Black & Published

This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with return guest, Victoria Christopher Murray about her latest novel, Harlem Rhapsody. The novel tells the story of Jesse Redmon Faucet. A complex and ambitious woman who moved to New York to be nearer to her lover W.E.B. DuBois, and also to run his magazine, The Crisis. Between the scandal she had to keep quiet and an opportunity she didn’t want to squander, Victoria details how Jesse Redmon Faucet birthed what we now know as the Harlem Renaissance. 

In our conversation, Victoria explains why there would have been no boon in Black literature—then or now—without the visionary work of Ms. Faucet. Plus, the countless writers Faucet discovered and mentored whose works we still return to today. And the echoes of the past in the present Victoria is seeing in her own career where she’s been mandated to prove herself and to readers that Black stories sell. 

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This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author, Shanora Williams, about her new romance novel, Beautiful Broken Love. The novel is the second chance love story of Davina Klein-Roberts and Deke Bishop. Reeling from tragedy and trying to rebuild her life, Davina is not prepared for Deke, the NBA star, with his own dark secrets, who takes a sudden interest in her, and won’t take “no” for an answer.

Shanora is an author who cut her career in self-publishing in 2013 but didn’t get her big break from a traditional publisher until 2020. In our conversation she discusses how her “big break” actually put her in debt. Plus, how she bends the rules of genre fiction to keep her work honest instead of on trend, and how she made room on the page for grief to breathe in all its different forms. 

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This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Tara Roberts, author of the memoir, Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging. It’s an epic story of Tara fulfilling her childhood desire of becoming a writer commingled with her active decision to embrace a past she’d always run from.

A storyteller, adventurer, and traveler, Tara is now an explorer in residence at National Geographic where she continues the work she’s done since 2016 as a scuba diver working with groups like Diving With a Purpose to map and document slave shipwrecks. 

I first was introduced to Tara’s work through her award winning podcast with Nat Geo Into the Depths and then had the pleasure of coaching Tara for her TEDTalk.

In this conversation, Tara goes deep about the trauma she experienced that made her fear becoming a writer. Plus, how she confronted and healed her own feelings of shame around Blackness and identity. And, the grace she had to find for herself and others when she was not embraced on the continent of Africa. 

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This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Iris Mwanza, author of the novel The Lion’s Den. It’s a thriller featuring a young lawyer fighting for justice in the case of a queer teen, that has her going up against  every oppressive system in Zambia from the President and police to her priest and the doctrine of the Catholic Church. 

Iris is  Zambian-American. She started her career as an attorney, but currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Women in Leadership team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In our conversation, she explains why she’s more intrigued about exploring what the law could and should be, versus what it actually is. Plus, the newspaper story that’s stayed with her for 30 years that inspired her novel. And why she believes authors must write something that matters. 

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This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Palestinian-American poets, Fady Joudah and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.  Fady is a physician, in addition to being a poet. His latest collection [ . . . ] chronicles the beginning of the genocide in Palestine in late 2023 and was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award in poetry.

Lena is a poet, essayist and translator. She's also the co-founder of the Institute for Middle East understanding. Her latest poetry collection, Something About Living won the 2024 National Book Award for poetry.

In our conversation, we discuss what the protest slogan "From the river, to the sea," truly means. What they would write if they weren't living through and didn't feel compelled to be a witness to constant war and genocide. And how they're helping their children survive and thrive as full Palestinian people who happen to be living in the empire.

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This season on Black & Published . . . It’s time to get real about what writing can do. Whether we write about love or compassion, broken systems or the parallels between the past and the present; writing is active! It is both a portal and an archive. And while publishing is a business, the work on the page is still pure. 

This season the journeys continue with: Jodi M. Savage, Amber McBride, Jason Reynolds, Iris Mwanza, Tara Roberts, Aaliyah Bilal, Jamila Minnicks, Shanora Williams and many, many more. 

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In this bonus episode of Black & Published, Nikesha is sharing her story about becoming a writer and finding her way in the publishing industry. From exploring and utilizing both traditional and independent avenues, Nikesha discusses when she knew she was a writer, the 7-year-long journey of publishing her debut novel, Four Women, founding her company, NEW Reads Publications, and how she has kept going despite lots of rejection to publish four more novels, a poetry collection, and four other authors in addition to doing all the things in life, love, career, and the pursuit of dreams. 

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Minda Honey, author of the memoir, The Heartbreak Years. A retrospective for  the twenty-somethings who are ready to stop leaping into the lives of the men they like and instead choose themselves and a life they love. The book is born out of Minda's series of essays for Longreads on dating politics. Her writing has also been featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American and Teen Vogue. 

In our conversation, Minda discusses, her life and loves including her high school sweetheart to maintaining a platonic relationship with a magnetic man. How she gained the confidence and arrogance to bet on herself and what some called her “raunchy” work. And the reason she says she hasn’t given up on love despite the inherent risk and sometimes violence against women. 

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with jarrett hill and Tre'vell Anderson, the authors of, Historically Black Phrases: From "I Ain't One of Your Little Friends" to "Who All Gon Be There?" Tre'vell and jarrett both have backgrounds in journalism and they are the hosts of the award-winning podcast FANTI. Their book chronicles the living language of Black people and how we bend a phrase to entertain, uplift, or sometimes to hurt and harm. 

In our conversation, they discuss how they've found validation in their careers even when being written off as diversity hires. Plus, what they say job security looks like as a Black creative. And giving credit where credit is due to the marginalized community they say is often exploited and stolen from that they worked to honor through the pages of their book. 

On this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Honorée Fannone Jeffers, author of the epic novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. Honorée is also the author of five critically acclaimed books of poetry, including the award-winning collection, The Age of Phillis, based on the life and times of Phillis Wheatley Peters.