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This episode features our conversation with Yael Valencia Aldana, the recipient of the 2024 Pushcart Prize for Poetry. We chatted about her forthcoming poetry collection, BLACK MESTIZA, which is scheduled for release in January of 2025 .

Yael Valencia Aldana is an award-winning poet and writer. She is the author of the poetry collection Black Mestiza (University of Kentucky Press, 2025) and the chapbook, Alien(s) (Bottlecap Press, 2023). She is a Pushcart Prize winner, and her work has been widely published, among others. She teaches creative writing at Florida International University and is the managing editor of Purple Ink Press. She lives in Florida near the ocean with her son and too many pets.

In Black Mestiza, Yael reckons with her identity as a Caribbean Afro-Latinx woman with Indigenous, Black, and white roots and pays homage to the legacy, resilience, and fortitude of her ancestors. These stunning poems paint a vivid picture of everyday life and Aldana's experiences as a mixed-race woman, daughter, and mother.

The Pushcart Prize–winning poem "Black Person Head Bob" addresses how Black people silently yet soulfully acknowledge and see each other. "Why Don't You Write About Joy?" acknowledges the suffering that women of color endure while their cries and spirit remain resolute: because you cannot hear me / doesn't mean I am not singing. "Small Dark and Moving" skillfully represents the poet's journey and the souls she carries with her, evoking images of evolving landscapes and beings as they transition through different forms. The poet beautifully interweaves narratives regarding the constant presence and influence of her Caribbean parents and a desire for more connection with her Colombian grandmother and ancestry, capturing the essence of origins, blood ties, and the idea that nothing is ever truly lost. This collection is not only a testament to Aldana's deep-rooted connection to her heritage, but a compelling celebration and expression of pride, recognition, and a profound sense of community.

To learn more about Yael and her work, please visit YaelAldana.com.

Pre-order your copy of Black Mestiza TODAY!

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Welcome to Season Five of Black Writers Read!

For this season, we're expanding the definition of “writer” to look at narrative construction. We start the season with a Pushcart Prize winning author and we’ll end Season Five with a documentary filmmaker. We're beyond excited to add the genre Afrofuturism to the platform as well as two countries. I’ll also be bringing back some past guests to talk about their newest work.

Please be sure to subscribe as we'll be posting exclusive content to the audio podcast.

Thanks again for your support and ensuring that Black authors continue to matter.

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This bonus episode features my recent conversation with Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin from the latest release from A24 Films, SING SING.

About SING SING
Divine G (played by Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men, including wary newcomer (Clarence Maclin), in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors. In SING SING, Mr. Maclin plays a younger version of himself and his time participating in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts' theatre program. The film gifts us with a very intimate, inside look into the process of theatre-making and the transformative power of RTA.

Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) helps people in prison develop critical life skills through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather than punishment. Founded at Sing Sing in 1996, RTA works with professional teaching artists to lead year-round workshops in theater, dance, music, creative writing, and visual arts. The RTA model provides an intensive, comprehensive arts program in prison that builds critical life skills so that people can meet the challenges of connecting with family and community when released.

RTA demonstrates that an approach based on human dignity is vastly more successful than one based on punishment. Less than 3% of RTA members return to prison, compared to the national recidivism rate of 60%.

To learn more about Rehabilitation Through the Arts, please visit their website at rta-arts.org.

To find your local screening of SING SING, please visit https://tickets.singsing.movie/.

For folx based in Western MA/Northern CT, I highly encourage you to see the film at Amherst Cinema where Nicole is a proud member. The film opens at Amherst Cinema on Friday, August 23.

Special thanks to Mr. Maclin for making time to chat with Black Writers Read and the Allied Global Marketing and A24 for all of your hard work to make this interview happen!

Find A24's film, SING SING on Instagram: @singsingmovie
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Find Rehabilitation Through the Arts online: https://rta-arts.org/

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Today, August 2, 2024, is African American essayist, novelist, poet, cultural critic, orator and activist James Baldwin’s (1924-1987) centennial birthday. In this retrospective, we take a look back at conversations with poets whose work performs the task of "bearing witness", like that of Baldwin's writing.

Baldwin's canon of work explored fundamental questions about the experiences of African Americans, particularly issues pertaining to class, race, religion, masculinities, sexuality and social acceptance. Documenting the world and society as it was manifesting around him, Baldwin delivered the news to his readers as a way to advocate for change. Nicole highly recommends folx to read Baldwin's essay, Letter for My Nephew, which first appeared in The Progressive magazine in 1962.

Included on this bonus episode are:

Jason Montgomery's, or "JRM" (Writers Across the Margins, S4 E4) work engages the cross-section of Chicano/Indigenous identity, cultural hybridization, post-colonial reconstruction, and political agency. They served as one of the 2021-2023 Poets Laureate for Easthampton, Massachusetts, serving with their partner, Alexandra Woolner.

Nandi Comer (S4 E14) is the Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of American Family: A Syndrome (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Tapping Out (Triquarterly, 2020), which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award.

Lynne Thompson (S4 E15) served as the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles. Her most recent poetry collection, Blue on a Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024), reflects on the condition of women—their joys despite their histories, and their insistence on survival as issues of race, culture, pandemic, and climate threaten their livelihoods.

M. Nzadi Keita (S4 E16) Migration Letters (Beacon Press, 2024), reflects on Black working-class identity and culture in Philadelphia, taking a closer look at what it means to be Black in America just after the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

Aaron Dworkin (S4 E2), a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, originated the terminology “poetjournalism”, which he defines as “journalism in which a news story or other event is presented in poetic form incorporating elements of emotion, opinion and creative illustration.”

In Protection from Erasure (Jaded Ibis Press, 2023), Samuel "Sami" Miranda (S4 E1) aims to capture and celebrate a life lived and lives encountered. Through observations and conversations, we're reminded that mundane events and minute moments in our everyday lives can and should be memoriali

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In this bonus episode, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the book, Queenie (2019) by Candice Carty-Williams and its streaming television series adaptation.

The novel Queenie, published in 2019. is about the life and loves of its lead character, Queenie Jenkins. A 25-year-old British-Jamaican woman living in the UK, we follow her journey through a year from hell. Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

The television adaptation of the book was released in early June 2024 and is available to stream on Hulu, Disney+ and Star+.

For those of you who are new to this platform and my work, I’ve always been extremely interested in spectatorship and what draws us to the things we watch, read, and consume. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting bonus episodes where I talk about some of the books written by Black women that I’ve read recently that have been adapted for film and television. I really appreciate these types of formats as it makes work accessible to various audiences as some folx prefer to read while others prefer to watch a narrative interpretation of the thing.

Check out the trailer for the series, Queenie.

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I've been so excited to share insight on a project I've been working on for the past few months. Serving as editor on this project, I wanted to give the Black Writers Read community a preview of the anthology, Heavy is the Crown, which is scheduled for release in August of 2024. It is now available for pre-order.

Produced under the auspices of A Queen’s Narrative, Heavy is the Crown features essays and creative writing contributed by twenty-two women, femme-identified, and trans folx from across the country. Topics explored in this book include experiences with addiction, recovery, sexual assault, toxic workplaces, journeys as mothers and caregivers, pregnancy, immigration, identity, identities, domestic violence, generational trauma, incarceration, suicide, suicide ideation, and mental health. Authors explored their healing journeys and life lessons learned while offering advice for others who are going through something that might be similar.

In this episode, you'll hear from eight women who contributed their stories to the anthology in a mix of brief interviews and readings of excerpts from poems and creative nonfiction included in the anthology: T’challa Williams, Laverne Ben-Mansel, Yaya Gloria Agosto, Nzima Hutchings, Regine Jackson, Queenpen, Gri Saex and Barbara McClane.

Based in Western Massachusetts, A Queen's Narrative is a BIPOC women-led empowerment company whose mission is to define narrative power and use narrative storytelling to empower women and girls to become their best version. Using various platforms like blogs, newsletters, anthologies, events, and youth development programming help them in achieving the vision of amplifying the voices of women and girls for the rest of the world to hear. A Queen's Narrative is especially committed to providing free thematic youth development workshops that strengthen youth skills in public speaking, teamwork, leadership, and creative expression.

Special thanks to Samantha Hamilton, co-founder of A Queen’s Narrative and a contributor to the anthology, every person involved in A Queen’s Narrative and to each of the twenty-two women who have contributed their stories to Heavy is the Crown.

To learn more about A Queen’s Narrative, please visit aqueensnarrative.com.

For those of you who are local to Western Massachusetts, please join us in person on Sunday, August 18 at 11 a.m. for Brunch over Books, the official launch celebration of Heavy is the Crown. Tickets are available by visiting aqueensnarrative.com. By joining us for the event, you’ll be able to meet some of the authors and hear more about the process of creating this anthology. Print versions of the book will be available after this book launch event.

Pre-order your copy of Heavy is the Crown TODAY by visiting: https://aqueensnarrative.com/heavy-is-the-crown.

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This bonus episode features excerpts from five interviews from Season Four - those that we had with authors who write memoir. Over the summer, we will be revisiting conversations that cover the nuisances of genre, form, and style - offering mini masterclasses filled with advice and insight from some of our guests. This retrospective offers insight on source material, exploring the effects of traumatic experiences, self-reflecting on formative moments in life, and honoring the past. Memoir, which is considered creative nonfiction, offers writers a space to tackle difficult situations with grace and humility - also a chance to implore the mechanics of fiction to expand upon memory and circumstances.

Included on this bonus episode are:

Nada Samih-Rotondo (Writers Across the Margins, S4 E7) is a multi-genre Palestinian American writer, educator, and mother. Her writing has appeared in Masters Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Squat Birth Journal. Our conversation featured her debut memoir, ALL WATER HAS PERFECT MEMORY, which blends folklore and history taking readers through the author's ancestral origins-and explores generations of silence and eventually, connection.

Minda Honey's (S4 E6) essays on politics and relationships have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American, Teen Vogue, and Longreads. Her debut memoir, THE HEARTBREAK YEARS (Little A, October 2023), is a hilarious and intimate portrait of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time.

K E Garland (S4 E8) uses personal essays and memoir to de-marginalize women's experiences with an intent to highlight and humanize contemporary issues. She has published essays with Midnight & Indigo, Raising Mothers, and For Harriet. We chatted about her debut memoir, IN SEARCH OF A SALVE: MEMOIR OF A SEX ADDICT.

Wakisha "Kisha" Stewart 's (S4 E18) SONATA FOR A DAMAGED HEART recounts the complicated professional and emotional journey that Kisha takes from heart failure to being selected in 2022 by the American Heart Association as one of twelve spokeswomen advocating for women’s heart health in its national education campaign, Reclaim Your Rhythm.

Lisa Braxton (S4 E19) is the author of the award-winning DANCING BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS: A DAUGHTER'S REFLECTION ON LOVE AND LOSS. This memoir in essays is a powerful meditation on grief, a deeply personal mosaic of a daughter’s remembrances of beautiful, challenging and heartbreaking moments of life with her family. It speaks to anyone who has lost a loved one and is trying to navigate the world without them while coming to terms with complicated emotions.

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In celebration of Juneteenth, we revisit our conversations with fiction authors featured during Season Four to reflect on approaches to creating worlds for our characters and what informs this work.

Included in this bonus episode are:

David Jackson Ambrose (S4 E17) writes on the intersections of race, sexuality and generational trauma. During our conversation, which took place during National Mental Health Awareness Month, we had a chance to talk about David’s three books, State of the Nation, A Blind Eye, and Unlawful DISorder.

Kerika Fields (S4 E5) ​​is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer and photographer whose work has been published and exhibited widely. We talked about her novella, With Your Bad Self, a coming-of-age love story set in an economically challenged Brooklyn on the precipice of WWII where 'Love Conquers All' may not be true this time.

Donna Hemans (S4 E10) is the author of three novels, River Woman, Tea by the Sea, and The House of Plain Truth. She lives in Maryland, and is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, D.C. Central to our conversation was Donna’s recently released novel, The House of Plain Truth , a lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home.

Chana Shinegba's (S4 E13) her debut novel, Dancer in the Bullpen blends elements of autobiographical fiction with magical realism. The novel speaks to those who, like Chana, have grappled with their sense of uniqueness and emerged empowered to embrace their true selves. Dancer in the Bullpen is scheduled for release on June 21, 2024.

Aina Hunter (S4 E3) is an artist based in Western Massachusetts with a background in journalism, Food Studies and Japanese. We talked about her debut novel (science fiction), Charlotte and the Chickenman: the Inevitable Nigrescence of Charlotte-Noa Tibbit.

T.H. Moore (S4 E9) is a Southwest Philadelphia native who relocated to Camden, New Jersey at the age of ten. Blending his experience living and working abroad combined with imagination helped formulate the basis of, and inspired him to write his first novel, The End Justifies the Means. His forthcoming memoir, Ghetto Bastard, scheduled for release in July of 2024.

Angie Chatman (S4 E12) is a writer, storyteller and 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee having written short stories and essays for a variety of publications and platforms including Insider Personal Finance, Brevity, TaintTaintTaint Magazine, and The Rumpus. Born and raised on Chicago's South Side, Angie now lives in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston with her family.

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