Black & Published

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Lori L. Tharps, an author and ghostwriter living abroad in Spain. Her work sits at the intersection of race and real life. She is the author of  three critically-acclaimed nonfiction books including, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin's) Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria), and Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Victoria Christopher Murray, author of Pride, A Seven Deadly Sins Novel. A native of Queens, New York,   Victoria spent years in Corporate America and as an entrepreneur before embarking on her literary career in the late 90s. Dubbed a Christian Fiction writer because no one else was writing about religious topics, Victoria blazed the literary scene penning more than 30 novels, ...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Nicole Cuffy, author of Dances. Nicole is a D.C.-based writer with a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from The New School. She is a lecturer at the University of Maryland and American University. Her work can be found in Mason’s Road, The Master’s Review Volume VI (curated by Roxane Gay), Chautauqua, and Blue Mesa Review, and her chapbook, Atlas of the Body, won the Chauta...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Rhonda McKnight, author of The Thing About Home. Rhonda is also the author of twenty-five traditional and indie-published award-winning bestsellers, including An Inconvenient Friend, What Kind of Fool, and Unbreak My Heart. She is a two-time winner of the Emma award in the categories of Inspirational Romance of the Year (2015) and Debut Author (2010). She writes inspirational bo...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Nikki May, author of Wahala. Born in Bristol and raised in Lagos, Nikki May is Anglo-Nigerian. At twenty, she dropped out of medical school, moved to London, and began a career in advertising, going on to run a successful agency. Her debut novel Wahala was inspired by a long boozy lunch with friends.

In our conversation, we discuss how her overnight success in the liter...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Caseen Gaines, author of When Broadway Was Black: The Triumphant Story of the All-Black Musical that Changed the World. Caseen Gaines is an author, director, educator, and pop culture historian. He is the author of We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy, A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic and Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse,...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Yessoh G.D. author of the African fantastical suspense thriller, Ta Lé Book One: Knowledge. Yessoh grew up in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, a country on the southern coast of West Africa. He believes that books have the power to change people for the betterment of the whole. When he is not day-dreaming about stories and the world, he is a visual effects artist and a gamer....

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Derrick Harriell author of the poetry collection, Come Kingdom. Derrick Harriell is the Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. His previous collections of poems include Stripper in Wonderland, Cotton, and Ropes, winner of the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Book Award

During ou...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Dior J. Stephens author of the poetry collection, CRUEL/CRUEL. Dior J is the author of the chapbooks SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!. They proudly serve as the Managing Poetry Editor of Foglifter Journal and Press and are a fellow of Cave Canem and Lambda Literary's Emerging LGBTQ Voices Fellowship. 

In our conversation, Dior discusses writing poems to pop...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Victor LaValle author of the novel Lone Women. As the writer behind six other works of fiction, Victor's novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, ...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Laura Warrell, author of the novel, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm, which was named a ‘best’ or ‘must-read’ book by Vanity Fair, People, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and more. The novel was chosen as a Good Morning America Buzz Pick and Laura was named 
a “Writer to Watch” by Publishers Weekly. She grew up in Kent and Columbus, Ohio.

In our convers...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, author of the short story collection, Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky, Spring 2023) which was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series. Yvette is a Zimbabwean sarungano (storyteller).  Her novel manuscript in progress was selected by George RR Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She is pursuing her MFA at the Un...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Sophronia Scott, author of the novel, Wild, Beautiful and Free. Sophfronia holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She began her career as an award-winning magazine journalist for Time, and People. When her first novel, All I Need to Get By, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2004 Sophfronia was nominated for best new autho...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Diane Marie Brown, author of the novel, Black Candle Women. A  professor at Orange Coast College and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department, Diane has a BA and MPH from UCLA and a degree in fiction from USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. She grew up in Stockton and now lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, their four daughters, ...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Destiny O. Birdsong, author of the triptych novel Nobody's Magic.  She's also a poet and essayist, and her workhas either appeared or is forthcoming in the Paris Review Daily, Poets & Writers, African American Review, The Best American Poetry 2021, and elsewhere. Nobody’s Magic, was published by Grand Central in February 2022 and was longlisted for the Center for F...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Danyel Smith, author of the Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Danyel is anaward-winning journalist, and producer. She’s the creator and host of the Black Girl Songbook podcast, a music and talk show that centers black women in music. Danyel has served as editor of Billboard, editor at large at Time Inc., and editor in chief of Vibe. She's also the...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Tia Williams, author of the New York Times bestselling novel Seven Days in June. Tia had a fifteen-year career as a beauty editor for magazines including Elle, Glamour, and Essence. She also wrote the bestselling novel, The Accidental Diva, and penned two YA novels: It Chicks, and Sixteen Candles. Her award-winning novel, The Perfect Find, will be adapted into a Netflix film sta...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Janay Harden, author of the novel Forty-Two Minutes. As a licensed clinical social worker, Janay works as a mental health therapist.  She is the CEO of Restoring Your Destiny Counseling and Consulting and has over ten years of experience working in the mental health field with children, families, and schools. She's translated her background in mental health into accessible ...

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Ladee Hubbard, author of the short story collection, The Last Suspicious Holdout. Ladee is also the author of the novels The Talented Ribkins which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction and The Rib King. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Guernica, Virginia Quarterly and Callaloo among oth...