This episode features our conversation with Laura Pegram, founding editor of The Kweli Journal, to chat about Sing the Truth: The Kweli Journal Short Story Collection, an anthology published in celebration of their 15th anniversary, which was live-streamed on May 17, 2025.
Hailed as “The Paris Review of BIPOC literature,” The Kweli Journal has been a launching pad for many of today’s most celebrated writers. Kweli—“truth” in Swahili—marks its fifteenth anniversary with this luminous collection edited by founder Laura Pegram. These vivid narratives explore the devastation of leaving home and the struggle to adapt to reimagined lives, lost loves, distant families, and buried pasts, deepening our understanding of the human experience.
Featuring works from acclaimed authors Naima Coster, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Daphne Palasi Andreades, Susan Muaddi Darraj, and others, with a foreword by Edwidge Danticat, this anthology stands as a testament to voices too often overlooked in contemporary literature. Readers will encounter narratives that explore memory, identity, culture, and the ways in which words transcend language to become instruments of power and resilience. In the evocative words of the anthology: “So come, sit with us on the bank and listen to our music.”
Kweli means “truth” in Swahili. Under the direction of founding editor, Laura Pegram since 2009, the Kweli Journal’s mission is to nurture emerging BIPOC writers that “sing the truth”. With a quarterly online literary journal, year-long writer fellowships, multi-session workshops, writing retreats, individualized editing, an annual writers’ conference and international festival, Kweli invests in the artistic and professional growth of emerging authors, nationally and internationally. Kweli Journal continues to contribute to a world where the narratives being told reflect the truth of our histories and the possibilities of our future.
To learn more about the Kweli Journal, please visit their website at kwelijournal.org. To purchase your copy of Sing the Truth, please visit https://bookshop.org/shop/blackwritersread. By purchasing your books via this Bookshop link, you’re supporting Independent booksellers and Black Writers Read.
Find Kweli Journal on Instagram: @kweli.journal
Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread
Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/
Support Black Writers Read on Patreon: patreon.com/blackwritersread
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