Black Reads: Issue 038
We Blaccccckkkkkkk! :)
Bringing back the OG Black Reads newsletter format for the one time, really, because I had a spark of inspiration and decided to let my creativity take the lead, and it resulted in coming back home.
I missed y’all. How have you been doing? What have you been writing?
Here’s a little curation, a mini newsletter, to get me back in the game.
A love letter to rest, the thing many of us tend to avoid until we are forced into it. Rest and I have an interesting relationship; I fight it more than I welcome it into my life. This causes me to suffer in many ways, but this is something I realized many of us do too. Between Prayers and Plots laid the discovery out so clearly, well, at least for me as a workaholic.
“It’s okay to take a step away from the page to live.”
In comments, can you share the last time you stepped away from the page to live, and how was the writing experience when you came back to the page?
When I first read the title, I immediately clicked to read the post, because I just knew it was going to be good. The first sentence had me hooked, and by the time I finished the entire essay, all I could think was Erika Ellis gave me a language for what I’ve been feeling.
“It feels like the internet has convinced us that familiarity is the same as intimacy.”
This piece sticks with me because it doesn’t suggest a solution, but invites us to have the conversation around what healthy boundaries with social media/internet look like. We must agree that what’s become a “norm” is simply too much access to one person’s life; the parasocial relationships are real. Consuming less and creating more, in my personal experience, is what helps me find a balance between the two worlds.
After you read Erika’s work, tag me in the comments and let me know your thoughts on the topic.
Let’s test something out. In the comments, share your latest post so we can extend the Black Reads offered for this issue. Please just share one post.
This was the newsletter style that got me interested in Blackstack! Thanks for the new reads, as always.
I recently wrote a flash fiction story call Someone Else’s Children.
I write more prose now than anything else, and if you’d like to read more, you can start here: https://keyanajmiller.substack.com/p/notes-app-fiction-vol-6
Ok, we back alright. And it seems we have all been collectively "going through it" at the same time. My last post isn't much writing at all: https://wisdombytes.substack.com/p/my-friday?r=1z2yn7
Hope all is well.