Black Reads: Issue 021
This curation is dear to my heart, maybe because these are the first Black authors to be working with me to publish their books through Blackstack. I may be bias right now, but you will be too...
The mission for Blackstack has evolved since I started this publication as just a corner of Substack for us, created by us. The goal originally was to hold the spotlight on each one of you who wanted to step into the shining light. Whether that looked like you writing something exclusively for the Sunday newsletter, or sharing your already published work in the weekly chat thread.
But we be writing! And quickly, I realized that the Universe put me in this unique position to be the change that I wanted to see in the writing space for Black authors. We don’t have a space to call our own. Yes, we have Black-owned print publications and indie presses, but we don’t have all of that woven into the fabric of community — and let’s be honest, community is the underlying desire that we are craving.
So I committed to doing the work that I’ve been led to do through this space. I got the nonprofit status so the magazine would be an annual fundraiser, not for profit, but as a way for us to put our money behind preserving our stories. I do this work because it’s my labor of love for our community. It’s how I show and prove to you, each of you, that I do this for us because I care.
I care about who writes our stories, who preserves our stories, who prints and publishes our stories, and most importantly, I care about how our history is told for the generations to come. So it just made sense in my body, mind, and soul to expand Blackstack into a print publishing house. A space for Black authors to write their stories in community, share those stories with said community, and touch the physical preservation of our stories crafted with care by my hands.
This month, as I’m officially sending out the first few batches of the 2025 Blackstack Magazine: Issue One orders, I stepped fully into my role as the publisher for our culture. For the first ten days of December, I hosted a workshop for Black authors to learn the importance of building a community around your book. I shared my lived experience of self-publishing my first book and building community here on Substack around that book, and how that led to the creation of this space. I used that learned experience to become the publisher for our first annual magazine after quickly realizing our stories are not safe in the hands of publishers who are not connected to our culture, but profit from our culture — there is a real difference.
By the end of the workshop, we were all sad that our time together had come to an end. If you haven’t noticed by now, my moves are divinely led and orchestrated, so naturally, the idea of a year-long fellowship that has been brewing for over a year manifested. So this week’s Black Reads newsletter is to put the spotlight on these Black authors I have the pleasure to work with in the first Blackstack Author Fellowship. These writers committed to working with me over the next year to develop their manuscripts while writing in community twice a week and weekly feedback sessions. There is no rush for them to finish in a certain timeframe; the point is to give them the traditional publishing experience, but rooted in community.
These are some of the pieces that were born from our first ten days together, and I immediately knew this was a divine push to start adjusting the spotlight in some intentional ways as we go into 2026.
I’m so excited to introduce you all to Ri, Shawn Taylor, Mandisa Mosi, jakiyah cabell, Nakisa Glover, MeraBaid, and Okay, But Listen with Talaya! Please show some love to them and their work if it resonates with you.
We’ve read Ri’s words before with her Blackstack submission, The Recipe is Community, and as I’ve watched that post grow, I gently nudged Ri to start writing the book we want to read from her. And let’s say this is the beginning of a journey we all can resonate with.
Shawn Taylor had me in a chokehold from day one of the workshop because of his ‘why’. Because, YES, we need a space to explore grief without the guilt and pressure to move on from it to get back to life as we knew it before grief knocked down our front door. Shawn is here to curate a safe space for us to process grief and all of its stages.
I had an evolving relationship with Mandisa Mosi from the Productivity Hour LIVES I host here on Substack every Tuesday and Thursday, so when she expressed interest in the workshop, I was excited to learn more about her why. And I will say this, this Black woman’s story is something many of us as Black women can relate to, whether we’re cult survivors or not. Sisterhood hurts sometimes, and we need to hold space for each other to talk more about it.
When I think about the importance of writing in community, Nakisa Glover’s story comes to mind. Prior to the workshop, my girl had an Excel spreadsheet of ideas to write about, and by the end of our Manuscript Feedback session, we were both excited about the book, Nakisa is being divinely guided to write. Consider this the beginning of the documentation on how we are actively grieving adulthood, but didn’t have a language for it.
As a Black mother who is healing out loud, it warmed my heart to connect with MeraBaid during the workshop as I learned more about her why behind writing her manuscript. Our babies need us to be present; we aren’t raising ourselves, but an extension of us. That kind of love, care, and nurturing has to be rooted in a groundness that MeraBaid’s work centers us in, and I can’t wait to see how the Black mamas feel being in community together under this notion.
Now, when jakiyah cabell and I first linked on TikTok, it was an immediate bond into sisterhood, so much so I was excited to see her pop up in these Substack streets. Jakiyah is a creative, period, my girl does it all, and is skillful in all the things as well. But that pen, Jakiyah’s pen, isn’t anything to play around with. When she sent me her manuscript excerpt, I was locked in from the beginning to the end, no breaks, no pausing. I was invested, and I know many of you will be too!
Imagine you hit me up for details about the workshop for your mom, who is writing her book, then boom, I got you writing your book, you didn’t even have plans on writing! That’s the experience my TikTok mutual Misha Alexandria had with me, and honestly, this is news to me. When I read Misha’s introduction draft, you could not have convinced me this woman didn’t have plans on writing a book about dreams, the way the words just flowed on the page. Well, our friend is on Substack now, and you get to enjoy her words as we have been blessed to in the fellowship this month! Welcome to Substack and Blackstack Meesh!
I’ve shared Talaya’s work before in a Black Reads newsletter, so I was familiar with her pen, but the why behind her manuscript I was not ready for in the best way! Imagine sitting down with your younger self and telling them everything they needed to know going into their twenties. Exactly, reading these shared stories will have you like Okay, But Listen with Talaya!
If you would like to join us in the Blackstack Author Fellowship, there is plenty of room, so just submit your interest using the link below, and I will share all the details to get started.
Blackstack Author Fellowship Interest Form: https://solid-garnet-e3b.notion.site/2c759af89aac80de9d6bed5dd654d30c?pvs=105
And if you are interested in the replay from the workshop, here’s the link to access the full workshop that comes with a 30-minute Manuscript Feedback session to discuss your manuscript or plans for your book to get you started.
Workshop Replay: https://www.jacquieverbal.com/author-workshop
cannot even explain how damn happy this makes me! 🥹👏🏽
Amazing!!!🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽