ARCHULETACHISOLM

It’s a Sunday morning. I’m drinking coffee from one of my infamous mugs, enjoying the sun beaming through the window, and waiting for church service to start – on Facebook Live. It’s been the same routine for over a year now, thanks to a global pandemic. I've grown to not complain. The couch has become the place I go to for commune with myself about writing, self-reflection, being a Black woman, and what I am offering to the world. I’ve always wanted to inspire people to find

I’m thankful that I have never had to be someone else, in order to have my writing voice heard. As a society, we still have a way to go before women and Black women writers are on a level playing field with their counterparts. One of the most successful authors of our generation, JK Rowling, developed a gender-neutral name in order for Harry Potter to appeal to boy readers. This happened before taking on the pseudonym Robert Galbraith in order to anonymously write crime ficti

In the 1920’s, creative and intellectual life thrived within African American communities in the North and Midwest, but nowhere more so than in Harlem. It was a time nothing short of marvelous - a phenomenon. This three-mile, New York City neighborhood swarmed with black writers, poets, artists, and musicians. Black-owned businesses, from newspapers, publishing houses, nightclubs, and theaters helped complete the neighborhood’s scene. Some of the most important literary and a

Alice Allison Dunnigan, the daughter of a Kentucky sharecropper, dreamed of becoming a journalist. She fought through segregation and sexism and went on to become the first Black woman accredited to cover the White House. She was also the first Black woman member of the Senate and House of Representatives press galleries. In 1947, Ms. Dunnigan became the head of the Associated Negro Press Washington Bureau, and spent 14 years writing stories printed in over 100 African-Americ

In Carlene Hatcher Polite’s 1967 novel, “The Flagellants”, the main character describes her love affair with a Black poet as “irrevocable trauma.” Ideal, delivers (in part) this message before putting him out of her life: “Denounce the slave nature, the reactionary stigma. Who is enslaving you? Change your mythical virility into courage, your commendable knowledge into spirit.” Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” elicited outraged criticism from the Black community over t