Black Writers Read

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This episode features poet Rage Hezekiah. Black Writers Read hosted Rage in person on June 18, 2022 at The LAVA Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts in honor of Juneteenth. We met to chat about her recently released collection of poetry, Yearn, which was a recipient of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest Award. 

Rage Hezekiah is a Cave Canem, Ragdale, and MacDowell Fellow who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She is a recipient of the Saint Botolph Emerging Artist Award and she serves as Interviews Editor at The Common. She is the author of Unslakable (Paper Nautilus Press, 2019) and Stray Harbor (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Rage’s poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Cincinnati Review, The Colorado Review, and many other journals and anthologies. You can find more of her work at ragehezekiah.com.

Special thanks to Vanessa Query, Jan Maher, and the team at The LAVA Center for hosting us in person. An even greater thank you to everyone who was able to join us in person at the event.

This episode is presented in collaboration with Greenfield Community Television (GCTV). 

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Episode 1 of Season Three features St. Clair Detrick-Jules. We met to chat about and celebrate the one-year anniversary of the release of her book, My Beautiful Black Hair: 101 Natural Hair Stories from the Sisterhood.

St. Clair Detrick-Jules is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer, author, activist, and public speaker. She captures personal stories and intimate moments centering Black liberation, immigrant justice, and women's rights. An Afro-Caribbean artist who remains rooted in her community, St. Clair grounds her work in radical love, joy and the knowledge that a more just world is possible.

St. Clair has a BA from Brown University in French and Francophone Studies. She has been featured in The Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, BuzzFeed News, The Christian Science Monitor, Byrdie, and NPR's Strange Fruit, among others. Her documentary DACAmented has received awards at Immigration Film Fest, Baltimore International Black Film Festival, Ogden City Latino Film Festival, and Cornell University’s Centrally Isolated Film Festival. Her book, My Beautiful Black Hair, which was published by Chronicle Books in September of 2021, showcases the photographs and stories of Black women embracing their crowns. St. Clair currently resides in her hometown of Washington, DC.

 This episode is presented in collaboration with Levee Break Lit. Special thanks to Lisa Pegram and her company for linking us up with St. Clair.

Find St. Clair on Instagram: @stclairdetrickjules
Find St. Clair on Twitter: @stclair_dj

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Hear insights on the planned lineup of guests for Season Three of Black Writers Read.

Season Three of the audio podcast premieres on Tuesday, September 20. We'll be joined by filmmaker, photographer, author, activist, and public speaker St. Clair Detrick-Jules.

Please subscribe to be sure to get each episode at its debut.

For more information on Black Writers Read, please visit:  https://nicolemyoung.com/projects/black-writers-read/

Find us on Instagram:  @blackwritersread

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Natasha Marin (non-fiction and conceptual artist) was our guest on Episode 7  of Season 2 of Black Writers Read, which was livestreamed on Juneteenth ~ June 19, 2022.

With cultural origins and connections to Trinadad, Canada, and the United States, Natasha Marin’s people-centered projects have circled the globe since 2012. As a writer, Natasha is represented by Janklow & Nesbit. Natasha has been recognized and acknowledged by Art Forum, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, NBC, Al Jazeera, Vice, PBS and others. She is the curator of BLACK IMAGINATION which was published by McSweeney’s in 2020. Excerpts from this book recently appeared in The Paris Review and Poetry Daily. During this episode of Black Writers Read, she read excerpts from Black Imagination and her forthcoming collection, Black Powerful: Black Voices Reimagine Revolution which has already received a significant amount of praise. It was such a privilege to host Natasha for the beginning of her press tour for the book, Black Powerful. Published by McSweeney’s, Black Powerful is out today, September 6 – which is my rationale for sharing this particular episode today.

Thank you so much to Amanda Choo Quan for introducing us to Natasha.

To learn more about Black Powerful and to order your copy, please visit:
https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/black-imagination-black-voices-on-black-futures. 

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Tracy Cross (horror fiction) was our guest on Episode 4  of Season 2 of Black Writers Read, which was livestreamed on March 26, 2022.

During the episode, Tracy read excerpts from her forthcoming debut novel, Rootwork, which is scheduled for release on November 15, 2022.  A widely published author, her works have appeared in Don’t Break the Oath by Kandisha Press, 99 Tiny Terrors, and anthologies and magazines including Big Book of Bootleg Horror, Things That Go Bump, D’Evolution Z Horror Magazine, Tales of the Lost Vol. 2, and websites midnight & indigo and New American Legends.  In 2016, Tracy was awarded the Boston Accent Literary Journal Prize.  Tracy is based in Washington DC. You can find out more about her at tracycrossonline.com or on Instagram at tracycrosswrites.

Rootwork is available for pre-order by visiting https://darkmattermagazine.shop/collections/books/products/rootwork-conjure-series-1. 

This episode of Black Writers Read is presented in collaboration with Break Levee Lit. Special thanks to Lisa Pegram and her company for connecting us with Tracy.

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Dorsey Spencer Jr. (fiction - children's picture books) was our guest on Episode 4  of Season 1 of Black Writers Read, which was livestreamed on November 14, 2020.

Dorsey Spencer Jr. is an educator, author and entrepreneur. He is the owner of See Us Fly LLC, an independent publishing company. Dorsey began to write as a way to uplift and highlight the experiences and voices of underrepresented communities. He hopes his work will contribute to the growing body of literature that portrays Black men and boys positively, especially in father-son relationships. Dorsey grew up in Long Island, New York and now lives in central New York with his wife and two children. He has a bachelor’s degree in Sport and Recreation Management from Temple University, a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a doctorate in Higher Education from Florida State University.

During the episode, Dorsey read from his first children’s picture book, Worms are a Yummy Snack A Story of Patience, Anger, and Joy. This delightful story showcases a loving relationship between father and son, and allows parents, caregivers and young readers to positively discuss themes of patience, expression and management of emotions and dealing with failure.

Since joining us for Black Writers Read, Dorsey and See Us Fly LLC has published another children’s picture book, Queen Cara and the Kingdom of Jama’a, which was released on November 15, 2021.  

To learn more about Dorsey’s work, please visit seeusfly.com

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Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work is featured in Plume, Hobart Pulp, Barrelhouse, Auburn Avenue, amongst others. Saida’s work can be found in several anthologies, including Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Sexuality and Joy, The Future of Black, and Plume Poetry 9. She is the author of STUNT (Neon Hemlock, October 2020), a chapbook reimagining the life of Nellie Jackson, a Black madam and FBI spy from Natchez, Mississippi. Her first full-length collection, let the dead in (Alan Squire Publishing) was released in Spring 2022. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective, Saida is a two time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Finalist. Her work has received support from the Ruby Artist Grants and the Blue Mountain Center, amongst others.

During the episode, Saida read excerpts from let the dead in. let the dead in is an exploration of the mythologies that seek to subjugate Black bodies, and the counter-stories that reject such subjugation. Audacious, sensual, and grieving, this work explores how Black women harness the fantastic to craft their own road to freedom. A journey across Guyana, London, and the United States, it is a meditation on black womanhood, queerness, the legacy of colonization, and pleasure. These poems craft a creation story fat with love, queerness, mermaids, and blackness.

Saida lives online at www.saidaagostini.com.

This episode of Black Writers Read was presented in collaboration with Lisa Pegram and Levee Break Lit.

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On July 30, 2022, Black Writers Read, Attack Bear Press, and Radioplasma hosted the virtual book launch of Miguel Bacho's latest poetry collection, Labores. Written in Spanish by Miguel and translated into English by Ramón J. Stern, it was an honor to collaborate on this livestreamed event. This bonus episode features the audio from that event, which includes Miguel and Ramón reading excerpts from the book and my conversation with them.

Labores (Laboring) is the latest poetry collection written by Miguel Bacho. Situated in a period of forced silence, Bacho explores learning the language, working, and observing. Its pages contain part of the struggle, the adventure, and the trip of adapting to a new culture and language, as well as period for drastic changes not just on behavior, but also a deep enhancement of believes.

Miguel Bacho Cabezas was born in Iquique, Chile, in 1986. There, he participated in several local initiatives, such as Literary Caravans to Cochabamba and La Paz, Bolivia in 2010. In 2013, the Universidad Nacional de Lanús Press in Argentina published his first book of poems, Papeles Sueltos. Half of this printing was sent to Iquique’s public Libraries. Between August and October of 2016, Miguel collaborated with the website www.viceversa-mag.com in the section Crónicas Urbanas. He also participated in the Locating Me workshop series, which ended with the printing of a chakpbook with the same title. Miguel has an unpublished nouvelle, Primera Fila, and it’s writing his first novel, Divino Tesoro. His last book of poems Labores, was published in 2022 by Sismo Press in his hometown. He currently resides in Ewing, NJ.

Ramón J. Stern is a translator between Spanish, Portuguese and English (he is also proficient in Hebrew and Arabic) with a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. Stern has served as a medical interpreter, translation project specialist and proofreader, admissions reader and as a higher education administrator. His translation, Syrian and Lebanese Patrícios in São Paulo: From the Levant to Brazil (University of Illinois Press, 2018), won the Arab-American Non-Fiction Book Award in 2019. He has also translated COVID manuals, research interviews, book chapters, arts magazine articles, human right reports and the bilingual edition of Labores (Laboring) by Miguel Bacho. Stern is currently a Fulbright scholar in Manaus, Brazil researching Moroccan Jewish migration to the Brazilian Amazon.

Special thanks to Jason Montgomery of Attack Bear Press and Iohann Rashi Vega of Radioplasma for coming together to celebrate Miguel and Ramón.

Find Attack Bear Press online: www.attackbearpress.com
Find Radioplasma online: radioplasma.com

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Shanta Lee Gander (poetry, prose, journalism, photography) was our guest on Episode 5 of Season 2 of Black Writers Read, which originally aired on April 10, 2022 during National Poetry Month.

Shanta Lee Gander is a photographer, writer across genres and is a public intellectual whose work has been widely featured. She is the author of GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues, the winner of the 2020 Diode Press full-length book prize with an honorable mention from the Sheila Margaret Motton prize, and reviews featured in the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books, Seven Days, the Kenyon Review, and the The Adroit Journal. Her forthcoming collection, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press, 2023), is what Shanta Lee describes as a 2000+ year old phone line opened to Ovid as well as an interrogation of the Greek mythos while creating her own new language in this work. Black Metamorphoses is an illustrated poetry collection that has been longlisted for the 2021 Idaho poetry prize, shortlisted for the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize, and named a finalist in the 2021 Hudson prize.

In addition to teaching a Media Studies course at The Putney School, Shanta Lee is one of the writers for the Ms. Magazine Blog, a regular contributor to Art New England and is a producer and reporter for Vermont Public Radio. Her major exhibition, Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine, was on exhibit at the Fleming Museum of Art at the time of our conversation. This exhibition started off as an initial idea and inquiry: Who or what is the Goddess when she is allowed to misbehave?

During the episode, Shanta Lee read an excerpt from GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues.

To learn more about her visual art and written work, visit: Shantaleegander.com.

Find Shanta Lee on Instagram: @mz.shanta_lee

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In this bonus episode of Black Writers Read, Nicole M. Young-Martin (our founder, producer, and host) shares a short story she's been working on. This work doesn't have a title yet and Nicole would deeply appreciate some ideas and feedback on both the title and this piece of writing. Initially a poet and playwright, Nicole enjoys exploring other literary genres. She is a fan of young adult fiction and takes her pen to explore the genre in this work. She hopes to submit it for publication in the near future.

Find Nicole on Facebook: www.facebook.com/writercocopenexplore 
Find Nicole on Instagram: @coco_penexplore

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