The Black Author Shakeout...or Lack Thereof

Y’all, I just gotta say it because it’s been festering in my head for weeks now, and if I don’t write it down I’mma explode like a soda left in the freezer too long. So here it goes: some of the BIGGEST African-American literature review sites? Yeah… they’re a joke.  I mean, if you’re a new author, small press, self-published,,even halfway serious about your craft? You might as well be invisible. Like poof. Gone in the wind.

And you know what really grinds me? You open their latest issue, or scroll through the site, and it’s the same names every. single. time. Terry McMillan, [insert predictable other names here]...yep. Again. And okay, fine, they write, they work, they exist. I’m not hating the actual authors. But come on. Isn’t the point of a review site to discover new voices? To lift up the overlooked, the hungry, the ones clawing their way to be heard? Instead, it’s like a VIP club where the bouncer has been told to only let the “usual suspects” in.

And I know what some of y’all are thinking “but they get reviewed everywhere else!” Yeah, we see them in the NYT, Washington Post, USA Today, Ebony, Essence. And that’s fine. Really. But if your mission is to highlight African-American voices, why do you keep recycling what everyone else is already hyping? Where’s the risk? Where’s the curiosity? Where’s the guts to actually, you know, promote someone who doesn’t already have a million-dollar marketing budget?

It feels like we’ve circled back to the Black Bourgeois all over again. The “safe picks” only, the ones that won’t ruffle feathers, won’t challenge readers, won’t force anyone to think. Meanwhile, there are authors creating worlds, crafting stories, opening doors to experiences people haven’t even dreamed of yet, and these review sites? Ghost town. Crickets. Nada.

I mean think about it, artists are architects, writers are builders, and together we construct meaning in a world that’s otherwise chaos. What good is an architect without a builder? What good is a builder without an architect? And these review platforms? They’re missing out on the balance. They’re missing the insight, the raw genius, the innovation.

I’m talking about the authors who are grinding in cafes, juggling two jobs and kids and bills just to tell their story. They don’t have agents. They don’t have advance checks. They don’t have PR machines. And yet, they are creating art that could literally change someone’s life, and no one even glances their way.

So yeah, here I am, typing this rant on blogger where half the people who read it won’t even understand why I’m so heated. But someone’s gotta say it. Somebody’s gotta call the gatekeepers out. Black literature deserves more than crumbs. More than déjà vu of the same few names. More than whatever “safe” metric someone thinks makes it publishable. Lift the veil, open the gates. Stop pretending you’re inclusive while filtering only what’s convenient.

And if you don’t? Well… psychosis is only a matter of perspective. You can call it madness, you can call it ranting, but the truth is.. what you refuse to see will shape the world around you whether you like it or not.

And don’t get it twisted...this ain’t about jealousy. It’s about fairness. Equity. And doing what’s right because someone has to. And if the “someone” doesn’t? Someone else will. Because that’s the axiom of the overlooked circling back to the oblivious.