The first meeting of the DNF Bookclub is tonight and I’m excited about it. We’re discussing A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown and it’s being hosted in the Written in Melanin discord server. Everyone in The Series tier or higher has access, so now would be a good time to sign up if you were on the fence about it!

But what’s got me hype is how many people of our community actually read the book and the discussions that have been taking place leading up to this meeting. It’s always amazing to me how you get to tap into people’s honest thoughts and opinions when they know they’re in a safe space — where the baseline understanding is that we’re not giving a pass to any author just because they’re Black, because we’re all Black and creative.

We have expectations.

We get to talk about craft and execution in a way we never could in public spaces because (somehow) we exist in the part of the timeline where it’s uncool for Black people to criticize Black authors because “at least we have it, right?”

I share all this because this space has been game-changing for me. I struggled to find a community of chill, supportive, Black authors in the beginning of my writing career, so I fostered one. And now, we’re hosting a book club. It’s grown so much and I’m just. . . tickled pink 😂

The conversation is guaranteed to be fun, so if you’d like to join us, please do: https://shop.melaninlibrary.com/pages/member

Our meeting starts at 7p EST and the beauty of the DNF Bookclub is that you have to respect the book, not finish it 🤎