SOREN LIT provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from creatives with connections to the lingering South.

Produced by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers.

SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com

Episode: InnaRae- SOREN LIT. December. 2023

InnaRae’s work as a singer/songwriter, poet, and teacher exemplifies an appreciation of the human spirit, knowledge of purpose, and love of beauty. In veneration to and with assistance from her maternal and paternal ancestresses who, throughout time and space, have moved in their spiritual giftings with full acceptance and authorization from Spirit, InnaRae walks in the energy of balance and the divine feminine. Her beloved ancestors also assist her while traveling through this earthly realm on a frequency of love that, despite hardships, has held onto its spiritual dignity throughout many generations in her bloodline.

Through her art, she encourages readers and listeners to return “home”, transform, and discover that absolutely no circumstance can diminish the life and light that shines within each soul. Her music fuses her poetry with a Neo-Soul sound in celebration of an African concept Sankofa, which defines the process of going back to our roots, searching out, and acquiring what would be helpful to move forward in life. To date, InnaRae has recorded albums, Rena’s Moan (2008) and most recently, The Brooding of Emaline Oliver (2018). Both works are enjoyed by listeners who seek a healing path and opportunity to face their spiritual truths.

InnaRae has also worked with NYC motion picture director Rosalyn Williams of Red Wall Productions to produce a short documentary, titled The Journey to Rena’s Moan (2011), which compels women who struggle with sexual shame and generational wounds to start the healing journey and allow their authentic gifts shine. This powerful work serves to bring art to healing centers and now homes, where art is often overlooked as a viable contributor to the healing process. Currently, InnaRae writes reflective articles, essays, and poetry to scribe her experiences on the ancestral healing path. She also teaches, trains onboarding professors at an online University, facilitates workshops, and performs upon request. Recorded in 2022, her latest poetic offerings, Growth Mates and The Nile River, can be viewed on YouTube. To learn more, please visit www.innarae.com

The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is produced by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com

Cynthia Manick. SOREN LIT. Fall 2023.

Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad, 2023) which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. For 10 years she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that promoted poetry as storytelling and featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pulitzer prize winners. Manick’s poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller at literary festivals, libraries, and museums, her work has also featured in VOICES, an audio play by Aja Monet and Eve Ensler’s V-Day, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, the Rumpus and other outlets. She currently serves on the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York but travels widely for poetry.

Cynthia Manick's Social Media

Website: http://www.cynthiamanick.com/nswb

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/cmanickpoet

Twitter

https://twitter.com/cmanick

SOREN LIT: A Southern Renaissance literary journal... for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives. The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT. 2023. Lilli Lewis

As the story goes, Lilli Lewis should never have been. Before she was born, Lewis’ mother was told her baby probably wouldn’t survive due to lung trouble, so the fact that Lewis now makes a living singing with those same lungs is a gift she never takes for granted. Lewis uses her voice to bring what she calls sacred songs into profane spaces, and though she’s abandoned trying to define her sound, she hopes her audiences leave shows knowing two things: that they are brilliant as they are, and that they have the ability to use that brilliance to make a better world.

Trained as an opera singer and classical pianist, Georgia native Lewis has been a composer, producer and performer for over two decades. After carving out space as an African American queer woman of size, Lewis’ career has culminated in her album Americana being a top pick everywhere from NPR’s All Songs Considered to Rolling Stone.

The FolkRockDiva is a musical polyglot who glides easily between folk, roots, country soul, gospel, and jazz, and has integrated New Orleans traditions by singing lead for Dirty Dozen Brass Band founding member Kirk Joseph’s Backyard Groove. Lewis’ Louisiana Red Hot Records releases include The Henderson Sessions, We Belong, and Americana.

SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives exploring the lingering South...

www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT Editor & Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA

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