A Beating, A Prayer After they took the body of my friend away, I lost my ability to move. They’d left the twisted sheet he hung himself with, still tied to the curtain rod. The noose taunted me, its wide mouth ready to claim another black body. My father thought the Word would save us. […]
When a Character Returns Edward P. Jones connected recurring characters through his short stories, providing a blueprint for one writer. From Catapult Woodrow and Rita Cunningham’s fifteen-year-old daughter Elaine left home after arguing with her father about the boys she entertained in the house while her parents were away. I turned the pages of “A […]
THE BURDEN OF DIVERSITY Every year it was the same. The then Milwaukee Sentinel printed the pictures of all their summer interns who worked at the paper. The pictures were divided into two categories: Interns Minority Interns Each year, my picture, with the worst lighting imaginable, was displayed under the minority banner. I hated that […]
Colson Whitehead made his debut in 1999 with the publication of his first novel The Intuitionist. At the time, the country was in the middle of a Y2K meltdown, Whitehead introduced us to Lila Mae Watson, a black, female elevator inspector under investigation after one of the lifts she inspected has failed. Lila Mae, a […]
Laws of Another Universe In 2008, right before my senior year of high school, my parents informed my sister and me that we would be moving in a month. Earlier that year, my father had lost his small plastics plant to the automotive crisis. I was old enough to know that moving under our circumstances […]
Also explore Rion’s INSURRECTIONS playlist on Largehearted Boy: Playlist for INSURRECTIONS
Kima Jones, who owns the publicity company Jack Jones Literary Arts, says, “There needs to be more women of color in publishing, in positions of power, period. As I see other book clubs and speaking series, reading series, organizations pop up that are dedicated to writers of color, queer writers, disabled writers, other marginalized writers, […]
