Black Friday reminder: You can support independent bookstores and get great deals without lining the pockets of billionaires 😌

While most folks were kicked back enjoying their feasts & family, a lot of Natives are out here suffering on our own homelands: homeless, health crises, barely surviving as our lives slowly implode. #Share my cousin’s post and #help in any way you can. She’s entering winter life in a car with 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛

Price updates for Black Friday! Please consider supporting an independent author! Sci-fi short stories: Paperback - $5 / eBook - $1 | Children's book (paperback) - $10 Pick one up today, tomorrow, whenever you like! #SciFi #SelfPublished #booksky 📚🤏 #BlackBooksky 🔗 books.kielenking.com

Reviews like this are great reminders why we need Black writers and critics to properly analyze Black art www.vulture.com/article/revi...

Patricia Smith just won the National Book Award for Poetry for this collection. The first couple of poems had me in a chokehold. Smith is giving me new life right now.

Nana turns 92 years old today. I wrote this last year but it still holds true. “I see my love reflected in the face of the woman who not that long ago yelled across the hall “Nikki are you still there?” “I am here.” open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

Looking for a way to help this holiday season? The fabulous Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (FRIDAY BLACK; CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS) and Proyecto Faro are raising money for families in Spring Valley & Rockland County, NY, who've been targeted by recent ICE raids. Learn more and if you're able, donate here:

Not official yet, but there will be a tenured or tenure track teaching position in Fiction at Bowling Green State advertised soon. Please share. #writingcommunity #booksky

A bill regulating certain medications, which could include medication abortion drugs, was passed out of an Ohio House committee on Wednesday, on its way to a full House vote. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/11/19/b...

Despite Ohioans overwhelmingly protecting access to abortion, Republican lawmakers are moving to restrict the procedure by ending telehealth prescriptions and mail-order pills ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/11/18/o...

Hello! Please help and share for my friend! www.gofundme.com/f/support-my...

It was announced on October 16, 2025 that VIBE was "joining forces" with Rolling Stone. As a result, the majority of VIBE employees were laid off. If you have the means to give, this team could use the support! www.gofundme.com/f/support-vi...

May my friend @sfdirewolf.bsky.social rest in power. I will especially miss texting with her about Star Trek. We were lucky, all of us, to have Alice and her warmth and enthusiasm. www.instagram.com/p/DREMDNBjnq...

So many vulnerable people were hurt, harassed and raped by these ghouls and now—I’m worried—it’s gonna become hehe haha lurid internet circus instead of a long overdue moral reckoning. I’m scared of who we all are becoming. That man has brought us ALL low.

Reading and writing are helping me stay grounded right now. open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

not snark, actually asking: after pushing a comma strategy that focused on health care, what is the case for the Democrats making a deal to end the shutdown now that doesn't involve a win on health care?

Transphobes are already targeting the biggest star in women's soccer and baselessly alleging she's a man because she's Black. This is what trans people warned would happen. Gender policing that becomes explicitly racial. www.outsports.com/2025/11/6/24...

Fresh off Election Day, the Statehouse GOP is hearing SB 293, a bill slashing early voting via mail, popular among all voters. This is the 2026 (& beyond) playbook. Politicians in power are deliberately making it harder for you to vote, for 100% political reasons.

I was loving my body on Friday and by Saturday I felt a little indifferent. Both of those feelings are okay. Writing keeps me grounded so I have been writing about this evolving relationship with this body of mine. Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share. open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

TW: Suicide Realizing that I was trans saved my life. People underestimate the power of social transitioning, but social transitioning is the reason I am still here.

What most people outside of what passes for a safety net in the US don’t understand is that the late fall and early winter are the busiest, hardest moments for new crises. This couldn’t happen at a worse time as clinics, shelters, and food pantries are already bursting at the seams from demand.

Nana and I needed to ground ourselves in something familiar so we are reading If Beale Street Could Talk. We are wondering what you are reading this evening. #BlackBookSky #BookSky

Immigrant women are overrepresented in jobs that have a higher exposure to chemicals that cause breast cancer, according to a new study by the Silent Spring Institute, a research organization focused on uncovering the environmental causes of breast cancer. https://bit.ly/4huUeTj

I went to bed thinking about this essay. The work has never stopped so I write about joy and sorrow. Labor and rest. My neighbors are losing their health insurance and the ability to feed their families. Systems aren’t concerned about our wellbeing so community fills gaps. It has always been us.

As we approach the end of the year and you have some potential disposable income to share, consider supporting your local mutual aid projects. This year has been rough but next year promises to be even more difficult for people. There are definitely orgs in your communities that can use support.

ICYMI: One small-town Ohio hospital sued 2,700 patients in two years - garnishing wages and charging steep interest on families already struggling. This powerful reporting shows how medical debt is devastating Ohioans and why our bipartisan Ohio Medical Debt Fairness Act is urgently needed.

It is Banned Books Week. The Bluest Eye was my first novel by Toni Morrison. It is beat up and the pages are yellow but still one of my all time favorites. What is your best banned book? #BlackBookSky #BookSky

Be prepared: The Trump administration says ICE will be at the Super Bowl. "I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they're law-abiding Americans who love this country," Kristi Noem told a podcaster.

Got our morning coffee and watching Reading Rainbow!!! ☺️📚💖 Literally tearing up this brings so much joy!! Thank you @mychal3ts.bsky.social !!! You are an incredible host for this show!! ❤️ #BookSky #BlackBookSky #ReadingRainbow youtu.be/gHAIjSkmnYI?...

📖 All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby is our next pick! A gritty Southern Gothic thriller with blood, secrets, and justice on every page. 📅 Starts Sunday, Oct 5 📍Join us on Discord: discord.com/invite/gWpK3... 🩸 #AllTheSinnersBleed #SpokenThoughts #BookClubReads #BlackBookSky #BlackSky #BookSky

Trump's FCC yesterday voted to kill a program that provided free Wi-Fi to rural school kids at no cost to taxpayers, falsely claiming the program was "illegal" and was being used to "censor Conservative ideology."

To many, the notion that the “able-bodied” must work sounds reasonable on its face. But in reality, work requirements don’t ­meaningfully boost employment. And for people with invisible disabilities that can make work extremely challenging, the framework can unfairly cast them as lazy.

I planned to write this last month but I was distracted. Loving my body is a process and I miss the mark most days. But I am here. It is strong and that is enough for now. “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” James Baldwin open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

People with autism and their family members say that the messages coming from President Trump and RFK Jr. about their families, that “autism destroys families” and that autism is a "“horrible, horrible crisis,” are harmful and wrong. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/09/23/r...

I planned to write this last month but I was distracted. Loving my body is a process and I miss the mark most days. But I am here. It is strong and that is enough for now. “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” James Baldwin open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

TODAY, I AM OFFICIALLY AN AUTHOR!!! A CHILDHOOD DREAM COME TRUE!!!!! #TheDoubleTax is the first book I've ever written and it’s OUT EVERYWHERE TODAY. Four years. 100s of stories. Countless drafts. I woke up today as a FIRST TIME author. WOW. Get your copy TODAY: annagifty.com #booksky #blacksky

🥳🥳🥳🥳 #BLacksky #Blackbooksky #Booksky

This book has been such a needed balm. It is so tender. #BlackBookSky #BookSky

Under Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," 10 million people are expected to lose health insurance from the legislation. Most people will lose Medicaid.

StoryGraph's AI now runs on 100% sustainable green energy

Mother Jones is doing the work. Language matters. These attacks and cuts are sanist.

Thank you from gerrymandered Ohio🙏🏾

I was part of a conversation yesterday about the Black community’s relationship to the land. Of course, I thought about my grandparents taking up space even when systems and institutions gave the message that they didn’t belong. We aren’t going anywhere. open.substack.com/pub/crystaln...

Enjoying this Black & Published podcast, hosted by @nikeshaelise.bsky.social. It features author @deeshaphilyaw.bsky.social on the topic of publishing : dispelling myths; avoiding predatory publishers. Excellent information! ✍🏾📚🎧 mahoganybooksmedia.com/podcast/blac... #BookSky #BlackBookSky

A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.

I just said nonfiction was my favorite but this novel right here left me speechless. I like my characters messy with a lot of twists and turns. Dominion exceeded those expectations. And Addie E. Citchens wraps it up in under 250 pages. #Blackbooksky #Booksky

This is a quick listen and definitely worth your time. Now I need to go back and start The Wire from the beginning.

The lawsuit by an Ohio woman who was arrested and charged after having a miscarriage is still ongoing, and attorneys for the woman have added two more members of hospital staff to the parties alleged to have violated the woman’s rights ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/08/28/o...