This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with jarrett hill and Tre'vell Anderson , the authors of, Historically Black Phrases: From "I Ain't One of Your Little Friends" to "Who All Gon Be There? " Tre'vell and jarrett both have backgrounds in journalism and they are the hosts of the award-winning podcast FANTI . Their book chronicles the living language of Black people and how we bend a phrase to entertain, uplift, or sometimes to hurt and harm. In our conversation, they discuss how the...
Feb 27, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 7
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Minda Honey , author of the memoir, The Heartbreak Years . A retrospective for the twenty-somethings who are ready to stop leaping into the lives of the men they like and instead choose themselves and a life they love. The book is born out of Minda's series of essays for Longreads on dating politics. Her writing has also been featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Oxford American and Teen Vogue. I...
Feb 20, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 6
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Anissa Gray , author of the novel, Life and Other Love Songs . The novel uses music as a metaphor to examine the aftermath of one man's decision on his entire family after they lose the loves of their lives. In our conversation, Anissa discusses how she processed her own personal tragedies on the page. Plus, the reason she says writing Life and Other Love Songs was harder than writing her debut, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girl...
Feb 13, 2024•35 min•Season 4Ep. 5
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Donovan X. Ramsey , author of the book, When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era . The book, which was long listed for a National Book Award, is a work of narrative nonfiction exploring how Black America survived the crack epidemic. The book is born out of Donovan's work as a journalist and a Demos Emerging Voices Fellow. In our conversation, Donovan explains why giving context to what happened to Black people and the B...
Feb 06, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 4
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Terah Shelton Harris , author of the novel, One Summer in Savannah . Published by Sourcebooks in 2023, the novel was a Target Book Club Pick. Terah, who also works as a librarian and freelance writer, is now focused on writing more upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. In our conversation, Terah discusses the real life tragedy that inspired her to explore the theme of forgiveness in her novel. The reason she quit writing for six years a...
Jan 30, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 3
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Dolen Perkins-Valdez , the New York Times bestselling author of Take My Hand . The novel was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and Fiction Award from Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Dolen, who is an Associate Professor in the MFA Program at American University in Washington, D.C., is widely considered a pre-eminent chronicler of American his...
Jan 23, 2024•46 min•Season 4Ep. 2
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Denene Millner the New York Times Bestselling author of the novel, One Blood . In addition to her long literary career including stints as a celebrity ghostwriter for titles including Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man from Steve Harve and Around the Way Girl from Taraji P. Henson just to name a few. Denene got her start as a beat reporter for the Associated Press and the New York Daily News. She now runs her own imprint in partnership with S...
Jan 16, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 1
This season on Black & Published we're meeting the moment. According to Pen America’s 2023 report, Banned in the USA , 138 school districts in 32 states banned books. The majority of those books featured queer themes and characters, protagonists of color, or addressed racism and activism. So this season we're talking about it all: book bans, mass incarceration, reproductive freedom, homophobia and transphobia, rape culture, racism and white supremacy and so much more. Look for new episodes s...
Jan 09, 2024•4 min
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Erica Simone Turnipseed author of the new children's picture book, Bigger Than Me. In the book, children discover the impact they can have when they band together and how solidarity lifts everyone up during the 2020 COVID pandemic and racial reckoning. In our conversation, Erica discusses why she decided to have her young characters use actual building blocks to make meaning of their lives, why she's eternally hopeful despite the current soc...
Nov 07, 2023•31 min
What’s Good Black & Published Family… Yes, I’m still but I wanted to pop into your ears to tell you how you can win a copy of Cleyvis Natera’s Neruda on the Park which was recently released in paperback. All you have to do is follow Black & Published (@BLKandPublished) and Cleyvis Natera (@CleyvisNatera) on both Twitter and Instagram. And then of course like this post. The drawing will close one week from today on June 26, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. at which point two winners will be randomly se...
Jun 20, 2023•48 min
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Lori L. Tharps , an author and ghostwriter living abroad in Spain. Her work sits at the intersection of race and real life. She is the author of three critically-acclaimed nonfiction books including, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin's) Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria), and Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America's Diverse Families (Beacon) She also penned the novel, Su...
May 30, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 36
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Victoria Christopher Murray , author of Pride, A Seven Deadly Sins Novel . A native of Queens, New York, Victoria spent years in Corporate America and as an entrepreneur before embarking on her literary career in the late 90s. Dubbed a Christian Fiction writer because no one else was writing about religious topics, Victoria blazed the literary scene penning more than 30 novels, co-writing with other authors, and ghostwriting for top talent a...
May 23, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 35
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Nicole Cuffy , author of Dances . Nicole is a D.C.-based writer with a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from The New School. She is a lecturer at the University of Maryland and American University. Her work can be found in Mason’s Road , The Master’s Review Volume VI (curated by Roxane Gay), Chautauqua , and Blue Mesa Review , and her chapbook, Atlas of the Bod y, won the Chautauqua Janus Prize and was a finalist for the Black River Ch...
May 16, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 34
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Rhonda McKnight , author of The Thing About Home . Rhonda is also the author of twenty-five traditional and indie-published award-winning bestsellers, including An Inconvenient Friend, What Kind of Fool, and Unbreak My Heart. She is a two-time winner of the Emma award in the categories of Inspirational Romance of the Year (2015) and Debut Author (2010). She writes inspirational book club fiction and Christian romance about complex characters...
May 09, 2023•51 min•Season 3Ep. 33
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Nikki May , author of Wahala . Born in Bristol and raised in Lagos, Nikki May is Anglo-Nigerian. At twenty, she dropped out of medical school, moved to London, and began a career in advertising, going on to run a successful agency. Her debut novel Wahala was inspired by a long boozy lunch with friends. In our conversation, we discuss how her overnight success in the literary world is really due to her 57 years of life on Earth. Plus why she ...
May 02, 2023•49 min•Season 3Ep. 32
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Caseen Gaines , author of When Broadway Was Black: The Triumphant Story of the All-Black Musical that Changed the World. Caseen Gaines is an author, director, educator, and pop culture historian. He is the author of We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy , A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic and Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse , which earned Caseen a 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award. In our co...
Apr 25, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 31
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Yessoh G.D. author of the African fantastical suspense thriller, Ta Lé Book One: Knowledge . Yessoh grew up in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, a country on the southern coast of West Africa. He believes that books have the power to change people for the betterment of the whole. When he is not day-dreaming about stories and the world, he is a visual effects artist and a gamer. He specializes in 3-D animation and visual effects and has worked o...
Apr 18, 2023•37 min•Season 3Ep. 30
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Derrick Harriell author of the poetry collection, Come Kingdom . Derrick Harriell is the Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. His previous collections of poems include Stripper in Wonderland, Cotton, and Ropes, winner of the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Book Award During our conversation, Derrick opens up about being bitten by the poetry bug at...
Apr 11, 2023•49 min•Season 3Ep. 29
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Dior J. Stephens author of the poetry collection, CRUEL/CRUEL . Dior J is the author of the chapbooks SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!. They proudly serve as the Managing Poetry Editor of Foglifter Journal and Press and are a fellow of Cave Canem and Lambda Literary's Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellowship. In our conversation, Dior discusses writing poems to popular music as a child, how confronting his rage and anger helped him publish h...
Apr 04, 2023•51 min•Season 3Ep. 28
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Victor LaValle author of the novel Lone Women . As the writer behind six other works of fiction, Victor's novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives...
Mar 28, 2023•47 min•Season 3Ep. 27
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Laura Warrell , author of the novel, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm , which was named a ‘best’ or ‘must-read’ book by Vanity Fair, People, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and more. The novel was chosen as a Good Morning America Buzz Pick and Laura was named a “Writer to Watch” by Publishers Weekly. She grew up in Kent and Columbus, Ohio. In our conversation, Laura discusses her 25 year journey to publishing her debut novel. Wha...
Mar 21, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 26
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Yvette Lisa Ndlovu , author of the short story collection, Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky, Spring 2023) which was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series. Yvette is a Zimbabwean sarungano (storyteller). Her novel manuscript in progress was selected by George RR Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She is pursuing her MFA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she teaches in the Writi...
Mar 14, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 25
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Sophronia Scott , author of the novel, Wild, Beautiful and Free . Sophfronia holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She began her career as an award-winning magazine journalist for Time, and People. When her first novel, All I Need to Get By, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2004 Sophfronia was nominated for best new author at the African American Literary Awards. Sophfronia’s other ...
Mar 07, 2023•47 min•Season 3Ep. 24
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Diane Marie Brown , author of the novel, Black Candle Women . A professor at Orange Coast College and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department, Diane has a BA and MPH from UCLA and a degree in fiction from USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. She grew up in Stockton and now lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, their four daughters, and their dog, Brownie. Black Candle Women is her debut novel. ...
Feb 28, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 23
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Destiny O. Birdsong , author of the triptych novel Nobody's Magic . She's also a poet and essayist, and her workhas either appeared or is forthcoming in the Paris Review Daily, Poets & Writers, African American Review, The Best American Poetry 2021, and elsewhere. Nobody’s Magic , was published by Grand Central in February 2022 and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. In our conversation, Destiny discusses the d...
Feb 21, 2023•49 min•Season 3Ep. 22
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Danyel Smith , author of the Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop . Danyel is anaward-winning journalist, and producer. She’s the creator and host of the Black Girl Songbook podcast, a music and talk show that centers black women in music. Danyel has served as editor of Billboard, editor at large at Time Inc., and editor in chief of Vibe. She's also the author of two novels—More Like Wrestling (2003), and Bliss (2005)....
Feb 14, 2023•55 min•Season 3Ep. 21
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Tia Williams , author of the New York Times bestselling novel Seven Days in June . Tia had a fifteen-year career as a beauty editor for magazines including Elle, Glamour, and Essence. She also wrote the bestselling novel, The Accidental Diva, and penned two YA novels: It Chicks, and Sixteen Candles. Her award-winning novel, The Perfect Find, will be adapted into a Netflix film starring Gabrielle Union this year. In our conversation, Tia disc...
Feb 07, 2023•43 min•Season 3Ep. 20
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Janay Harden , author of the novel Forty-Two Minutes . As a licensed clinical social worker, Janay works as a mental health therapist. She is the CEO of Restoring Your Destiny Counseling and Consulting and has over ten years of experience working in the mental health field with children, families, and schools. She's translated her background in mental health into accessible stories for children and teens. In our conversation, Janay discusses...
Jan 31, 2023•37 min•Season 3Ep. 19
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Ladee Hubbard , author of the short story collection, The Last Suspicious Holdout . Ladee is also the author of the novels The Talented Ribkins which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction and The Rib King . Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Guernica , Virginia Quarterly and Callaloo among other venues. Born in Massachusetts and raised in the U.S. Virg...
Jan 24, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 18
This week on Black and Published , Nikesha speaks with Mant¿s , author of the poetry collection, The Rootwork Stretched . Mant¿s writes from the intersections of Black, femme, queer, and artist. They are Pittsburgh born, and Hill District raised. They have performed their poetry at universities, open mics, launch parties, book tours, and featured showcases throughout Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and New York City. Mant¿s creates work that reflects their healing. In our conversation Mant¿s discusses...
Jan 17, 2023•39 min•Season 3Ep. 17
