Sometimes you write a story that makes old white men want to fight you

Over the most ridiculous shit.

So you get it published, anyway.

Not because you’re combative. (Even if you can be a little.)

But because it means something to you.

And because those crusty old white dudes with puny imaginations are not the boss of you!

You can’t take anyone seriously who says, “Finally I don't want to be presumptuous, but I suggest you…” at the end of their already lengthy list of presumptuous feedback.

So you don’t.

You created a story out of your memories, emotions, intuition, and love. It needs nurturing.

You get quiet. Focusing your attention.

You dig deeper. Searching for what you want to say and why you want to say it.

And in remembering that crusty old white dudes with puny imaginations aren’t the boss of you…

You write a story that makes your skin tingle and your heart happy.

At least, that was my experience while writing my short story “The Solitude Booth”.

And…

I’m excited to share that “The Solitude Booth” is now published in midnight & indigo: Twenty-One Speculative Stories by Black Women Writers (Issue 12)!!!

And yes, “The Solitude Booth” riled up a few older white men in a former writing group I was in. They gave me copious notes about their quarrels. Which were mainly full of their assumptions, biases, and reeked of low self-esteem (a.k.a ridiculous shit). I can only laugh about it now, but it made me furious. One man even took time out of his busy day to send a fuming private message just to drive home the point that he hated what I wrote and how I wrote it.

So of course I HAD to get it published!

Photo by Simone Secci on Unsplash

I’m proud that it found a home in what midnight & indigo describes as, “A collection of stories that traverse the strange and the hauntingly real, 21 Black women storytellers across the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe share tales in which the impossible becomes possible, and every corner hides something magical.”

Visit midnight & indigo to order your paperback or ebook.

Happy reading.

Olwen