Welcome to Blackstack!
The corner of Substack that’s been intentionally carved out for Black writers and creatives, only. Blackstack was founded on Juneteenth 2024, back when you followed everyone on your feed who was Black. These Substack streets were once pressure-washed down from any Blackness, I say “once” loosely.
My Black ass became the change I wanted to see. That’s the honest truth. Blackstack was created from the spirit of Black Twitter and Black Tiktok. One day I put out the call to my kinfolk and now it’s over 8,000 cousins who showed up to the function. We said prayer over our plates as the words cooked every Sunday were served like the potluck in the basement of the church. Just like Black culture, we found balance through our F.U.B.U. Collections, written for us by us.
The Mission
That’s what this mission stands on, like Blue Magic. Since day one, the intention has been to be a platform for Black writers to showcase their pen through collaborative newsletters curated weekly by me as the Chief-in-Editor. Things got good, so good the cousins started asking for the words to live outside of Substack, and on the coffee tables in our home. Telling somebody like me, something like that, you will get exactly what you asked for.
The mission has been intuitively driven from the start so when print publishing became the topic I buckled up for the ride.
Blackstack Publishing House
Now a year later, I am hand-binding the first issue of the Blackstack Magazine for our annual fundraiser. The goal is to sell 100 magazines in order to raise enough to purchase printers and bookbinding equipment. Halfway at our goal I am shipping the first wave of magazines to our Zine Club members, Contributing Writers, and all supporters through preordering season. Hand-binding wasn’t always the plan, but we published on Martin Luther King, Jr Day 2025, had a soft launch dinner in Brooklyn, NY on February 1st, 2025, you noticing the pattern?
This publishing house is rooted in ancestral energy. The only way to hold the integrity of our words is to cut the middle man. Publishing has been a white man’s game since the Harlem Renaissance for Black authors. We write through our lived experiences for them to profit and we receive penny royalties after the print cost. Cool, I’ll make them myself and invest the money back into the publishing house to help other Black writers publish their bodies of work, and teach the skill of bookbinding to our community to start imprints under the publishing house.
Keep Us Printing Black Books
This is how paid subscribers are gifted exclusive beta reader newsletters. I’m working hands on with our community members to take back our ownership of our words, our stories, and our experiences. They can’t erase shit if we keep it in the family.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the ways to support the mission:
Become a Paid Subscriber: Think of this as saying: “Sis, I see you. Keep going.” Each month, you’ll receive a behind-the-scenes “beta reader” newsletter previewing the work of a Blackstack author with interview, plus access to an exclusive extra Blackstack Salon.
Join the Zine Club: Every year, Zine Club members receive a handmade “Blackstack Prayer Book” zine by mail, curated from the spiritual notes and cultural dispatches shared here. This is the founding circle, the ones who believed before I had binding equipment.
Preorder or Gift a Magazine: Each preorder supports the next wave of hand-bound magazines hitting doorsteps, 100 sales gets us closer to owning more binding equipment and covering production costs.
Got something unpublished? Submit your poetry, prose, or cultural essays. It helps keep the weekly newsletters flowing, rooted in the community we built brick-by-brick.
Link to Submit Work: https://forms.gle/mDvjffgbwKarjb9N7
The Vision
Trust me, the plan is to host our online space on our website fully by 2026. Not to “cancel” Substack, but to have pride in our work. With the plagiarism, racism, and lack of platform ethics it’s a lot harder to gatekeep this community space as we grow with a one woman team.
Don’t fret, I learned how to work in my House of Rhythm (my little personal “create over consume” concept). I once lost the recipe to Blackstack and I found them when I stopped forcing and started flowing again. With that said, here’s what you can expect in this intentional Blackity Black corner of Substack.
Every Wednesday: Black Reads
Every Sunday: A newsletter that feels nostalgic to our culture. Might be Black Recipes, or a prayer, either way your soul will be fed on Sundays.
Blackstack Salon: On the last Sunday of every month on Substack LIVE at 10am PT.
Paid subscribers and Zine Club members get an additional salon each month.
Get Comfy
You already made your plate, now grab a chair and make yourself at home. One of our cousins,
, is the grill king and hosts the Cookout Library. You’ll see a few Blackstack recommendations on the shelf (yes, that’s us right there on the walls), alongside some heavy-hitting pens that bleed truth, legacy, and liberation on the page.
Pull up, read something good, and pass it on. Round here, we are the skin folk who move with intention like we truly kinfolk. Thanks for stopping by, make sure you tell your mama and ‘em I said hey!
xoxo,
