Annddd we’re back at it with Part 1 of our spooky-seasonally-appropriate-series, The Monster Mash!

In this episode we’re focusing on Vampires and what they reveal about power, race, and capitalism? We're tracing bloodlines from ancient Lilith to modern-day monsters, exploring how vampy mythology shifted from demonizing female sexuality to celebrating male dominance during the Romantic era; and how they’ve been white, white, white for most of the time!

From some of your fave YA hits like Vampire Academy and Vampire Diaries to the on-screen representations of Blackness and vampyres in shows and films like The Originals and The Twilight Saga, to some more speculative interpretations of vampire mythologies (a la Octavia Butler and Markus Redmond), we analyze just who gets to be immortal—and why it matters.

This episode asks: Who are the real vampyres? What does generational sacrifice look like? How do we defend Black liberation while building toward collective freedom?

Join us for some blood, teeth, chaos, & clay…

Let’s get it!

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, called “Renégade”!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Derrick Jackson, former Air Force special agent and author of "Shadow 1" - a novel based on his real experiences investigating crimes from sexual assault to human trafficking in Korea, that pulls back the curtain on what it's like to serve as a Black federal agent in America.

This isn't just another military story - it's a rare glimpse into the intersection of race, federal service, and personal identity. Derrick Jackson brings authenticity to a genre that has long lacked diverse voices, offering insights that resonate with many of those interested in stories about law enforcement, investigative crime, military service, or simply understanding the complex realities of Black professionals in high-stakes careers.

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, called “Renégade”!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

For this very special summer episode, we are coming to you from A Different World, all the way, outside of space! This week we are talking about Black folks as we see ourselves through characters in and among the stars and in the extraterrestrial.

We talk about the greats like Nichelle Nichols, Sun Ra, Levar Burton, and Octavia Butler and all of their contemporary afterlives. We also get into challenges and questions of “Black Excellence,” white mediocrity, Freedom, what it means to be classified as “alien”. 

Strap in because we are about to give you 🥷🏽🥷🏾🥷🏿's in SPACE!…let’s get it!

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, called “Renégade”!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

Hello, hello, hello play-cousins! We are back for another BookStorm! Join in the creative conversation as we construct an expansive fantasy world grounded in shifter magic and queerness. Chimera Chronicles features a gender-fluid, memory-reading, shapeshifter assassin protagonist named Genesis, who learns of their true nature and rebels against the empire that raised them.

It's giving very Mystique, very mysterious, not-so-so-demure, very found family in the mist of game of thrones cultural intrigue! And yes, there are DRAGONS!

Okay, okay, let's get it!

What is a BookStorm?

BookStorming is like brainstorming, but an entire book, series, or short story. We start with a random idea for a character, a world, or a magic system—and we hash out the in-between.

How Does it Work?

We start with a Topic: What’s an idea that’s been sitting on your spirit for a minute? About a character, magic system, setting?

We then move to the Structure: What are the components of this story?

• Magic System - HOW does this world work?
• Setting - WHERE is this world located?
• Characters - WHO is in this world?
• PLOT - WHAT happens in this world?
• Impact - WHY is this story important?
• Narrative - HOW is this story told?

And then we spiral up from there!

We hope you have as much fun listening to The Gathering as we had making it!

Note on Intellectual Property: 

Remember, any ideas, stories, characters, or story components that come from any BookStorm episode are the intellectual property of Black Worlding. If you want to use some of these ideas, please contact us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP: ⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠ 

Follow us on instagram: ⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist ⁠poliigone⁠, called “Renégade”! ⁠Check out their music at this link⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

Hey, hey, hey! We haven’t forgotten about y’all; especially not in the season of Pride and Juneteenth!

This week, we have a wide-ranging discussion on the intersections of Black queerness and our battles for freedom and liberation throughout history and in narrative storytelling. We engage with real-life Black queer baddie activists in concert with some of our favorites Black queer baddies in sci-fi & fantasy media to zero in on the current challenges of regime, imperialism, racism, xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment and policy, islamophobia, potential war, colonialism, white supremacy, and antiblackness.

In the midst of so much chaos and oppression, we are really trying to understand how we get free y’all, and we are doing that the best way we know how; through storytelling and black worlding. Come on in the room, community. 

Let’s get it!

What we Cover

• How Black Queerness as a framework and lens can help us to see beyond the bounds of white supremacy.

• What does it mean to position Black Queer storytelling at the forefront of liberation?

• How Black Queer authors, characters, and activists always lead the way in revolution

• The Black Queer nuances within presenting Black queer characters in storytelling

• Are we racing to Panem and the Hunger Games as a society?

• How do we get free?

Literature & Media to Check Out

• Mortal Instruments - Diana Wrayburn from Cassandra Claire’s Dark Artifices Trilogy

• Lafayette Reynolds - True Blood

• Louis de Pointe du Lac - Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire Television Series

• Zoelle - Oathbound, The Legendborn Cycle by Tracy Deonn

• Great Cities Series by N.K. Jemisin

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist⁠⁠ ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠⁠⁠, called “Renégade”!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

On this episode of Black Worlding, we are back with writer and tech professional Diandra Ford-Wing to explore how Black storytelling becomes a vessel for grief, healing, and intergenerational memory.

Diandra shares the journey behind her debut memoir, Red Bird, a powerful tribute to her late mother and aunt. We discuss the vulnerability of writing through grief, the complexities of family storytelling, and how spiritual signs became part of the healing process.

From conversations about Black literature and childhood memories to reflections on aging, legacy, and joy, this episode celebrates the emotional depth and cultural power of Black stories and reality. Diandra also teases her next book, Bluebird, and reminds us that stories—especially our own—are sacred!

What we Cover

• Grief and healing through Black storytelling

• Honoring family legacies through literature

• Spiritual signs and generational symbols

• Navigating family truths with integrity

• The intersection of literature, loss, and liberation

Literature to Check Out

• Reaching Back by Nea A. Simone

• Red Bird by Diandra F. Wing

• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

• Choices & Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars) by Nikki Giovanni

• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

• When Tomorrow Starts Without Me by David Romano

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP:⁠ ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram:⁠ ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist⁠ ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠⁠, called “Renégade”!⁠ ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

And we back, and we Black, and flyin' high off the Cowboy Carter Tour Act II tour and all the different ways we experience Black storytelling!

This week, we interrogate all those "moments that make us," thinking about the pivotal moments of catalyzation in our lives, about representation, about what it means to present stories of our own lineages and legacies, and, ultimately, about how the lines between fantasy and reality are incredibly thin, especially when it comes to Black storytelling.

Listen, representation will not save us...but sometimes, it can give us the hope to figure out how to save ourselves...Alright kinfolk, let's get it!

In this episode:

• A History of Funk Music and Black Liberation of the 1970s | Full Documentary | Independent Lens
  
• 
  N.E. Davenport - The Blood Trials

• 
  Before Central Park there was Seneca Village | Secrets of the Dead | PBS

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP: ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram: ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠, called “Renégade”! ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

Hey, hey, hey play cousins! We are back with another BookStorm and this time, we are trying something new! We gave ourselves a time limit experiment: Can Rae and Día successfully worldbuild in under an hour?? It seems we just might be able to!

Enjoy this short little novella about reconnecting with your ancestral heritage in a world after the end of the world…

Let’s get it!

What is a BookStorm?

BookStorming is like brainstorming, but an entire book, series, or short story. We start with a random idea for a character, a world, or a magic system—and we hash out the in-between.

How Does it Work?

We start with a Topic: What’s an idea that’s been sitting on your spirit for a minute? About a character, magic system, setting?

We then move to the Structure: What are the components of this story?

• Magic System - HOW does this world work?
• Setting - WHERE is this world located?
• Characters - WHO is in this world?
• PLOT - WHAT happens in this world?
• Impact - WHY is this story important?
• Narrative - HOW is this story told?
  

And then we spiral up from there!

We hope you have as much fun listening to The Gathering as we had making it!

Note on Intellectual Property: 

Remember, any ideas, stories, characters, or story components that come from any BookStorm episode are the intellectual property of Black Worlding. If you want to use some of these ideas, please contact us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP: thisisblackworlding.com 

Follow us on instagram: @thisisblackworlding 

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist poliigone, called “Renégade”! Check out their music at this link!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.

Hey hey hey! We are back for a VERY special impromptu review of the new and wonderfully iconic film by Ryan Coogler; Sinners! Buckle up for a wild ride through our immediate responses to this wonderful film in all its parts; acting, cinematography, plot, mechanics, the MUSIC, etc.

And make no mistake, it will be FULL of spoilers!

Alright, let's get it!

Hey hey hey, play cousins! We are back with a new episode for you, and we are diving deep into worldbuilding and how we go about it! Join us as we discuss the mechanics and socio-cultural aspects of worldbuilding, referencing some of our favorite sci-fi/fantasy stories. We ask questions like, “Why do we need fantasy and dreaming?” and “How do we reshape the world and consequences in our own BookStorms?” Buckle up for a great conversation!

Let’s get it!

Connect with Us:

Visit our website for more info on what we are up to with BWP: ⁠⁠thisisblackworlding.com⁠⁠ 

Follow us on instagram: ⁠⁠@thisisblackworlding ⁠⁠

Support the Show:

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback and support means the world to us and helps us reach even more listeners.

Together, we're creating a space where our voices are heard, our stories are celebrated, and every listener is valued. Thank you for being a friend!

Credits: 

Our new, custom intro and outro music is provided by the wonderful artist ⁠⁠poliigone⁠⁠, called “Renégade”! ⁠⁠Check out their music at this link⁠⁠!

Disclaimer for Explicit Content:

Please be advised: This podcast may contain explicit language and discussions that are intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

At Black Worlding, we believe in honest and open conversations, even if that means occasionally using strong language or discussing explicit topics. Our goal is to provide a safe and inclusive space to explore diverse voices and narratives, including those that may challenge conventional boundaries.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support. Thank you for joining us on this journey of exploration and celebration of diverse voices in literature and media.