Black Writers Read – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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This episode features our conversation with Sherese Francis (poetry.), which was live-streamed on November 2, 2025.  

Sherese Francis (she/they) describes themselves as an AlkyMist of the I-Magination, finding expression through poetry, interdisciplinary arts (collage, book and paper arts, sound and performance art, text art), workshop facilitation, editing, and literary curation. Their work takes inspiration from their Afro-Caribbean heritage (Barbados and Dominica), and studies in Afrofuturism and Black Speculative Arts, mythology and etymology. Some of their work has been published in Women’s Studies Quarterly, Furious Flower, Obsidian, Rootwork Journal, The Caribbean Writer, The Operating System, Cosmonauts Avenue, No Dear, Apex Magazine, Bone Bouquet, African Voices, Newtown Literary, and Free Verse. 

Sherese has received grants and awards from Queens Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and The Caribbean Writer, residencies from WorksonWater, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Akademie Schloss Solitude, SeaSalted Honey in Senegal, Oroko Radio, and Powerhouse, and fellowships from Voodoonauts, Baldwin for the Arts and Anaphora Arts. 

Additionally, Sherese has published four chapbooks, Lucy’s Bone Scrolls (Three Legged Elephant, 2017), Variations on Sett/ling Seed/ling (Harlequin Creature, 2018), Recycling a Why That Rules Over My Sacred Sight (DoubleCross Press, 2021) and Lady Liberty Smashing Stones (THRASH Press, 2022), and edited a poetry anthology/guided journal, Baby Suggs and a Purple Butterfly (Get Fresh Books, 2024). Sherese won Inverted Syntax’s 2024 Aggrey Book Prize for Poetry for PollyNation: A Seminary of Self, which will be published in 2027.

Find Sherese Francis online: https://futuristicallyancient.com/about-me/

Find Sherese Francis on Instagram: @afutureancient

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Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

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This episode features our conversation with Naomi Rivers.

Naomi Rivers writes lesbian romance and women’s fiction. Naomi Rivers is a wife writing team who believes in romance, fairy tales, and happily ever after. Their first novel, THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story, was written over twenty years to maintain their connection during multiple deployments. They are both retired U.S. military veterans and reside with their two rescue dogs on the east coast. Naomi’s work has appeared in I Heart SapphFic’s anthology Favorite Scenes from Favorite Authors and From a Black Perspective: The Homeland. Their second book, Why Not Us? was released on November 11. 2025.

Learn more about their work: https://www.naomiriversbooks.com/

Purchase THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story: https://bookshop.org/a/114101/9798987329702

Purchase Why Not Us?: https://bookshop.org/a/114101/9798987329733

Find Naomi Rivers on Instagram: @naomiriversbooks

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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This episode features our conversation with Arriel Vinson, which was live-streamed on May 24, 2025. We chatted about her debut young adult (YA) novel in verse, Under the Neon Lights (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, June 3. 2025).

Arriel Vinson is a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow and Midwesterner who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and others. Arriel is a Tin House YA Scholar, Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, and 2020 Walter Grant recipient. 

In this sparkling and heartfelt debut YA novel in verse, a young Black girl discovers first love, self-worth, and the power of a good skate. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Joya Goffney.

You can connect with her on social media at @arriwrites and find her work at arriwrites.com.

Purchase your copy of Under the Neon Lights via Black Writers Read's Bookshop link to support both the podcast and independent bookstores! CLICK HERE

Find Arriel on Instagram: @arriwrites

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/ 

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Historian, essayist, and nonfiction writer, Dr. Khary Oronde Polk joined us for Episode 3 of Season Two of Black Writers Read.  An Associate Professor of Black Studies & Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies at Amherst College, Dr. Polk is the author of Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948 published by University of North Carolina Press in 2020. Contagions of Empire examines how the movement of Black soldiers and nurses around the world in the early-to-mid twentieth century challenged U.S. military ideals of race, nation, sexuality and honor.

Polk has written for the Studio Museum of Harlem, Interim: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics, The Journal of Negro History, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Gawker, and the journal Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly. He has also contributed essays to a number of queer of color anthologies, including If We Have To Take Tomorrow, Corpus, and Think Again. Polk is a member of the African Atlantic Research Group, the Critical Militarization Editorial Collective, and recently held a visiting professorship at the JFK Institute for North American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.  During this episode, Dr. Polk read from his new essay/project, "Spacewalking in the Archive: Transatlantic Black Feminist Lives" To read the essay in its entirety, please visit: https://www.interimpoetics.org/384/khary-oronde-polk/. 

Find Dr. Khary Oronde Polk on Twitter: @kharypolk. 

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Margo Gabriel (food, travel, culture, wine, music, art, lifestyle, self-care) joined us for Episode Two of Season Two (December 4, 2021) of the livestreamed series of Black Writers Read. She read the opening essay, Where Food, Culture and People Meet, from her debut cookbook, The Expat Kitchen. We also chatted about her expansive writing career.

To learn more about Margo and her work, visit https://margoscreativelife.com/. 

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Launched during the fall of 2020 as a livestreamed series, Black Writers Read was created as a platform to showcase, celebrate, and honor the words, work and traditions of Black writers from across the country, across genres, across experiences and across the African Diaspora.  The livestreamed series is now wrapping up Season Two. Beginning with Season Three, Black Writers Read will be presented as both a livestreamed series and audio podcast, first airing the livestreamed episode online. After the episode has aired, supporters will be able to listen to Black Writers Read from their preferred audio podcast platform.

Produced and hosted by performance poet, playwright, and events curator, Nicole M. Young-Martin, Black Writers Read presents a different author each episode who shares excerpts from their work and is then interviewed by Nicole about their work and how they seek to shift and influence the larger literary canon.

To learn more about Black Writers Read and your producer and host, please visit www.nicolemyoung.com.

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread.

Watch past episodes of Black Writers Read on YouTube.

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This episode features our conversation with Laura Pegram, founding editor of The Kweli Journal, to chat about Sing the Truth: The Kweli Journal Short Story Collection, an anthology published in celebration of their 15th anniversary, which was live-streamed on May 17, 2025. 

Hailed as “The Paris Review of BIPOC literature,” The Kweli Journal has been a launching pad for many of today’s most celebrated writers. Kweli—“truth” in Swahili—marks its fifteenth anniversary with this luminous collection edited by founder Laura Pegram. These vivid narratives explore the devastation of leaving home and the struggle to adapt to reimagined lives, lost loves, distant families, and buried pasts, deepening our understanding of the human experience.

Featuring works from acclaimed authors Naima Coster, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Daphne Palasi Andreades, Susan Muaddi Darraj, and others, with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat, this anthology stands as a testament to voices too often overlooked in contemporary literature. Readers will encounter narratives that explore memory, identity, culture, and the ways in which words transcend language to become instruments of power and resilience. In the evocative words of the anthology: “So come, sit with us on the bank and listen to our music.”

Kweli means “truth” in Swahili. Under the direction of founding editor, Laura Pegram since 2009, the Kweli Journal’s mission is to nurture emerging BIPOC writers that “sing the truth”. With a quarterly online literary journal, year-long writer fellowships, multi-session workshops, writing retreats, individualized editing, an annual writers’ conference and international festival, Kweli invests in the artistic and professional growth of emerging authors, nationally and internationally. Kweli Journal continues to contribute to a world where the narratives being told reflect the truth of our histories and the possibilities of our future.

To learn more about the Kweli Journal, please visit their website at kwelijournal.org. To purchase your copy of Sing the Truth, please visit https://bookshop.org/shop/blackwritersread. By purchasing your books via this Bookshop link, you’re  supporting Independent booksellers and Black Writers Read.

Find Kweli Journal on Instagram: @kweli.journal

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Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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This episode features our conversation with Eden Royce (Southern Gothic.), which was live-streamed on May 3, 2025. 

Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina now living in Southeast England. She is a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and a Bram Stoker Award nominee for her adult short fiction, which has appeared in various print and online magazines. Her debut middle-grade novel, ROOT MAGIC is a Walter Award Honoree, a Nebula Award finalist, a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner, and an Ignyte award winner for outstanding children’s literature. Her third middle-grade novel, THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE, is a Walter Award Honoree, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and a Bram Stoker Award Nominee. She loves tea, coffee, bookstores, and roller skating – not always in that order.

During this episode, Eden read from her short story, "For Southern Girls When the Zodiac Ain't Near Enough" originally published in Apex Magazine issue #111 in 2018. We also had an opportunity to chat about her middle grade fiction novels including ROOT MAGIC and THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE along with her forthcoming adult novella, PSYCHOPOMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE which is scheduled for release later this year in October. Pre-order your copy of PSYCHOPOMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE TODAY!

Congratulations to Eden for THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE being nominated for an Ignyte Award in the Outstanding Middle Grade category and HOLLOW TONGUE for being nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award!

To learn more about Eden and her body of work, please visit edenroyce.com.

Find Eden Royce on Instagram: @edenroycebooks

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread 

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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This episode features our conversation with Essie Chambers, which was live-streamed on April 22, 2025. 

Essie Chambers is an award-winning author and producer. Her debut novel, Swift River—a Today Show “Read with Jenna” Book Club pick—won the 2024 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, NPR, The Boston Globe, Elle, and others. It was also longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, The Libby Awards, the New England Book Awards and the Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. She received an Honor Fiction award from The Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

Essie started her career as a television executive at Nickelodeon/The N and BET before becoming an independent producer and filmmaker. She went on to produce the critically acclaimed PBS documentary, The New Public, and the Sundance Award–winning, Oscar-shortlisted documentary Descendant, which was released by the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company and Netflix in 2022.

She earned her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center, and Baldwin for the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she’s about to get started on book #2.

During our conversation, we talked about Swift River.

Learn more about Essie and her body of work: https://essiechambers.com/

During the episode, I reference an interview between Harriette Cole and Essie Chambers. Watch this interview here: Dreamleapers with Harriette Cole

Find Essie on Instagram: @essiejchambers

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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This episode features our conversation with Brother’s Keeper Poetry Theater Ensemble, which was live-streamed on April 12, 2025. 

Since 2013, Brother’s Keeper Poetry Theater Ensemble has been a beacon of hope and transformation, weaving together words, emotions, and stories to create powerful theatrical performances that resonate deeply with their audiences. The group blends elements of poetry, spoken word, theatre and music to create a unique performance which is not only entertaining and educational, but also soulful.

Passionate about fostering diversity and social change, Brother's Keeper has taken their craft into diverse spaces, performing at city halls, job corps programs, corporate offices seeking to enhance their DEI initiatives, and young adult substance abuse centers. With every stage they grace, they aim to spark dialogue, challenge perceptions, and encourage healing through the transformative power of art. Brother's Keeper has received citations of merit from the City Hall in the cities of: East Providence, Providence and Pawtucket Rhode Island.

Check out their newly released spoken word album, Father Figures, now available on Apple Music/iTunes, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

This episode of Black Writers Read is presented in collaboration with the Florence Poetry Carnival. 

Find Brother’s Keeper on Instagram: @brotherskeeperpoetry

Find Florence Poetry Carnival on Instagram: @florence_poetry_carnival

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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