Curated links. Favorite Essays Favorite Short Stories Favorite Writing Advice This title is misleading. No one can work on a million drafts at once but I know that when I am working on one of my stories and I’m uninspired or I’m stuck or I can’t seem to move my story forward, I stop working …
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I’m Never Fine, Highlighting the History of Black Writers, and Fasika
Curated links. Favorite Essays I Read in the Past Two Weeks: The best profile piece I have read. An absolute delight. This essay doesn’t tiptoe around the edges and corners of the room—it boldly saunters to the center of the room where the story’s heart beats. I had to pause reading because tears blurred my …
The First Black Child to Interrogate an All-White Elementary School, the Most Beautiful Libraries in the World, and Adwa Victory
Curated reading lists. Favorite Essays I Read This Week: After losing his wife during childbirth, this father turns his pain into purpose (via sheknows) The sound of grief (via The New Yorker) Favorite Short Fiction I Read This Week: Snakes by Danielle Evans Favorite Flash Fiction I Read This Week: A middle finger flipped on a school bus by …
The Things We Do for Love, Master Slave Husband Wife, and the Hottest Inhabited Place on Earth
Curated reading lists. Favorite Essays I Read in the Past Two Weeks: The Man with the Golden Airline Ticket, Narratively The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser The Things We Do for Love, Roxane Gay. The pictures in this essay are breathtaking. While reading Roxane’s words, I felt I was in Antarctica with Roxane and her wife, …
‘I’ve Selected a Wife for You,’ My Grandfather Was Told. He Married Her Sister.
My grandparents’ arranged marriage that planted its feet and stood rooted for 67 years strikes me as something magical. At mid-day, on September 12, 2009, a couple—an 80-year-old black man and an 83-year-old black woman, their hands clasped in a tight hold—walked into a doctor’s office in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Their names …
A Black Composer’s Legacy, Publishing Thoughts for the Minority Writer, and Timket
Curated reading links. Favorite Essays I Read This Week: As a Black Woman, I’m Learning that Rest Is Resistance, Michelle Chikaonda Tears flooded my face when I read Her Kind, a heart-wrenching essay from Naomi Jackson on losing and finding her mind. A Litany for Survival by Naomi Jackson on giving birth as a black woman in America. Reflections, While Sitting …
The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Get’ Feminist Idea Is Failing Women
We want equal opportunities where we could compete with our male counterparts. There’s a feminist idea that seems like it’s empowering but actually puts women at a disadvantage. A couple of weeks ago, some of my male colleagues were given a salary raise as part of their annual review process. I was not given one. …
Ira Glass’s Advice to Help You Fight Your Way to Master Any Skill
When the level of your skill disappoints you, keep showing up. It was 2015 and my first day to teach a class of 50 adult students. On this particular day, I was hoping to deliver a good public speech. After all, I’ve been practicing in front of a mirror on how to stand in front …
Your Definitive Guide to Dealing With Emotions Before They Get the Better of You
Emotions are fierce and wild and don’t take well to anyone attempting to domesticate them. I regret every action I took when uncontrollable emotions enslaved me. Just last week, someone standing behind me in a supermarket said something awful to me and I stood there, powerless and hurt. I wanted to smack this stranger who …
4 Ways To Be Emotionally Available in Your Relationship
#3. Open your heart — like children — until you hear it crack “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it …