One Black Perch Publishing

17/05/2024

You don’t subscribe to literary journals and mags to read the Editor’s Note, but in consecutive issues, editors of .magazine out of wrote about some of the creative perils and concerns regarding AI’s continued development. ( has a great book on the topic, btw)

Business folk like to make the case that those who don’t adopt AI will be outperformed and outearned by those who adopt early as possible.Hedge fund companies have been using tech to predict market behavior and to determine when to sell/buy for years now (see Ray Dalio’s interview w/ Tom Bilyeu from Impact Theory). In some highly competitive domains, the decision-making factors matter less to its participants and beneficiaries.

But in creative endeavors; forms of writing and visual arts, the means matters in the end.

Is it creatively precarious to assume ubiquity of tools that cause us to question authenticity further?

Should we prepare for new genres, award categories, and contests for The Best Novel or Poetry by a Trained Chatbot? 

The editor didn’t raise the award question, but you can’t get the toothpaste back in the tube; the implications are right there. I have no answers, just questions.

In other news, I just finished “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt” by Orisanmi Burton, a few days ago.

Now I’m undecided about which to read next:

Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson

We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Goverment Against the Negro People by William L. Patterson

or Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin D.G. Kelley

Submissions are still open for our literary journal, for which I’ve started corresponding with a talented artist who’ll bless the cover of the first issue. Submit your works via profile link.

Lastly, and firstly,

Which should I read next?

10/05/2024

Writer’s Market, published by the Writer’s Digest lists publishing company’s, literary journals, magazines and more, of each genre and type; independent and conglomerate alike. Directories like this are valuable for knowing where our writing may fit well; where our readers are.

We may even want to take a step further, subscribe to a few, contributing to the creative ecosystem in good faith, but also familiarizing ourselves with the many articulations among our writing peers and to get a sense for what’s being chosen for inclusion - which indicates taste more often than a referendum on quality.

In order to give our work a chance to be widely read, a common suggestion is to read widely, find our current, and stay current; what’s happening and being written about now in each niched-away oasis where our ideas can find appreciation, critique, and refuge.

We may today pride ourselves on sweat equity from building vessels of our own to ride digital tides, but there are vessels already running downstream without headwind, and with onlookers hoping our notes, truer than a siren’s call, is found bottled in their inbox or mailbox.

So where are the writers who paddle in the same direction we’re going? What journals and magazines accommodate voices akin to our own, stories representative of concerns that appear in our work, and the space that awaits our boarding?

Do you know?
Have you peeked around the bend?

13/04/2024

I made a post sharing 5 tips from Mark Forsyth's book "Elements of Eloquence".

But his book is really useful so I made a vid for it instead on the YouTube channel.

Share with your writer friends.

Part of the commitment to becoming better at writing is writing consistently, of course. But reading about the craft of writing consistently is important in ...

08/04/2024

It’s Poetry Month, so of course you should add to your linguistic toolbelt.

The Elements of Eloquence has nearly 40 building blocks of language to make our writing more memorable and effective.

Here are 5 I’ve plucked out to take to the corner before more writing rounds.

03/04/2024

I learn. I share.

If you’re a non-artist, and a first-time author, don’t you want to know a bit more about cover art and art generally before doling over even one red cent to a stranger?

25/03/2024

I been hi-
bernating, and I’m finally waking up, and coming down to ground myself in everything I swept on either side of my smoke-filled room. I found no conspiracies though: just palo santo, frankincense, white sage, and candles in place of my being burned on both ends.

But the more things change, the more the same felonious exacerbations reach you without having to seek them. A media detox and a social media blackout is all but impossible when we’re witness to what started as a stain on the human record, and it spreads to ruin the fabric of the modern spirit we’d like to carry. That there are Palestinian children who manage to smile shames our conceptions of joy and strength.

Despite what’s hard to turn away from, for even a second, I’ve been working; taking a couple of courses, attending remote seminars, reading of course, reviewing the entries for the lit journal that initially trickled in before my sudden and unplanned sabbatical, and taking YouTube to the fitting room; trying it out, and it better suits our long-term purposes. I probably should have done this long ago, but regret is one of the items I also turned to ash recently. It is what it is.

So moving forward, the conversations about books on writing, editing, and the publishing industry will live there. Along with my independent education in visual art and design for the sake of developing a working book cover philosophy, my 2024 TBR (To Be Read) list, which is more Robin D.G. Kelley and radicalism than the summer romance that’ll reunite you with your irresistible, occasionally intolerable ex. Not your typical ARCs and book hauls; I read what I believe is important for a 40something, 6 foot something Black male startup publisher from Chicago should read. No hate, we love love, but the channel ain’t that vibe even if we publish romance writers, and other genres. Nonfiction (real-world stories) have my heart, though, if I'm honest.

Same direction, finer compass, tank fully fueled.

More details to come shortly here, my word. Updates, announcements, and stuff.

Rest easy, even when resting ain't easy.

31/12/2023

In Nov, I announced the open submission period for the first issue of our literary journal, and immediately started receiving more inquiries about the submission of manuscripts than submissions for the journal. Sometimes getting full manuscripts in my inbox, too.

At first I thought I’d mistakenly misstated something somewhere, or that this was related somehow. But there was no such relation or reason for misunderstanding. In fact, most who were seeking to publish their own books hadn’t seen my posts and other announcements about the open submission period for the journal. Coincidences. And I’m not complaining.

Actually, what stayed with me was that the writers I encountered tend to have tons of writing unedited, unexamined, hoarded somewhere dank or a in an ottoman; testifying to having written for years and wanting to publish, but hadn’t yet pursued it for all the reasons, and not always good ones by their admission.

Many said the recent times carries an urgency overwhelming them to action; they’re writing vital yeses to a dire call. Maybe how much we’ve collectively winced as witness to events in the world at-large in the past few years, and those up close and personal, familial; unignorable and piling up. It feels like we’re living through a part of history’s tide that ages a generation most. Crisis-generative, still inspirational waves.

For me, a newbie to publishing in the age of self-publishing, social media, book bans, and a persistent literacy decline since before the pandemic, to still have so many hands stretched high and with volumes of writing, finally ready to cut through torrents of noise with their voice, is both a pleasure and a privilege to see. It’s hopeful in a day when apathy is easier.

We’ll start reading works of fiction, memoir, and poetry in the spring of 2024.

However, until Thursday, January 25th, 2024, we’re accepting new submissions for our literary journal, The One Black Perch Review.

Send your poetry, excerpts from fiction or memoir, short and microfiction, or personal essays to [email protected]

I hope these words cross you at the right time.

04/12/2023

We're currently accepting submissions to our literary mag; One Black Perch Publishing Review.

We welcome creative nonfiction, memoirs, vignettes, poetry, and personal essays. We're looking for thought-provoking stories that challenge assumptions, can stretch the reader's empathy, and can be appreciated when reread.

We accept excerpts from novels that can stand alone and short fiction.

Open to genre-blending or -bending.

Our deadline is January 25th, 2023.

04/12/2023

LeVar Burton interviewed about the state of book banning and literacy. Organized by (L.A. times Book Club)

01/12/2023

Take noon tea break early.
Lemon ginger calls
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_
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30/11/2023

An idea inspecting an idea from inside an idea.

Or recess from DIY book cover design education.

While doing homework on literary mags and journals, I come across some stunning, thoughtful, fun images that, if this were X years ago, might have been able to keep the eyes still for much more than a swipe-second.

What book covers have gotten more than a glance from you recently?

Drop a pic of it in the comments; I'm always looking for inspiration.

30/11/2023

An idea inspecting an idea from inside an idea.

Or recess from DIY book cover design education.

While doing homework on literary mags and journals, I come across some stunning, thoughtful, fun images that, if this were X years ago, might have been able to keep the eyes still for much more than a swipe-second.

What book covers have grasped your attention the most in recent years?

Drop a pic of it in the comments; I'm always looking for inspiration.

21/11/2023

The desired result of cover art, generally, is to trigger an instinctive exploration beyond the cover, into a book's fine contents.

With a little research on styles and trends, you can prompt an image to fit neatly within a given genre.
But the image that may appropriately capture our present moment isn't likely neat, if it's a true reflection.

Nor does this moment need more language of capture, domination or sublimation; this year's epitaph has enough distended linings made in the immaculate image of our messes.

Stories of transformation are vigils in the wake of tragic mess. You're still writing them, right?
---

13/11/2023

"...we might also experience bouts of civic despondency. But that despondency would change nothing about what is really happening. It would be far better, in my opinion, to participate in our times, since our age is clamoring for us to do so, and quite loudly, by calmly accepting that the era of cherished masters, artists with camellias in their lapels and armchair geniuses, is over. To create today means to create dangerously."

— Albert Camus

06/11/2023

Next Monday, we're finally reopening submissions to the first issue of our literary journal, The One Black Perch Publishing Review.

To shape new stories or find new ways and forms to tell stories is still a privilege. To receive one that reshapes or reforms you is a gift.

CR (on rotation):

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
Suddenly We by Evie Shockley
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style by Virginia Tufte
...but I anticipate replacing these reads soon for the overwhelming number of submissions to come. *wink wink*

Til then we're exploring hooks's challenge to live by a love ethic, what happens when women aren't counted or considered when interpreting transportation and sanitation data [despite accounting for roughly half the population], and losing my track of time in Evie Shockley's new poems.......
If weather's pleasant where you are, get some outside air.
The story of your day could use a context switch for meaning's sake......

12/09/2023

Earlier in her essay, "Plotting the Plot", Elizabeth Nuñez references the often offered metaphor of driving down dark, winding, unfamiliar roads to explain how writers navigate an unfolding plot, saying that even the destination can change. But you must give yourself the freedom to explore beyond narrow, predetermined lanes, scoot to windows of curiosity, and witness as you follow your character.

Don't execute such rigid movements of characters whose smile you've not yet seen, humid alleys in their hood you've not gotten a good whiff of, or paths of hurt you've charted, but haven't taken a ride with.
***
Elizabeth Nunez is the award-winning author of a memoir and ten novels. Her most recent novel is Now Lila Knows. She received the 2015 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for nonfiction for Not for Everyday Use and the American Book Award for Bruised Hibiscus. She is a distinguished professor at Hunter College, the City University of New York.
***
"How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill is not a conventional anthology of craft essays. Our request of the writers in these pages was a statement quite literally explaining how they go about making what they make. What happens to move things from a blank page to a beautiful book? So this is a book of answers—answers to questions new writers ask every day about how to produce writing that proves theirver tidentity as a practitioner. In other words, this is a book for anyone who is a student of the craft. More particularly, though, this is a book for younger and newer Black writers in undergraduate and graduate workshops and in absolutely no workshop at all."

- Jericho Brown, Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

07/09/2023

There's tons of texts and tools that aid writers in producing their best work.

I've read a handful so far as a Public Learner within the domains of writing, book editing, and publishing.

With these three, I'm beginning to open my hands, just a little.

Link in bio.
--
“I’m given the grace to work with words in a spirit of right livelihood that calls me to peace, reflection, and connectedness with communities of readers whom I may never know or see.” - bell hooks

“You watch your feet step on each round rung, one at a time; you do not hurry and do not rest.” - Annie Dillard

Gratitude & generosity, Discipline & Persistence:
dynamic tandems often found in the how's and why's of scribes we appreciate, admire, and learn from.

Essential to engineering your craft.

23/08/2023

Are your morning pages still waiting for you to greet them?

21/08/2023

08/08/2023

"The problem is not whether print will survive, but how literary publishing adapts to a world where to publish something has lost value. As Clay Shirky writes, in Here Comes Everybody:

In a world where publishing is effortless, the decision to publish something isn't terribly momentous. Just as movable type raised the value of being able to read and write even as it destroyed the scribal tradition, globally free publishing is making public speech and action more valuable, even as its absolute abundance diminishes the specialness of professional publishing. For a generation that is growing up without the scarcity that made publishing such a serious-minded pursuit, the written word has no special value in and of itself....If everyone can do something, it is no longer rare enough to pay for, even if it is vital."

The above is from Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, published in 2016, where Jane Friedman quotes Shirky in her essay titled "The Future Value of the Literary Publisher".

Shirky was speaking in reference to the rise of self-publishing and the transformation of online book markets, largely due to Amazon. He couldn't account for the yet-to-come ai chatbot technologies. Today, because of the arrival of the language models, the value of the written word is under scrutiny again.

If the "abundance diminishes the specialness of publishing" and the "written word has no special value in and of itself," what value is left lay with its vitality.

To write is vital because not only do our words have the potential to reach and change others, but they help change the writer for the better, too. Writing for ourselves is the kind of writing that can't be handed or prompted off; at least not the reflective, open, healing kind.

While writing for an audience can teach you how to serve, or how to speak "in the language of the listener" as TD Jakes mentions in his book "Don't Drop the Mic", recording your memories, thoughts and feelings for better self-understanding, compassion, and joy reinforce the vitality in our truths. And we become a more mindful compass when we encounter others.
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Link to full piece in bio.

06/07/2023

Be the student who asks the tough questions. Even as your flag is planted.

Critical feedback is still important. But writers can join from writing groups, masterclaases, workshops, communities, and other peer spaces.

Though some publishers create and curate these resources, do you think writers will directly seek editor's and publishers' opinions more, or less in the near future?

What changes do you anticipate in publishing?

What do you have the most trouble with concerning writing and publishing today?
----
Note: Literary Publishing in the 21st Century was published in 2016. Doesn't account for tech developments since.

26/06/2023

This is not a hi five or a passing wave. It's to announce there are five nights left until the submission deadline for the first issue of our literary journal.

Whether we feel our changes occurring as they happen through the work to remain ever-present, or we later come to notice our change or staling upon reflection, the stories we tell of them become artifacts that map our personal, and collective understanding. This is one among a few reasons Personal Transformation was the chosen theme for the first issue.

As important as it is to find and be impacted by a given story inspiring us to act, it's also important for us to write them — whether factual or something connective through fiction. We discover us as we expose and learn as we work. Sitting in what we most need to write for self-healing is an opportune beginning for a most regenerative contribution. We engage with the world, and hence are impacted by the world in numerous ways. Our relationship to ourselves, family, friends, work colleagues, our spiritual community if we so choose, to our relative corners of the world; in location, ideology and more are ways we can also be compelled toward new and necessary dimensions of character. A give and take.

Recall the origin story of the batteries in your back, how they found you when you thought you were tripping and jumped in before you knew. When your every step was clumsy against the wind, before you knew mercy as having it at your back instead. If you once needed to write/hear it, it may again be needed for others. Or for you again one day. You're your first listener, and you've written for your reckoning, your affirmation, caution, discernment, or satisfaction. You also wrote for others, though you may not have believed it at the time.
————

Send all submissions to [email protected]
Expected response within 30 days
No submission fees
Accepts simultaneous submissions

Submissions are open until July 1st, 2023.

06/03/2023

Deem Journal hosted their inaugural Symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Art over the weekend, to explore "how design can draw on diverse perspectives to create more equitable and inclusive communities and futures through themes of Dignity, Pedagogy, Equity, and Place." (quoted from MCA event page)

Design has useful modes of thinking that could be useful to building writer's workshops, courses, retreats, residencies, among other things. That was the extent to my inquiry initially. When I subscribed to the Deem Journal more than a year ago I began to explore how one might design sustainable, equitable publishing (and business) models today, in addition to the craft-related applications I'd borrow design knowledge for. Often design and tech have left groups isolated, neglected and gouged with exploitation when the potential for connection with self and interconnection with others was promised at root.

I didn't attend the symposium in person, but copped a virtual ticket and tapped in. Deem also put together a Reference Room that includes some of the reading materials that inspired their first four issues to provide context for their work, opportunity to reflect on what can be done in your own work, and how to approach your work with intention. The reference room was available all weekend, so though I missed the in-person symposium, I made it to the reference room and had the chance to snoop around.

After receiving a book recommendation from the design student curating the reference space (Emergent Design by Adrienne Maree Brown), and was grabbed a few other books I'm adding to my list soon, I also happened to meet one of the founders of Deem Journal, Nu Goteh, in the MCA store. I offered my thanks for the inspiration they continue to provide: Dope people dopen people.
--
Lastly, I can't remember the last time I was downtown, much less drove. Michigan Avenue is still Dukes of Hazard plus buses.

20/12/2022

it's compassion for the vulnerable through which courage rises to speak

thank you for continuing to teach

01/09/2022

When was the last time that you looked back on all your progress? Have you taken a sincere moment to smile at even your ability to commit to growth and change?

If you haven’t, take a moment, even before the weekend, to look back on the past few days, the past few years or many of them. Also, don’t just look: look in.

Secondly, look further.

How else will you help gratitude to defy gravity, your face floating into a bigness greater than pains you recently released? You’re in a new place right now. There’s gratitude here, and it’s ready for you to share.
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I’ve started a website that will act strictly as a playground for my writing to live. It’s well overdue. There’s serious play to be had. Largely nothing’s there, now. But that’ll change over time. No rush. Just writing.
writing is the IG account I’ve connected to it. It used to be an account for tracking my progress on the trumpet, after years of not playing.

Gratitude.

And smiling.
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A concrete field, chewed wooden benches and bushes with ditches to hug roots, surrounded by brick townhomes and a highrise, sun scorching higher at 9 a.m.,
Hooping on a Saturday in July. And it would rain.

Stop game. Too much sliding, but because “in the house” is “staying in the house”, we’re all still out.

The concrete, embedded with dirt, would glaze to a slick turf. Don’t ask me why we did, or who did it first. Just know we did. And of the things we all know, when you can skate, on concrete, in your gym shoes, may be one.

*What art can be made of surface textures?*

-Fun and risk; relenting to freedom.

29/08/2022

You know that you wake up new, everyday, right? Well, new with experience.

You’ve been bringing it and your embedded truth forward in your walk towards and through another unfamiliar, yet wholly accepted season.

And today arrives. Again. Like a reset.

You remember pressing reset on Nintendo after the game stayed frozen awhile, after maybe reaching your highest stage, instead of going instantly to the theme screen?

Or having to press the reset button harder because it came out of the box slightly loose? Or having to press multiple times? There were so many accepted defects and effects of use back then.

The astounding thing, you still didn’t miss then; the screen would remain. Until, that is, you pulled away, stared at it, mystified more than angry that malfunction exists. Then it would start over on its own, confounding you further. You remember thinking, “I should’ve gotten a longer look at the stage I reached, to study it; to remember.”

Yeah, you might’ve learnt something. Or more. Or nothing less than what you intuit.

But you now know more of what little you did know, with some extra, while seeing and seeking with the treasure of memories recalled, memories recently made. Or that you've always had everything you needed all along, but you simply needed to always apprentice before you profess.

And then it’s today, again, and you start “Like Someone in Love'' by Bill Evans over three times while typing on the couch this morning. You follow him on your laptop keys, like a private lesson. You don’t notice the closeness of the ending approaching each time that you play it through together.

You shrug, laugh, and set it to repeat, almost proud.

There were never any resets. And there are no ends in sight.

Restart, renewed.

Profess.

“18 more minutes, Bill.”



-

22/08/2022

You need no reasons to write but one, though there are many. Writing because you have to is one. It’s more than enough of a reason. Because you’ve always needed to make sense of the world. Because you always paid close attention, the world just offered more to witness than memory could hold. And you need to remember; ill logic and -ness.

Then, it became about discovering yourself and forgetting the world.

To forget yourself at times, then to remember your best. Piece your new strengths back together; finely and manually.
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Reconstituted dressing becomes as necessary as it can feel ornamental, because reconstitution is effort. Often too high to get over, too low to get under, circular. Cycling, and further.

Upward but best when gone through.

That’s why coming full circle is both new and familiar. Knowing, will surround you in wait of confrontation. You know this. Equipped with new knowledge for coming days, some sure to be familiar to your remembering, you’re ready to reconstitute, right?

Then write.

19/08/2022

Evaluating the One Black Perch Publishing recently, I saw that my individual journey may belong in a separate space. I have a separate trajectory, apart from it. Not changing direction. Distinguishing helps each move forward smoothly.

I’ll be sharing more soon.
“If you know seasons
change, then it’s natural
difficulties; glitching through
toward light. Indivisible
duality. One, but
to the two.”