wears all black and conjures a POLAROID of her boyfriend that APPEARS in her hand. She looks at the picture, sad. MICHELLE TALKING HEAD MICHELLE Me and my boyfriend had a fight last night. INT. MICHELLE’S BEDROOM - LAST NIGHT Michelle and her BOYFRIEND (super dumb but incredibly hot) are under the covers in bed and making out/canoodling. MICHELLE (V.O.) The whole thing was so stupid. MICHELLE Wait, close your eyes, I want to try something. BOYFRIEND (laughs, closes his eyes) OK. What? Michelle waves her hand over his penis (already bulging underneath the covers) and we see it MAGICALLY ENLARGES. MICHELLE TALKING HEAD MICHELLE I thought he would like it but... (shakes head no) INT. MICHELLE’S BEDROOM - LAST NIGHT Back to scene. He opens his eyes mid-enlargement. BOYFRIEND (jumps out of bed freaked out) What the [bleep]?! INT. MICHELLE’S APARTMENT - LAST NIGHT Michelle fights with her Boyfriend. They scream at each other. BOYFRIEND So you can ‘Honey I blew up the kids’ my dick but we can’t add your friend Amanda as a third? MICHELLE I told you I think her neck is weird. This hits him hard. He takes his things and leaves. She stews alone. BOYFRIEND TALKING HEAD - LAST NIGHT He holds a box of his stuff. BOYFRIEND (pissed/ embarrassed) I don’t...need anything...down there. When I was born, the doctor took one look at my [bleep] and said god damn that boy’s got a big [bleep]! PULL OUT to REVEAL his dick is still comically large. He bumps it on something as he leaves then doubles over in pain. MICHELLE TALKING HEAD MICHELLE No, his dick’s not small. It’s my vagina that’s huge. Michelle uses her arms to demonstrate how big her vagina is. MICHELLE (CONT'D) It’s like a black hole. INT. MICHELLE’S APARTMENT - DAY A knock on the door. Michelle opens it and it's her Boyfriend looking sad and mopey. He enters and they hug. He FREEZES. They stay like this for a long time before Michelle realizes he’s not moving. MICHELLE (confused) Babe? (realizing he’s frozen) Maya! Michelle’s SISTER (older, cold, serious,) APPEARS out of thin air. MAYA What? We said we’d get lunch you stupid witch! Where’s the wine?! TITLE CARD: WITCHSTERS INT. MICHELLE'S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER Boyfriend is still frozen in the hug position. Maya sits on the couch with a glass of wine. MICHELLE I know I said we’d get lunch but- MAYA You messed with his dick. MICHELLE (finishes her sentence) -we’re in the middle of an important dickulational discussion. MAYA I told you to stop messing with guys dicks- MAYA (CONT'D) MICHELLE It’s emasculating. It’s emancipating. A beat. MAYA (CONT'D) Emasculating. MICHELLE That’s what I said. Michelle tries and fails to unfreeze Jeremiah while Maya lectures. MAYA We might as well get lunch, it’s not like he’s going anywhere. Michelle makes an annoyed face at the camera. MICHELLE TALKING HEAD MICHELLE My sister’s a pretty powerful witch and she doesn’t approve of me and Jeremiah’s relationship. MAYA TALKING HEAD MAYA Let’s just say he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. EXT. STREET - FLASHBACK Boyfriend chases a plastic bag with the word ‘fun’ written on it. REVEAL Maya moves the bag around with a string/with powers. INT. MICHELLE APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS MAYA I think his stupidity could destroy the planet. MICHELLE TALKING HEAD MICHELLE Love spells are a real thing but they’re complicated. (then) In order to cast one, you need tea tree bark, sugar and the last ingredient is...you have to love...yourself. So...I’m working on that. INT. APARTMENT - BACK TO SCENE Maya sits Michelle down on the couch. MAYA You need a partner, not a project. How else are you going to fight the monsters out there? MICHELLE There aren’t any monsters. ANGLE ON: Someone wearing a MAGA cap passes by outside the window. MICHELLE (CONT'D) But I get what you’re saying. MAYA (hugs her) Good. I just want you to be happy. Maya’s words leave Michelle quiet and contemplative. Then, standing up- MICHELLE (shaky) I want you to unfreeze him and leave my apartment. MAYA Excuse you? MICHELLE You heard me. MAYA (incredulous) But I’m your sister and I’m hungry! Michelle doesn’t say anything, she’s said enough. MAYA (CONT'D) (stung) Fine. Have it your way. Maya grabs her wine glass and the bottle of wine and POPS out of the scene, leaving behind a small plume of smoke where she was standing. Michelle gets back in her boyfriends arms. Moments later, he unfreezes and continues what he was doing right before he was frozen- hugging her and finishing what he was saying. BOYFRIEND It’s OK. I spent a lot of time alone with my [bleep] last night and (looks down at dick) -we got some plans. Her reaction is half relieved and half confused. Inside, she feels bad about what she said to Maya. EXT. ROOFTOP - SUNSET Maya drinks wine, licking her wounds alone on the roof or over a scenic hilltop. MAYA I guess we just have different ways of seeing the world. I know I should let her make her own decisions, but I guess I’m a little overprotective. EXT. PARK - FLASHBACK Maya spills something on herself. Michelle gives her the shirt off her back. MAYA (V.O.) She’s a give-you-the-shirt-off-herback kind of person. EXT. ROOFTOP - SUNSET MAYA (sad smile) Not everyone deserves her. INT. APARTMENT - LATER Michelle and boyfriend sit together. He’s suddenly struck with an idea. BOYFRIEND We should rob a bank! MICHELLE (shaking her head) We’re good witches so- BOYFRIEND If I had powers, I’d rob so many banks! MICHELLE Why would you have to rob them if you have powers? BOYFRIEND I want the power of explosions. MICHELLE You know I’m a superhero right? BOYFRIEND I’d just be like explosion! Explosion! Explosion! As Boyfriend talks, Michelle realizes she’s made a mistake. EXT. ROOF - EVENING Maya watches the sunset when Michelle POPS into the scene. It ’ s awkward, they don’t say anything to each other. They don’t have to. After a long beat- MAYA Such a beautiful toxic sunset. MICHELLE Yeah - (coughs) -Wow, it’s actually really polluted. God LA sucks. Michelle puts her arm around her sister. They gaze out at Los Angeles. Together. END THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Charla Lauriston and Jae Nichelle on April 28, 2024. The script for “Witchsters” is absolutely hilarious. I love that we get to hear the inner thoughts of the characters told directly to the audience. Did you know going into this script that you wanted to use a documentary/mockumentary style or was it something that developed across drafts? Thanks! The short initially was single cam style, not mockumentary. I started thinking about changing it to mockumentary because I felt like the single cam version made the show feel a little serious and I really wanted this to be a silly show. I found that the mockumentary style was also helpful in quickly establishing a story. I could have the characters give backstory and share information about their dynamics with other characters. When I shifted over to mockumentary style it immediately felt more natural. It took a few drafts to really utilize the style as much as possible but when I got the hang of it, it really shaped the show and the way I told the story in a positive way. What was the most exciting part of filming “Witchsters” and transforming it off the page? Are there any plans to continue the series? Well let me give you some context. This was my first time directing so that was very exciting for me. I always feel like I’m using my director brain as a writer so I really wanted to direct something myself instead of bringing someone on to do it like I had in previous projects. It was also the first project of my own that I was doing in many years. I had been busy writing on other people’s TV shows and had put my own ideas on the back burner. And if I’m being honest, I was also a bit jaded from the TV industry after several of the shows I had sold didn’t make it past the development phase. I started as a creator so Witchsters was this project that I was doing as a way to dip my toe back into autonomy and my own work again. There was so much adrenaline the day of shooting because I paid for it out of pocket and I had a super tight budget. We shot it all in one day. The day went by so fast that I kind of wish that I had planned for a second shoot day to be able to get a few extra shots. But overall, so much fun, and I was pretty happy with the final product. Yes, I do plan on doing a few more episodes. You work in stand-up comedy, screenwriting, and podcasting (to name a few of your many hats). What inspired you to transition between these creative mediums, and how has each influenced your approach to storytelling? I’m just following my instincts. I had the urge to do standup so I did it. I had the urge to create my own short comedy films and that led to screenwriting. Podcasting felt natural. I had ideas for shows that I wanted to see in the world and I have a love of producing. I feel like writing for television has been the most influential in terms of my approach to story. I didn’t really know what I was doing before I was in a writer’s room. I had good instincts but no hard skills. Being in a writer’s room and being a part of the Hollywood machine has given me hardcore skills. It’s elevated my storytelling brain in every possible way because I’ve had the opportunity to ideate and execute story after story on a professional level over many years. I know how to follow interesting threads that are surprising and delightful to the watcher. I know the importance of character and relationships and all those things that are fundamental to a good story. It’s made me a better storyteller on stage, in podcast interviews, and on the page. Speaking of your podcast The Werking Writer , what’s an episode you’ll never forget? Oh man…there've been so many good ones. Probably the one with Phil Augusta Jackson, my friend and former boss on Grand Crew. I love Phil’s creative brain and he was so intentional about the culture he created in the writer’s room that I was curious to talk to him about the experience from his perspective. Highly recommend that episode. Would you rather stream a movie at home or go to the theater? I’m a streamer. I will occasionally go to the movies under special circumstances. Otherwise, I only leave my house if I have to. Are there any misconceptions about Vancouver that you’d like to clear up? It’s beautiful, quaint, and not very diverse. Could you share a memorable experience or lesson from working in writers' rooms that significantly impacted your craft? It’s more like a thousand memorable lessons that have significantly impacted my craft. The thing most of the memories had in common though is that each one involved me feeling like I had failed in some way (wrote a draft that needed to be rewritten from page 1 by the writer’s room, didn’t pitch an idea that I had, etc). But each failure proved to be an important lesson in something that I needed to learn. I needed to learn to speak up and share my ideas without fear and hesitation, and I needed to improve the quality of the drafts I turned into the writer’s room. Learning these things has made me a better artist and a better professional. Failing used to really get to me - especially because as creatives we take so many L’s and it can be difficult to stay positive. But now every time I feel like I’m “failing” at something, I just remember “this is teaching me something I need to know” and then I start to pay attention to why something isn’t working so that I can get the lesson I need to learn. How can people support you right now? Share, follow, like, subscribe. Name another Black woman writer people should follow. There are so many. Shenovia Large (@iheartnovi) is a super funny 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.

Sharyon A. Culberson has a background in creating content dedicated to social justice, as well as facilitating and moderating conversations that promote a more egalitarian society. She has developed and presented programming on DEI, anti-bias, micro-aggressions, and reducing sexual violence to universities, corporations, all five branches of the U.S. armed forces, and the U.S. House of Representatives. As an actor, Sharyon has has appeared on stages across the country, most recently appearing as ‘Britney’ on “The Chi”. She has also co-starred in “Chicago PD,” “Chicago Fire,” “The Big Leap” and “Proven Innocent."  She has been in several Independent films over the last few years - one of which won the “Best Sci-Fi” award for the HollyShorts Film Festival. Sharyon is currently featured in several commercial spots and an upcoming episode of “Mayor of Kingstown” on Paramount Plus. She has also been published as a contributor in a number of anthologies centering Afro-Futurism, including “Black Imaginations: Black Voices on Black Futures” published by McSweeneys, and “Into a Black Beyond: Authoring our Futures” published by Contextos.  Sharyon’s main area of expertise and interest is creating and performing content that introduces perspectives of overlooked and marginalized societies, with the goal of increasing empathy. Her first feature film project, ”Black Joy Always Wins” and her first short film screenplay “Daughters” (now in post-production) have placed as semi and quarter-finalists in a number of screenplay competitions. Her piece “Space is the Place” is an homage to her years as a military contractor, with all of the complications and opportunities that the military affords many US citizens. SPACE IS THE PLACE INT. SHARY'S APARTMENT, DAY SISSY (Early 50s, earthy), pours bourbon liberally from an elaborate decanter. She takes a long swig from the glass. SISSY If you're wrong... SHARY (late 40s, Sissy's sister, decorated military officer), joins her at the table with the bourbon. SHARY - I'm not. And it's way more complex than right or wrong. It's about what you want. For right now, and for all of our futures. Sissy rolls her eyes and flops on the couch, slightly spilling her drink. SISSY Such a cornball. Ugh - and stop interrupting me all the time. Shary cracks a smile. SHARY My bad. Please continue, Sara. Sissy makes a face. SISSY Really? I haven't heard that name since granddaddy died - who I see left you his bourbon decanter, by the way. Everybody knew I had my eye on that. Shary carefully pours herself a drink, and stands over Sissy. SHARY It's a biblical name, Sissy...and you know I got the decanter because I followed in his footsteps with joining the Air Force. Plus, he said you didn't need any more help escaping reality. SISSY He didn't say that shit - asshole! And I don't see how you can bring up reality and the bible in the same breath anyway. SHARY You're so damned disrespectful. Granddaddy's probably turning in his grave - SISSY -shit, if he's turning in his grave, it's more likely because you drank the last of his good bourbon. Shary notices the empty decanter on the table and winces. SHARY Oh, dang! I meant to grab another bottle yesterday. SISSY Not like you to forget to get a bottle of anything. SHARY Is everything a joke to you? Let's focus on the future, shall we? Sissy sits a spell stirring the ice in her glass, thinking. SISSY The future, eh'? Wouldn't we be selling our future if we do this? SHARY C'mon - don't start with that foolishness again. This is progress! How do you think Big Daddy felt when he first got to Chicago? SISSY You still call him that? Gross... SHARY What? He hated "great-grandpa", so - SISSY His name was Sammy - I'ma call him Sammy dammit. And you know he didn't even look white people in the eye until 1998. You wanna follow his lead? SHARY 'Cause they were dangerous! That kept him and us alive! Look - the point is, there is no progress without a good amount of risk involved - and everyone in our family, including you, knows that well. Sissy drains her glass, and sighs loudly. SISSY Fine, whatever...tell me the details again? SHARY The long and the short is this. If all of our known current relatives relocate to the Alpha-12 space station, we'll be eligible for the newly minted 'future family' program. And since we'll be the first ones there,they'll financially provide for any and all debts and living costs with a stipend that increases with inflation for the next eleven generations. Sissy whistles. SISSY Inflation in space? Of course. Shit, that does sound good though - what about education? SHARY They can either attend the schools established by the military on the space station, or attend via zoom to any schools on Earth - and it's also covered for up to three PhD's per person. SISSY Cotdam! SHARY I knew your nerdy butt would like that part. Sissy chuckles to herself for a bit, then stops abruptly, suddenly solemn. SISSY You know your nieces would love this program. SHARY I do. Have you talked to them? SISSY No. They haven't returned any of my calls or emails. Last I heard, they're refusing all communication with me unless I donate to that damned cult - eh, church they belong to. Shary touches Sissy's shoulder, consoling her. SHARY At least you know they're safe. SISSY ...if you call that safe. SHARY You know bringing them to the program could help you all reconcile. Sissy jumps to her feet, angry. SISSY Selling my children to the government is not what I consider to be a way to make amends! SHARY Don't get dramatic, I'm just saying - SISSY Being the sister of possibly the largest slave trader since the sixteen hundreds feels like pure drama to me. SHARY Jesus, here we go... SISSY I just want to know why you? Why us? How did we get this 'opportunity' to relocate our entire family to space? Shary hesitates uncomfortably for a moment, then answers. SHARY Look, you know I'm up for Lieutenant General. The President herself said the optics of being the 'first Black space family' on Alpha-twelve would be wonderful for the country - SISSY - heh. Optics. Here we go again. SHARY I know you don't care about your appearance, but some of us - Sissy walks to the door. SISSY Fuck this! If you're gonna insult me, you can stick that deal right up your optics. Shary yells after her. SHARY Ok, you just sleep on it. Let's talk again tomorrow? I'll have a fresh bottle for you! INT. SHARY'S APARTMENT, THE NEXT DAY Shary uncorks a new bottle, sniffs the cork, and passes it to Sissy. SISSY So you were right... SHARY Of course I was! ...About what? SISSY About your nieces. As soon as I mentioned the money, they damn near started packing. Shary takes a seat, smiling smugly. SHARY Because they understand how to invest in their future! Sissy stares into her empty glass a moment, her brow furrowed. SISSY Future...what did John and Michael say? SHARY Fill your glass? Shary fills Sissy's glass all the way to the top. Sissy chuckles. SISSY You tryna get me drunk? You know that doesn't end well. Shary shrugs, and takes a swig directly from the bottle. SHARY Ha! Don't I know it. Have you heard from the doctor yet? SISSY Yes. And don't think I didn't notice you changing the subject. SHARY Now who's changing the subject? Sissy takes a large gulp from her glass, then sighs with resign. SISSY Yes, I've heard. It's inoperable. SHARY Fuck! SISSY This must be that good shit if it's got you cussing. Shary takes her glass to the window, and stares out of it, her eyes filling with tears. SHARY It's just...there's so much to do still. To be! This isn't fair. Sissy approaches her Shary and embraces her. They stay like that for a while, until.. SISSY That's why I'm so concerned with this deal. It's very possible I won't be around to stand up for this next generation of ours very long. Shary breaks away from the embrace roughly and sits back on the couch. SHARY Michael and John are fine with the deal. SISSY But... SHARY ...but they said they'd prefer to have limited to no contact with me even on the space station. They claim to not want my grandchildren to get attached to me and 'be inconsistent in their lives like I'm known to be'. Sissy joins her on the couch. SISSY Ouch. Shary stands suddenly, enraged. SHARY So why can't you just get with the program?! It seems you have nothing to lose at this point! Sissy stares for a while at her sister. SISSY Nothing to lose but my values, my lineage, and my soul. SHARY What about me!? What about everything I've worked for? Do you not care about helping your family? Are you that damned selfish?! SISSY I thought we established what happens when you call me names. Shary catches herself, and calms down. SHARY You're right, I'm sorry. Just finish your drink. You can stay here tonight if you want - I don't want you driving home in this state. Sissy speaks slowly, filled with rage and years of resentment. SISSY Don't do it. Whatever you want to pull, don't pull that, 'You're just thinking of my well-being' bullshit again. SHARY But I am! I just don't want you driving in a state - SISSY Like you do? Like GrandDaddy was three months ago when he ran into that tree!? Like you were when you got caught with your sons in the car, lost custody, and went to the military to avoid jail time? Get off your fucking moral high horse before you give us all goddamned nose bleeds. Shary calmly places her glass down, and walks over to her sister, leaving barely an inch between their noses. SHARY You fucking ungrateful bitch. Our entire family has done nothing but save you and make excuses for your hippy-dippy attitude, and all you do is disgrace us and disrespect your name. You don't deserve half of what you've been given, and I - Sissy lunges at Shary, and they start wrestling on the floor. After about a minute of a tussle, Sissy 'accidentally' bangs her head on the coffee table leg and knocks herself out. INT. SHARY'S APARTMENT, DAY Sissy comes to on the couch with an ice pack on her head. Shary notices she's conscious again, and brings her a glass of water. SISSY I guess shit got a little out of hand yesterday. SHARY You could say that. SISSY I suppose I owe you an apology. Can't believe two middle-aged women came down to fisticuffs. Sissy chuckles. Shary remains stoic. SHARY No apologies necessary. Sissy starts gathering her things. SISSY I am gonna go ahead and head out though. We may need to take a little space for a while. SHARY You can have all you need. Sissy gives her sister a funny look, then finishes gathering her things. She opens the door to the apartment and steps into the hallway...to see that the complex hallway fades into a moving walkway on Alpha twelve! Sissy turns around to re-enter the apartment, but the door has slid shut on her one-person pod, carrying her to another level. Sissy begins to scream and bang on the inside of the pod, but her scream fades into the distance as we hear: ROBOT VOICE Welcome to Alpha Twelve, the premiere space station for civilians. We hope you enjoy your stay. As the camera zooms out of the walkway, and out of the space station to show that it's miles away from earth. 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, and retreats. Donate to help Torch amplify Black women writers.

Tyra Douyon is an Atlanta-based poet, lifestyle-culture writer, editor, and educator known for her authentic voice and passion for storytelling. She writes poetry highlighting the intersection of Afro-Caribbean and American identity, and mental health. She is currently the Assistant Poetry Editor for Gigantic Sequins and previously served as the Editorial Director of The Headlight Review and Social Media Editor for Josephine Quarterly . She's a Tin House fellow for fiction writing, and her poetry has appeared in Josephine Quarterly, Paper Dragon, Black Fox, Aunt Chloe, Storm Cellar, The Muse , and others. She received her MA in Professional Writing and BS in English Education from Kennesaw State University. You can find her filling her shopping cart with too many flowers, running 5Ks with her dog, Mya, or at work on her first poetry collection about being raised by her grandmother in a bilingual household, but not speaking the same language. Visit Tyra’s website to read more of her creative work. Visiting Hours  You always had a big appetite  for a woman holding  eight decades in her throat.  There is no meal  without rice,  but where are the greens?  There is no such thing  as too much butterscotch  candy in a mouth  with already rotten teeth.  I never knew Haitian spaghetti  was a recipe; I just thought  you were being stingy  with the sauce.  There was a time  when you fed yourself.  There was a time  when you could see my face  and not mistake me  for someone dead.  We spoke in twitching eyebrows,  stubborn smirks,  loose dimples—    Our day emptied into uhh hums,  silent call and response, a sermon recited with missing tongues.    We found each other in howls of laughter, lawless domino games,  clapping hands, aching feet—     Immigrant families know  about the land of lost language.  How to make do  with the dream of wanting more.  I don’t remember  the last time  you stood.  I don’t remember when  you weren’t starving.  In ten minutes,  you ate three bananas.  I left you the bag, tucked it against  the white blanket, the white gown.  She ran it back quick–   said you didn’t need it,  said you would choke. ### 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.

Felicia A. Rivers lives in the Greene Townes west of Philadelphia, PA, USA where she escaped the corporate majority and joined the artistic minority. She earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, has showcased plays in Philly and New York, and her work has appeared in various publications, including Menagerie Magazine, The Ampersand, and a tiny Philadelphian street sheet that had a short, but happy life. Also, she daydreams. A lot. Maestro Back in the day, they called him Maestro. They meant it as a crack, but he didn’t pay them no mind. His drawings, his paintings, his “artistic   promise,” as Mrs. Peabody called it, those things were something he was good  at. Most days at Reynolds Elementary rolled out in a chain of boring, grey blocks of time, but Mrs. Peabody’s Tuesday morning art class, with its bright light streaming through the tall windows, its collage of primary colors, its pungent, earthy scents of paint and clay, was the highlight of his week. There were so many possibilities in that room just waiting to be brought to life, and he knew how. Somehow, he just knew. He had a talent. So, they cracked on him. Because he was good at art. Because Mrs. Peabody complimented his work, and even gave him a sketchbook.  There goes Maestro with that damned sketchbook again . Well, let ‘em crack. Life was weird. But it made a little more sense when you were good at something.  ~~~ Drowning. He swings his arms wide, pushing the water beneath him, kicking with strong legs, but the warm, dark river waters of the Mekong Delta hold on. His lungs burn and he fights, reaching, searching with his fingertips for that telltale coolness that will signal a return to the surface—to air. Soon? Now? Somebody help me! But the sound of the USS Benewah’s motor recedes. The river swallows him. ~~~ RJ jerked awake, not to the sound of a naval ship engine, but early morning traffic on Girard Avenue. Sunlight slanted through his bedroom windows, casting the latticed shadow of the El track girders onto the crisp, white curtains. Tara’s curtains. Despite the coolness of the room, sweat coated his chest and dampened his sheets. He tossed aside the bedding, sat up, and reached for the pack of Marlboros on the bedside table. Three cigarettes left. He needed to quit. He could hear Tara’s voice nagging him to quit. The air vibrated with her Jamaican lilt. But Tara was gone—long gone. He lit a cigarette with the hot pink lighter the girl—girl? She was almost as old as he—woman had left behind the other night. The smoke rose from the end, a curling grey suddenly brightened in a slant of light. He inhaled, and the smoky air filled his lungs like water. He needed to quit. His daughter Roberta’s voice now. He needed to quit a lot of things. If not for yourself, then for your grandchildren, right Dad?  He knew he wasn’t going to quit.  The clock radio startled him, suddenly bursting forth with the local college jazz station. 7:00AM. Force of habit, leaving the alarm on. Muscle memory. Training. He had nowhere special to be, but he showered, dressed, and left the narrow brick rowhouse anyway. Habits die such lengthy deaths. Outside, the neighborhood greeted him with a dissonance of motor engines, slamming doors, and voices, all floating over the basso profundo  of the El as it shuttled back and forth over the neighborhood. He crossed Girard and saw Doris Chambers pulling her trashcan from around the back of the house and lumbered over to help her. “RJ, you leave my trash alone. You’re older than I am,” she said, laughing and playing tug of war with the can. He won. She let him. “Doris, you know you’re much too pretty to be manhandlin’ trash.” The woman smiled at him, and the Doris of fifty years ago flashed across her fading brown eyes. “Tell my husband that.” “Willie down at Frank’s?” “Where else?” “I’m headed there now. And I’m gonna tell him about himself. Lettin’ his woman take out the trash.” “You do that, RJ. And thank you,” she said over her shoulder as she pulled herself up the front steps. RJ continued down the street, returning the nods and greetings of the neighbors. He knew them and they knew him. We all know each other.  The past 60 years had brought significant changes to the streets of North Philadelphia, but in some ways, nothing had changed at all. Flo’s Millinery with its window display of candy-colored Sunday hats had been replaced by a vegan café, but Montrose’s still sold small electronics under stark fluorescent lights. The brick rowhouses on 22nd Street had been torn down and replaced with new brick rowhouses that sold for five times the price of their ancestors, but kids still played basketball on the cracked courts of the old Jr. High School. And the two corner grocery stores that had always faced off against each other at the end of the block (one either patronized Albert’s or Simpson’s, but never both) had been converted into competing coffee shops that elicited loyalty from no one. But Frank’s, passed down from Francis, Sr. to Francis, Jr. to Frances, remained ever the stalwart bar and game room of the neighborhood. The more things change, the more they change into the same. He passed by the vegan café (Green River Café, a name he found as unappetizing as its menu) and entered Frank’s. This time of morning, Frances served deliciously unhealthy breakfasts. And beer. RJ ignored the chastising voices of both deceased wife and living daughter as he sidled up to the bar next to Doris’ husband Willie.  “Helped your wife take out the trash just now,” he said, elbowing his friend. “Aww man, I told that woman I would take care of it when I got back.” Willie, at 76, was three years older than RJ, five years older than his wife, and brimming with both good health and humor. “How long you been married to Doris? 60 years?” “Now, I didn’t rob no cradle,” Willie said. “Fifty-two years I’ve been battling that woman.” “Seems to me you would have waved the white flag by now.” RJ waved a cocktail napkin in the air. “Surrender, Willie!” “And what fun would that be? What’s life worth if you can’t mess with the love of your life?” Willie snatched the napkin from RJ’s fingers and loudly blew his nose. “Speaking of messes, you hear about Brynne’s mural?” RJ pulled a menu he knew by heart from the rack on the bar and studied it for a moment. “The one Barry’s working on the side wall?” He returned the menu to its rack, signaled to Barney, the morning bartender, looked at his friend, frowning, then said, “Heard it’s coming along.” “You haven’t seen it yet?”  “They just started. I’ll check it out when it’s finished.” “That may be a while, now. Somebody vandalized it.” “Vandalized it?” “Well, changed, really. Altered. Somebody added something to it.” RJ cocked an eyebrow at his friend. “Added what?” “Added a bunch of men to it.” “A bunch of men?” “Shadow men.” “As usual, Willie. You’re not making a bit of sense. What the hell are shadow men?” “They added a bunch of dark, shadowy men. Along the bottom. Right where Brynne is gonna be standing. They look a little creepy. Sad. Not exactly the vibe Barry’s going for. I can’t believe you haven’t peeped it yet. You used to be into that art and stuff.” “That was a long time ago.” “Well, Barry’s design is great. Brynne all the way. Bigger than life. Even though she’s transitioned. She’s standing legs wide, arms wide. Takes up the whole wall from roof to sidewalk. Dreads flowing. Tats and all. Barry finished the sketch yesterday, and Minty and a few others stopped by this morning to see if they could help with anything—for Brynne, you know. That’s when they saw. Somebody added a bunch of shadow men all along the bottom.” “Really.” Barney approached, and RJ said, “Mornin’ Barney. Uh, give me steak and eggs and a couple of biscuits. Coffee and a Coors.” “So, the usual,” answered Barney, a tall dark-skinned man who had tended bar in the mornings for the last twenty-five years. “Already put the order in.” Willie shook his head and chuckled. “Make it Coors Light. He needs to watch his figure.” Then turning to RJ, he said, “Come on here, while that’s cooking.” Willie led the way out of the door and around the corner to the mural. Barry sat on a folding chair, staring at the wall. The sketch of the daughter of the neighborhood stood two-story tall and stretched the entire width of the bar’s side wall. It was a fitting tribute, this mural. Brynne’s untimely death had shocked the community. From the extended family that went back generations, to the bar denizens at Frank’s, to her patrons at Skin Odyssey Tattoo Parlor, to the artistic community at large, everyone loved Brynne. In the days since the tragedy, the neighborhood had been commiserating in whispered tones, or fighting back tears, or just wanting to do  something. Or all three. For Brynne. Of course, they couldn’t do anything with the investigation—Philly PD had that on lock. But someone mentioned a tribute of some kind and someone else suggested a mural and the idea spread until more than a few somebodies hit up Barry Blues, the local muralist, because it ought to be handled local, you know? Now, Barry sat on an orange and white lawn chair, staring at the wall, at the nascent mural emerging like something rising to the surface. Right now, it was just black strokes against stark white, but in his mind’s eye, Barry saw the rich brown of her skin, vermillion lips, the texture of her hair spread like a halo, as if lifted by a breeze, and the vibrant, clashing magnificence of her tattoos. A stack of photos of those tats—presented to him by her boss at the tattoo parlor with all the reverence of an ofrenda —were safely stored in his pack. He planned to consult them faithfully for color and line. It was important to get her tattoos right. But at the moment, Barry had something else to deal with.   Someone had painted a collection of rogue figures along the bottom of the sketch. Last night, his painstakingly prepped wall had held only the massive outline of Brynne. Now, several figures—people, men—stood, lounged, leaned, and sauntered at her feet. Fully formed. Painted in dark shades ranging from forest-green to black, they resembled a platoon of realistic, emotionally fraught toy soldiers.  “Hey Barry,” Willie said as he and RJ approached, “I was just telling RJ about your mural. You figure out what’s going on?” Barry stood to greet the older men. “Mr. Wilson. Mr. Miller. No.” He returned to his study of the wall for a moment, then shook his head. “I just don’t get it.” “Well, you can just paint over them, can’t ya?” Willie said. “It’s your wall.” “Well, Frankie’s wall,” offered RJ. “She gave it up for Brynne, so it’s Barry’s gig. Barry’s wall.” “The community’s wall, right Barry?” RJ smiled at the young artist. “Yes, sir. That’s the idea.” “Point is,” said Willie, “It’s your thing. So just paint it over and keep moving.” RJ studied his friend for a moment. “You want him to just paint it over?” “That’s what I’d do. Man has a vision. Look at it.” He raised and arm, gesturing to encompass the breadth and height of Brynne. “What then, Willie?” RJ pressed. “Whoever then comes and paints those dudes again? A Battle of the Paints?” “Battle of the Paints! I like that!” said Willie, and lowered his voice, impersonating an announcer. “Who will prevail in the Battle of the Paints?” The old man laughed, punching the air in a mock fight. “You like to fight too much. Don’t remember you ever being in one though.” “Awww, come on now, RJ. I’m just playing. Anyway, it’s up to Barry whether to paint ‘em over or not.” “Problem is,” Barry said, looking at the wall as if attempting to divine the meaning of an inexplicable puzzle, “they’re good.” “Pretty good,” RJ said, shrugging. “Yeah. There’s something, well, almost radiant and yet, at the same time, damaged and broken about them.” Willy turned to Barry. “Yeah. When Minty told me about it this morning, that’s just what he called them. Broken. Broken men.”  “And mysterious,” continued Barry. “There’s this quality of pain that’s so present, makes you wonder what brought them to this place. I don’t know what their story is, but I’m into it.” The muralist stood in silence for a moment, then shook his head. “Man, I really wish the artist had just come and talked to me. This here is for Brynne. It’s meant to represent her joy. I could’ve found them their own space for this. Because whatever they are, these men are not joy.” “Maybe,” RJ said, gazing at the figures of the men, “they are meant to echo the same kind of pain we feel about Brynne. The same sense of loss.” “What do you mean?” Barry’s eyes shifted from the mural to the elderly man. “Well.” RJ folded his arms over his chest. “The men are dark. Dark in color and sensibility. And shadowed—your shadow men, Willie—as if they’re here, but not completely in the here and now.” Barry walked toward the mural. “Yeah. That’s what I’m feeling. A separateness that is about more than time and place. And see? They’re in shadow, but you can still see every detail of their features. The expressions. There’s an emotional weight here. Man, that’s some talent right there. They look lost. But—this is interesting—there’s no weakness here. Their bodies are strong.” The painter turned back to the two older men. “Physically fit, but emotionally broken. What does that say?” “Tough guys? Fighters? Soldiers? They’re soldiers, right?” Willie turned to RJ, but his friend said nothing, watching Barry. “Yeah,” Barry answered, nodding. “I could see that. So, you think someone wanted to remember some lost soldiers? Added this as a memorial to fallen brothers?” He stood lost in thought for a moment, then shook his head. “That doesn’t fit in Brynne’s world at all. So why here?” Then to RJ he said, “But, like you said, that would fit in with the general theme of pain and loss, right?” RJ shrugged and said nothing. Willie looked at his friend. “RJ’s an artist too, Barry. You know that?” “Was,” RJ said, frowning at his friend. “Was. A long time ago.” “Didn’t know that, Mr. Miller.” Then: “Afghanistan? The Gulf, you think? The soldiers, I mean.”  “Does it matter?” RJ asked. “Hard to say,” added Willie, then turned to his friend. “RJ, you were in Vietnam.” “Yeah, in the Navy.” “Are these Army or Navy—or Marines?” asked Barry. “Hard to tell,” RJ answered and looked down the street as an ambulance rounded a corner, lights flashing, no sirens. It turned the next corner and was gone. The more things stay the same. “You lost some good friends over there, right?” Willie watched his friend’s familiar, still features.  “You saw combat?” asked Barry. RJ sighed and gestured to Barry’s lawn chair. The young man nodded his assent. He sat. “See, people think the Navy’s safer. When I was drafted, my Momma was happy that I wasn’t going into the Army. Some guys from the neighborhood did, humping packs through the Delta. On the coast. Too many didn’t come back.” He paused for a moment as if to catch his breath. Then he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Those things are gonna kill you, man,” Willie said, shaking his head. “Something will. That’s for damned sure.” “But you were safe serving in the Navy?” Barry was interested. “No,” RJ answered, his voice flat and distant. “Not at all.” He took another drag and politely blew the smoke away from his companions. “See, they could hear us coming. It was the ship engines. We had to run without lights at night to make it harder, but they could still hear us. It was a mean war. I guess they all are.” He looked at the wall, frowning, and the years seemed to weigh on him. “One night, we got back late from patrol. It was raining. All that lush green on the Delta, all that thick, green darkness, needed a hell of a lot of water and God gave it to ‘em. Man, when it rained on the rivers, it didn’t pour. It pounded. We were beat. Beat up by the rains.” He looked down for a moment as if at scattered thoughts on the pavement. “We were transferring from the patrol to the Benewah when the bullets started flying, we couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Darts from the darkness. Fire coming from out of nowhere. And everywhere. When it paused, I was first up the ladder. My Momma didn’t raise no fool. Then another followed. And another. Brothers flying up the ladder. Ten of us made it up. We were something.” A hint of a smile crossed the old man’s face, and then was gone. “Five didn’t. Went into the water. But see, we couldn’t turn on the lights to search for them. Turn on the lights, lose more, see? Couldn’t do it. Even for our brothers. Found the five downriver the next day.” Barry turned and looked at the five figures on the wall at Brynne’s feet. “What were their names?”  ~~~ He drew them. He drew them on the barrack ship and on the PCBs. He drew them lounging on the riverbanks. He drew them to pass the time. And after, when the drowning dreams began to wake him in the middle of those humid Vietnam nights, he drew them as he imagined them. If they had made it home. And when imagination failed him, he drew them as they were: figments of boys, lost forever in a foreign land. He drew them to honor them. He drew them to remember them. He drew them to come to terms with reality: that the life force of these brothers of his could be drained away so quickly, so violently, so senselessly, so far from home. ### 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.

Sydney Mayes is a poet from Denver, Colorado. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Atlantic, Poets.org , The Iowa Review Blog, Gulf Coast Journal, Obsidian, Denver Quarterly, Booth, and Prairie Schooner . Mayes won the 2021 Iowa Chapbook Prize for her chapbook You Look Just Like Your Mama . She was selected by Roger Reeves as a finalist for the 2024 Furious Flower Poetry Prize. Executive Editor of Nashville Review , Mayes is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at Vanderbilt University. Follow Sydney on Instagram . Exhaustion Whispers Tough Love to The July Child  The accumulation of geese photos, sonnets and tears matters to no one  but you. The jazz musician that broke your hymen, the tomato garden,  Rita Dove’s Collected  cannot care for you. Your mother loses  your poems beneath listing contracts, your grandmother’s lazy eye falls  to her breast when you read, but you still go on, writing lyric chicken scratch  over your chemistry notes, cleaning out Tattered Cover’s poetry section, trying  to keep hornworms from the only tomato large enough to eclipse moon. And where will this get you? Sat in front of the poet,  her left ankle buffing the cherrywood table, asking you if you had  a happy childhood. The teal legs of her glasses socking within themselves  hawk wing and concrete obscured nest. She has read your poems so she knows  the answer, but how kind of her to still listen to your response. How kind  of her to acknowledge the fissure of your  hands cracking the spines of poetry books. ### 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.

Linda Susan Jackson is the acclaimed author of Truth Be Told and What Yellow Sounds Like , a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Paterson Prize. Linda Susan Jackson is the author of Truth Be Told (Four Way Books) and What Yellow Sounds Like  (Tia Chucha Press),   a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Paterson Prize. She has   received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Calabash International Literary Festival, Soul Mountain Writers Retreat, and The Frost Place. Her work has appeared in Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature , the Broadside Series of the Center for Book Arts, Crab Orchard Review , Harvard Review , the Los Angeles Review , Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora  and Ploughshares,  among others, and has been featured in Brooklyn Poets, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day and Poets on Poetry series as well as in the audio archive of From the Fishouse .    She is a retired associate professor of English from Medgar Evers College/CUNY.  Families Some start off  with — no ritual no rules no soil no myths no triangle no seasonal clothing no boundary no quality paper no vaseline no slide show no composition notebook no interior   no bergamot no song no kernels no dictionary no birthstone no I’m so glad to see you no periphery no symphony no mirror no quill no quilt      no bible of ancestors no ring of rhythmic speech no point at all, so they make it up. Hoop Dreams Decades Before Cheryl Miller & Epiphanny Prince  Each Score Over 100 Points in PSAL Games - for Msaidia In my pleated skirt & camp-style  blouse both institution-green & bobby socks stuffed into Keds, I’m summoned to the foul line. Shoot underhanded for fifteen   the gym teacher instructs  No post up, no bank shot No gravity-defying dunk No chest thump, no show boat No behind-the-back pass No sky hook, no all net No step-back threes. Just once, I want to lace up my brother’s high top Chuck Taylors , dribble 94 feet to the basket & finger roll that round leather carcass, all 22 ounces of its 8 pebbly panels into the rim with sweet assurance, pull back with a high arc or drive finesse through the lane only the game doesn’t speak about girls who dribble low to the ground, who  look left & pass right who work the edge, who get off the ground quickly to play pick-up  games with boys or a girl like me, gathered with other girls on the half court of our school gym, our backs to the rim, being warned against banking shots off the back board, against the shake & bake, against the pick & roll against the give & go urge to penetrate the defense & cut to the basket for the finish. Joy in Three  - for e.a. Before I read, she hugs me.  Her auburn-tinted hair sweeps the corners of her black boat- necked wool sweater.   Her perfume hints  at relief then reverie,  myth then memory of love  & its inevitable aftermath.   I ask her its name,  Joy by Jean Patou she  says, one of those elegant  smells my mother wore. . A child born with a caul over its head is said to have second sight, an ability to see things before they exist, but what of the child who smells the unseen, whose prescience is olfactory, who smells rain in a sun-drenched sky? I once dreamt my DNA traced to Modjadji V, South Africa’s Rain Queen.  She makes rain, but I know (as does she), her power is in her nose. She inhales, tilts her head skyward,  predicts, sometimes months ahead,  when the first drops of precious liquid will strike the ground. . Great musicians hear chord changes before one note hits the air.  I smell low notes made by a powered base of vanilla, the blues of gardenias, the middle  notes of jasmine, ylang-ylang, a spray of violets, of irises, the high subtle notes from the fruit of bergamot. Before I read, I shore myself up against the scent dragging me  back to the first one I knew, my mother’s, a joy I wouldn’t love until much, much later. My Mother is Dorothy Dandridge, at least that’s what I say to people  when they stare.  Whenever she  & I go out together, men gape & gaze,  walk into fire hydrants, fall off curbs;  women pull their men closer  though she claims not to notice.   . Like Dorothy, she’s light-skinned &  dark-haired, dark-eyed & slim-waisted.   When my parents were dating, my  father said people gawked & whispered.   Maybe they thought she was Dorothy,  so they looked for Otto Preminger.   . Restaurants would seat her,  not my father.  He was told  to wait outside or go around back  to the service entrance for take out.   . When my mother talks about their wedding,  she claims Gordon Parks took the pictures,   but my father tells us it was Moneta  Sleet, Jr. who took their photos in 1949.   . Their marriage collapsed under the weight   of it, a residue of almost, nearly, once was… (I see you, perfectly  -- for Matcha behind the stemmed glass, and you ask are you writing about me?  Yes, about the scared little girl you hide under blonde-streaked hair, the little girl who yearned for a full-time Dad, not the part-timer you called by his last name – Warren: a labyrinth preserved for the breeding of game.  Are you, are we, yet we talk like strangers on a train.  You, about your first husband and your impatience with the new Weight Watchers program.  Me, about how I started and stopped The Salt Eaters  three times and the familiar language rhythms in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone even though sixty-seven years have your amber-colored eyes sinking dully in your shrinking face.  Just as well, you don’t know me either.  Only the mention of Etta James restores some light.  Still, labored breathing clouds the room with an impression, not the true you while memory rises to scale questions of age, aging, of the ages, wrapping up the present in our past: well-lived and well past   within the earth it took to bring us here, and the dusty cocoon we will spin is our promise ) . THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Linda Susan Jackson and Jae Nichelle on June 6, 2024. The end of the poem “Families” reminds me of the infamous line “I made it up,” in Lucille Clifton’s poem “won’t you celebrate with me.”  What rules or rituals do you feel you’ve made up or seen made up in your family? It’s interesting that you are reminded of Lucille Clifton’s poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,” which is one of my favorites, because I don’t remember being conscious of her poem while I was writing, but ancestors are always guiding us.  However, I do remember thinking about two things:  the character Shadrack from Toni Morrison’s second novel, Sula, and what he lacks when he returns from the horrors of WWI, and I was thinking about the traumatic rupture Africans experience, first when they hit the shores of the Americas and again when they are freed (but not free as Tracy K. Smith reminds us in her recent book To Free the Captives).  They have to create themselves each time since “{they} had no model.” In thinking more specifically about your question, my rituals are inherited family rituals, and they mostly seem to revolve around or involve food.  When my family was geographically close, we would gather every weekend, on holidays and elder birthdays at either my great-grandmother’s or my grandmother’s.  There were the bus rides and picnics my great-grandmother would organize every summer.  Over time, elders passed on, family members moved and gatherings became more difficult.  Also, there were what I call day-of-the-week rituals.  Tuesday was for ironing; Wednesday was Italian dinner day; Friday was always fish; Saturday was for cleaning, washing clothes, food shopping, changing bed and bath linen, and we always had beans and franks for dinner; and Sunday was church and “Sunday” dinner that included a roast of some sort, maybe a leg of lamb, macaroni and cheese, assorted vegetables and always, always yeast-raised rolls.  The only rituals I still maintain are Tuesday ironing and the Saturday cleaning rituals: but no beans and franks.  Of course, when I began writing, I established one ritual – I must have music. These poems are full of rich allusions to basketball players, Modjadji V, Dorothy Dandridge, and literary works.  Are you ever surprised by what and who makes their way into your work? Almost everything about writing surprises me since I don’t typically start out saying I’m going to write about this or that.  My writing usually begins with a question or a curiosity I have about one of my obsessions, maybe something I’ve observed or experienced that demands a closer look, needs translation or deserves to be remembered, recalled, recovered, resurrected and documented.   When people or events appear in my poems, they come to me in various ways, maybe from something I’ve seen, read or heard, a lyric from a song, in a dream or even while I’m in the shower.  They show up unannounced, in their own time and introduce themselves to me as a way, I think, to help me translate life’s complexities in as straight forward a way as I can.  Many years ago, I’d read about Modjadji V, and I was captivated by her, but I had no idea she’d ever appear in a poem.  From that I learned everything is potentially useful. “(I see you perfectly” is a poem fully contained in parenthesis.  Can you tell me what drew you to this form? There are two things about this: one is I was a math major when I first started college, and even after all this time, some of the rules of that discipline are still with me. (I don’t always know what I know).  I remembered that when you have a complex algebraic or trigonometric expression, you simplify the values in the innermost brackets first, which are typically parentheses, then you deal with the values in the curly and/or square brackets; and two, when I use parentheses in my writing, I’m suggesting what is within those round shapes is self-contained and significant on its own.    Congratulations on the recent release of your second collection Truth Be Told.   How was your experience writing this collection different from your first one, What Yellow Sounds Like?   Both books feature a character with whom readers explore experiences of Black girlhood and womanhood.  Are there differences in your relationships with the narrators of your books? Thank you.  There’s no substantial difference in my relationship with the narrators. All of my writing life, I’ve been obsessed by the historic and current practice with the adultification of young Black girls and the nanny or mammy-fication of Black women; both have been and, in some instances, continue to be represented or depicted, stereotypically, as saviors or scapegoats.  So I try to offer some insight into their private selves, their thoughts, wishes, and desires – their interior lives – through my writing, filling in some of the gaps.  I guess it’s my poetic use of “critical fabulation” which is a concept I first learned about reading the work of Saidiya Hartman. Are there any movies or TV shows that you return to time and time again? I’m not a big fan of television, except during the basketball and football seasons, and I watch documentaries, mostly those about the lives of creative people.  But there are a few movies I’ve watched many times and continue to learn from :  Daughters of the Dust; Nothing But a Man; Seven Samurai; Sugar Cane Alley; Raise the Red Lantern; To Sleep With Anger; Rashomon; Eve’s Bayou; Learning Tree; Seven Beauties; and Claudine .  There are others, but these came to me straight away. In a Brooklyn Poets interview, you mention that you will never find what you left in Brooklyn in Delaware, where you now live.  What have you found in Delaware?  Any spots you recommend? At this point in my life, I want a slower pace, one floor living, hassle-free parking,  lower taxes, no rush hour traffic (pedestrians and vehicular), less noise…did I say lower taxes?  But there’s always a trade off; I haven’t found a local artistic community yet.  I know there’s one here, I just haven’t found it. If you could swap lives with any fictional character for a day, who would it be and why? Sula Peace, the protagonist in Toni Morrison’s second novel, Sula,  because she is self-made, unapologetic and irreverent.   How can people support you right now? The best way to support me is to support, either with your financial contributions or by volunteering your time, organizations like Cave Canem Foundation, Canto Mundo, Kundiman, Furious Flower, Asian American Writers Workshop, Hurston/Wright Foundation, Institute of American Indian Arts, Torch Literary Arts, Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, to name a few, and independent publishers who nurture, support and promote writers from diverse and underrepresented communities. Name another Black woman writer people should follow. These are some of the women I’m reading and rereading and recommend: Gwendolyn Brooks Lucille Clifton Rita Dove Elizabeth Alexander Tracy K. Smith Nicole Sealey Nikky Finney Wanda Coleman Vievee Francis Harmony Holiday Remica Bingham-Risher Claudia Rankine Evie Shockley Mahogany L. Browne ### 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.

Shams Alkamil is a Black Muslim poet. Alkamil began writing as a mode of self-expression to then being twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut book West 24th Street highlights the anchor a location has on lived experiences. Alkamil speaks of her struggles with queerness, self-love, and the Black immigrant experience. Her second book When Time is Circular was published in June 2024. When not writing, Alkamil spends her time as a local educator in Austin, Texas. Alkamil's work has appeared internationally in Mizna , Ebony Tomatoes Collective ,  The Ana , Ruth Weiss Foundation , Tofu Ink Arts Press , WriterCon , Poet’s Choice , and more. Love you. Wish I could have your cancer.  after Gabrielle Calvocoressi Got your diagnosis Monday afternoon. Heard it during 8th  block. Did not cry on the line. Would love to open your  eyes. Force tears to fall. Will you stop pretending? Strong  isn’t your best color. Washes you out. Love you. Wish I  could have your cancer. Do not care if I’m already  immunocompromised. Fuck thyroid. Don’t even know who  Hashimoto is. Don’t care. Would be honored to keep you  alive. Wish I could feed you during chemo. Maybe ginseng  candy. Or zero-alcohol beer. No ice chips. Too cliché.  Whatever makes you smile. Wish I knew what makes you  smile. Wish you could tell me. Love you. Can’t bring myself  to touch your chemo port. Wish I was smarter. Invent a  new seatbelt. Would finally stop grazing your port. Less  wailing. More time to focus on the road. Wish I knew how.  Miss fighting with you. Shout  Stop texting and driving .  Wish you could say  I am your mother . One more time. Who  knew it was the last time? Miss you. Wish it was Stage 1.  Would hate you less. Why did you ignore it for so long?.  Know you were preoccupied. Wish he argued less. Could  help you notice sooner. I’ll visit the doctor tomorrow.  Declare I am you. You are no one. Open my chest bare. Say  Cut them off ! Stare at Death in the corner. Lose staring  contest. Bargain him ginseng candy. Or forgiveness. Say  Leave her alone . Love you. Wish you could say it back. Not  later. Wearing no oxygen mask. No painful gasps between  words. Wish you could tell me. How less of a woman you  feel. Wish I knew how to respond back. Would keep quiet  instead. Love you. Wish I could have your cancer. ### 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.

Natiesha Evans is an emerging writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work, which includes poetry, essays, and short stories, explores themes such as the complexities of relationships, the bittersweet nature of memories, and her life experiences  as a Black, “geriatric” millennial woman that are filtered through the lens of anxiety and bipolar disorders.  She is a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer's Foundry at St. Joseph's University. When not writing, she listens to her favorite podcasts, enjoys aimless walks in museums around the city, and finds calm in the strange and deep world of true crime stories. When Your Bully Makes Your Bed I. One night, I tapped the lukewarm radiator pole in my bedroom. I’m certain it was at the beginning of fall because the pole was only warm to the touch and not as hot as it could get to fully melt crayons. That kind of heat was reserved for 4 p.m. sunsets and three blanket cold nights. I tapped it with a key, disturbing the flaky fish scale white paint chips, and watched them fall quietly onto my cream-colored carpet, as they always did, but usually unprovoked. I listened intently through the spacing connecting her ceiling to my floor and could hear Tracy’s frightened outward cries and her inward ones, too, the ones her grandmother did not—that came between each whoosh of her belt and the pop of Tracy’s skin against it.  I hear you. It will be over soon. Tap. Tap tap. Tap. I often wondered if she could hear me the way I heard her.     She did.   Once. Tap. II. I promised myself that I would throw my blue porcelain lamp into the wall right outside my bedroom, and I’d wait for your heavy footsteps to pound against the worn, brown carpet that extended to the threshold of my door, where my rage would meet you. I’d welcome your punches, your bitches,  and hair pulls with punches of my own.  I’d fight for my life if it meant humbling you. I’d fight for my life if it meant humbling you. Why did my innocence and my joy offend you? You bathed in a tub of the voices in your head and I’d clean it. The white powdered comet cleaner would turn blue as I washed away your guilt. Your happiness scared me,  and your anger was familiar. You curled your hair in a broken mirror Tracks were laid, but there was no train coming for you. III. My therapist pointed out that in the moments that find me in pure panic— when my heart is pounding heavily against the bars of my ribcage like a kidnapped animal fighting to be released from its captors when my breathing is deep and my lungs are touching my spine  when my eyes  dart  around  looking for help  when I purposely place my body in full view so that if I died someone would see me or they’d hear the thud of my body when I fall next to a flower bed with a small laminated sign typed in a 40-point Arial font that reads: Please Curb Your Dog  placed neatly in the dirt and someone would rush over to me and work frantically to help me; check my pulse, and break my ribs in an effort to free my heart —take deep breaths. And imagine myself on a beach, faced up on one of those foldable white plastic beach chairs, eyes closed (the sun glowing red beneath my eyelids), listening to the waves of the warm water that I just waded in waist-deep push against the rocks off to the side, near where I’d seen seaweed and jellied remains of jellyfish. ### 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.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan is the award-winning author of Big Girl , Blue Talk and Love , and The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan,  Ph.D., is the author of the novel Big Girl , a New York Times Editors’ Choice and winner of the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel and the Balcones Fiction Prize. Her previous books are the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love , winner of the 2018 Judith Markowitz Award for LGBTQ Writers, and The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association. In her writing, she explores the links between language, imagination, and bodily life in Black queer and feminist experiences. Her stories and essays have appeared in Best New Writing, The Kenyon Review, Callaloo, Feminist Studies, American Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, TriQuarterly, GLQ: Lesbian and Gay Studies Quarterly, American Literary History, The Scholar and Feminist, American Quarterly, Public Books, Ebony.com , TheRoot.com , BET.com , and others. A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick and a New York Times Paperback Row selection, Big Girl  was named a best books feature by TIME, Essence , People, Vulture , Ms , Goodreads, Booklist , She Reads, The Root , Library Reads, Glamour UK, Vogue France, and others. Her work has earned support and honors from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Millay Arts, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Fiction, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born and raised in Harlem, NY, she is a Professor of English at Georgetown University and lives in Washington D.C. The Club Author’s Note:  “The Club” is a fast and loose riff on Conditions 5 , The Black Women’s Issu e (1979), revisiting the style of Alice Walker’s critical short story, “Coming Apart,” ( Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography edited by Laura Lederer, William Morrow and Company, 1980). Published between 1977 and 1990, Conditions  was a lesbian feminist literary journal edited and maintained by a collective of foundational writers including Barbara Smith, Cheryl Clarke, Jewelle Gomez, and Rima Shore. For contemporary readers, Conditions 5: The Black Women’s Issu e offers a stunning gathering of black feminist voices. At the time of its publication, it caused significant controversy for its refusal to silence black lesbian voices or subjugate black feminist sexuality and erotic life. This criticism, linked to the “sex wars” of the early 1980s, grapples with a politics of respectability and sexual silencing that persists in some areas of feminist discourse in 2024, particularly in the policing of black women’s sexual self-expression. Where and how do black queer sex, sex workers, trans and nonbinary experience, and other disallowed realms of black gender and sexual being find safety and freedom in black feminist visions of futurity? This is a crucial question of our time. Conditions 5: The Black Women’s Issue lights a path for answering these questions, and reminds us that we’ve been here before. Edited by Barbara Smith and Lorraine Bethel, and containing works by Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, Gloria T. Hull, Beverly Smith, Demita Frazier, Cheryl Clarke, Alexis De Veaux, Donna K. Rushin, Ann Allen Shockley and many others, Conditions 5 is a gathering space for the full, brazen, queer complexity of black feminist being. In “The Club,” I imagine such a figurative space in a not-so-distant physical future, considering how these writers, their characters, and the voices they conjure might inflect our own discussions about pleasure, safety and freedom. Each character in “The Club” is named for a central contributor, theme, or concept in Conditions 5 . I take up a speculative expository fiction approach, revisiting Walker’s short story, “Coming Apart,” in which she uses the creative tools of allegorical fiction to contextualize and amplify the feminist critiques of pornography collected in another important anthology of the era—the 1980 text Take Back the Night . It is in this story (itself a critique of porn), that Walker first introduces the term “womanism.” In “The Club,” I tilt the allegory toward a sex-inclusive and pleasure-emphatic vision of Black Queer Feminism, exploring spaces of subversive sexuality, bodily pleasure, and erotic life as sites of black feminist possibility not unlike the space that lies between the covers of Conditions 5, The Black Women’s Issue . * Our Third World lesbian spaces will come From those of us who are remembering in increasing numbers That imitation versions don’t make it… Black lesbian writers Third World women artists from all over Meeting, joining forces, sharing sista energy Speaking to our own experiences and sensibility Without having to explain anything to each other  Because we are each other’s lives and words -- Lorraine Bethel, “What Chou Mean We, White Girl? Or, the Cullud Lesbian Feminist Declaration of Independence” ( Conditions 5, 86) Five ran her tongue over her lipstick under her mask and pushed through the door, trying not to think of Angelina. It was August, humid, and the outside air clung to her skin even as the AC from the club smacked toward her. She was two hours early, but still she felt a deep relief on arriving. Today, she couldn’t get to work soon enough. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who felt that way—several dancers were there already, laying out their outfits, eating, talking shit, making out. Renita, Will, Beverly, and Clemmon stood before the full-length mirror stretching, admiring their lines and curves as the formally trained dancers did. They swore they were true artists. And they were. Five had observed this with some bitterness when she first got to the club years ago, bracing herself for the kind of tired high-art/low-art battle that had played itself out ad nauseam in her own dance school experience, one of the reasons she’d quit. Sometimes that fight did surface backstage at the club, but to Five’s surprise, when it did, it was quickly cut short in a brilliant turn of phrase, often from Renita, who would swivel her head in the midst of a tabletop pose and say “we’re all artists, y’all. Show me a living black woman who ain’t.” To this, Will and Clemmon murmured clear but indefinite affirmation, saying “You right, you right,” agreeing, but giving themselves space to think on it some more. As she pushed into the club, Five washed her hands, dropped her bags in the spray space, and gave a long, maskless exhale as the Sani-Mist covered her. She waved at the bartender, Alex D, the nonbinary mixologist who had deep skin and a nameless sexy, and who made the best Old Fashioned you ever had, every single time. Once, when Five asked what the secret to their Old Fashioned was, Alex looked at her matter-of-factly. “I put the whole Afrofuture in it,” they said, then walked away with a twerk in their step. Today, Alex D stood propped behind the bar talking with E.J., another dancer, about one of the club’s favorite topics of discussion: black women and self-care. For Five, the phrase “self-care” rang hollow outside the club—it had been beaten to death since the first wave of the pandemic back in 2020, and now it seemed to mean everything from proper re-vaccination cycling, to outlandish e-vacation splurges, to the latest pumpkin spice trend on white-girl Instagram. But at the club, these conversations enlivened her. So much of what happened here was self-care, truly, though Five wouldn’t have phrased it that way. She would simply call it survival, freedom. The dressing, the talking, the rituals of hair and makeup, the cleaning, the protecting. The sex and the food. Even the dancing—the work itself—felt nourishing more often than not. The club was the first place Five had ever really felt that way, including everyplace she’d called home and every crew she’d called family. This, more than anything, was what kept her coming back to the club. And it was the reason she was here, at work, two hours early today. She had not found the words to explain to Angelina that dancing at the club was her survival. It wasn’t that Angelina disapproved of her work—not exactly. Angelina was older, but she was quiet and reserved in a way that made Five want both to protect her and to lure her into playful temptation. Five could sense that Angelina admired the freedom and heat of the club, but that she always felt herself an outsider. Angelina had grown up in a strict family steeped in old money and proper Black Middle Class values, among which quietude, rigidity, and respectability were chief. To her credit, Angelina worked hard to free herself of these restraints—Five knew this was part of what drew them together. She liked watching Angelina surprise herself with her desire. She enjoyed luring her further and further into daring, seeing her pleased and startled by the sound of her own voice. Five was also grateful to Angelina. It was thanks to her that they had a home—a cute two-bedroom with excellent public Wifi in a state with no police and a relatively efficient Community Safety Bureau, one of the first to go firearm-free. They shared the apartment with Angelina’s cats, Rachel and Rosalie, who didn’t quite love Five, but tolerated her well enough. Angelina was a teacher, and she spent her days in their brightly lit office ScreenTiming with her tenth- and eleventh-grade literature students in front of the room’s vast bookshelves. Of all the things Angelina had brought into Five’s life, her library may have been the best. Angelina’s shelves were amply curated and meticulously arranged, with prose and poetry monographs from Arroyo Pizarro to Zami, and all the most important anthologies and journals: Take Back the Night, The Black Woman, This Bridge Called My Back, Words of Fire, Mouths of Rain, Home Girls, Sinister Wisdom , every issue of Conditions . Angelina had even installed a Home Assistant audio plugin, multi-programed from title to author to genre and back.   Sometimes, between Angelina’s ScreenTime classes, Five would wander into the office before work to stare at the colorful spines and pick the poet who would accompany her through her day. “Homie, show me Living as a Lesbian ,” she’d say. Within seconds, the room would bluster up in response: “ Living as A Lesbian . Cheryl Clarke. Shelf Four.   Row C. Enjoy, girl.” Five loved how Angelina had her shit together, how she could be counted on to know what the safe bet was and to make it every time. Five also loved playing the role of the young and irascible temptress. She relished thinking of herself as the thick-hipped dancer who encouraged Angelina to come out to her uptight family, who held her hand while she let her body speak in bed. Still, even after Angelina had crept out the closet into the relative safety of their shared life, her daring would only go so far. Her vision of a black lesbian future was a home and marriage, gourmet cat food for Rachel and Rosalie, children, legality, normalcy. “You know white picket fences are not viral insulators,” Five had joked once. “They don’t even make them anymore.” Angelina smiled, flushed. “Whatever,” she said. “Just give me my 2.5 kids, like they used to say, and we’ll be good. Population law be damned.” Five wasn’t opposed to this life, intellectually, although having children would mean she would have to stay home from the club while Angelina taught, at least for a while, which she was not willing to do. Where Angelina craved the safe cocoon of acceptance, for Five, inconspicuousness was death. Five wanted space, self-possession, shamelessness. She wanted the warmth of her own spotlight and phenomenal sex. Angelina insisted their desires were not incompatible, but Five was not so sure. This was the cause of many fights between them. Disagreements , Angelina would call them, but still. These were the disagreements that had pushed her from the apartment to the club two hours early today. Angelina had purchased three vials of sperm without telling her, and had made a down payment on a pair of identical wedding rings. “Not for now,” she had insisted this morning when Five found out by reading the bank statement for their shared account. “Just for safe-keeping. For the future!” But the presumption that this future should be neat and orderly and entirely of Angelina’s devising—the expectation that Five should mute her pleasure for that vision—it made her skin hot.  “Who’s future?” she had shouted, her voice a crash of sound across the kitchen. Angelina only looked at her, her face blank as an empty page. She looked confused, maybe betrayed. Still, Five continued. “Who’s safety are you trying to keep, Ange? Who is your so-called future for?”  But before Angelina could respond, Five felt her own heat overtake her. It made her need to move, to leave. She hadn’t been sure how far, or for how long. She still wasn’t sure now. She breathed out again as she thought of it, trying to shake the words off her skin as she moved deeper into the Club. “You getting my cocktail ready, right?” She said to Alex D on the way to the dressing room. They stood striking, gorgeous, with teal eyeshadow and a bright blue bowtie. “My regular, please,” Five continued. “Old Fashioned. But make it next- level strong. It’s already been one of those days.” “I got you, Five.” Alex D smiled. “But is it the regular or is it next-level? There’s a difference, you know. You gonna have to choose. She does know that right, Tsaba?” Tsaba was a yellow-skinned dancer with a pitch-fork-shaped scar on her hand. She had volunteered for the first vaccine trials in 2021 and had the sight ever since. Tsaba looked at Five’s forehead, then back at Alex, and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she know.” “Fine,” Five said, sighing through a smile. “Give me next-level then. That’s what I need. I’ll come get it before I dance.” The customers wouldn’t arrive for another hour, but the house DJ, Flowers, had already started playing. Five loved the club’s soundtrack— it was all blackgirl body and blackqueer raunch, a mix of Classical tracks by Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah, and MC Lyte, blended with Golden Age bangers by Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, and Missy, and throwbacks by City Girls, Nitty Scott, Meg Thee Stallion and Cardi B. Just now Flowers played an old school Big Freedia song that made Five’s muscles want to leap and her ass swing into motion. She made her way to the dressing room, where Linda, Shari, and Ewar were talking in a close circle, vibing on the political potentials of black queer art from under a cloud of smoke. This was another pleasure of the club—close talking and touch. Outside, no one had seen hugs beyond family since the Before Times. But everyone who entered the club—dancer, customer, babymutha, whoever—was tested twice using the H. Lacks Instantscan, which the club purchased monthly with funds crowd-founded by the Taylor- McDade Dirty Computer IT collective and the Muholi Arts Trust. This meant the club was safer than any other place in the country. Five watched as the dancers talked, brushing shoulders, caressing skin without worry, a collage of lip gloss and neckties and leather harnesses and sequined bras. She basked in the dancers’ flirtation, their loudness, the way they made their opinions known and refused to behave. This was what she wanted. What Angelina couldn’t seem to see. The club was a wonderland of black bodies, genders, and voices, so that even on days when Five didn’t feel like working, the space filled her with something she needed to get through the rest of her life. When she walked in the door, the mask came off and her body was misted and she felt herself yawn open, ready for what the night had to offer. Unlike her life with Angelina, conversations at the club were different every day. The discussions about art were her favorite. The chance to sit and listen to these queer conversations about black creative force was like water to her. It was exactly what she’d been missing in school, and at home as a child, and in all the other spaces she’d been. Sometimes, between sets, she and the other dancers sat and talked with the regulars, especially Michelle, the college student activist who looked at you like she was studying for a test, and got all the dancers in their feelings about prison abolition. Sometimes Michelle brought her friends Janet, Muri, Jones and Rushin, and they sat backstage with the dancers, eating Alex D’s famous lemon-pepper wings and talking shit about trifling men or plotting revolution. Then there was Pat, the beautiful brown-skin trickster with the gleaming eyes who stood at the doorway. With her fly jackets and mercilessly polished shoes, she made the dancers feel safer and clear of their direction just by standing there, reminding people where they were, helping them figure out where they needed to be. No one knew what Pat’s exact title was—Five thought of her as part security, part creative director. She had a V-Port Immunity Passport Verificationist License, a formality for the club, but Pat wasn’t one for titles. When white people or cishet dudes wandered to the doorway, slurring their speech and fumbling over her pronouns, she looked at them like their faces were punchlines and said “Leave me to me and let’s talk about you. Do you need directions home?” This was how it was at the club. Every night was a study in how to do black queer life. Some called it Black feminism and some said that wasn’t for them—that the phrase was old, something that went out with maskless hugs and live arena concerts years ago. Five was clear that all her feminism would need to be black and queer. And that’s what it was for her: BlackQueerFeminism. But to her, it didn’t matter so much what you called it—she knew it when she saw it: black people unbraiding gender and celebrating the strange in themselves, plotting against their pain and spinning pleasure into art, loving and fucking, wet and ready to re-weave the world. In the spirit of this vision, Five connected with as many dancers as she could, and she made it a point to learn their names and stories. It was a good way to keep from thinking about her issues with Angelina. There were so many dancers who came through the space, fat and thick and short and thin, those with immigration papers and those without, speaking all kinds of languages and serving all the queer genders you could think of. There was Jonetta, who had one arm and a hurricane of silver hair and could climb a pole faster than anyone. There was Chirlane, the quiet newbie from New York whose eyes brimmed with feeling, and Toi and Allegra, both proudly unchilded, who danced like their bodies were no-one’s but their own. There was a black girl named Becky, who moved like a windmill and always wore a rose in her hair. There were the songsters, Patricia, Hillary, Calla, and Mary; if you listened closely, you could hear them singing riffs and runs in shocking harmony with the music while they danced. Then there was Audre, the fat, black, half-blind ambidextrous aerialist. She was a powerhouse whose inversions shifted gravity. She made you think the ground was the air, and when she was flying, you were flying with her. There were rumors Audre owned the place, but she never commented either way. This was another of the club’s mysteries. More than once, it crossed Five’s mind that someone should write a history of the club—a documentary, maybe, or a biopic, like the one Bambara’s Revolution Black Film Collective made about the Combahee River Collective back in 2026. The club had so many origin stories they were hard to gather into a single thread. It had moved around, changed purposes and locations often over time and tellings. Some said it began as a weekly voting-rights fishfry hosted by Atlanta’s most notorious 1960s bulldagger. Others said it started as a women-only speakeasy in Harlem during prohibition. Occasionally, Five overheard the college professor regulars, Barbara, Ann, and Gloria talking about the history, their voices lifting up to bold tones in vibrant debate. They talked about the club with passion, as though it meant as much in their hearts and bodies as it did in their minds. And so they were part of the club, to Five and everyone else, though they would probably never get on stage and dance. Then again, scholars could surprise you—often they were low-key artists too. Five relished dancing for them, bumping extra deep, grinding extra juicy before them while she listened. One thing the scholars did agree on was that the club had no owner. Over the years, it had borrowed various spaces, stayed around for a while, expanded, changed a little. Eventually, it attracted too much of the wrong kind of attention, and you would find even the off-nights overrun with white people and cishets, winding in awkward mimicry of the dancers as though crashing a gay club for a bachelorette, their presence so space-taking it threatened to strip the walls of color. Then it was time to switch up, morph again, recreate and move on, cropping up new, different and unexpected somewhere else. In this way, Five thought, Angelina was not so unlike the dancers. She was predictable in some respects—her need for sameness and safety, her yearning to be right. But she had a way of popping up in a space and a form you wouldn’t anticipate, a penchant for pleasant surprise. She had this in common with Five, too. Perhaps this was what frustrated Five most. If she’d felt that Angelina didn’t understand her, it would have been easier. But Angelina did understand—knew her in the same language in which she knew herself—and she judged her anyway. This was what hurt. Five was lotioning up backstage when she heard Pat announce that Angelina was at the door. She appeared at the entrance looking hot and upset. Her plain pink mask covered her face, and her breath steamed against her spindly glasses. Pat screened her and checked her V-Port. “Sorry Ange,” she said. “I have to.” Angelina nodded and finally Pat ushered her in. Five waited for her to unmask and spray so they could kiss, but Angelina lingered in the doorway, her mouth still covered. She looked around the space as though she’d never been there before. Patricia and Chirlane walked by with feathers in their hair. “You can take your mask off, girl,” Chirlane said, laughing. “We all safe in here.” Five watched as Angelina stepped under the spray mister, her mask still on. Five loved to watch the dancers spray-mist when they entered, their shoulders relaxing in deep exhalation as they washed off the rigid distance outside and opened to the closeness of the Club. But Angelina remained stiff, uneasy.  “I just came to support, see what y’all are up to.” Angelina said. “ScreenTime’s down again so I had to cancel class.” She looked away. It was thirty minutes until opening, and the music began to play. The first shift dancers began stretching, making last-minute repairs to their costumes, practicing spins and splits against the poles. Angelina looked back at Five. “I’m sorry about this morning. I’m just tired. Work and all.” “Yeah,” Five said. This was their rhythm. Half-throated fights that never came to full volume, too-quick apologies that never reached full depth. Five was about to offer her own apology—she wasn’t yet sure for what, when Afrekete walked by. “Scuse me, y’all,” she said, managing to look them both in the eye at once. Afrekete was unanimously considered the Club’s most beautiful dancer. Part sky creature, part Sahara cat, with slow-blooming eyes and an easy smile, she looked at you in a way that pierced you, made you think she’d known you all your life. But then, just as quickly, she dropped your gaze, as though she’d never actually noticed you at all. Rumor had it she’d broken Audre’s heart back in the day, but no one could confirm this. Now she sashayed past Five and Angelina, all wide hip and swinging thigh, her costume an elaborate puff of fruit cutouts and peach-colored tulle. She smiled, the melony smell of her body oil settling between them. She was stunning, surprising. Five felt both herself and Angelina lose their breath. “I’m sorry,” Angelina said again, this time with a tight laugh. She gestured to the corner, where Mocque, the club’s accountant and trans-advocacy consultant was practicing her pussy-pop handstands against the back wall in a leather bustier. “You can’t tell me this is where you want to spend your life. This is the work you want to do?” Five watched as Afrekete walked to the mirror beside Janet, bent into a forward fold, and shimmied herself up, her costume flapping over her bare behind. She did this a few more times, gave a pigeon-toed twerk. Then she ran over to the table where Pat and Audre were sitting and swiped a lemon-pepper wing, laughing. “Look. I admire it. I really do,” Angelina’s voice went plaintive, siren-like. “I love your body. I love all our bodies. I love how we move. And I want us to love our bodies too. But I just wonder… why the stage and the lights? Why does it all have to be so big, so public? So loud? I mean, isn’t there something to be said for privacy? Safety? As feminists, black queer folk, lesbians, whoever, don’t we deserve that too? I mean, if we want it?” “I don’t want it,” Five said. Now it was her turn to be surprised by her own voice. “If safety is the limit of your vision, I don’t want it. What I want is to get my Black queer feminist life. I want something complex and contradictory as us. Something that’s as strange and shameless and as much about our pleasure as we need to be. I don’t want anything else or anything less.” Customers had started to gather, some taking notes, others just being nosey. The music got louder. “Okay,” Angelina said. She raised her voice, looking afraid. “I hear you. I’m not shaming or whatever. I’m not. Sex and desire and ass-shaking. It’s all a part of it. I get it. It’s just…” She hunched her shoulders and gestured around at the dancers, laughing, stretching, arranging their outfits and talking shit. Teasing each other, kissing each other, breathing. “These women are so brilliant. All these folks,” she said. “Wouldn’t we all be better off with y’all at the library? Or making policy? Or even out in the street, protesting? Someplace where real work can actually happen?” Now the dancers began to gather: Gloria, Barbara, Beverly, Cheryl, Becky, Audre, Lorraine, Donna, Ann, Toi, Pat. They stood there, a dazzle of black skin and body, waiting. Five couldn’t pull her eyes off them. “We are the library,” she said, clear as night. “This is the school and the Smithsonian. Show me a black woman surviving that ain’t an artist. Show me a black queer person living in pleasure that don’t deserve a Nobel prize.” The dancers watched Angelina watch them, all their states of costume and undress. Five watched, too, wondering what she would do if Angelina started to cry. They stood there, everything quiet but the song playing from the speakers, a wail of black girl raunch and wanting. “Ok,” Angelina said. “You can take your mask off, baby,” Alex D called from behind the bar. “We all safe in here. Safe as we can be. Come on in. Let yourself breathe.” “Ok,” she said again. But she didn’t move. Five walked toward her slowly, her arm extended to help, but Angelina pulled away. She stepped under the mister again and Pat pushed the button, the air moistening and fog frosting the plexiglass shield as Angelina pulled the cloth from her own face. She moved toward the dancers again, still clothed, but now, somehow, more naked than anyone.  The bassline thumped. Pat called the welcome greeting and the regulars flocked to their favorite seats as the first-shift dancers took the stage, a pageant of long-limbed flags and leans and attitudes from floor to pole. The air smelled like lotion, and bodies, and sex, and good food. Irresistible. Five picked up the drink that was waiting for her at the end of the bar. Next-level. She handed it to Angelina, and they walked into the music.  "The Club" was originally published in Sinister Wisdom : Vol. 123. Jan 2022. THE INTERVIEW This interview was conducted between Mecca Jamilah Sullivan and Jae Nichelle on July 5, 2024. Firstly, wow, thank you for sharing “The Club.” I want to live in this story. I’d love to hear more about your approach to bringing a different form of life to the 1979 Conditions 5, The Black Women’s Issue . How did it feel to name your characters after the magazine’s contributors and themes and bring them into an imagined future? What was your process? Thank you for this. I want to live there too! As an artist/scholar, this was a very cool project for me. I originally wrote the story for the fantastic 2022 Sinister Wisdom  special issue on the iconic feminist magazine Conditions , which published from 1977 to 1990. As a scholar of Black queer and feminist literature, I had spent a lot of time studying Conditions –and especially Conditions 5: The Black Women’s Issue . It was one of many crucial journals and anthologies that gathered the voices of so many of our foundational Black women poets, writers, and theorists, including Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, Cheryl Clarke, Alexis De Veaux, Demita Frazier, Barbara Smith, Akasha Gloria Hull, and many others. In my scholarship, I think a lot about how these anthologies and journal issues work as hybrid, multivocal texts, highlighting work across genres—including poetry, fiction, theoretical/critical essays, and sometimes interviews—and bringing together several different and sometimes contrasting voices to highlight the complexities of Black feminist and queer life. For me, this is the poetics and politics of genre-bending. This idea of how we complicate voice and write across literary genres is at the center of my academic work, and it also motivates me as an artist myself. So when Sinister Wisdom’s editor, Julie Enszer, reached out to me to reflect on The Black Women’s Issue  in any genre—including fiction—I jumped at the chance.  In terms of feeling, there was a lot of pleasure in this story for me. That’s partly the pleasure of genre-bending and working across the creative-theoretical divide, which I’ve always enjoyed. But it’s also partly because the story is about  pleasure in many ways. I wanted to imagine a Black queer future that centers the pleasure of our bodily expression, one in which we’re in close conversation with history, and in which our survival is complex, collective, oppositional, and juicy.  In detailing her dispute with Angelina, Five says that for her, “inconspicuousness was death.” In Black queer feminist practice, do you feel that there is tension between the desires of space + shamelessness and safety + comfort? Absolutely. I think that we’re living in a moment when, for many of us in the US, there’s an expanded sense of choice in how we imagine our lives, at least to some degree. The middle-class American ideal of safety and comfort seems to be in reach for many of us. For some, this might entail marriage, children, property ownership and social recognition. But in the same way that the women these characters are named for showed us that silence is not a protection, I think there are conversations we still need to have about whom the cover of social recognition protects. This is not to throw shade on comfort or safety in any way. I think we need to make strategic use of both of those things. But I think there’s still much more to say about the dangers of respectability politics in Black queer and feminist communities. If the structures of safety we’re aiming for don’t protect the disabled, trans, fat, poor, and working class folks in our communities (for example), they’re not really safe, so they shouldn’t feel comfortable. And, of course, a lot of this unsafety happens through the policing of the body—what one wears, who one desires, how one does gender, in what way one expresses the erotic. When Five talks about shamelessness, for me what she’s envisioning is a space of value outside of respectability, where the self and the body can find safety in and through pleasure, not in spite of it.  I keep thinking about Five’s declaration that “We are the library,” coupled with how you’ve previously said  that Black queer feminism includes recognizing “the body and the interior world as sites of knowledge and power.” In what ways do you remain grounded in your own body? How do you stay validated in your experiences? Ok citation, come through! I love this question. Yes, I absolutely believe that our bodies and our inner lives work together as resources that can sustain us. You know, that line, “we are the library,” is something I’ve been coming back to recently, although I didn’t realize it until you asked this question. I recently had the chance to write about Cheryl Clarke’s brilliant new collection, Archive of Style , and it has me thinking a lot about Black lesbian, queer, and feminist archives. What does it mean to imagine the body as text and archive? What do we keep there, and how do we keep it? For me, this is key to grounding and validation. I refuse to accept the lie that the body and the intellect are separate. I say “refuse” because it often requires an active, ongoing refusal. We’re often encouraged to imagine our bodies as things to “master,” police, and change, and too often this becomes a major responsibility of the mind—to alter and manage the body. Of course, this is a great way to keep us distracted from both the fact of our pleasure and the task of our freedom, because we’re busy trying to change the only thing we may really have—ourselves. So I stay grounded and validated by reminding myself of the pleasure of my body and the importance of my inner world. When I started writing “The Club,” I had a dance practice and a wonderful community that sustained me. I’ve moved since then, but I still dance. I also run, and kickbox, and savor love and delicious food to stay connected to my body. And to stay validated in my inner world, I write. But more than that I read. Reading is the best company.  You were born in Harlem, and the city is an integral part of your novel Big Girl as well as your story collection Blue Talk and Love . Living in Washington D.C. now, do you feel connected to the city and culture? Do you see D.C. creeping into your work? It’s so funny that you ask this. Just this morning I was looking out on my DC neighborhood and wondering when and how the city will show up in my fiction. When I started writing Big Girl  in earnest, I had left Harlem and had moved to Philadelphia. Now I’m working on something that’s set partly in Philly. I’m enjoying DC, and I’m really liking the process of setting up community here, so it’ll be exciting to see how it comes into my work.  Do you have any hobbies, hidden talents, or passions that people would be surprised to learn about? I’m not sure how surprising it might be, but I haven’t talked or written much about my movement practices. I found a wonderful dance community a few years ago that allowed me to tap into parts of my creative self that I hadn’t connected with in a long time. I had taken some dance classes as a child, but those experiences weren’t positive, and so I kind of ran from dance as soon as I had the option. Returning to dance was actually part of my process in writing The Poetics of Difference . I was writing about Black queer and feminist practice in a range of forms, including poetry, fiction, theatre, music, and visual art. I had had at least some hands-on creative experience in each of those forms as an artist, but dance was something I hadn’t done since childhood. So I decided to take some classes, and I fell in love with the community I found. I also like to run. I started running 5ks a few years ago, and I’ve run thirteen or fourteen races since then. I like it because it feels like flying.  In a Center For Fiction interview , you mentioned that while working on Big Girl , you had to trust your voice and your vision. What types of practices keep you motivated even when something isn’t happening in the timeline you hoped it would? Wooh. Honestly, this changes for me depending on what’s going on in my life, my work, and my writing. Over the years, I’ve learned to be flexible, and to listen to what I need to support my writing today, knowing it may be different from what worked in the past, and that it may not work in the future. Big Girl  was my third book, and neither it nor either of the previous two happened on the timeline I had originally envisioned. With my first book, Blue Talk and Love , I was writing stories, which helped soften the impact of departures from my little timeline. I find stories to be more manageable, so that I could finish a draft of a story, send it out, and start another story or work on something else while waiting to see where it landed. I was working on my dissertation, which later became The Poetics of Difference , while finishing Blue Talk and Love  and revising Big Girl . Each was a long process, with several different movements and eras and moods. But there are two things that sustained me throughout: reading and purpose. With everything I write, I find it helpful to connect with why I want to write it. Audre Lorde says “I started writing because I had a need inside of me to create something that was not there.” I try to stay close to that need, knowing that if I need to read something, someone else may need it too. And when tapping into purpose is hard, I read the writers that sustain me. I usually start with Lorde, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, and Jamaica Kincaid. Their voices get me writing every time.  What’s a short story you’ve read that changed your perspective on what a short story can be? Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.” But really, many of her stories. Partly because when they came out, people wondered whether they should be classified as stories at all. They are so voice-rich, so interior, and they theorize blackness, gender, mother-daughter relationships and the complexities of Black girls’ intellectual lives in ways that I find irresistible.  How can people support you right now? It’s always a joy to connect with readers. I’m on the road a lot these days for events, so if I’m stopping by your city, I hope you’ll come and say “hi.” Name another Black woman writer people should follow. Bettina Judd is the truth. Her latest book, Feelin , takes this conversation on Black women, pleasure, and creativity to incredible places, and the way she represents for the Black feminist artist/scholars is beautiful. I can’t wait for folks to read Cheryl’s phenomenal new collection, which I mentioned. And I’m excited about the reprint of the iconic Alexis De Veaux’s 1984 Blue Heat , which is coming out through Sinister Wisdom  with a new introduction by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, whose new biography of Lorde I just got my copy of and cannot wait to read. That’s more than one, but I believe in the spirit of more.  ### 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.