A selected passage from 1927 that details my paternal grandfather's time as a boxer in the Maryland 1960s boxing circuit. Following the style of detailing family memories as stage directions.

When I was a child my maternal grandmother, Granny, told me that the best bait for blue crabs is day old fried chicken. We were driving back over the bridge from Curtis Bay to her red brick rowhome on the east side of the city. This poem is an homage to that memory and all the others about labor, time, and the expense it takes to make family crab feasts happen on working class wages.

My work in writing a memoir in three parts requires tremendous time and research into my own family lineage. For over five years I've been working on contacting, detailing, and assessing key dates, figures, and places in the timeline of my family's forced migrations from the South (Marion County, South Carolina) to the Chesapeake. This photo show a few of the key family documents and photos that have helped frame my archival study.

The print edition of my recent review of Lawrence Burney's debut memoir, No Sense In Wishing, as featured in The Baltimore Beat.

As a basketball fan, the chance to watch a WNBA up close during the Mystics' home-away-from-home stint at CFG Arena in September 2025 was a treat! Veterans like Brittney Sykes and Shakira Austin came up big for a win in front of their Charm City crowd. The game against the Fever was marked, for many, by the absence of Caitlin Clark as the young guard suffered a series of groin injuries during the season. For me, the game served as an example of why the WNBA's communications and marketing strategy needs to shift to reflect the league-wide depth of talent (especially as five expansion teams are slated to enter the league over the next five years).

In 2025, for the Baltimore Beat's Food Issue, I interviewed Baltimore artists and culture workers about classic hometown spots that are lost to time, but not forgotten. The essay ends as a reflection on how poor and working-class neighborhoods become ruins.

Imani Perry's lecture at the 37th Booklovers' Breakfast was a triumph. The scholar of English and Black Studies delivered an engaging talk about histories of education, research, and resistance for Black communities throughout the South. It was a joy to cover this event for the Baltimore Beat in 2025.

In 2023 in the aftermath of The Brooklyn Homes shooting I published a piece detailing the longer history of neglect facing neighbors in Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and other neighborhoods throughout South Baltimore. The work blends my family history of murder and untimely death with the wider history of South Baltimore's annexation. The full piece can be read on the Baltimore Beat website. 

A 2023 review of the memoir "How To Say Babylon" by poet and scholar Safiya Sinclair. Full review can be found on The Baltimore Beat website.

A 2023 review in honor of the re-release of the 1985 anthology featuring works from Black women writers like Sonia Sanchez, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, and many others. The full text can be found online and in print from The Baltimore Beat.

The online landing page for the interview with Jennifer Thompson. https://www.landfoodfreedom.com/post/organizing-for-black-futures-a-conversation-with-jennifer-thompson

I MET JENNIFER THOMPSON, A BLACK NATIVE OF ATLANTA, NEARLY A DECADE AGO DURING PRE-COLLEGE ORIENTATION. Now, years later, she’s not only one of my closest friends but a person I call often to talk about the challenges facing our hometowns and Black people around the world. Her deep knowledge of food systems, soil, and growing helps many who travel with her learn why agriculture is integral to Black liberation. Whether you journey with her to Sapelo Island or the mountains of Cuba, she is eager to connect people with land. As a 27-year-old grower and market manager, she offers wisdom about the role of farmers in the ongoing struggle for Black liberation.

We spoke about her journey as a young student organizer turned community leader, and what it means to nourish community across the African diaspora.

https://www.landfoodfreedom.com/post/organizing-for-black-futures-a-conversation-with-jennifer-thompson

It's a party every time I get to host literary events with a local independent bookstore in town! It's especially lovely to join the amazing booksellers at Greedy Reads to share great author chats, story times, and more delights with readers. This year I emcee'd the entire lineup for Saturday's festivities and was in conversation with Yrsa Daley-Ward about her novel, The Catch. 

How are the histories of Blackness, liberation, and horses connected? Bitter Kalli outlines the connections between the three subjects while exploring stories of their childhood and years of horseback riding. Our conversation at Red Emma's in November was enlightening and unlocked so many hidden horse memories from my own childhood.

In 2022 I was invited to interview best selling author Candice Carty-Williams on the release of her second novel, People Person, at Greedy Reads Remington. We discussed Black literature around the world, the importance of South London to her as an author, the role of conflict in novels, and many other subjects. 

In 2024, I was by Carla Du Pree invited to collaborate with the Baltimore arts organization CityLit on one of their panels for the Baltimore Book Festival. The session entitled "The Queendom of Literary Women" explored the practical and logistical barriers to women writers. We discussed the double duty of wage labor, domestic labor, caretaking, and the support needed to sustain the generation of artists to come. The panel featured guests Tyechia Thompson of the Wintergreen Women Writers Collective, Annie Marhefka of Yellow Arrow Publishing, Victoria Kennedy of Zora's Den, Rachel Berg Scherer of Scribente Maternum, and Glory Edim of Well-Red Black Girl. 

In August 2024, I collaborated with Greedy Reads, a Baltimore independent bookstore, to host a public event in honor of James Baldwin's centennial. The event featured Baltimore artists Hess Love, a poet and ethnographer of Afro-Chesapeake history, and Joël Diaz, writer and Director of Programs for The Clifton House, alongside Sam Masters, an organizer and historian. We discussed Baldwin's connection to Maryland's Eastern Shore, his early writing, and his political commitments to working class people and Black communities across the world. 

In June 2024, I interviewed author and Hoodoo practitioner Juju Bae, for her debut book release at Greedy Reads Remington. The event was the first stop in Juju's year-long book tour and a foundational interview about the influence of the author's hometown in her work, writing, and study of African(a) Traditional Religions. 

In October 2023 I hosted the first day of Greedy Reads Lost Weekend Book Festival. The event featured literary programs for all ages and is a staple for the local Baltimore literary community.

A series of virtual book club faciliation with the online collective Smart Brown Girls Book Club. Focused on exploring texts by Black writers and engaging the public in rigorous textual analysis and theoritical framing. The full series can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc2pibz8smdkkmSBu3VTAjJdx7H1nV677.

Leading virtual book club discussion of Deesha Philyaw's short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Together with Dr. Nicole Carter, my co-facilitator, we explore the theme of grief throughout the collection. 

A video of CJ Jones and I discussing Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower for SBG Bookclub.

A selection of reviews from contemporaries about Surviving The Future.