Hello! My apologies for the delay in this month’s newsletter. To be transparent, I haven’t been okay. Grief spun block on me hard a couple of weeks ago, and the lingering effects are still with me. I’m managing. I took a bit of an impromptu social media hiatus. Not sure when I’ll be back. I know I have things to post, but I’ll be back when the spirit moves me. It’s not in my ministry right now, so it’s good I have this newsletter.

However, I’m not here to be humdrum. I do have something I want to share. Mainly how needed Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was for me. I’ll get into that further down. So, without further ado, please get comfortable while you humor my ramblings for a few precious moments of your day.

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A MEME

Unfortunately, I don’t have any news I can get into regarding projects I’m currently working on, except to say that they’re all running smoothly. I even wrote the solicitation for issue one of my creator-owned series with Mad Cave Studios a week ago. A feeling that brought on an assortment of emotions that I did sit with. I tend not to give myself time to sit with the projects I work on. Not because I don’t believe in the work or because I’m not proud of it. It is more so because my focus immediately goes to the next thing. After all, I have this chip on my shoulder which propels me forward, sometimes sooner than I would like. Like any other, this business is about momentum, and that chip makes me want to keep my momentum going for as long as I can. After all, I am just someone who was funny on social media and happened to joke my way into a full-fledged comic writing career. Not that it took any hard work or anything silly like that. (HEAVY ON THE SARCASM)

I promise to share what I can as soon as I get the okay on some of these projects. Just know that it may be the summer of Superman, it will be the autumn of Stephanie Renee Williams, and then some. That’s also part of the reason I haven’t been on social media lately. There are deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines with enough breaks, so don’t fuss. Ringo Awards submissions for nominations are now live! If you could be so kind…

I do have some travel coming up later this week and next month. If you’re in the Boston, MA, area, I’ll be attending the Comics in Color Festival April 25-26th! I’m looking forward to it. Next month, I’ll also be at FanExpo Philadelphia and MomoCon.

I almost forgot! I do have a couple of new Superhero Club entires that went up since the last newsletter!

Invincible's Cecil Stedman: From Comic to Screen | Superhero Club | Prime Video

Invincible's Donald Ferguson: From Comic to Screen | Superhero Club | Prime Video

BURNOUT PREVENTION CENTRAL

Now that I think about it, I will tell y’all a little about what I’m working on for Ignition Press. You can thank Sinners for that. You get a two-for-one in this month’s edition of Burnout Prevention Central.

My husband and I went to the theater on Easter Sunday to see Sinners. If you grew up in the Black church, be it AME, Pentecostal, Baptist, etc., you might understand how cathartic it is to see that movie on a Sunday, especially Resurrection Sunday. I’m a Pentecostal child if that brings in further context, and long story short, I am free of the teachings (or guilt) thrust upon me against my will as I had no choice but to attend church. Now, I am spiritual, but on my terms. With that said, I absolutely loved Sinners. I will try my best to articulate what this incredible piece of art made me feel, but joyous is the first to come to mind. It was a condemnation of the Black church, Christianity, hoodoo, the South, or at least that wasn’t my takeaway. I felt like it was a love letter to all the complicated pieces that make us whole as a people and those who have been on this journey with us be it as full-time allies, sometimey allies, and straight-up antagonists.

It's clear Ryan Coogler did his homework, as he does, but for me as a fellow creator, I was in awe of how he took all he learned and felt in his soul to bring us something whimsy as fuck. Now, whimsy isn’t the best way to describe a movie that was freaked out (I loved that,) had vampires, cussing, and violence, and was set down in the delta in 1932. HOWEVER, that’s precisely what it was. I was transported into a story I wanted to be invested in, and Coogler ensured that happened. The way he took his time to build this world, the characters, and the vibe were so beautiful. The things said and left unsaid were so in balance with each other. To put it simply, I thought it was brilliant. Coogler has an intimacy to all his projects, no matter how grand in scale they are, and that’s not easy. It’s quite difficult. It’s something I try my best to inject into all my work. If your storytelling allows people to let their guards down, to be just as vulnerable as you were while creating the art because it’s that much of a safe space, your pen is mighty.

Beloved walked so that Sinners could fly.

Sinners' existence reaffirms that the project I’m working on with Ignition Press is being written exactly how it should. I left the theater ready to write issue four of my current project, and I may still do that. The draft isn’t due until next month, but that’s how much Sinners replenished me as a creative. On the surface, I’m writing a story about a young Black woman who happens to be a chemist in 1905 who travels to Savannah, Georgia, in search of something her mother tried to keep her away from. On the surface, this could be a story about struggle in the most ham-fisted way, but that’s never been my MO. Instead, I’m hoping to have a conversation about our history, present, and future like Sinners did. The way Watchmen did. And in the way Lovecraft Country did. And before any of them, the way Octavia Butler did. The way Beverly Jenkins did. The way Toni Morrison did. The way N.K. Jemisin does, and continues to do!

These stories weave the joy, pain, triumph, and trials into stories that transport us and leave us feeling thankful for the culture we cultivated from the very soil we grew and bled on. We’re whimsy af, and I mean that in the best way I can.

All I can say is that I hope to do the same. And I firmly believe I am.

MOM MODE ACTIVATED

My son was on spring break all last week. We didn’t go anywhere out of town, but I made sure we did as much as possible. My husband and I took him to the Minecraft movie, which I thought was funny. What’s not funny is the lava chicken song he has been singing for the last five days. Our soon-to-be preteen is starting to show signs of preteenism so that I will take it all in stride. He still wants to hang out with us, which is all that matters.

SO, AN EDITOR ONCE SAID…

“If you keep self-editing, I’m going to be obsolete”

If you know what the editor said, you’d probably get a kick out of it. I took it as a compliment and told the editor they should, too, because it means that I’m learning from their editorial notes and style. I adore editors, and I feel like they’re a cheat code to getting better at your craft, especially the editors who are more like the support crew on the massive ship that’s your story. You and your co-collaborators are the captains, but great captains also listen to their crew and learn from them.

Editors will never be obsolete by the way. They’re too much of a blessing.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Ringo Award submission nominations are now open to the public. I want to take a moment to highlight a fellow creator and good friend, Rosie Knight, and her co-collaborators on Monster Island Summer Camp. Whimsy is my word of the way, and MISC is precisely that. My son and I enjoyed reading it last year. If you want to be transported back to when you and your best friends had the long summer days to kick it, but this time with some lovable monsters, then MISC is it. I also believe it’s a project that deserves as many submissions for nominations as possible!

That’s all for now. And as always, thank you for taking the time to hang with me. I appreciate you. I’m rooting for you!