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This episode features our conversation with Arriel Vinson, which was live-streamed on May 24, 2025. We chatted about her debut young adult (YA) novel in verse, Under the Neon Lights (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, June 3. 2025).

Arriel Vinson is a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow and Midwesterner who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and others. Arriel is a Tin House YA Scholar, Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, and 2020 Walter Grant recipient.

In this sparkling and heartfelt debut YA novel in verse, a young Black girl discovers first love, self-worth, and the power of a good skate. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Joya Goffney.

You can connect with her on social media at @arriwrites and find her work at arriwrites.com.

Purchase your copy of Under the Neon Lights via Black Writers Read's Bookshop link to support both the podcast and independent bookstores! CLICK HERE

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This episode features our conversation with Laura Pegram, founding editor of The Kweli Journal, to chat about Sing the Truth: The Kweli Journal Short Story Collection, an anthology published in celebration of their 15th anniversary, which was live-streamed on May 17, 2025.

Hailed as “The Paris Review of BIPOC literature,” The Kweli Journal has been a launching pad for many of today’s most celebrated writers. Kweli—“truth” in Swahili—marks its fifteenth anniversary with this luminous collection edited by founder Laura Pegram. These vivid narratives explore the devastation of leaving home and the struggle to adapt to reimagined lives, lost loves, distant families, and buried pasts, deepening our understanding of the human experience.

Featuring works from acclaimed authors Naima Coster, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Daphne Palasi Andreades, Susan Muaddi Darraj, and others, with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat, this anthology stands as a testament to voices too often overlooked in contemporary literature. Readers will encounter narratives that explore memory, identity, culture, and the ways in which words transcend language to become instruments of power and resilience. In the evocative words of the anthology: “So come, sit with us on the bank and listen to our music.”

Kweli means “truth” in Swahili. Under the direction of founding editor, Laura Pegram since 2009, the Kweli Journal’s mission is to nurture emerging BIPOC writers that “sing the truth”. With a quarterly online literary journal, year-long writer fellowships, multi-session workshops, writing retreats, individualized editing, an annual writers’ conference and international festival, Kweli invests in the artistic and professional growth of emerging authors, nationally and internationally. Kweli Journal continues to contribute to a world where the narratives being told reflect the truth of our histories and the possibilities of our future.

To learn more about the Kweli Journal, please visit their website at kwelijournal.org. To purchase your copy of Sing the Truth, please visit https://bookshop.org/shop/blackwritersread. By purchasing your books via this Bookshop link, you’re supporting Independent booksellers and Black Writers Read.

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This episode features our conversation with Eden Royce (Southern Gothic.), which was live-streamed on May 3, 2025.

Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina now living in Southeast England. She is a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and a Bram Stoker Award nominee for her adult short fiction, which has appeared in various print and online magazines. Her debut middle-grade novel, ROOT MAGIC is a Walter Award Honoree, a Nebula Award finalist, a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner, and an Ignyte award winner for outstanding children’s literature. Her third middle-grade novel, THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE, is a Walter Award Honoree, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and a Bram Stoker Award Nominee. She loves tea, coffee, bookstores, and roller skating – not always in that order.

During this episode, Eden read from her short story, "For Southern Girls When the Zodiac Ain't Near Enough" originally published in Apex Magazine issue #111 in 2018. We also had an opportunity to chat about her middle grade fiction novels including ROOT MAGIC and THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE along with her forthcoming adult novella, PSYCHOPOMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE which is scheduled for release later this year in October. Pre-order your copy of PSYCHOPOMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE TODAY!

Congratulations to Eden for THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE being nominated for an Ignyte Award in the Outstanding Middle Grade category and HOLLOW TONGUE for being nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award!

To learn more about Eden and her body of work, please visit edenroyce.com.

Find Eden Royce on Instagram: @edenroycebooks

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