On Wednesday, May 28, I joined 11,000 other fans in welcoming the Washington Mystics to downtown Baltimore. The team, now coached by Sydney Johnson, a Towson Catholic High alum (previously on staff with the Chicago Sky), is led by veteran guard Brittney Sykes and Virginia native Shakira Austin. Their opponents for the evening were the Indiana Fever, featuring a roster full of champions, veterans, and rising stars in the league. In the shadow of the matchup and with the news of five new expansion franchises coming by 2030, my mind is swirling with thoughts on how cost and narrative shape the fan experience of the WNBA.

Growing up in Baltimore, there was little talk of the WNBA in my daily life. Our city did not feature a team, and with that, few local news outlets covered the wins and losses of our beltway neighbors, the Washington Mystics. In contrast, my childhood memories are filled with Purple Fridays for the Ravens and discounted tickets to Orioles games. My basketball memories from that era center on Carmelo Anthony, the rise of Kevin Durant out of PG County, and the dominance of the 2008 USA men’s basketball team (The Dream Team). Little did I know that athletes like Elena Delle Donne (WNBA MVP, WNBA Champion, Olympian, and retired Washington Mystic) at the University of Delaware and Alyssa Thomas at UMD College Park were rising around the Mid-Atlantic. 

In recent years, journalists and on-air broadcasters have assessed the differences in coverage for women’s sports. The flippant notion that “nobody watches women’s sports” has birthed entirely new brands, catch phrases, bars, and so much more to prove — at the level of commerce and social space — just how wrong that is. Despite increased viewership of the WNBA in the last five years, the disparity across the board in broadcast hours, dedicated newsroom staff, and resourcing between men’s and women’s sports is wide. And beyond the gender disparity, there are disparities based on race, age, and nationality that contort the ways U.S. media presents sports stories. With the advances in women’s sports coverage, one point is glaring to me: the cost of the WNBA marketing strategy falls on consumers in more ways than one. 

The first sold-out match-up at CFG Arena between the Mystics and the Fever brought WNBA action right to Charm City. The Mystics’ victory was a masterclass in defensive tenacity, grit, and assertive coaching strategy. Sykes and Austin delivered incredible performances. Sykes scored 21 points alongside 9 rebounds, and Austin delivered 13 points and two crucial steals. Beyond player performance, Johnson and the coaching staff locked in for four quarters of engaged, dynamic work. You could see Johnson and his assistant coaches pulling players into huddles, clarifying calls, and reinforcing notes on efficiency for all 40 minutes. Plus, veteran Stefanie Dolson and rookie Lucy Olsen made impressive stops and key shots that wowed me. And it was great to see players I’m a fan of like Aliyah Boston, Lexie Hull, and Kelsey Mitchell hustling to keep the Fever competitive down the stretch. 

CFG Arena was overflowing with veterans and champions on both sides of the floor, though the promotion leading up to the game may not have shown the depth of talent on display. 

For months, the marketing for this regular-season contest centered on the arrival of the Fever and their reigning Rookie of the Year, Caitlin Clark, to Baltimore. That’s despite the game being (technically) a home game for the Mystics, an opportunity for crowds to see former UMD star Austin suit up, and a first look at the Mystics own current rookie lineup (featuring Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron). 

The marketing trend of Clark being the name in the WNBA is not new, and the data shows that her fandom does show up, pay up, and roar for their favorite player. I wonder, however, if the chicken or the egg comes first here. Does Clark have more fans and thus gets more camera time, or does the centering of Clark continue to encourage folks to know her? What’s the cost to audiences if the WNBA falls into patterns of disproportion? 

My questions are guided by my own experience, too. As a poor kid, my interest in sports was guided by the broadcast teams and distribution deals set by people in rooms far away from my family’s East Baltimore rowhome. And truthfully, I did not dive deep into professional basketball until I spent hours watching Celtics games and Olympic coverage with my grandfather. His cable bill, with access to NBA games on TNT and other networks, and willingness to answer all my questions about Kevin Garnett shaped my entry into the NBA (and quick fascination with Dwyane Wade’s leadership and skill). Watching with him led to conversations with middle school friends and classmates across school desks and lunch tables about players like Garnett, Wade, and others. In some ways, watching basketball at home built connections with the outside world. 

As the newly extended 2025 WNBA season got underway, injury reports began to develop for many teams across the league. In the days leading up to tip-off in Baltimore, the Fever front office announced Clark would be out for two weeks because of a quad injury. And with that, the data, as reported by CBS Sports, shows that average ticket prices for the Fever’s next four match-ups — deemed “Clark-less” — dropped 71%. The estimated cost moved from $137 to $81. Still, $81 amounts to about five and a half hours of work on a minimum wage salary in Maryland. And beyond attending in-person, the costs of the exclusive subscriptions needed to watch WNBA games at home are high with broadcasting deals and local media blackouts meaning fans need access to the internet, a WNBA league pass subscription, and other online resources that may be outside the budget of many curious about women’s basketball at the pro level in the U.S.

In my view, the debates about Clark’s impact on the WNBA’s success miss the mark. While some argue about her unprecedented rookie year, and others point to areas where her defensive game needs improvement, I’m more intrigued by the case study that Clark’s marketability offers. If a two-week injury to a single star can impact average ticket prices in an away game market by over 50%, then what is the larger lay of the land? What are the consequences of the WNBA’s current marketing strategy? And where does this current strategy leave (potential) fans without the capital necessary to enjoy the sport at its star-studded peak? The crisis of emphasizing any player’s singularity as the star of the WNBA disavows much of the truth of the game and eclipses conversations I’d love to have about women’s basketball in 2025. 

For others, the story of the 2025 season may be about how the league fares without its star on the court as Clark’s injury struggles persist (with a recent groin injury), but my mind will be on the new possibilities for the WNBA marketing team, and news organizations, to ramp up coverage of the vast talent across the league. To many, the growth of the WNBA is synonymous with ticket upcharges and the success of one big star, but I’m not convinced. To me, pricing out poor and working-class fans through ticket costs, compounding subscription fees, and high merch price points while focusing on one player’s singularity isn’t a winning strategy. And if the WNBA plans to grow its game with fidelity, then it must adapt.

I’m hoping that as costs lower — due to some fans bowing out of matchups without Clark — and access to live games becomes more affordable in some WNBA markets, folks who have been consistently priced out have a chance to cheer without having to choose between interest in the WNBA and a light bill. Plus, I’m hoping the W uses this moment of energetic expansion to highlight the multiplicity of talent across the league, because there’s plenty of good ball to see.

Bry Reed is a Baltimore native writing about books, sports, culture, and everything that makes her mind wander. Reed is a recent Baker Artist Award Finalist in Literary Arts for 2025.

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Katie Mitchell of Atlanta, Georgia, is a writer, reader, and researcher whose online bookshop Good Books ATL offers vintage and contemporary reads from Black authors. As of last month, Mitchell is the author of her first book titled, “Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores.” In March, I had the opportunity to speak with Mitchell about the book’s genesis, her travels, and the recurring themes throughout the text that allude to a larger history of surveillance for Black communities. “Prose” is a chronicle of Black bookstore history that guides us through time and space. My favorite moments from the book are the pages spent exploring the life and memory of Martin Sostre, a political prisoner who committed his life to literacy and the liberation of Black people all over the world. May this interview encourage us all to keep reading. 

Bry Reed: To start, let’s talk about how “Prose” went from idea to reality. What sparked that transformation?

Katie Mitchell: I was in Washington D.C., and I was looking for Black bookstores. I eventually found one, and the person working there gave me some great recommendations. That night, I wrote in my journal: “a book about Black bookstores.” I had this idea that I wanted [the book] to be like a Black bookstore. What I mean by that is, I wanted it to have a diversity of thought. I wanted it to be highly visual. I wanted it to feature a lot of different media. And I wanted it to be very engaging, like how I find Black bookstores to be.

I think “Prose” goes beyond what I originally wrote down. It’s an anthology. You hear from Nikki Giovanni, Kiese Laymon, Rio Cortez — so many great people. There’s poetry, there’s essays, and there’s interviews. I wanted “Prose” to encompass the feeling of Black bookstores, and I wanted people to be able to experience the [Black] bookstores that no longer exist. You’ll see pictures of those places and you’ll get interviews from people who were in them. You get to see all of that in “Prose.” 

BR: The book features a foreword from the late and great Nikki Giovanni. Did that connection happen through the publishing house or was she someone you had a personal connection to?

KM: Nikki Giovanni is one of those people you know of your whole life, so you feel like you know them. I met her at a couple of signings, but when I was recording the book, every bookstore that was around from the ‘60s to the early 2000s had a Nikki Giovanni story. And they were all positive! She’s such a big writer that when these Black bookstores would get her [to do readings], it’d propel their store to a national level. She was really helping these bookstores out. She could’ve gone to chain bookstores, but she went [to local Black bookstores]. Everyone had a great story about her, and that’s when I thought that I’d really like her to have the first word in “Prose to the People.” I think she deserved that.

BR: As you were on the journey of collecting these stories and experiences for the book, how did it feel to be able to hear from these independent booksellers? 

KM: It was something that I felt a weight to. I knew there hadn’t been a book like this before, and I knew it was really important. One of the unexpected things that came about was how many older friends I’d make because of this book. I’ve been hanging out with all these octogenarians who tell me about their bookstores and the civil rights movement and all this great stuff that I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for “Prose.” Now, all of my best friends are in their 80s. 

BR: You also do a great job of giving us a bookseller and bookstore historiography. How did it feel to compile these stories and see those connections playing out through storytelling? 

KM: To me, it feels like a big family tree. Pick any story and you can trace it back to the National Memorial African Bookstore. Paul Coates, Ta-Nehisi’s dad, who had The Black Book bookstore, went there to get books, and then Ta-Nehisi was at Everyone’s Place bookstore, where he had his first signing. Then Everyone’s Place helped out Sankofa Video, Books & Cafe. There are so many connections. When people think of business, they tend to think that these [booksellers] are in strict business with each other. To some extent, they are competing for customers — even more so now, in the internet age — but they were actually helping each other. When The Liberation Bookstore closed, they gave the rest of their inventory to the Hueman Books when it came to Harlem. There are all these connections. It’s something that you wouldn’t truly get until you’re in the archives and pulling [those layers] back. 

BR: I was really intrigued, as a Baltimore native, to see you reference The AFRO archives. Did you have an opportunity to work with the team at AFRO Charities?

KM: Yeah! AFRO Charities were the ones who got me that picture of W.E.B. Du Bois at the Hugh Gordon Bookshop. They were great! It’s another one of those serendipitous connections. 

BR: Through these auxiliary essays (and citations) you see these different images that you’ve pulled from the FBI, CIA, and COINTELPRO archives. Did you expect that pattern of surveillance to emerge when you first had the idea to chronicle the history of Black bookstores?

KM: I knew it’d be a theme, although I didn’t know to what extent. Being in the archives, I realized that the FBI probably has the most complete archive of Black bookstores because they were being surveilled so much. A lot of the ephemera that Black bookstores have probably wouldn’t be around if the FBI hadn’t archived it. It’s kinda like great that I get to see this flyer about the Black bookstore George Jackson movement. However, the reason I get to see it is because [these stores] were getting spied on! 

BR: As “Prose” came together, what was it like to chronicle the histories of physical spaces? What was it like to witness the ways communities are changed by the decisions of people in power?

KM: You think of gentrification as a new phenomenon like “Ugh! The rent is so high in Atlanta and I can’t afford a house in D.C.” Then you look back at the ‘60s and ‘70s and realize that [people in power] were kicking us out for a long time. It’d be called “urban renewal,” or as James Baldwin said “negro removal”. It’s interesting because sometimes they’d demolish these buildings, say they were building something, and then nothing would get built. 

I think that in addition to the surveillance that the government did, the fact that they were physically demolishing these spaces shows the kind of threat [Black] bookstores were to government officials. It was like “This time, we aren’t going to shoot you or put a bomb in your car, but we’re going to demolish [this building], and we know you’re not going to be able to find another space.” This happened so many times, and not just in the South. There were a good four or five bookstores in Harlem that all had the same fate because of one state office building. 

BR: To shift gears a bit from surveillance, I want to talk about your childhood. Where did young Katie find stories that called to her? 

KM: My mother would be the person I have to credit for helping me find those stories. She was like “Y’all are reading these Black books, and before you go outside to play, you need to recite this poem and do it perfectly.” She was the one who introduced me to that world. And by my late elementary school years, I was reading adult books alongside her. She introduced me to a love for Black literature, but also a love for Black people and the love of self. I never had an identity crisis of [thinking] Black people aren’t good enough. I think that was because my mom instilled those values into me early. 

BR: What’s one thing you hope readers take from your new book?

KM: I’d love for people to know that you can be in your own community and not know what was there before. Things can change so quickly, and as we get further [removed] from the time [they were around], there’s less people who remember them. I want “Prose” to be an aid to remembering. 

—

Prose to the People is available at local libraries and bookstores.

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The Enoch Pratt Free Library held its 37th annual Booklovers’ Breakfast at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront on February 1, marking the beginning of Black History Month programming for one of the oldest public library systems in the United States. This annual event brings together hundreds of book club members, library enthusiasts, and community members from across the mid-Atlantic to Baltimore City to celebrate literacy and learn about the Pratt’s plans for the upcoming year. 

As in previous years, this gathering also serves as an opportunity to assess the state of libraries in the United States. In 2025, many public library systems nationwide are facing challenges such as threats of defunding, restrictive book bans, and declining circulation rates, which are concerning to advocates of library services. 

One constant presence at the Booklovers’ Breakfast is Oxon Hill, Maryland-based Mahogany Books. The family-run, Black-owned bookstore is the official bookselling partner of the event, and owners Ramunda and Derrick Young champion literacy as a part of Black storytelling. When asked how it feels to attend the event every year, Ramunda Young is clear: “It is crucial for us to be here. We must be wherever Black books are being celebrated.” 

“Our hope is that attendees continue to fall in love with our stories. It’s important that Black stories are passed down from generation to generation,” Ramunda Young said. 

Another attendee Ryah Bunting, founder of the Cut and Discussed book club, is a Baltimore native excited about the annual Booklovers’ event since attending for the first time last year. Bunting says the onus for starting her book club was very personal, “I love food. I have a massive library and wanted accountability for reading all the books I have.” Since beginning the book club with her younger sister and grandmother, she’s gotten to know many new people of all genders and across personal interests. Bunting, a Howard University alum, is a big proponent of book clubs’ ability to gather people. 

This year’s keynote speaker, Imani Perry, is one scholar striving to share Black history across generations. For this year’s event, she delivered a lecture connecting her latest book, “Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People,” with the long arc of Black resistance movements that she believes offer guidance for surviving the present.

In her 2022 acceptance speech for the National Book Awards’ Nonfiction Book of the Year award, Perry said, “I’m sweetly indebted and deeply bound to my family and friends from Birmingham, Boston, Philly, Chicago, Milwaukee, Georgia, Tennessee, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and always Mississippi: land of the bluest blues.” With the publication of her latest book, “Black in Blues,” Perry’s fans can read about the bluest blues of Mississippi, along with the multilayered history of how blues — as a color, genre, and mood — fasten to Black life.

In addition to being a National Book Award winner, Perry is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elizabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She previously taught at Princeton University and has published several other monographs, including “Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry” (2018) and “May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem” (2018). In 2023, Perry was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “genius grant,” for her interdisciplinary scholarship. 

The moments before Perry takes the stage are anticipatory. I, along with other attendees, the Pratt team, and hotel staff rotate around the venue, navigating the aisles between round, navy blue breakfast tables. Plates, mugs, and books overflow atop the dark linen cloth as conversation about Perry’s past work, The Pratt’s upcoming events, and other topics fill the space.

“Have you read the latest work?” I overhear from across the table. A pause and then a chuckle precedes the response, “I haven’t even started.” The air is light, and copies of Perry’s work are scattered around nearly every surface. 

Before the keynote begins, Chad Helton, the new president and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Library, opens the event with a message of gratitude for all the attendees and staff members who make the annual event a success. The welcome concludes with a roll call of the book clubs in attendance and a lively invitation for attendees to applaud themselves and their peers for their commitment to literacy and community. 

Afterward, Perry takes the stage in a long-sleeved dress that lands between cobalt and indigo. The curtains behind her are Oxford blue. Before a word is spoken, the ballroom’s visual tone — the curtains, tablecloths, and other linens — adds to the thematic refrain of the lecture. We are here to discuss the blues and its meaning across history for African Americans. Perry’s opening of “Happy Black History Month!” is met with applause before she acknowledges the bittersweet triumph of the phrase: the federal government’s current crusade against the very meaning of our gathering. She proceeds to declare, “The federal government didn’t give us Black History Month and cannot take it away.” The audience erupts. Clapping, hollering, and the sound of a reassured public answer her.

From then on, Perry’s keynote transforms into an interrogative lecture about the history of the blues as a focal point of Black life, organizing, and art deserving of rigorous study. Through her analysis of Rayford Logan’s book, “The Betrayal of the Negro” (1965), and Alain Locke’s 1925 essay, “Enter the New Negro,” Perry asserts that lessons from the past are integral to our collective survival against state tyranny.

“The efforts made at the lowest points [of Black suffering] made the gains of the Civil Rights Movement possible,” Perry says. Her statement is followed by a recollection of the historic conditions that birthed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written by James Weldon Johnson and set to music composed by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson in 1900. 

Perry draws on the work of Albert Murray and his 1971 memoir, “South to a Very Old Place,” to emphasize that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” began as a “school bell song” for Black Southern children at the turn of the 20th century, preceding the codification of any song as a U.S. national anthem. To be clear, “The Star Spangled Banner,” written by Francis Scott Key in Baltimore in 1814, was not adopted as the official anthem of the United States until 1931 by President Herbert Hoover. Therefore, it remains true that before the State recognized any anthem, there was widespread community support from Black educators and students, from Alabama to the Carolinas, for a schoolyard song that would change the nation. Perry’s opening is a well-researched reminder that one of the greatest musical artifacts of the 20th century began with Black Southern peoples’ pursuit of quality, culturally-resonant art to reinforce the lessons being taught to their children in schoolhouses.

As her lecture continues, Perry reminds us that now “is the time to be instructed in the practice of creating beauty at the site of need.” Though we all sit in a hotel ballroom yards away from the Inner Harbor, Perry’s words transform the space into a lively classroom. For the next hour, we are students.

With each passing minute, Perry fashions a multilayered historiography of Black life and its tethering to the blues. We are reminded that those in bondage in the 17th century (and onward) “were being sold for blocks of indigo” and prompted to consider, “What did people see when they were being thrown over the board of the slave ship?” as she helps us understand the depth of blues in Black history. Then, Perry stitches together a broad timeline by citing scholars and artists throughout history as pieces of her epic quilt. Concurrently, Perry advises the audience not to dismiss today’s repressive political leaders. She cautions against labeling them as monsters, stating plainly, “They must be treated as humans who’ve betrayed their greatest virtues.”

Perry’s advice is practical and strategic. In her delivery, she stresses the idea that our country enters periods of repression following failures in ethics. “We are still tasked in adversity to make a living future,” Perry asserts. Her fundamental belief is that the past provides “an ethical foundation for what we carry in the present.” In Perry’s assessment, dismissing ethical failures as actions of inhuman enemies  — instead of the measured choices of those who are committed to political violence — is a misstep. Instead of monstrosity, those failures are the culmination of miseducation that Perry suggests is only remedied by a devotion to “haunting the past.”

Her answer is returning to lessons of those who survived by focusing “on what Black people had done internally to their communities” to make it through the “thicket of segregation.” She’s calling our attention to “the beauty of people who sang the blues when they had the worst blues of all.” Perry is referring to the Nadir.

By definition, the Nadir means the lowest point in an astronomical horizon. It’s the bottom. The Nadir Perry references here is a historical period. From 1890 to 1940, Africans/African Americans in the United States endured unrelenting racial terror known as The Nadir. Events like Red Summer in 1919 and the ongoing slaughter of Black people via lynchings are some of the acts of violence marking the era immediately following the political gains of Black communities in Reconstruction. Perry calls on us to learn from the archives and communal histories available as necessary guides for our present survival. “Continue the tradition of educating young people even when it’s fugitive” is her marching order. She says, “Open living rooms to have conversations if we can’t have them in public anymore.” Her words echo the writing and pedagogical work of the late June Jordan whose work on “Life Studies” often contended with living rooms as sites of education and conversation about all things needed for dignified lives.  

With the assessment of the Nadir, Perry goes on to highlight the agricultural and artistic work of George Washington Carver at Tuskegee University. She spans a long history of agricultural development and artistic marvels to emphasize that during a period of fatal losses, Carver worked with Alabamans to survive. The knowledge gained from his work with farmers in Alabama led Carver to magnificent discoveries, like the first recreation of rare Egyptian Blue containing pigments derived from Alabama soil in his lab. Carver’s legacy as a brilliant polymath is coupled with another major figure in Black in Blues: Lorna Simpson. If the Nadir is an astronomical low, then the zenith is the high, and Simpson’s artwork is evidence in the American Jeremiah (prophecy). Perry draws together the history of Carver’s marvelous Egyptian Blue with Lorna Simpson’s bluestone pigment from quarries in upstate New York. Both are roadmaps.

Perry closes her lecture with the sobering statement, “Society will be lost if we don’t change our course.” She draws again upon the histories of Harriet Jacobs and Gil Scott-Heron, a self-proclaimed blueologist, as tools for surviving.

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At Everyman Theatre, a hazy purple and tangerine sunset lights the stage as the three-pane backdrop conjures the image of a mountainous Vermont skyline. Under the supervision of dedicated ushers, the crowd settles in for the opening night of “Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains.” The play is the final show in a trilogy of solo performances from playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings. This final entry, performed in front of a live audience for the first time this month, chronicles the journey of Jacqueline Marie Butler at Bennington College from 1968-1972. 

In this run, Deidre Staples stars under the thoughtful direction of Danielle A. Drakes. As a solo performance, the play focuses the audience’s eyes on the comedy and conflict of building a self-identity in a world full of wars and political violence. 

Jennings’ playwriting offers a solo performance made up of many different voices. The result is a collage of characters with dynamic personalities where no interaction or chronological detail is taken for granted. Each conversation, whether aloud or within the confines of Butler’s inner monologue, is evidence of the strife that comes with building a self in a world dominated by U.S. imperialism. Throughout the production, the play’s historical frame features discussions of the Biafran War in Nigeria, Malcolm X’s assassination, the Vietnam War, and the May 4 assassination of four Kent State students at the Democratic National Convention in 1970. And the inspiration for this is the real life of the work’s playwright. 

“Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains” is a piece of autobiographical fiction derived from parts of Jennings’ life and events of the late 1960s and early 70s. In her own life, Jennings earned her bachelor’s degree in drama from Bennington College in 1972 before receiving her MFA in acting from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Furthermore, before the play begins, Vincent Lancisi — founder and artistic director of Everyman — reminds audiences that Everyman Theatre’s connection to this final play is strong. “Queens Girl: Black Girl in the Green Mountain” was originally commissioned and produced here. 

Under Drakes’ direction, Staples embodies over ten distinct characters. In the show’s 72 minutes, she enters the skin of college administrators, eccentric professors, and many more to deliver a story about Butler’s young adulthood. The Memphis native is a comedic triumph throughout the show. Her sense of timing and mastery of proxemics, meaning the distance she places between herself and another iteration of herself, is a joy to watch. Drakes and Staples credit using rasa aesthetics, an Indian artistic concept that encourages artists to consider the essence of a work, as a key component in their practice of building each character and moment in the production.

While Butler is the dramatic nucleus of the performance, the play is a comedic volley filled with the voices of parents, peers, and elders who shape Butler’s worldview. As a piece of a larger three-part vision, “Black Girl in the Green Mountains” is just one entry in Jennings’ coming-of-age trio. This fact means that each edition in the trilogy is tasked with spanning years at a time with little room to settle into one moment and stay. 

As the production progresses, audiences will come to know many different voices. The interpersonal conflicts between characters catalyze discussions of integration, sexuality, and geopolitics. One moment we’re learning that Butler’s lover is in exile from Apartheid South Africa and the next we’re watching Butler grapple with virginity and women’s sexuality workshops.

My favorite character of the night was Staples’ characterization of Aunt Maisie, a scotch-drinking, chosen elder who isn’t scared to cuss up a storm. While Butler’s parents are away in Nigeria treating victims of war wounds, Aunt Maisie serves as her “mother on this side of the Atlantic.” The character is a nod to the found families that Black people across the diaspora create with each other to keep children safe and cared for when labor may take caregivers far from home. This performance requires Staples to execute varied dialogue, tone, and delivery. And in each regard, Staples is a skilled lead. No line feels lost or redundant in the sea of conversations (a commendable feat when characters cross cultures and ages within seconds). 

As a solo performer, Staples commands the stage with the help of other artists on the Everyman roster. With the support of a crew of talented dramaturgs, set designers, and other creatives, Staples brings us into the world of Bennington and 1960s life. The work of set designer Daniel Ettinger and lighting designer Harold F. Burgess II, both resident company members at Everyman, deepens the performance before any lines are spoken. The design work is incredible as the space transforms from a small stage in a black box theater into collegiate dorm rooms, Vermont mountainsides, and New York City streets. The details of spotlight hues, bookshelf placement, and visual projections ground the play without distracting from Staples’ character work. The balance struck between the visuals is harmonious. 

In addition to the visual offerings of the design crew, Staples’ performance is accompanied by incredible sound design. Sarah O’Halloran’s work shines throughout the performance. O’Halloran’s use of musical refrains, like the recurring instrumental refrain from Moon River when Butler mentions her lover, Gilliam, complements Staples’ acting and Drakes’ direction wonderfully. Moreover, with the number of references to musical talents like Sly and the Family Stone, Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins, and others throughout the play, music is a key textual element layered into the production. The inclusion of John Coltrane’s instruments and Otis Redding’s soulful vocals in “I’ll Be Loving You” (1965) further immerse audiences in the world Jennings builds. 

With the trilogy format in mind, this production left me yearning for more insight into Butler’s political commitments. From various conversations throughout the play, we learn that she struggles with her role in political organizing and art as the daughter of a middle-class Black family and yet, we get little insight into what she truly thinks of the wars, protests, and art around her. By the play’s end, I wondered: “What does Butler think about the U.S.’s war in Vietnam? Does Butler dive into political ideology? Where does she align herself in political struggle?” In the wake of the show, I’m still wondering about her journey as an artist amid the Black Arts Movement of the 60s and 70s. 

Despite my hope for more time with Butler’s political ideology, I commend Jennings for crafting work linking political struggles in and outside the United States. Through Butler and her loved ones, we watch a play about how life in New York City connects to the Biafran War and the anti-war protests of the 20th century. This production is one reminder that the contemporary anti-war organizing being done in the U.S., spurred by ongoing funding of genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and Haiti (among others), is a continuation of a long legacy. 

The collective efforts of the playwright, cast, crew, and director skillfully fill out this production. After this performance, I am curious about the other two plays in the trilogy and their thematic journeys. At the reception following the show, I spoke briefly with Drakes about the challenges and triumphs of solo performances. With this production, Drakes has been a part of 10 solo shows in her career (serving as both actor and director across her experience). 

“I’m glad this show is impactful,” she told me. “There’s heavy themes throughout and it takes work to convey that to an audience.” 

Queens Girl: Black Girl in the Green Mountains is showing at Everyman Theatre through November 17. 

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Last month, a new Marvel title hit shelves courtesy of Tiffany D. Jackson. The author of “Grown,” “What Happened to Monday,” and “The Weight of Blood” brings a young Ororo Munroe — the child who will become the superhero Storm — to life in “Storm: Dawn of a Goddess.” Jackson’s latest release is a delightful YA novel grounded in Storm’s East African origins and the hardships of teenage girlhood. “Dawn of a Goddess” is equal parts fantasy and coming-of-age, proving to be a great fiction pick for children and adults to read together this summer.

In this new origin story, Jackson builds a fast-paced fantasy world infused with teenage angst, powerful mutants, tense combat, and lessons on belonging. She writes each layer of the nearly 300-page voyage with finesse. The most apparent strength of Jackson’s adaptation is her skill for writing young characters at pivotal crossroads. 

Ororo Munroe is a thunderous mystery and an exhausted teenage girl. The story begins with a young Ororo, at age 6, and continues as she grows into a 15-year-old. Her age is a core distinction from other adaptations of her story. Many comics, television and film adaptations tell stories of Storm as an adult already tasked with leading the X-Men with her mastery of nature’s elements. This YA entry into Storm’s canon affords audiences an earlier introduction with a chance to understand the talented mutant’s journey in Africa before she meets Professor Charles Xavier.

Writing from the perspective of teenage leads is the heart of Jackson’s literary wheelhouse. Jackson shapes Storm’s origins with attention to the motivations and limitations of a teenage protagonist. My introduction to Jackson’s storytelling was in 2020, when I finished her novel “Grown” in one day. Her attention to detail when fashioning a child’s point of view is impressive. In “Grown,” as with “Storm: Dawn of a Goddess,” Jackson delivers engaging conflict about the material and emotional costs of coming of age. Both novels depend on readers’ willingness to peer deeper at the impact of class and adultification — a harmful process of perceiving children as older or more mature — on children.

In nearly all her published work, Jackson prompts readers to consider the power imbalance between childhood and adulthood with high stakes — her fiction holds a magnifying glass to American myths about freedom and innocence. The adults in Jackson’s novels inhabit worlds full of fear about homelessness, unemployment, and safety and so do the young people at the center of her stories. Her authorial choices invite audiences to challenge assumptions about childhood innocence and question the impact of power imbalances on young Black children. The relationships between adults and children, workers and bosses, and tourists and locals are examples of where Jackson explores power in her novels. 

Through it all, young protagonists fight for a sense of self. An example of Jackson’s prowess for writing these costly tensions comes early in “Grown.” In a conversation with her father, Enchanted, the novel’s central character, broaches a familiar situation: she is a teenager asking for her first car. Her pitch is simple: “We can lease a car for two hundred and twenty-eight dollars a month. I’ll be able to help with the Littles. Take Shea and me to school.” Enchanted’s ask, however, comes at a difficult time. Her father’s union is preparing to strike. 

A conversation that starts with Enchanted’s want for a car quickly burrows deeper into one about economic anxiety and labor organizing. In the end, Enchanted is left to wonder about the looming strike: “I’ve heard Mommy and Daddy talk about it. A union strike would mean no pay, and strikes can go on for months, maybe years.” By the end of the scene, the economic anxiety plaguing both characters — parent and child — is on full display. In Jackson’s fiction, children are not excused from the psychological and emotional impact of economic exploitation, and readers contend with that perspective.

With “Storm: Dawn of a Goddess,” Jackson’s talent for magnifying the toll of exploitation on children takes shape in a new genre. Even in fantasy, Jackson commits to the stakes that Ororo is still a young girl growing up in the souks of Cairo. Ororo must contend with classism, imperialism, and child neglect to figure out who she is. In the process, she (and other vulnerable children) try to survive starvation without being jailed or killed by adults in power. Jackson’s skill for careful world-building is evident in her handling of Indigenous African spirituality, PTSD and child poverty, even within the conventions of fantasy. 

The quest to outwit the Shadow King, a terrifying psychic mutant with the power to possess the bodies of others, is only one obstacle in Ororo’s way. Jackson composes a fantasy novel with a satisfying balance between the fight scenes that Storm fans expect and intimate moments of introspection that fans new to her writing will enjoy. Overall, Jackson pens a world of magic and mutants that remains grounded in the histories of colonialism in which we, the audience, live each day. 

Ororo’s journey from Egypt to Kenya also shatters the familiar idea that the superhero epic is only as good as its final battle. Jackson’s multilayered narrative brings waves of conflict that blow away the fantasy trope of one looming villain (usually known as “the big bad”). In discovering her talent for weather manipulation, she embarks on a path far more personal than any single fight with the traditional big, bad Marvel villain can hold. Jackson crafts a true heroine’s tale to captivate fans of all ages. And beyond Ororo, Jackson rounds out the narrative with a full cast of friends, foes and familiar faces (like T’Challa, the young crown prince of Wakanda). Every relationship invites Ororo to question herself and where her powers come from to discover who she is. 

After reading “Storm: Dawn of a Goddess,” my initial skepticism about Marvel’s ability to handle Storm’s origin subsided. Jackson’s talent for writing heartwarming teen leads with compelling motivations is a major benefit to Marvel. The choice to hire her as the newest steward of Storm’s source material saves Ororo Munroe from falling victim to the uninspired direction of recent Marvel cinematic products. This latest adaptation makes the most out of the Marvel superhero pantheon. Jackson delivers an exciting young adult novel that encourages readers to imagine the world of Storm without fully succumbing to the limitations of Marvel’s Africa. 

The post Book Review: Tiffany D. Jackson’s ‘Storm: Dawn of a Goddess’ appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

It’s a Monday evening when Juju Bae and I sit in front of our computer screens to chat about her debut book, The Book of Juju: Africana Spirituality for Healing, Liberation, and Self-Discovery. The text is a work of creative nonfiction that combines memoir, history, and guided prompts for readers hoping to begin (or strengthen) their practices of Africana religious and spiritual traditions. The Baltimore-born spiritualist recently moved to New York and tells me she spent most of her day in a studio, recording the audiobook for The Book of Juju. 

As a contemporary guide to Africana ancestral veneration, The Book of Juju is a creative work about utilizing the tools of Africana traditions for healing. Juju’s past study of psychology, Black history, and culture merge with her personal experiences of grief, divination, and community work to provide a refreshing new release. Listeners to her “A Little Juju” podcast and new fans alike will enjoy the subjects explored.

As we ease into our hour together, a smile dances across her face. Her excitement about connecting with readers, even after a long day, is resonant while discussing her upcoming book tour launching this week. Despite moving up the coast, she is committed to kicking off her first event in Baltimore, “The City That Reads,” at Greedy Reads in Remington. As the sun sets on the East Coast and the sky inches toward indigo, our conversation about her work, hometown, and hopes for readers deepens. 

Bry Reed: Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations! Putting a debut book out is no small feat. 

Juju: It’s not [laughs]. Thank you so much!

BR: How do you feel as a debut writer as publication day for your debut approaches?

JB: I still feel like my feet are not on the ground yet. I’m still floating. There’s so much to do that … in some ways, my mind isn’t even on the book. It’s on the other things you have to do: the touring, the sharing it. So I feel like I’m still in the process of doing work around the book. I think when it’s actually out, then I’ll feel different. It’s so funny, I was talking to a mentor recently and she told me, “remind yourself that the greats, like Zora Neale Hurston, never had to post on social media — of course, it didn’t exist because it was a different time — but give yourself grace to put your words out into the world and not give yourself all this other labor.” I can find the balance in between that.

BR: As you balance those choices, is it significant for you that your first event for the book will be in your hometown of Baltimore?

JB: That was necessary for me. I always like to start off anything meaningful that I’m doing at my home base. Obviously, it’s where my friends are, where my family is, but it’s [also] where I was born. It is the opening piece of The Book of Juju itself. It starts off in Baltimore with my experience as a Catholic, Baltimore child. So to start off my tour being around some of the people who influenced me to write the book is deeply necessary. It couldn’t be any other way. It has to be in my city.

BR: What inspires that choice?

JB: Well, I love my city. I remember one time when I was still living in Baltimore, a couple years ago, a listener to the podcast said, “I love that you live here. Even with everything that you have going on, because it shows that you can be from — and a part of — this city and still have a good life.” I don’t live in the city anymore but I am still deeply connected to home because it is what propels me into all these spaces. If I forget my home then I forget my lineage and I can’t do that. 

BR: The importance of lineage is one of the themes, and also motifs, that is recurring throughout The Book of Juju. Your book is an exciting blend of memoir, self-help, and spiritualism. As you were drafting this work, was it difficult to balance all these dimensions as a storyteller?

JB: Surprisingly, no. I didn’t want it to be a full-on memoir. I didn’t want it to be full-on history. I wanted it to be how I show up. I talk a lot about my own life because it informs who I am, but my own life is rooted in the history [of spiritualism]. It wasn’t as difficult as you might think. 

BR: Are you happy with the balance in the final version?

JB: I’m in the process of recording the audiobook, so I’m in this process of reading the book a different way right now. And my answer today is that I wish there was more of the historical aspect and less about myself. I’m reckoning with what I wrote. 

BR: There’s a difference between a writing process and an emotional process of preparing yourself for public reception of what you’ve written.

JB: Especially when your thoughts and views change from when you wrote that. There’s other nuances, and this book is an archive of where I was when I wrote it.

BR: What has been the role of the other hats that you wear in this text? You’re a podcaster, independent scholar, vocalist, and theater performer; what aspects of those other roles influenced this text?

JB: The podcast for sure. The podcast catapulted the book. A lot of the information in the book is information I’ve thought about, said, and discussed alongside other people in interviews from “A Little Juju Podcast.” 

BR: Where do you situate Baltimore in the vast histories of Africana religious and spiritual traditions? 

JB: Baltimore is a historic place. It is an old city. The energy is old. The spirits are old. With that eldership, and that connection to slavery, all of these ancestral histories connect to Black Baltimoreans and Baltimoreans in general. It’s such a city that people consider “haunted,” and that’s new-age language to say Baltimore is a place where spirits engage with the living. I would not be who I am today if I was not raised in a city that has that haunt! 

BR: It wasn’t until recently that I learned Ouija boards were invented here.

JB: Sure were! I think [that place] is a 7-Eleven now in Mount Vernon. There’s the Catholicism of Baltimore. We’re a woo-woo city and people are talking about it, but not in a Black way. That’s where my curiosity is. 

BR: How did other life experiences, in other Black cities, impact writing this book?

JB: Atlanta is where I first uncovered and questioned what it meant to be a Black human being. I moved to Atlanta when I was 18 and going to Spelman College. I was considering all these different aspects of who I am: my queerness, my political views. All that came into question. In Chicago, I literally dropped out of my doctoral program to make a commitment to ancestral work and healing. All these places educated and informed me in different ways. The concept of Juju and Juju Bae, that came from Chicago. 

BR: You did all of this before even turning 30.

JB: [laughs] I did!

BR: Many Africana religious and spiritual traditions are closed practices. What choices did you make as a writer and practitioner to honor that distinction? 

JB: This is something I’m thinking of constantly in my work (and other people’s work). In The Book of Juju, I focus on ancestors more than any other kind of tradition that I’m letting people into. Of course, I mention Hoodoo and the Orisa, but this text is about the ancestors. That is not closed. Can’t nobody connect to your ancestors more than you! Ancestors are accessible to everyone.

BR: You give strong declarative statements like “you are not forgotten” when speaking directly to the reader. Why are those declarative statements important for you to include?

JB: Because for myself, and other people that I know, those declarations are what people were seeking…. Those declarations are the words I needed to hear when no one got it. When I felt like I was strange or odd. I wasn’t weird and I wasn’t forgotten.

BR: As people of the African diaspora navigate imperialism, racism, and classism, where do you see the use of ancestor veneration? 

JB: We don’t hear enough stories about us. Our ancestors are not considered spirits worthy of a story, a chapter, nothing. Even that [storytelling] shifts what we know about ourselves. Learning more about Africana spiritual cosmology means [learning] there are many Africana spirits that are lying dormant. I think learning more about them will do something. I don’t know what, but we need to get clearer on what we’re seeking in this lifetime. 

BR: I personally put your book in conversation with earlier works like The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara and Jambalaya by Luisah Teish. What books and other works of art do you hold in conversation with your book?

JB: Ooooooh [pause], I’m thinking of Solange. A Seat at the Table. Her work feels very current but informed by ancestors. That’s what I want my work to feel like. 

BR: Is there any extra advice you’d give to readers that you didn’t have the time to include?

JB: The relationship to your ancestors does and can change. It’s not going to look like it did a week ago or a year ago. We have to allow ourselves, and them, to change. To learn more. They are not perfect beings sent into our lives to be God. Yet they are still worthy of love, honor, and veneration…. And you may take your altar down! That’s okay and we will still grow throughout that process.

BR: What is your dream for readers to take away from this book?

JB: It’s that declaration about not feeling forgotten. It’s about not feeling that you were left by a person who passed away. To know that they were not left, that we were not left, that I was not left. It’s not to say we won’t grieve or feel pain, but to know that there is thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge to interact with what they left us. Whether that’s a story, a recipe, a dream, a smell. We still have them and what they gave us. I hope this supports people digging to find the gold that they left us. 

The kick-off event for The Book of Juju will be held at Greedy Reads in Remington at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18. 

The post The Book of Juju: Juju Bae talks about her new book, Baltimore’s old spirits,  and honoring the ancestors appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest release, “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension,” challenges revered American myths about talent and prosperity while troubling the ground lying between fathers and sons. 

Structured in the style of a four-quarter NBA game — complete with intermissions and countdowns — “There’s Always This Year” places readers in the audience of an unyielding full-court press of cultural analysis. The familiar motifs of Black life and family in Abdurraqib’s earlier work continue in this memoir while sharing space with his chilling explorations of American prosperity. When the final quarter of the text finishes, readers must wrestle with their acceptance (or denial) of heartbreak and melancholy in the shadow of dreams. 

Abdurraqib’s experiment with form and subject pays off in “There’s Always This Year.” In this text, he opts for quarters of prose split amongst the staggered minutes and seconds of a countdown clock. This inventive frame is reminiscent of the innovative structure of his last release, 2021’s “A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance.” Both are creative works fashioned around personal and public memories, in which Abdurraqib combines nostalgic storytelling about various moments in Black American culture with his intimate recollections about living in the United States. One consequence of the avant-garde structure is that as the literary clock runs down, some quarters feel rushed. The clock is unforgiving even when mapped on the page. Luckily, intermissions and other clever breaks allow some reprieve from the hasty endings—these breaks also introduce readers to local Ohio legends as Abdurraqib invites his audience into the history of his midwestern coming of age. In these brief breaks, the audience is presented with invitations into Ohio’s vast history of basketball, abolition, and aviation. By the fourth quarter of “There’s Always This Year,” we explore pieces of Abdurraqib’s childhood and young adulthood set against the larger backdrop of basketball as performance and (sub)culture.

The strength of this book lies in Abdurraqib’s ability to assess basketball as a game and culture, subject to the same myth-making as other performances in American society. When he writes “The first way I felt myself operating on the other side of America’s fear was being young and idolizing the people America was trying to convince me to be afraid of” in the Pregame, he is setting his audience up to receive chapters full of stories about the cultivation of fear in service of domination. 

While the subject of his analysis is ever-changing, Abdurraqib is constantly assessing how class, race, and desire shape the narratives formed around basketball players in US mainstream media coverage. He reminds us that stories — like the ones crafted about the Fab Five and LeBron James — serve a purpose. In writing, “It might do all of us some good to consider what making it means,” Abdurraqib is interrogating how media outlets, as for-profit corporations, want the public to engage with athletes. This book dives into the myths that make and break us and outlines how those myths dictate who among us — on and off the court — gets to be a superstar. 

Alongside basketball, ascension is a resonant theme for the duration of the book. Abdurraqib’s word choice, metaphors, and visual imagery carry the ascension motif in every quarter of the text. By the end, it feels like a book about faith, just as much as a book about basketball. On the one hand, Abdurraqib references ascension as young basketball talent ascending through the ranks and becoming legends equipped with nicknames and highlight tapes worthy of their mysticism. On the other hand, he broadens the topic of ascension by including brief stories about masters of aviation, odes, and prayers for the dead, laying bare the fears of the dying. This way, ascension is not reserved for storytelling about American prosperity and triumph. Abdurraqib leads readers to a path of critical inquiry and reflection where we’re left to contemplate the cost of American ascension in basketball and in every other area of life. The text is clear that ascension may come with sacrifice — through isolation, systemic conformity, and a commitment to public performance — or it may not come at all. 

In “There’s Always This Year,” the audience is a congregation. Both the in-book audiences and us, the real-world readers, witness Abdurraqib’s chronicle about what it takes to “make it.” Throughout the text, we witness the creation and destruction of many messiahs whose stories are molded to captivate us. After reading this text, prepare to think more acutely about the myths perpetuated in tandem with any sport you enjoy. This book’s themes are especially relevant to our present moment as stories of basketball stars such as Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese are minimized in comparison to their peer Caitlin Clark. Cardosa, who separated from her family for years after moving from Brazil to the U.S. at age 15, is one player that is heavy on my mind after reading this memoir. In the end, Abdurraqib’s latest release is a critical lesson in myth-making and grief that leaves readers wondering if the joys and triumphs of sports are worth the melancholy. 

The post Book Review: “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension”  appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

As Baltimore prepares for the 2024 CityLit Festival, writers and readers alike are glowing in anticipation of the literary marketplace. One of the many conversations on the horizon for Saturday, April 20, is between Baltimore’s D. Watkins and Mateo Askaripour, a Long Island native and author of “Black Buck,” his debut novel. The contemporary novel follows the rise of Darren Vender from barista to sales guru while chronicling the conflicts that begin to brew in every area of his life. Askaripour’s debut morphs New York City into a dramatic stage for readers to observe a fictional account of the real struggles between home life, work life and the quest for balance. Since the publication of “Black Buck” in 2021, Askaripour has written his second novel, “This Great Hemisphere,” which will be released this summer. Askaripour and I had the opportunity to chat on a sunny Sunday morning and explore the gratitude, spaces and characters that come alive for him in crafting his novels. 

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Bry Reed: I love book festivals because they allow us, as audiences in print literature, to engage with writers beyond the page. As you prepare for CityLit, what excites you most about engaging with readers at events like this?

Mateo Askaripour: First of all, it’s Baltimore. I’ve heard that people in Baltimore are a very special type of people, a very special type of audience that gives so much love and energy to artists. I’m honored to share space with D. Watkins. He’s the bard of Baltimore, and he’s someone who when I came into the game of literature and of publishing, I knew of him as a veteran. As someone who had come into this as himself and had never really switched up on those around him. I’m excited to share the stage with someone I admire greatly. And third, I’m excited to be in-person. 

BR: Your debut novel, “Black Buck,” has received immense praise for its creative, satirical narrative about capitalism and labor. How did you come to write a satire as your first novel?

MA:  When the book came out in 2021, I often found myself pushing back against that label of satire because I didn’t want it to be placed into this comfortable, convenient box. When I was writing “Black Buck,” I didn’t envision it purely as a satire. I knew that it had satirical elements. I knew that it had many absurdist elements, but I also felt that the narrative was incredibly grounded in what was happening and what was going on with the characters (internally and externally). And I also wasn’t envisioning one pure genre because I thought that that would limit the way that I would write the novel. It has elements of romance in there. It has elements, by the end, of a thriller, which was a surprise to me as I was writing it! With anything that I write, I try not to place it in a box because I feel that could limit my vision and limit how people could perceive it. 

BR: In the way “Black Buck” is crafted, as a reader, I didn’t feel like I was moving through time. I felt like I was moving through space. There are different passages, and it feels like a traversing of New York as you’re traversing these relationships throughout the novel. Did any of your personal relationships influence the relationships and conflicts in the novel?

M: Without a doubt. Certainly some relationships came from relationships that I had. The relationship with Darren and Soraya is somewhat similar to a relationship that I had with the woman I was dating at the time. Certain workplace relationships — not all of them — but a few of them informed the narrative without a doubt. When I stepped into the world of startups, after a while, I had a mentor, and it was a very strong protégée, or mentor-mentee relationship, where I was learning a lot.

Some of the things that I’ve carried into my life today that were extremely helpful, and then some things that were a bit more harmful, and I had to unlearn after I left that space. […] What’s a joy is when people reach out and they say “You wrote about me and my life!” or “You wrote about me and situations that I’ve been in and it was difficult to read at times, but I knew I wasn’t alone.” To me, that is the highest manifestation of success.

BR: Absolutely. As you talk about the different relationships, one that really stuck out to me was the relationship between Darren and Jason from the start. As readers, we don’t get a lot of Jason’s POV of the changes and escalations that happen throughout the novel. Can you speak a little about crafting Jason’s POV?

MA: What did you think about Jason? Jason was a contentious character for a lot of people. 

BR: You know who they made me think of? Song of Solomon. Milkman and Guitar. […] It’s class tension right? Those are the nuggets. 

M: Darren and Jason — you nailed it on the head — these are two brothers. They’ve grown up in the same neighborhood but in different parts of the neighborhood. Darren lives in a brownstone that his family owns, and Jason grew up in the pjs, which is like literally a block away. Aside from that, I wanted to portray this extremely loving relationship between two men who love each other, but then a rift is presented when they go on two markedly different paths. We see the deterioration of their relationship, partially rooted in their inability to communicate. […] Jason feels like he can’t say “I’m hurt” or “You’re hurting me,” so it snowballs and becomes this tit-for-tat, negativity brewing and becoming almost malignant in the body. And it becomes blistering physical harm.

BR: When you talk about the four corners, I think about a compass.

M: Wow, wow, wow! In the three-and-a-half years since this book came out, I haven’t heard that. 

BR: Really?

MA: Yeah, wow! When they’re fighting on the compass, it’s because they’ve lost direction — hard. 

BR: I was thinking of it as a compass and a crossroads. They’re at the crossroads of so many relationships, and the neighborhood is at a crossroads.

M: And so much happens at that intersection. You see the gentrifiers, Soraya, her dad, Wally Cat, we see so much happening on those four corners. Which is representative of so many places. The drama isn’t taking place in a big auditorium on a stage. It’s taking place on a street on a curb on a sidewalk. And I think that when we think about the places we’ve grown up with — where we’ve been able to exist for a long time — they are their own movie sets with their own characters. And that’s exactly what I was looking to do with Bed-Stuy and Sumwun. And Bed-Stuy is different — it’s open air. But I had to create an entire world on an office floor. So what does that mean? It means that the different conference rooms had different qualities. All of these places were on the map of Sumwun.

BR: As you were crafting the novel, what spaces in our real literary world helped you bring these spaces to life?

MA:  I’m thinking of multiple spaces. Literal, abstract, and so forth. Talking about the literal, I would go to readings in the city a lot. In Brooklyn, Manhattan. I would go just to see what it was like for these published authors to speak about their work and what it was like to interact with an audience. I would go to honestly siphon off a lot of inspiration for myself. Just seeing these artists at work. At times being able to ask a question or interact with them. I didn’t need anything else. It allowed me to touch and see something that was real. Even though my own dream was something that only existed in my spirit, that helped me immensely.

Being able to commune with these impactful writers every night [through reading] as I was writing this novel was also a safe and welcoming place where it felt as though I could be in conversation with [James] Baldwin, with [Toni] Morrison, with [Zora Neale] Hurston and with [Ann] Petry. With all of these people. With [Richard] Wright, with Chester Himes, with William Melvin Kelley. And then with contemporary writers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Mitchell S. Jackson, Brit Bennett, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was consuming so much art. And consuming it with a much more critical eye than I ever did before. […] Providence was the first place that I ever read any work and any work from “Black Buck.” 

And I shared the stage with Jason Reynolds and a bunch of other talented authors. One being Carla Du Pree from CityLit.

BR: As you are in the space between the publication of the debut and the anticipation of the second, what are you holding on to in this space between those two? What is the bliss in this in-between?

M: I oscillate between [feeling like] the job’s not finished — Mamba and before him really MJ — and on to the next. In more than any other state of being, I’m in a state of gratitude. I am excited more than anything to hear what readers think. I’m proud of what I did and the various risks that I took in this undertaking because I could’ve just written a “Black Buck Two.” I am eager to take the lessons that I’ve learned in book two and put  [them] into book three.

Mateo Askaripour’s latest novel, This Great Hemisphere, is available on July 9, 2024. He will be in conversation with D. Watkins at this year’s CityLit Festival on Saturday, April 20. Click here to learn more about the CityLit Festival.

The post CityLit Preview: Mateo Askaripour Takes Space Seriously appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

“By the time I came along in 1977, my grandmother had worked as a housekeeper, a health aid in an elder care facility, a hairdresser, a seamstress, and finally as a worker in a pharmaceutical bottling plant,” author Jesmyn Ward told the crowd gathered at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel for Enoch Pratt’s annual Booklovers’ Breakfast. “But my grandmother Dorothy was more than her labor. My Dorothy was a storyteller.” 

Since 1988, the library has utilized the Booklovers’ Breakfast to celebrate the start of Black History Month. This year, it was held on February 3. In its function and execution, the annual event showcases many truths about access, literacy, and the role of booklovers in communities. 

Ward herself is a storyteller. She was the first woman and first Black American to win National Book Awards for her novel “Sing, Unburied, Sing” (published in 2017) and “Salvage the Bones” (published in 2011). Additionally, readers can explore her work in nonfiction with “Men We Reaped” (2013), “Navigate Your Stars” (2020), and an essay featured in “The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race” (2016). 

Each work is grounded in Ward’s mastery of language and honesty about American history. Whether she is drawing us into a world of magical realism or uncovering the agonizing grief of mourning those gone too soon, Ward cuts open the myths of American life and lets the horrors and the love bleed out. 

Over the course of Ward’s speech, we get to her truth while also getting to know her and her family well. Her descriptions of her loved ones are vivid and strikingly familiar. She tells us about her grandmother’s gold teeth and ears full of piercings and gold jewelry. In between these descriptions, she also says that at one time there were more than 14 of her family members living in her grandmother’s house at once. 

Her refrain, given to her by her grandmother, is “tell it straight, tell it true.” And she does. Ward does not shy away from telling the truth about her family’s experiences of infant mortality and the harsh conditions of domestic labor on Black women working in white, wealthy homes. She offers evocative, stirring examples that “love and loss are twins in life.” 

“In part, I tell it straight because grandmother no longer can,” she says. “The reason I speak of my grandmother in the past tense is not because she is dead. It is because my grandmother is losing her memory. The first storyteller of my life is losing her stories.” 

Ward says that her Grandma Dorothy is losing her memory due to Alzheimer’s, and the room — full of Black elders with memories just like Dorothy’s — shares this feeling of heartbreak and anguish. We sit with her in these truths and let her know she is heard, seen, and witnessed in a magnitude fitting her vulnerability. Ward acknowledges us, and her larger audience, with the knowing admission that she “is not alone in this endeavor” of telling Southern Gothic tales.

Ward says she is committed to the hard task of “telling this American story.” She is candid that sometimes she wishes to tell “happy stories” not rife with grief, death, and dying, but she is frank that these harsh truths are her reality. These truths are how she learned Mississippi and how she continues to learn America. 

“I tell this Mississippi tale. I write toward what hurts. I write toward the truth, and I tell it again. I scribe the whole,” Ward says. 

Her role as a contemporary steward of the Southern Gothic literary traditions shines in the time she takes to draw us all in to her recollections of family, grief, and storytelling. She does not rush, and neither does the audience. We all surround her, taking in her words and delivering our own awe back to her as proof that we are listening. 

In this truth, the audience remains a steady, listening ear. We all hang on to Ward’s lush storytelling and respond with our own gasps, laughter, and moans. We react because Ward’s story requires it. There is no use in meeting her candor with silence. 

Witnessing Ward’s speech helps to solidify my belief that she is one of the strongest contemporary storytellers in the Southern Gothic tradition. Her work in fiction epitomizes the Southern Gothic genre as she frequently explores the haunting impact of racial violence, patriarchy, and classism on communities. She joins literary giants like Toni Morrison, Jean Toomer, and Gloria Naylor in illuminating the shadowy horrors that ravage the lives of Black characters set in the American South. Ward, and her fellow Mississippian, Kiese Laymon, continue this tradition well and introduce new audiences to the glory of Southern Gothics. 

Ward’s storytelling brings together intergenerational audiences with a common goal. The elders in the room, myself, and those attendees younger than me each arrived at the venue in search of rich storytelling from a contemporary writer not shy about writing for Black readers. The event serves as a place of communion for readers; a gathering around Ward’s literary campfire.

The Booklovers’ Breakfast focuses on the keynote speaker while also bringing together readers from all over the state. As I ate, I got to know the Trinidinian elder sitting next to me and learned about her journey to the event that morning. Miss Joanne ventured to the breakfast from her home in Tacoma Park. The journey was not an easy feat, but Miss Joanne, an avid reader and big fan of Ward’s work, was determined nonetheless. She, and her fierce determination, took the bus to downtown Baltimore and got off when the Inner Harbor was in sight. 

From there, with the support of her walker, she began walking in search of the Charm City Circulator, buses that offer free trips throughout downtown Baltimore. 

“I looked up that it’d take two Circulators to get me here,” Miss Joanne says between bites of her smoked salmon croissant. Moments passed, and with no Circulator in sight, she stepped out on faith and asked a passing car for directions to the Marriott. The driver, a young lady of Trinidinian descent herself, offered Miss Joanne a ride and her number to stay in touch when the event ended. With the kindness of a stranger, Miss Joanne arrived at the event with a few minutes to spare before the program started. 

My conversation with Miss Joanne added to an ongoing symphony of conversations and the reverb of hundreds of pieces of silverware hitting ceramic plates. From the moment the doors opened, the fourth-floor room brimmed with the joyous noise of people gathering. 

The 36th annual Booklovers’ Breakfast is a shining example that Baltimore is full of avid readers with needs for connection. The event takes more than six months of planning and continues because of the belief that Baltimoreans deserve access to media, literature, and events that spark their interests. With over 70 tables full of excited guests, the annual Booklovers’ Breakfast is a reminder that cities need booklovers, and booklovers need reliable public transit and funded public libraries. 

The post Cities Need Booklovers appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Across the African diaspora, there are texts—literary and otherwise—sifting through histories and revealing the violent price of girlhood. Released in 2023, Safiya Sinclair’s memoir, “How to Say Babylon,” offers her recollections about coming of age as a girl child in a Rastafarian household. Sinclair shares her own family history alongside the political and religious histories of Jamaica. Between the ongoing domination of the island—by the monied and powerful—and the religious persecution of Rastafarians by the government, we find the story of a woman who learned at a young age that her life, as she wished to live it, came at a cost.

How to Say Babylon was the last book I read in 2023, and its lyricism and candor compelled me. Sinclair opens up her family history, detailing the sexual violence suffered by her elders and the neglect imposed on her mother, and shares the abuse she suffered at school, at home, and in literary spaces. It’s clear that because of her age, Blackness, girlhood, and her family’s commitment to being Rastafari, Sinclair is isolated.

There are few moments where we, the audience—the witnesses—aren’t staring down the realities of colonialism, imperialism, child abuse, or sexual coercion. We are ushered into an intimate story of Black girlhood framed by colonial domination and religious persecution. Sinclair writes, “These were the nation’s downpressed and downtrodden” early in the memoir to make clear that Rastafari people are targets of ongoing discrimination while drawing us deeper into understanding what she, and others, face in Rastafari homes. For those of us who are witnessing these recollections while holding stories of our own survival, this memoir may stir up our own memories of terror. 

Among the recollections of abuse is Sinclair’s complementary experience of self-soothing, discovery, and building a life on her terms. She credits her mother, a community educator who taught children across Jamaica, instilling lessons about literature and media. From a young age, Sinclair studied vocabulary and enjoyed reading about current events from newspapers. Her curiosity quickly turned into mastery as she grew her skills. The memoir explores the evolution of Sinclair’s scholarship as she dutifully cultivated it with her mother’s support and the resources of predominantly white schools. 

Sinclair’s memoir adds to an ever-growing collection of Black writing that shares family histories and coming-of-age stories to help us, a larger community, make sense of our conditions. She joins Bessie Head, Maya Angelou, and Jesmyn Ward in illuminating the truth of Black girlhood while simultaneously acknowledging the violence(s) that shape Black life all around the world. Sinclair, like her predecessors in this tradition of self-recollection, makes sense of her life alongside a thorough assessment of the violent conditions that makes her abuse possible. 

Nature is integral to Sinclair’s retellings. Frequently, she describes foliage and other features of the different landscapes her family calls home throughout the island. Readers familiar with the work of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker will find similarities in how Sinclair brings her environment into the frame of her storytelling. In many ways, nature and her mother’s compassion are Sinclair’s safe havens for much of the memoir. In one chapter Sinclair writes, “When she wasn’t reading poetry or swimming, she was smoking, walking with yogis who subsisted on sunlight alone, plastering a brown mixture of egg yolk and honey on her head, a concoction to help soak up the sun she was always chasing.” She invites us into her own memories and her mother’s, exploring her mother’s garden and sharing this journey with us. 

When Sinclair describes her relationship with water, we learn she is descended from fishermen. Sinclair understands that she, like her mother and her grandmother, is born along a precious coast—precious in its spiritual significance and precious in its material dividends. Sinclair writes, “Our history was the sea, my mother told me, so I could never be lost here” while clarifying that private resorts and corporations own most of the Jamaican coastline. 

The coast, where Black fishermen once fished and Black people swam, was almost entirely inaccessible to native Jamaicans. Here, the audience contends with how pleasure—vacations, weddings, and luxury—for tourists thrives because of the subjugation of native populations. We are reminded that glamour comes at a cost to those who work the land, steward nature, and die fighting against corporations. The balance Sinclair strikes between personal narrative and her role as a witness of Jamaican history works well throughout the text. Neither perspective suffers for the inclusion of the other. 

Reading the memoir, we get to know the writers who shaped her literary canon as a teenager. In this way, the book offers us intertextuality. We get to read about the life of Sinclair, a writer, while learning about other distinguished women writers along the way. While reflecting on her development as an artist, Sinclair points directly to the works of Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson. From these moments, we learn that Sinclair is an avid reader of women who grapple with their sorrow and the haunting condition of humanity. The link is set between Sinclair and the gothic poets whose work she devours. 

There’s no way to finish this text without contending with the stakes of Black childhood. For most of the text, Sinclair wades through her childhood and the stories of children around her. Even in her rage about her own childhood, Sinclair is still careful to recognize the constraints of her parents’ childhoods that led them to their partnership and their approach to caregiving. When reflecting on her mother’s girlhood she says plainly, “Like many young women born into poverty, the scarcity of her choices made her easy prey.” 

Sinclair’s writing also causes us to reflect on when childhood ends and adulthood begins. As she grows older, she is not saved from the terror of childhood vulnerability and the feeling of powerlessness because the people she loves are still vulnerable to patriarchal violence. Age has not shielded her from heartbreak. Once she reaches adulthood (while some consider this salvation), she struggles to shield her siblings—her younger brother and two younger sisters— from their own suffering. And still, beyond Sinclair’s immediate family, there are moments where she recalls how children around her—neighbors and old classmates, all Black children—disappeared. 
How to Say Babylon is compelling because it does not turn away from the horror of Black childhood. Sinclair strips childhood of the narrative of innocence often thrust upon it and delves deep into strife. Readers searching for evocative nonfiction about Black childhood, Black girlhood, and the history of Rastafarians in Jamaica will be captivated by this memoir. Sinclair is candid about the cost of enduring the terrors of structural violence and the intimate violence that stares children down at home, on the streets, and in schoolhouses constructed in the image of white patriarchal violence.

The post Book Review: “How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir” appeared first on Baltimore Beat.