This episode features our conversation with Lisa Braxton about her recently released memoir, Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections on Love and Loss, which was live-streamed on June 1, 2024.

Lisa Braxton is the author of the award-winning Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections on Love and Loss (Sea Crow Press, April 2024). The memoir in essays is a powerful meditation on grief, a deeply personal mosaic of a daughter’s remembrances of beautiful, challenging and heartbreaking moments of life with her family. It speaks to anyone who has lost a loved one and is trying to navigate the world without them while coming to terms with complicated emotions. She is also the author of the novel, The Talking Drum, winner of a 2021 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards Gold Medal, overall winner of Shelf Unbound book review magazine’s 2020 Independently Published Book Award, winner of a 2020 Outstanding Literary Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, and a Finalist for the International Book Awards. She is an Emmy nominated former TV journalist and is a writing instructor at Grub Street Boston. She is the presidents of the Greater Boston Section of the National Council of Negro Women and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Lisa Braxton's parents died within two years of each other-her mother from ovarian cancer, her father from prostate cancer. While caring for her mother she was stunned to find out that she, herself, had a life-threatening illness—breast cancer. In the intimate, lyrical memoir-in-essays of Dancing Between the Raindrops, Lisa Braxton takes us to the core of her loss and extends a lifeline of comfort to anyone who needs to be reminded that in their grief they are not alone.

To learn more about Lisa and her work, please visit lisabraxton.com.

Find Lisa on Instagram: @lisabraxtonwrites

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This episode features our conversation with Wakisha Stewart, which was live-streamed on May 18, 2024 in recognition of Women’s Health Week (May 12th-18th) and National Share a Story Month.

Wakisha (Kisha) Stewart is a wife, mother of three, nurse, heart attack survivor, and a national advocate for heart health dedicated to improving the quality of cardiovascular health care for everyone. Since her heart attack in 2011 at age 31, she has conducted extensive research about the specific health risks that women, particularly Black women, face.

A dynamic, nationally recognized speaker on ways to improve heart health through lifestyle changes and a fierce advocate for systemic changes in the health care system to guarantee equity and social justice for all, Kisha, a nurse with a unique perspective and survivor on a mission, was a national spokeswoman chosen in 2022 by the American Heart Association (AHA) to educate the public about the risks of cardiovascular disease.

In collaboration with the American Heart Association, Kisha wrote the memoir, SONATA FOR A DAMAGED HEART.

SONATA FOR A DAMAGED HEART is one Black woman’s story of a near-death experience following her second pregnancy and the racial disparities in the healthcare industry that contributed to it. The memoir is both a moving, lyrically told story of a decade-long struggle to survive a near-fatal heart attack with dignity and a clarion call for community-wide mobilization to guarantee health care equity.

SONATA FOR A DAMAGED HEART recounts the complicated professional and emotional journey that Kisha takes from heart failure to being selected in 2022 by the American Heart Association as one of twelve spokeswomen advocating for women’s heart health in its national education campaign, Reclaim Your Rhythm.

To learn more about Kisha and her book, please visit kishaandscad.com.

Find Kisha on Instagram: @kishaandscad

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This episode features our conversation with David Jackson Ambrose, which was live-streamed on May 11, 2024 in recognition of National Mental Health Awareness Month.

David Jackson Ambrose writes on the intersections of race, sexuality and generational trauma. Through fiction, his work explores various genres, topics, and themes including African American life, Black history, LGBTQ issues and life, prison industrial complex, mental health, and generational trauma. David has an MFA in Creative Writing from Temple University, an MA in Writing Studies from Saint Joseph’s University, and a BA in Africana Studies from The University of Pennsylvania. He has over twenty years of experience working in social services. During our conversation, we had a chance to talk about David’s three books, State of the Nation, A Blind Eye, and Unlawful DISorder.

State of the Nation (The TMG Firm, 2018) is a Lambda Award finalist. State of the Nation looks at the impact of the Atlanta Child Murders and Tuskegee experiment on three friends living in Philadelphia. Each struggles to survive and create an identity in a world that ignores them at best, and preys upon them at worst, much like the children in Atlanta.

A Blind Eye (NineStar Press, 2021) is a winner of the Rainbow Book Award, looks at homelessness, male to male (m2m) domestic violence, and the ways American school systems treat Black children with special needs compared to their white counterparts.

David's most recent work, Unlawful DISorder (Jaded Ibis Press, 2022), looks at racial disparities in diagnoses & treatment for Black men with mental health disorders when treatment is imposed by the judicial system instead of the behavioral health system.

To learn more about David and his work, please visit https://davidjacksonambrose.com.

Find David on Instagram: @davidjacksonambrose

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This episode features our conversation with Lynne Thompson, which was live-streamed on April 14, 2024 closing out National Poetry Month.

Lynne Thompson served as the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles. She's the author of four collections of poetry: Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007), Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press, 2013), Fretwork (Marsh Hawk Press, 2019) and, most recently, Blue On A Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024). In 2022, Thompson was awarded a Laureate Fellowship by the Academy of American Poets and in 2023, she received the George Drury Smith Award for Achievement in Poetry from Beyond Baroque. Thompson has also received fellowships from the City of Los Angeles, the Summer Literary Series in Kenya, and Vermont Studio Center. Recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, and Gulf Coast. Thompson sits on the Boards of the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, Los Angeles Review of Books, and her alma mater, Scripps College.

Lynne Thompson’s Blue on a Blue Palette (which is featured on this episode) reflects on the condition of women—their joys despite their histories, and their insistence on survival as issues of race, culture, pandemic, and climate threaten their livelihoods. The documentation of these personal odysseys—which vary stylistically from abecedarians to free verse to centos—replicate the many ways women travel through the stages of their lives, all negotiated on a palette encompassing various shades of blue. These poems demand your attention, your voice: “Say history. Claim. Say wild.”

This episode is presented in collaboration with Perugia Press. Founded in 1997, Perugia Press is a nonprofit feminist press that publishes one beautifully designed book each year: the winner of the Perugia Press Prize, their annual national contest for first or second books of poetry by women-identified authors. To learn more about Perugia Press and the Perugia Press Prize, please visit perugiapress.org.

Find Lynne on Instagram: @letpms
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To support getting our authors' books on Black Writers Read bookshelves, please visit our GoFundMe page.

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This episode features our conversation with M. Nzadi Keita, which was live-streamed on April 14, 2024 during National Poetry Month.

M. Nzadi Keita's new poetry collection, Migration Letters (Beacon Press, April 2, 2024), reflects on Black working-class identity and culture in Philadelphia. Her second book, Brief Evidence of Heaven (Whirlwind Press, 2014), shed light on Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ first wife and was cited in David Blight ‘s prize-winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, Her writing appears in anthologies and journals such as A Face to Meet the Faces: A Persona Poetry Anthology, Killens Review of Arts and Letters, and About Place. Keita won a Pew Fellow in Poetry, a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award, and served as an adviser to the documentary, BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez. For many years, she taught creative writing, American literature, and Africana Studies at Ursinus College.

Her latest book, Migration Letters, is a poetry collection that takes a closer look at what it means to be Black in America just after the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. This new addition to Beacon Press’s “Raised Voices Poetry Series” centers on Black working-class Philadelphia from the 1960s to the present day. Migration Letters shares a story about Black people that resonates across generations—Black people innovating, learning by doing, teaching by witnessing, and evolving in spite of themselves.

To learn more about Nzadi and her work, please visit www.zeekeita.com.

Find Nzadi on Instagram: @nzadikeita

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Happy National Poetry Month! Launched in April of 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month celebrates the literary traditions sustained by this mode of storytelling. Thank you so very much to every single poet who has joined me on this platform.

This episode features our conversation with Nandi Comer (poetry.), which was live-streamed on April 7, 2024.

Nandi Comer is the Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of American Family: A Syndrome (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Tapping Out (Triquarterly, 2020), which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. She is a Cave Canem Fellow, a Callaloo Fellow, and a 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow. She is the co-director of Detroit Lit, a project that provides reading and professional development opportunities for narrative makers of color in Detroit.

To learn more about Nandi and her work, please visit nandicomer.com.

Find Nandi on Instagram: @nandicomer

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This episode features our conversation with Chana Shinegba, which was live-streamed on March 30, 2024.

Chana Shinegba, a gifted storyteller, embodies the spirit of resilience and creativity that defines her generation. Coming of age as a young Black girl in the vibrant but complex landscape of the 1980s and 1990s, Chana grappled with acknowledging her innate talents amidst the backdrop of societal expectations and personal fears.

From a tender age, Chana’s artistic prowess manifested in various forms. While her first haiku, penned at age five, hinted at her literary inclinations, her enchanting dance moves initially stole the spotlight. Yet, beneath the graceful exterior, her passion for storytelling simmered, finding expression within the pages of her childhood diary, where poems and short stories danced with vivid imagination.

Chana’s literary journey took flight through her academic years, where her adept writing skills shone brightly. Her knack for words also made her the go- to person for leading literary endeavors among family and friends. However, it wasn't until a transformative experience at a summer journalism program at American University that Chana realized she didn’t want to be confined to traditional news reporting.


Embarking on a career in the hospitality industry, Chana immersed herself in the world of good food and even better company. Yet, her creative spirit remained undeterred, forging a bond with the pen that eventually blossomed into her debut novel, Dancer in the Bullpen, which blends elements of autobiographical fiction with magical realism. The novel speaks to those who, like Chana, have grappled with their sense of uniqueness and emerged empowered to embrace their true selves. Dancer in the Bullpen is scheduled for release this summer in June, published by Jaded Ibis Press.

This episode of Black Writers Read is presented in collaboration with Levee Break Lit.


To pre-order copies of Dancer in the Bullpen, please visit Barnes and Noble online.


Find Chana on Instagram: @chanalucky7

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This episode features our conversation with Angie Chatman, which was live-streamed on March 16, 2024. For long-time Black Writers Read supporters you may remember Angie from our Black History Month Virtual Event in 2021.

Angie Chatman is a writer and storyteller. She's written for Insider Personal Finance, MIT Tech Review, the National Science Foundation, Yahoo News and elsewhere. Her literary work has appeared in Brevity, TaintTaintTaint Magazine, Literary Landscapes, Pangyrus, The Rumpus, Blood Orange Review, Hippocampus Magazine. She was a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. Chatman has appeared on The Moth Radio Hour, GBH/World Channel’s Stories from the Stage, and Story Collider. An engineer by degree, Chatman also earned an MBA from MIT-Sloan and an MFA from Queens University in Charlotte. Born and raised on Chicago's southside, Angie now lives in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston with her family.

To learn more about Angie and her expansive body of work, please visit angiecwriter.com.


During the episode, I mention a commentary piece that I wrote for New England Public Media a while back. Please check out my very first Commentary piece!

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