Black & Published

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Lori L. Tharps, an author and ghostwriter living abroad in Spain. Her work sits at the intersection of race and real life. She is the author of  three critically-acclaimed nonfiction books including, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin's) Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria), and Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America's Diverse Families (Beacon)  She also penned the novel, Substitute Me (Atria). 

In our conversation, Lori discusses how she's working to expand the definition of the Black experience in life and literature, her personal rift with the ghostwriting industry, and the platforms she's creating for BIPOC literary artists for community and travel. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Victoria Christopher Murray, author of Pride, A Seven Deadly Sins Novel. A native of Queens, New York,   Victoria spent years in Corporate America and as an entrepreneur before embarking on her literary career in the late 90s. Dubbed a Christian Fiction writer because no one else was writing about religious topics, Victoria blazed the literary scene penning more than 30 novels, co-writing with other authors, and ghostwriting for top talent across the country.

In our conversation, Victoria discusses her guerrilla marketing plan for her debut, self-published novel that led her to sell 9,000 copies in just a few months. How she managed a two year period of rejection by major publishers and being intimidated by her own work after winning an NAACP Image Award. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Nicole Cuffy, author of Dances. Nicole is a D.C.-based writer with a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from The New School. She is a lecturer at the University of Maryland and American University. Her work can be found in Mason’s Road, The Master’s Review Volume VI (curated by Roxane Gay), Chautauqua, and Blue Mesa Review, and her chapbook, Atlas of the Body, won the Chautauqua Janus Prize and was a finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition. When she is not writing, she is reading, and when she is not reading, she is probably dancing.

In our conversation, we discuss how she plans and researches her stories whether she's talking about classical ballet or anatomy. Plus, how history usurped her original premise for the setting of her novel, and why she's resistant to the label of African-American literature and only thinks of herself as a writer and not a "Black writer." 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Rhonda McKnight, author of The Thing About Home. Rhonda is also the author of twenty-five traditional and indie-published award-winning bestsellers, including An Inconvenient Friend, What Kind of Fool, and Unbreak My Heart. She is a two-time winner of the Emma award in the categories of Inspirational Romance of the Year (2015) and Debut Author (2010). She writes inspirational book club fiction and Christian romance about complex characters in crisis.

In our conversation, we discuss the kind of internal commitment it takes to truly become a writer, how breaking her own rules helped renew and revive her literary career, and the pivot points that sent her from traditional publishing, to indie publishing, and back again. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Nikki May, author of Wahala. Born in Bristol and raised in Lagos, Nikki May is Anglo-Nigerian. At twenty, she dropped out of medical school, moved to London, and began a career in advertising, going on to run a successful agency. Her debut novel Wahala was inspired by a long boozy lunch with friends.

In our conversation, we discuss how her overnight success in the literary world is really due to her 57 years of life on Earth. Plus why she revels in "frivolous" stories and how despite trying to write a fun entertaining story, serious issues seemed to creep in any way. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Caseen Gaines, author of When Broadway Was Black: The Triumphant Story of the All-Black Musical that Changed the World. Caseen Gaines is an author, director, educator, and pop culture historian. He is the author of We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy, A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic and Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse, which earned Caseen a 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award. 

In our conversation we discuss how Caseen landed his first book deal by cold pitching presses, the value of collective memory and how it increases the incentive to erase Black history, and why no matter how many books you publish, you're never just "good" as a working writer.

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Yessoh G.D. author of the African fantastical suspense thriller, Ta Lé Book One: Knowledge. Yessoh grew up in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, a country on the southern coast of West Africa. He believes that books have the power to change people for the betterment of the whole. When he is not day-dreaming about stories and the world, he is a visual effects artist and a gamer.  He specializes in 3-D animation and visual effects and has worked on many films, television shows, and commercials, including for Disney, Netflix, and Apple TV.

In our conversation, Yessoh discusses why he had to see the story clearly in his mind before he could begin writing, the challenges he faced getting his book to readers as an African author, and why it was important to him to incorporate African spiritual traditions and practices in the narrative of his novel. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Derrick Harriell author of the poetry collection, Come Kingdom. Derrick Harriell is the Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. His previous collections of poems include Stripper in Wonderland, Cotton, and Ropes, winner of the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Book Award

During our conversation, Derrick opens up about being bitten by the poetry bug at an open mic night when he was just 19 years old, the vulnerability he experienced between his friends and family members during the pandemic, and writing a book that could stand the test of time as his Magnum Opus.  

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Dior J. Stephens author of the poetry collection, CRUEL/CRUEL. Dior J is the author of the chapbooks SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!. They proudly serve as the Managing Poetry Editor of Foglifter Journal and Press and are a fellow of Cave Canem and Lambda Literary's Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellowship. 

In our conversation, Dior discusses writing poems to popular music as a child, how confronting his rage and anger helped him publish his debut collection, and encouraging his students to fail as much as he encourages them to be great. 

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This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Victor LaValle author of the novel Lone Women. As the writer behind six other works of fiction, Victor's novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.


In our conversation, Victor discusses being depressed after not being able to initially sell his first short story collection, the truth horror tells that other books don't, and writing horrific historical fiction where everything is true. 

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