Black & Published

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published , Nikesha speaks with Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict , the authors of the historical fiction novel, A Pair of Aces . In our conversations they discuss why they see their partnership as a mission with a message. The hard conversations about race, class, and feminism, they have with each other that...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published , Nikesha speaks with Regina Black , author of the country romance novel, August Lane . The book recontexutalizes the narrative around who can be a country star as well as expands the perspective of who lives a country, read: rural, life. In our conversation, Regina explains how fanfiction and live journal became...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Kristina Forest , author of the romance novel The Summer Girlfriend . In our conversation, Kristina discusses an enraging trip to the bookstore that sparked the idea for the novel, the plotting tools she uses to create meaningful stakes, and why she wanted to put her heroine definitively in h...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Toni Ann Johnson author of the new short story collection, But Where's Home . The collection dives even further into the world she’s built with previous publications of a middle class Black family, in a majority white enclave in upstate New York. In our conversation, Toni Ann explains why she...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Lisa Smith , author of the novel, Jamaica Road . It’s a coming of age story that spans 12 years in the lives of Connie and Daphne, who wrestle with their identity as British and Jamaican at a time of great racial unrest in the UK. In our conversation, Lisa explains why she decided to write a...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Ashley Jordan , the author of the romance novel, Once Upon a Time in Dollywood . In our conversation, Ashley explains how going to grad school helped her finish her novel, plus the zombie apocalypse television show that sparked Ashley’s writing career. Mahogany Books Mentioned in this episode...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Gwendolyn Wallace and Tonya Engel , the author and illustrator of the new picture book, Dancing with Water . It's a story about a young queer child and their love for their grandfather who is a water diviner. In our conversation, Gwendolyn explains why she believes stories are truly born at t...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Rickey Fayne , author of the novel The Devil Three Times . A multi-generational story about one family, their spiritual gifts, and how they see they’re calling in life as either from God or Satan. In our conversation, Rickey reveals who gave him the push he needed to take his work seriously....

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Christina Dotson , author of the novel Love You to Death . The story is billed as a Black Thelma and Louise who go on a murderous romp throughout the south. In our conversation, Christina explains how the complex characters she works with in real life help as a social worker, help her craft t...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Helena Haywoode Henry , author of the YA novel, Last Chance Live! The book looks at the price of eternity through the eyes of an 18-year-old girl on death row, who decides to try to win her freedom on a reality show. In our conversation, Helena discusses the legal papers she read during her t...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Reginald Dwayne Betts , author of the poetry collection, Doggerel , which he says is his most joyous to date. In our conversation, Dwayne explains how he became intentional about singing a different song after realizing he’d become a long suffering Black man. Plus, why he believes identity is...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Lizzie Damilola Blackburn about her second novel, The Re-Write . A second chance romance between a full-figured woman and a reality TV star who’s struggling to decide exactly what kind of man he wants to be. In our conversation, Lizzie explains why she wanted to tackle toxic masculinity and f...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Ashley M. Jones , author of the poetry collection, Lullaby for the Grieving . A deeply personal look at what it means to find and lose love at the same time of unprecedented political turmoil. At 31-years-old, Ashley became the poet Laureate of Alabama, becoming both the youngest and the firs...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Lauren Morrow . Author of the novel, Little Movements . A book that explores what it means to leave behind the life you know and take a risk on what you love without the guarantee of reward. In our conversation, Lauren explains why she's not turned off by her book being characterized as auto-...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published , Nikesha speaks with Camonghne Felix, author of Let The Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom . It’s a treatise on the inherent harm of political power and an entreaty for people to seek collective and communal good from a praxis of poetics. In our conversation, Camonghne explains why the erasure poems she incl...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Jodi-Ann Burey , author of the book Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work . Part memoir, part sociological study of how women, queer, disabled, and minoritized people are discriminated against in the workplace, the book is an outgrowth of Jodi-Ann’s 2020 Ted Talk on the same...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published , Nikesha speaks with Tayari Jones , author of the novel Kin . Kin, is Tayari’s fifth novel and her second Oprah’s book club pick after 2018’s An American marriage. In our conversation, she explains why she’s grateful for her “slow burn career" and how she surrendered to the story that wanted to be written … even...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Donika Kelly , author of the poetry collection, The Natural Order of Things . It’s a collection of poems paying homage to Donika’s wife, her friends, and especially her family. In our conversation, we discuss how she uses poetry to imagine a future that doesn’t feel possible, the comfort she...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Damon Young , author and editor of That’s How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor . The anthology features essays and stories from 24 acclaimed Black writers whose words do work on the page but are also funny AF. In our conversation, we discuss how humor is a vehicle to...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Ebony LaDelle , editor of the YA Romance Collection: You’ve Got a Place Here too: An Anthology of Black Love Storie set at HBCUs . The collection provides a gathering place for 11 authors to share stories of all representations of love within the HBCU ecosystem. In our conversation, we discus...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This season on Black & Published, guests help answer the question: What does it mean to be a Black writer? Mahogany Books Mentioned in this episode: Rate & Review Thanks for listening, family! Please do us a solid and take a quick moment to rate and/or leave a review for this podcast. It will go a long way to making sure content featuring our...

Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Dorsía Smith Silva , author of the poetry collection, In Inheritance of Drowning . The collection was born out of Dorsía’s experience of living through Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, becoming a mother, and witnessing the racial reckoning of 2020. In our conversation, we discuss the rea...

This week on Black & Published, Nikesha celebrates the publication of her latest novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree , with Bookstagram and Book Tok favorites, Jamise Harper ( @diversespines , @spinesvines ) and Edrick Scarver ( @edrickreadit ). They discuss the original title of the novel that informed the whole story line, the greatest takeaway Nikesha wants readers to have when they finish...

This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with her editor, Alison Callahan who has been working as an editor for 20+ years. They discuss why their editor-author relationship was always destined to be. Plus, the deep dive Alison and her team did into Nikesha's background before making the deal. And why she feels intimidated every time she takes off her editorial hat and tries to approach t...

This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with her literary agent, Peter Steinberg. An agent since 1996, Peter explains the one thing that remains true in publishing even after all these years. Plus, the importance of rejection to an author's career, and what he thinks is the death of good fiction. Order Your Copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree ! See Nikesha on Tour Mahogany Books Menti...