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Lampblack Lit

@lampblack_lit

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Lampblack is committed to the advancement of Black literature and our community through direct aid, various programming, and more.

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✨COVER REVEAL✨

We are beyond excited to share the cover of Lampblack Magazine Vol. 6! Available on November 14th, this issue features contributions by Trinity Battle, Marcus Clayton, Lyndsey Ellis, JP Infante, Ola Osaze, shawn williams, Annell López, K. Desiree Milwood, Shy-Zahir Moses, Chisom Nsiegbunam, and Audrey Obuobisa-Darko.

We respect the diversity, challenges, and triumphs of the entire African diaspora. Within the last six years, we have presented readings, facilitated acts of mutual aid, hosted workshops, and published zines in an effort to sustain the vulnerable, secure, marginalized, empowered, prodigious, and mature—all of which are members of our community. In a world where the United States’ Empire wages war across both hemispheres, tears nations and communities apart, we have chosen this year to remind ourselves, and you, of what binds us. That which forms the basis of our resistance.

If you would like to preorder your copy, use code PS2026 to get a 25% discount. Be on the lookout for our upcoming magazine launch at MoCADA Museum on Saturday, November 14th.

Cover 🎨 by @mij.0uu by @lampblack_lit

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5 days ago

Join us next month for a very special event - Diaspora and Liberation: A Dodge Poetry Festival Reading with Lampblack Lit, featuring attorious renée augustin, Kailah Figueroa, and Mya / Matteo Alexice.

Robert Treat Hotel (50 Park PI)
Pennsylvania Room
Saturday, Oct 17, 2:00-3:10 PM

The Dodge Poetry Festival returns October 15-17 in the heart of Downtown Newark. Meet your favorite poets including Elizabeth Acevedo, Tyehimba Jess, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Aja Monet, Danez Smith, Jive Poetic, Mayde del Valle, José Olivarez and more. Discover new voices, speak your mind, call for change and mix rhyme with rhythm.

events include:
* 7 simultaneous stages of events in a walkable village in downtown Newark
* Network and socialize at Thursday night’s mixer and open mic hosted by EvoluCulture
* Fine-tune your craft on Thursday, a day for writers created in partnership with the Academy of American Poets
* Pop-up bookstore and book signings curated and hosted by Source of Knowledge
* Special readings by Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Lampblack and Kundiman and New Jeru Slam Team
* Saturday free outdoor Family Fun Day by @lampblack_lit

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25 days ago

Check us out in the new issue of @poetswritersinc! Learn more about our vision and goals moving forward. A special thank you to @arriwrites for the work of putting together this article. We’d also like to thank Poets & Writers for allowing us the space to share our story. Read a brief excerpt from the article below:

“One of the primary goals in founding Lampblack was about the very real material needs of Black writers that I think are often glossed over when we discuss literary lives and literary careers and community,” says writer and translator Paige Aniyah Morris, who helps edit Lampblack, the organization’s magazine. “We wanted to find a way to directly support Black writers without that structural gatekeeping. You don’t have to be a winner of a fellowship. You don’t have to be in an MFA program.”

To read the rest of the article, visit the link in our bio for the web version. You can also find us on page 12 of the print edition. by @lampblack_lit

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5 years ago

Come say hello to us next weekend at the Dodge Poetry Festival, one of the largest poetry events in the country, gathering over a hundred poets, from emerging artists to National Book Award winners, performing across multiple stages in downtown Newark.

Diaspora and Liberation: A Dodge Poetry Festival Reading with Lampblack Lit takes place on Saturday, October 17th at the Robert Treat Hotel (Pennsylvania Room) — with readings from attorious renée augustin, Kailah Figueroa, and Mya / Matteo Alexice.

FEATURED AUTHOR 🌿
Mya / Matteo Alexice is a Black and white graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA. A Cave Canem fellow and academic studying Black romantic life, they are the author of A Shape We’ve Yet to Name (2024) and The Limerence Object (2025). Matteo’s poems can be found in publications such as Pleiades, swamp pink, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, diode, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Bennington Review, Honey Literary and elsewhere. They’ve received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, and more. They were the runner-up in the 2023 Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest judged by Gary Soto. He enjoys video games where you can make the characters kiss. by @lampblack_lit

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10 days ago

Join us next Saturday, October 17th at the Dodge Poetry Festival!

Come say hello and enjoy readings, panels, workshops and more. Diaspora and Liberation: A Dodge Poetry Festival Reading with Lampblack Lit features performances by attorious renée augustin, Kailah Figueroa, and Mya Matteo Alexice.

Robert Treat Hotel (Pennsylvania Room)
Saturday, Oct 17, 2:00-3:10 PM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 🌿
Kailah Figueroa (she/her) is a rhetorical engineer, memory archivist, and part-time prose stylist. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Callaloo Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Lampblack Magazine, The McNeese Review, Pigeon Pages, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Torch Literary Arts, and wildness. A Best New Poets and Pushcart Prize nominee, Figueroa has received support and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Cave Canem Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, PEN America, US-UK Fulbright Commission, and Vermont Studio Center. Born in New York City and raised in Towson, Maryland, Figueroa received her BA in Creative Writing and English: Publishing and Editing from Susquehanna University, and subsequently earned an MFA in Poetry from Rutgers University-Newark. Her manuscript, Before The Bull Dreams Me (Poetry, full-length), was selected as a finalist for the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics 2025 Book Prize. She is working on a novel. by @lampblack_lit

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11 days ago

Come say hello to us next weekend at the Dodge Poetry Festival, one of the largest poetry events in the country, gathering over a hundred poets, from emerging artists to National Book Award winners, performing across multiple stages in downtown Newark.

Diaspora and Liberation: A Dodge Poetry Festival Reading with Lampblack Lit takes place on Saturday, October 17th at the Robert Treat Hotel (Pennsylvania Room) — with readings from attorious renée augustin, Kailah Figueroa, and Mya / Matteo Alexice.

FEATURED AUTHOR 🌿
attorious renée augustin is a black nonbinary (they/she/oracle/omen), neurodivergent, queer, philosopher poet, filmmaker, and educator from Wanamassa, NJ. They earned their MFA in poetry at Rutgers University-Newark, and servers the community as a teaching artist. Through a practice grounded in recoginition, community engagement and artistic experimentation, attorious renee explores how personal introspection can become a pathway towards collective liberation. Currenty, they are the editor in chief for the sixth volume of Lampblack Lit. by @lampblack_lit

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12 days ago

The Lampblack Literary Foundation believes storytelling is one of our most powerful tools against oppression and injustice. Censorship, genocide, state violence, and the rise of fascism make clear that our writing is an important piece of how we practice resistance.

Over the past 6 years we have published more than one hundred Black writers, creating space for voices too often overlooked by traditional publishing. We remain committed to ensuring that Black storytellers are not limited by an industry that has historically failed to fully represent the multitude of voices and experiences of the Black diaspora. Above all, we have created a safe environment for Black writers to be amidst a harsh literary landscape.

This summer, we’re inviting our community to help us continue that work.

A donation to our 2026 Summer Campaign will help us publish our sixth magazine issue, provide direct financial support to Black writers, and sustain the publication of each new issue while also supporting the labor that makes this work possible.

Our goal is to raise $10,000, so whether it’s $5, $25, or $500, every contribution moves us closer to that goal, and helps amplify bold, necessary stories that challenge injustice, preserve history, and lead to a liberated future.

Join us in making sure these stories continue to be written, published, and shared. Visit our website and donate today. Help keep our stories alive. by @lampblack_lit

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2 months ago

Lampblack is a volunteer-led community of Black writers.

In 2020, we organized under the banner of racial equity and community action to address many of the challenges that Black writers face today. We use our platform not only to continue conversations about inequity but also to create economic and educational support for our community through direct aid and our magazine. But we can’t do this alone.

A donation to our 2026 Summer Campaign will help us publish our sixth magazine issue, provide direct financial support to Black writers, and sustain the publication of each new issue while also supporting the labor that makes this work possible.

Our goal is to raise $10,000, so whether it’s $5, $25, or $500, every contribution moves us closer to that goal, and helps amplify bold, necessary stories that challenge injustice, preserve history, and lead to a liberated future.

Join us in making sure these stories continue to be written, published, and shared. Donate today and help keep our stories alive. by @lampblack_lit

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2 months ago

The Lampblack Literary Foundation believes storytelling is one of our most powerful tools against oppression and injustice. Stories by and about Black people have sparked social justice movements, spoken truth to power, and preserved the ongoing journey toward liberation. During this time of increased state censorship, surveillance and violence, and rising fascism, supporting Black writers is not only an act of cultural preservation, but an act of resistance.

Over the years, we have published more than 100 Black writers, creating space for voices too often overlooked by traditional publishing. We remain committed to ensuring that Black storytellers are not limited by an industry that has historically failed to fully represent the multitude of voices and experiences of the Black diaspora.

This summer, we’re inviting our community to help us continue that work.

A donation to our 2026 Summer Campaign will help us publish our sixth magazine issue, provide direct financial support to Black writers, and sustain the publication of each new issue while also supporting the labor that makes this work possible.

Our goal is to raise $10,000, so whether it’s $5, $25, or $500, every contribution moves us closer to that goal, and helps amplify bold, necessary stories that challenge injustice, preserve history, and lead to a liberated future.

Join us in making sure these stories continue to be written, published, and shared. Donate today and help keep our stories alive. by @lampblack_lit

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2 months ago

This August, we’re celebrating the upcoming release of the Lampblack Zine with @anotherworldbk 💫

Friday, August 14th at 7pm | Another World BK (629 Nostrand Ave)

The Lampblack Zine is both an archive and a creative experiment. Inspired by conversations held within our reading group and organization as a whole, this second volume takes shape across the diaspora, a mixed-media project meant to explore how we think about organizing, literature, Blackness, and solidarity.

At the launch, we hope to continue similar discussions with the community. There will be refreshments and free zines available! by @lampblack_lit

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3 months ago

Join us this Saturday, June 27th at 7pm for a special reading and fundraiser in collaboration with our friends at @thewordischange. Featuring a stellar lineup, including John Keene, Naomi Jackson, Bird Jackson, marcus scott williams, and GOODW.Y.N., we hope to see you for an evening of celebration and community-making.

Over the years, Lampblack has provided monetary aid to over 100 writers from across the diaspora, printed the work of dozens of writers in our magazine, and developed a variety of platforms (both digital and physical) for over 64 Black writers to share their work. With your support, we hope to continue to grow our mutual aid program — a goal that has always been at the core of our values and mission. Every donation and purchase of Lampblack Magazine is redirected into providing monetary relief or resources to Black writers.

@jstheater
@thenaomijackson
@thee__bird
@marcusscottwilliams
@goodw.y.n9 by @lampblack_lit

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4 months ago

We’ve been devoted to continuing our goal of providing direct aid to poets, storytellers, and authors in need. As we’ve grown throughout the years, this concept has guided our mission since the days of the pandemic. Even now, as institutional forces disrupt public arts funding, cut jobs, and target the most vulnerable of populations, the importance of mutual aid within our communities can’t be overstated.

Consider applying to our direct aid program, or sharing with a writer who could benefit. We’ll select two Black writers each month from our application pool. Selections are made on an anonymous, random basis. Please visit our website to apply. by @lampblack_lit

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4 months ago