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Kweli Journal

@kweli.journal

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Award winning literary magazine & 501(c)(3). Kweli means truth. We seek out & publish the work of BIPOC writers that “sing the truth.”

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Ready to dive in?

Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Conference is 9 days away.

Wade in the water.

✨ Writing Black Girlhood with @rainaleon

✨ Specificity of Language and Place with Kathy Belden

✨ Queer Romantasy with @mcleodmouth

✨ Community Healing: Breaking Silence, Reclaiming Voice with @byoungwrites &
Laura Pegram

✨ Anatomy of a Scene with @sarahburnes & Laura Pegram

✨ The Librarians with Njeri Gachathi & @forthelivingword , moderated by @iamthelibrarybookdragon

✨ Pitch Perfect: The Anatomy of a Strong Hook with @emilysunli & @_mynameisariel

✨ Stet or Not? Author/Editor 101 with @patriciapark718 & Phoebe Yeh

✨ Finding, Growing and Preserving Your Voice in Picture Book Making with @cozbi

✨ First Look: The Ones Who Came Before with @noblemaillard & @sibutp, moderated by @aramkimart

✨ Differently Abled Characters in Picture Books with @razanwrites and @emilysunli, moderated by @_mynameisariel

✨ Researching and Writing the Historical Picture Book with @carmrubin & Njeri Gachathi

AND MORE

Register TODAY at kwelijournal.org.

Opening Weekend: April 11 - 12, 2026

KWELI COLOR OF CHILDREN’s LITERATURE CONFERENCE
New York Law School
185 West Broadway
New York, NY 10013

COVER ART BY @cozbi by @kweli.journal

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6 months ago

DéLana R.A. Dameron Prize for Fiction

To honor the brilliant life and art of poet, novelist and visionary DÉLANA R.A. DAMERON, we welcome submissions of 6,000 words or less that engage with Black Girlhood.

One new or emerging short story writer will be selected by LATOYA WATKINS.

The writer will appear in a forthcoming issue of Kweli Journal and will receive a cash prize of $2K.

Submissions open on March 2 and close on March 23. Apply via Kweli Submittable.

https://kwelijournal.submittable.com/submit

For inspiration, read Kweli’s April 2020 Black Girlhood issue guest edited by NICOLE DENNIS-BENN.

It includes:

“Work” by DéLana R.A. Dameron
“Boiling Water” by Arriel Vinson
“”What the Fireflies Knew” by Kai Harris

https://www.kwelijournal.org/black-girlhood-by-nicole-dennis-benn

Also read the short story by LaToya Watkins in January 2012 issue of Kweli:

“Straight Dollars or Loose Change”

https://www.kwelijournal.org/fiction/2014/5/29/straight-dollars-or-loose-change-by-latoya-watkins

Lastly, check out Sing the Truth: The Kweli Journal Short Story Collection.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Sing-the-Truth/Laura-Pegram/9798893310252

* * *

DéLana R.A. Dameron (January 30, 1985 - November 29, 2025) is a Black southern equestrian and an artist whose primary medium is storytelling. Her debut work of fiction Redwood Court was a NYT Editor’s Choice and a Reese’s Book Club Pick. She is the author of two books of poetry How God Ends Us and Weary Kingdom. Dameron’s second work of fiction Fairfield County is forthcoming from Dial Press in June 2026.

LaToya Watkins’ writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, Kweli Journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere. She is a Kimibilo fellow and has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell, OMI: Arts, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Camargo Foundation. She is the author of Perish and Holler, Child: Stories. The Book of Chuck is forthcoming in August 2026.

Photo credit 2: Chanel Mitchell
Photo credit 3: Ozier Muhammad

@drlwatkins
@authorkaiharris
@ndennisbenn
@oziermuhammad by @kweli.journal

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7 months ago

2026 Kweli Color of Children’s Literature Conference

Saturday, April 11 - Sunday, April 12, 2026
OPENING WEEKEND

SAVE THE DATE

Partners in Art

Akwaaba
Cozbi A. Cabrera
Children’s Book Council
Crown / Random House Children’s Books

AND MORE by @kweli.journal

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8 months ago

SOUND ⊙ STORY ⊙ COLLECTIVE RHYTHM

Join us this Sunday for another can’t-miss gathering at Akwaaba in Brooklyn!

✨ Grisel Y. Acosta, an Afro-Latinx, queer poet of Colombian and Cuban ancestry, will have a reading and author conversation with Thea Matthews.

✨ And a live musical performance will feature kt madison (@kvmad) and Deborah Cowell @deborah_bklyn

It’s happening Sunday, October 4th, 2:00-4:00 p.m. EST at Akwaaba Mansion, 347 MacDonough St, Brooklyn, New York

🎟️ This event is FREE and OPEN to all, but RSVP is required. Email us at events@kwelijournal.org to SAVE YOUR SPOT!

The featured artwork in the graphic is titled “En el ingenio (At the Sugarmill), a 1929 work by Afro-Cuban landscape painter Maria Ariza y Delance. taken in Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns (NY, NJ, DC) by @kweli.journal

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7 days ago

Join us this Sunday for another can’t-miss gathering at Akwaaba in Brooklyn!

✨ Grisel Y. Acosta, an Afro-Latinx, queer poet of Colombian and Cuban ancestry, will have a reading and author conversation with Thea Matthews.

✨ And a live musical performance will feature kt madison (@kvmad) and Deborah Cowell.

It’s happening Sunday, October 4th, 2:00-4:00 p.m. EST at Akwaaba Mansion, 347 MacDonough St, Brooklyn, New York

🎟️ This event is FREE and OPEN to all, but RSVP is required. Email us at events@kwelijournal.org to SAVE YOUR SPOT!

_______________________ ✺ _______________________

GRISEL Y. ACOSTA is the author of Wild (@flowersongpress, 2026) and Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere (@gfbpublishing, 2021). She is also the editor of Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (@routledgebooks, 2019).

In 2025, Acosta was awarded a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. She is a professor at the City University of New York–Bronx Community College and teaches Latinx literature and creative writing.

THEA MATTHEWS is a poet, screenwriter, editor, and educator of African and Indigenous Mexican descent. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University and a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Kweli, The Atlantic, ZYZZYVA, Colorado Review, The Common, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, The Massachusetts Review, The New Republic, Alta Journal, among others.

She is the author of GRIME (@citylightsbooks, 2025). Her debut collection, Unearth [The Flowers], was published by Red Light Lit Press and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Poetry Books of 2020. She was nominated for Best New Poets in 2022 and Best of the Net in 2021.

In the fall and early winter of 2023, she served as a poet-in-residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora and as a programming curator for the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.

Originally from San Francisco, California, Matthews lives in Brooklyn, New York. taken in Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns (NY, NJ, DC) by @kweli.journal

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8 days ago

Join us THURSDAY for an unforgettable evening!

✨ Texas poet and author ire’ne lara silva will read from her new book, the light of your body, a collection of short stories.

✨ An author conversation will be moderated by Arely Guzmán.

✨ Followed by a live musical performance.

It’s all happening THURSDAY, October 1st, 6:30-8:30 p.m. EST at Akwaaba Mansion, 347 MacDonough St, Brooklyn, New York

🎟️ This event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL, but RSVP is required. Save your spot today by emailing us at events@kwelijournal.org

______________________ ✺ _____________________

ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, which won Gold for the 2025 Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book (ILBA), a comic book, VENDAVAL, and two short story collections, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán, and the light of your body. ire’ne is the recipient of the 2026 Jessie H. Jones Fellowship, the ILBA 2025 Rising Stars Poetry Award, a 2025 Storyknife Writers Residency, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award.

Arely Guzmán is a Kweli Contributing Editor and writer. They have a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and literatures of the world, and an MFA in creative nonfiction. Guzman has worked on books for Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Levine Querido, and Kweli Journal in English and Spanish. They have collaborated in the editing of award-winning and bestselling authors such as Donna Barba Higuera, Safia Elhillo, Mari Lowe, and David Levithan. taken in Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns (NY, NJ, DC) by @kweli.journal

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9 days ago

LYNN NOTTAGE: “You know, the importance of being an artist is to just last. Keep going. Keep creating.”

JOIN US for the next cycle of Kweli’s Art of the Short Story Workshop, led by Founding Editor and Publisher Laura Pegram.

Our online workshop is tailor-made for BIPOC writers of ADULT FICTION.

This six-week intensive for short story writers and novelists of color features in-class writing exercises, close study of acclaimed works, detailed peer review, and most importantly a safer space for all people of color, including Black, Indigenous, SWANA, AAPI, Latine and LGBTQ+ writers at all levels to create and connect in community, as well as to receive close attention from an editor who has worked with several celebrated authors of color.

“Never has my work been taken so seriously or held with such keen attention and care. For the first time in a long time, my work as a woman of color, and all my intersectionalities, was not only centered, but celebrated, and for that, I am forever grateful!”
DELIA SELINA TAYLOR
2022 Kweli Fellow

“Kweli Journal was one of the first major publications to accept my work. The editor, Laura Pegram, went above and beyond the acceptance letter. We worked on the edits over the phone for hours and revised draft after draft through email. When “Straight Dollars or Loose Change” was finally published in Kweli, I was proud of the story that emerged from so many hours of work with the Kweli staff. When I received that acceptance email from Kweli, I had received so many rejections that I was just about to give up on publishing altogether. That acceptance and the journal’s belief in my work was just what I needed to push through as a writer. To believe in myself as a writer.”
LATOYA WATKINS
2023 National Book Award Longlist Fiction

🗓️ Class Dates: September 28, October 5, October 12, October 19, October 26, November 2

👩🏾‍💻Format: Online

🕰️ Time: 6:30pm EST - 8:30pm EST

See link in bio for FULL DETAILS ☝🏿☝🏽☝🏾☝🏼 by @kweli.journal

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14 days ago

“Grief is a hunger you feed every day. And somehow we remember all it takes.”

“All The Blues in the Sky” by @kvmad played with @deborah_bklyn on percussion.

This song was adapted from @harlemportland ‘s brilliant 2026 John Newberry Medal winning and @kirkus_reviews and @nyply Book of Year of the same title “All The Blues in the Sky”

Thank you to everyone who joined in the space, celebrated, and collectively joined in learning an adapted new work.

Y’all already know they better watch out when they give us simply a pen, a paper, our bodies and an instrument to synchronize our collective rhythms.

Thank you Laura Pegram @kweli.journal @harlemnaturalhair @akwaabainns @theamatthews_ @jwpanama @whatbluesees @deborah_bklyn @harlemportland and ALL OF YOU!!!!!

I need this reflection in days when the blues in the sky ask us more through so much transition as find our way to the sun.

With stardust always, ✨
-kt taken in Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns (NY, NJ, DC) by @kweli.journal

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a month ago

Grab something delicious to drink. Bring someone you love or make the journey solo welcoming in the possibility of a space holding you as if you’ve known each other forever. Open a book. Take time with the words of the journey of putting pen to page manifested through many unseen hours of writing alone and conversing with teams trying to build the perfect container with a story living deeply in your heart.

Celebrate.

Celebrate yourself. Celebrate that journey. Celebrate the time it takes to be in conversation with discovery.

Trust your community to hold you. Every version you choose to be today, tomorrow and yesterday.

Let yourself be seen and celebrated knowing that the sweetest gift is being able to open your heart to the warmth of the world.

Move through all the shades of blue in the sky.

There will be more posts. @whatbluesees took so many beautiful photos.

Thank you @kweli.journal and Laura for bringing us all together. Thank you @akwaabainns for holding us. Thank you @harlemportland for writing and sharing countless texts that mean so much to so many, including myself. Thank you @theamatthews_ for your brilliantly crafted conversation. Thank you @jwpanama for supporting the celebration of the artistry of your daughter Anayansi. Thank you @deborah_bklyn for always saying yes and for reminding me that we are deserving of joy. Thank you @whatbluesees for sharing how and what you see and for being kind, honest and patient. Thank you @kenndances for being a real one. Your artistry, truth and joy grounds me. Thank you Roz for texting every morning and choosing me and @deborah_bklyn and loving us with the fierceness that only Pacific Street could have brought into my life. Thank you to Jalpa for your patience while I saved up the money to purchase your beautifully hand carved stamps in India to connect these words and the rhythms of our stories across the world reminding us that as hard as it feels, and is, to see beyond the block sometimes, that the truth is that this entire planet (while we fight to protect and preserve it) is ours to experience.

From shore to shore, you and I, we share the same sky.

*dm to help me tag everyone taken in Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns (NY, NJ, DC) by @kweli.journal

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a month ago

JOIN US for the next cycle of Kweli’s Art of the Short Story Workshop, led by Founding Editor and Publisher Laura Pegram.

This online workshop is tailor-made for BIPOC writers of ADULT FICTION.

This six-week intensive for short story writers and novelists of color features in-class writing exercises, close study of acclaimed works, detailed peer review, and most importantly a safer space for all people of color, including Black, Indigenous, SWANA, AAPI, Latin and LGBTQ+ writers at all levels to create and connect in community, as well as to receive close attention from an editor who has worked with several celebrated authors of color.

“Never has my work been taken so seriously or held with such keen attention and care. For the first time in a long time, my work as a woman of color, and all my intersectionalities, was not only centered, but celebrated, and for that, I am forever grateful.”
DELIA SELINA TAYLOR
2022 Kweli Fellow

“Kweli Journal was one of the first major publications to accept my work. The editor, Laura Pegram, went above and beyond the acceptance letter. We worked on the edits over the phone for hours and revised draft after draft through email. When ‘Straight Dollars or Loose Change’ was finally published in Kweli in 2012, I was proud of the story that emerged from so many hours of work with the Kweli staff. When I received that acceptance email from Kweli, I had received so many rejections that I was just about to give up on publishing altogether. That acceptance and the journal’s belief in my work was just what I needed to push through as a writer. To believe in myself as a writer.”
LATOYA WATKINS
2023 National Book Awards Longlist Fiction

🗓️ Class Dates: September 1, September 15, September 22, September 29, October 6, October 13

🖥️ Format: Online

🕰️ Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm EST

SEE link in bio for FULL DETAILS. ☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽 by @kweli.journal

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2 months ago

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: ALL-POETRY ISSUE & WRITING RESIDENCY AWARD

In a special NOVEMBER 2026 issue of Kweli, guest edited by ARIANA BENSON, we invite BIPOC writers to submit up to 10 pages of your poetry for an opportunity to be published in our inaugural all-poetry issue. Out of the selections published, Kweli editors will award to one contributor a week-long residency (winter, spring, or fall 2027), inclusive of a $1,000 stipend for travel and food, at Writers & Books’ Gell Retreat in New York States’s Finger Lakes region. All contributors will receive payment after publication.

ARIANA BENSON is a southern Black poet-storyteller. Her debut poetry collection, Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023) won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Leonard Prize and the Library of Virginia Prize in Poetry. Her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in POETRY, Callaloo, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Benson is a proud alumna of Spelman College, where she facilitates creative writing and storytelling workshops for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Timeline
• Deadline to submit: September 14, 2026
• Contributors announced: October 15, 2026
• Publication Date: November 2, 2026
• Gell Resident announced: January 3, 2027

Submission Guidelines
• Submit up to three poems totaling no more than 10 pages in a single file in doc., docx., or .pdf format.

Please note:
• We do not consider submissions that endorse discrimination including racism, homophobia, sexism, and xenophobia, or feature gratuitous violence or sexual content.
•. We do not accept previously published work.
•. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as they are indicated as such. Authors must immediately notify the editors if said work has been selected for publication in another periodical, either in print or online. Contact editors@kwelijournal.org
•. Payment is made after publication.
•. All published work will be archived online.

See LINK IN BIO for details. by @kweli.journal

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2 months ago

We are honored to introduce you to Destiny Hemphill, the winner of the Inaugural DéLana R.A. Dameron Fiction Prize.

Destiny’s debut short story “Healer, How Come They Call You Hummingbird?” was selected by Kweli alum LaToya Watkins. LaToya’s debut collection of short stories, Holler, Child, was long listed for the 2023 National Book Award.

“In the end, I chose ‘Healer, How Come They Call You Hummingbird?’ by Destiny Hemphill because the story captivated me with its lyrical language and emotional depth,” said LaToya. “I think what really makes the piece exceptional is the way it blends folklore, memory, and coming-of-age insight into a story that feels both deeply intimate and mythic, culminating in an ending that is surprising and entirely earned.”

Destiny Hemphill is a chronically ill ritual worker and poet, living on the unceded territory of the Eno-Occaneechi band of the Saponi Nation (Durham, NC). She is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and has received other fellowships for her poetry from Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program, Callaloo, Tin House, Kenyon Review’s Writers Workshop, and Torch Literary.

DéLana R.A. Dameron (January 30, 1985–November 29, 2025) received an MFA in poetry from NYU. Her debut collection, How God Ends Us, was selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. She was the esteemed author of Fairfield County and Redwood Court. In addition to her immense talent as a writer, DéLana was the founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in South Carolina.

LaToya Watkins’ writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, Kweli Journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere. She is a Kimibilo fellow and has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell, OMI: Arts, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Camargo Foundation. She is the author of Perish and Holler, Child. Her forthcoming novel, The Book of Chuck, will be released on August 18, 2026.

You can read Destiny’s debut short story in the current issue of The Kweli Journal. See link in bio. by @kweli.journal

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2 months ago