celebrating Black women writers
celebrating Black women writers
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UPCOMING PUBLICATION DATE: JUNE 17, 2025
midnight & indigo celebrates 12 Black women storytellers across the U.S. and the Caribbean with our inaugural Music issue; a collection of essays and short stories in which sound shapes identity, memory, and Black resilience. Press play, turn the page, and allow this issue to become the soundtrack to your literary soul.
A daughter’s memories unfold in a timeless Nat King Cole classic. R&B CD liner notes spark a young writer’s love affair with language and art. Guttural hollers echo through church pews, summoning ancestral power and unbreakable bonds—an exploration of the sounds Black women hold on to and the ones they pass on.
Double Dutch rhythms become rites of survival inspired by Nina Simone's "Four Women." Earth, Wind, and Fire's "Reasons" serves as a prism through which a daughter examines her father’s grace and the legacies we carry. A personal mixtape invites time travel through communal memories. Purple Rain grants a young girl permission to shatter limiting beliefs. Fandom’s highs and heartbreaks collide when K-pop stages expose the tension between belonging and otherness.
A solo saxophone performance during a viewing of Spike Lee's Mo’ Better Blues becomes one woman's act of courage. A Thriller VHS tape and strange glass of water remind us that the most ordinary moments can harbor otherworldly refrains...and more stories and essays.
Contributors include:
Tyiana Combs, Kathy Graves Rosemond, Ashley J. Hobbs, Latoya Johnson, Nwenna Kai, Ladidas Lumpkins, Jessica McCall, Natasha Atim Moore, Ilisha Nicole, Dinkinish O’Connor, Carolyn S. Parker, and Dr. Felicia L. Rutledge.
ISBN: 979-8-9919208-4-1
Pages: 137
**Please note: Pre-orders only; orders will not be shipped before June 17th. Since issues are printed upon purchase, items are not returnable/ refundable.
IN THIS ISSUE
Essays
Dinkinish O’Connor’s "growl-wail-scream-shout-howl", an essay that excavates the sacred shouts of church women and the visceral power lodged in every note, is an exploration of the sounds Black women hold on to and the ones they pass on.
Kathy Graves Rosemond’s "Unforgettable: Reflections of My Father" traces the lyric threads woven between Nat King Cole's classic and a daughter’s unfolding life, a song both private heirloom and universal hymn of memory.
In "The Liner Notes Portal: Album Jackets and The Shaping of a Little Life," Latoya Johnson reminds us that 90s CD booklets were more than packaging—they were a portal into a young writer’s mind: the handwritten credits, stories behind the songs, and alchemy of language and melody that nurtured her earliest creative impulses.
Natasha Atim Moore’s mytho-biographical homage "Nina's My Mother, You Know" spins a Double-Dutch rope of memory and myth at play in her childhood neighborhood, with Nina Simone’s “Four Women” as a guiding refrain. The piece is simply an ode to Ms. Nina, The Great Mother of the Motherless.
In Ladidas Lumpkins’ "Still Can’t Find the Reasons," Earth, Wind & Fire’s classic becomes a prism through which she examines her father’s grace and extraordinary capacity for forgiveness—and the burdens we inherit, the grace we choose, and the legacies we carry forward.
Dr. Felicia L. Rutledge’s "Mixtape Lessons for the Mommas, Aunties, and Maybe the Daughters, Too" treats music as a time machine: she rewinds and fast-forwards through lyric-laden roads, charting the way songs sometimes stitch together the chapters of Black girlhood and womanhood.
Carolyn S. Parker’s "I Confess" offers a moment of revelation, as the writer confronts just how much music means to her.
Jessica McCall’s "The Purple One’s Permission" transports us to the 80s, where Prince’s Purple Rain serves as a young girl’s permission slip to dream beyond societal scripts, carving out private spaces of liberation.
Tyiana Combs’ "Being Black in K-pop" explores the complexities of fandom and identity. Through her vivid recounting—first as an unsuspecting K-pop stan enchanted by polished choreography, and later as a Black woman confronting micro-aggressions and anti-Black sentiment—she asks whether joy can endure when the stages we love reveal hidden fault lines.
Short Stories
Ilisha Nicole’s "The Refrain" drums the Chicago’s west side streets in the heart of the 90s, when music mitigated the ills of the crack pandemic and ten-year-old Tierra tries to shield her mother from the addictive grip of love and loss; her innocence scored by the boom and crackle of survival’s Jody Watley soundtrack.
Ashley J. Hobbs’ "How To (Let Yourself) Be Loved Mo’ Better" places a saxophone at the center of an apartment, as a self-conscious young woman and her boyfriend spend an evening watching Spike Lee's Mo’ Better Blues.
Nwenna Kai’s "Strange Water" introduces a mysterious melody: a nine-year-old girl discovers a strange glass of water in the pantry of her parent’s home as a family gathers to watch Michael Jackson’s Thriller on a VCR, reminding us that ordinary moments can harbor otherworldly refrains.
