A runaway wife held captive on a mysterious island by seven elder women must prove she’s trustworthy to gain her freedom or perish with them.

The story is about a separatist community of elder black women, their only “unbegotten” son Blessëd, and a runaway wife, Arianne, brought together by destiny to learn the regenerative and destructive forces of truth. What they each learn brings them to bittersweet endings and beginnings.

1965. I started writing poetry on purpose at age 9 after being selected for a city-wide creative writing enrichment program. I was the youngest student in the program. The desks were big. The classroom was mostly quiet, with students writing in stretches until we were asked to read. Even those sounds were quiet. The sounds of young people finding voices beyond their vocal instruments. It was the sound of feeling safe to imagine and share those thoughts. For me, it was often digging for words to recreate my Black word like Nikki Giovanni wrote. She was a pathway fused with light that I’ve been traveling ever since.