The BlackLit. Substack Relaunch

or maybe how I found my way back to myself...

At the risk of sounding dramatic, I find myself in a stage of metamorphosis.

Some of you already know this, but I recently relocated (back) to the DMV area. And by recently, I mean I moved in time for Thanksgiving 2025.

Before that, I spent two years living in Austin, Texas.

Now, I’m not unaccustomed to living away from home. I’ve technically been “away” since high school. But what I wasn’t prepared for was what it felt like to not be around Black people. Again.

The last time I felt that lost, that out of place, was in high school when I was one of five Black students. Period. Not in my grade lol. Mind you, I had already gone to therapy and unpacked a lot of that high-school-era baggage. So imagine the shock to my nervous system when I found myself right back in the lived experience of my 14-year-old self.

The constant questioning.

The paper-cut eye glances.

The feeling that you’re under a microscope simply because you’re Black.

I couldn’t breathe in Austin.

I lost myself in Austin.

The suffocation of invisibility snuffed out my creativity. Hell, it snuffed out me. Period.

And it wasn’t until I moved back to the East Coast at the first opportunity I got that I realized my tongue had been glued to the roof of my mouth for far too long.

How we got here…

This newsletter started as a baby sibling to The Group Chat.

But somewhere along the way, it became something more. Sharing my love of Black-authored books, connecting with people who love those stories both online and in real life, hosting book clubs, talking about characters as if we actually know them and saw them at brunch last week.

It’s been low-key healing me.

Okay, okay. High-key.

Which brings me to why I’m writing this.

Many of you have been here since Day One. Some of you literally came over from The Group Chat as a show of support. Y’all are my cousins for real, and I hope you know I truly love you from the bottom of my heart.

So I have a question.

Would y’all be cool if I turned this space into my bookish diary?

The shift

As part of this journey, I created a standalone website.

I want that website to function as the business side of things—the thing I actually own. The polished professional version. The stush version, if you will.

And because a slightly delusional part of me (who may also be funemployed in the near future) believes this could one day become something I do full-time, I want to make sure the portfolio I’m building is mine.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

The website becomes home base for reviews, essays, resources, and all the polished stuff.

And this Substack?

This becomes the lounge. The place where we sit on the couch and yap.

We can chat about Black-authored books. Life. Reading slumps. Literary crushes. The characters we’re currently obsessed with. The books that made us cry.

Ideally, it becomes an actual large-scale group chat. Of course, that requires people to chat back. With me. With each other.

But I think we can get there.

Eventually.

Speaking of yapping lol

I’m writing this while waiting for video files to transfer from my camera to my hard drive so I can edit not one, but two YouTube videos.

As a certified yapper, YouTube feels like it might be the easiest platform for me. Something about long-form video feels less polished than short-form content. I can ramble a little, go off on tangents, and worry less about my awkwardness being visible.

Because the people who watch YouTube videos—the people who are like me—we actually enjoy that.

It feels intimate. Personal.

Kind of like Substack.

Which is why I thought you all might understand this shift.

Truthfully, I feel a little guilty that we haven’t talked about books here in a while. But I’ve also been busy enjoying life again.

I didn’t realize just how much of a sad girl I’d become in Texas. I’m finding myself again. And maybe, through all of this, I’m finding my way back to you, too.

Now, before we go...

We should probably talk about books, right?

What I’ve read so far this week

• Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory

  • this was a cute little wlw romcom type of book. I appreciated how patient and tender this felt. Also, I vote we rebrand coming out as a cotillion!

• Sparks Fly by Zakiya N. Jamal

  • I’m laughing because shawty was hot and ready like little ceasars okay?! I appreciated the commentary on biphobia and bierasure in this one!

• Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello

  • this one depressed me just a bit, but it’s only because I found out Black Pearl is closing and they were really working hard in this YA novel to save this Black, family-owned bookstore and here we have one closing. fuuuuuck. also - I went to the library today to pick up some holds and one of my holds was Black-owned : the revolutionary life of the Black bookstore by Char Adams…clearly I’m in a mood.

• Only for the Week by Natasha Bishop

  • You know Taryn? Well, she has this book club that meets virtually and I keep missing it. But they were reading The Art of Loving You and I was like wait, let me read OFTW first because I want to be able to actively participate in the community and I know they all probably read both. Still didn’t even read the book or make it to the book club but at least I read and finished OFTW and it only took me 84 min.

• Beauty in the Blood by Charlotte Carter

  • i feel like I can’t really tell you what this was about without spoiling it because idk wtf I just read but I really liked it lol. It’s part horror, part mystery, part historical fiction. I absolutely fell in love with the writing so I will be reading more from this author.

• Transcendent: A Memoir by Laverne Cox

  • overall, i enjoyed this one. I took it in as an audiobook via one of my influencer credits via Libro.fm. But, chile - let me just show you the part of the book that had my mouth on the floor:

Alright alright that’s all I got for now. I swear I’m coming back real soon lol.

Tell me what you’re reading.

And more importantly: Are you down to turn this place into a giant bookish group chat?

Because I think it’d be pretty fun.