black magic

On Storytelling. Liberation. And Magic.

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

A few months ago, I did a Writers on Writers interview with

Robert the contemplative

, where we talked about purpose and process as folks who are foolish brave enough to pour ourselves, frothy and steaming, onto blank pages to be sipped and swallowed by the masses. Robert opened the interview with a question that took me straight back to my roots: “What made you first take up the pen?”

Immediately, I remembered being a child, sitting in wonder as my family members shared our family histories over tables covered in dinner plates and dominoes, and told me all sorts of stories steeped in legacy, pain, joy, and survival.

These stories shaped me. They were my first encounters with the power of narrative, the magic of storytelling that weaves together threads of identity, imagination, and liberation. I wanted to make magic like that. To conjure worlds. To remember who we were and who we still are.

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. One book I’m moving through slowly is Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community by Katie Geneva Cannon (yes, the wordplay in the title is immaculate). Early in the book, Cannon reminds us that folklore and storytelling are vital pillars of our cultural inheritance, passed down by our ancestors to help us navigate the “land of counterpain.”

“Living in a dialectical relationship with white supremacy, folklore was the essential medium by which the themes of freedom, resistance, and self determination were evoked, preserved, and passed by word of mouth from generation to generation.” - Katie G Cannon

Counterpain is a metaphorical space of both struggle and resistance within Black womanhood. The “land of counterpain” then, refers to the place where difficulties, challenges and pains are confronted and countered.

This metaphor reminds me of Audre Lorde’s concept of the “dark place” within us, described in Poetry Is Not a Luxury. “The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep,” Lorde writes. This place of power within Black women, passed down through generations, has always found expression in our stories, our poems, our songs.

For generations, storytelling has been crucial to Black people's survival on this continent, going back as far as slavery. Folktales, along with spiritual songs and prayers, were one of the few ways enslaved people could communicate hope, relay messages, and keep cultural ties alive. In the face of unimaginable brutality, stories became tools for survival. Spirituals often carried coded messages about important meetings, arrivals, and plans for rebellion or escape, while folktales like those about Br'er Rabbit provided moral lessons and symbols of resistance. These tales of cleverness and trickery mirrored the very real ways that enslaved Black people outsmarted their captors.

Storytelling, in this sense, is both personal and collective liberation. It allows us to own our experiences and reframe them on our own terms, and it offers a way forward for those who come after us.

This history of storytelling as a tool for survival and resistance is deeply connected to the literary canon of Black women writers. From Zora Neale Hurston’s anthropological work in preserving Black folktales to Octavia Butler’s visionary exploration of Black futures, Black women in literature have long understood that stories are a powerful means of self-definition and liberation.

In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler imagines a world much like the one in which we find ourselves, ravaged by climate collapse and inequality. But she also imagines a pathway to freedom through community and spirituality. Butler’s protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is herself a storyteller, chronicling her journey and creating Earthseed—a belief system that insists on adaptability, resilience, and the power of shaping one’s own future. Through Olamina’s story, Butler reminds us that liberation begins in the imagination, with the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we can become.¹

And of course, Zora Neale Hurston’s work has become one of the most significant contributions to the legacy of Black womanhood. Her seminal novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, reclaimed Black women’s voices and celebrated their interior lives, which had so often been overlooked. But Hurston’s genius stretches beyond this one story: in Mules and Men, she meticulously documented Black Southern folklore, preserving tales of tricksters, hoodoo rituals, and communal wisdom that might otherwise have been erased. Meanwhile, Moses, Man of the Mountain reimagines the biblical Exodus through a Black diasporic lens, blending satire, theology, and subversive humor to interrogate power and liberation. Her works have been studied by writers, linguists, anthropologists, womanists, theologians, politicians, and sociologists alike. Hurston’s storytelling has become a cornerstone of the womanist movement, calling for the liberation of Black women on their own terms.

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Announcing a New Project:

As I’ve been reflecting on the power of storytelling—and the urgency of Black fairy tales—I’ve been quietly weaving a new world into existence. I’m thrilled to announce a new publication, Roots & Revelation a serialized story set in an alternate Earth where hair-based magic pulses through the veins of a town called Havenswood.

A New World is Blooming…

At its heart is Aziza, a Black woman whose crown of braids holds more than strands: it channels ancestral power, binds secrets, and unravels the boundaries between history and myth. Drawing from West African cosmology, Black southern folklore, and the unspoken grammars of Black hair rituals, this story is my love letter to the ‘land of counterpain’ Audre Lorde and Katie Cannon evoke—a place where darkness is not void, but fertile ground for rebellion and rebirth.

But Aziza’s Crown is also a reclamation of the fairy tale canon. Why should castles and wolves dominate when we have kitchens humming with conjure, forests thick with talking roots, and heroines who wield combs like scepters? Each installment will blend episodic adventure with the layered intimacy of Black oral traditions, exploring how memory is woven into scalp, how strands become spells, and how a community’s survival might depend on the stories braided into a single crown.

This series is an invitation to reimagine what magic looks like when it’s rooted in us.

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Love yall. Mean it. If you love me back, Buy Me A Book!

ICYMI

1. I read Parable of the Sower in community this year, beginning on the exact same day as the first entry of the book, It was an amazing experience that helped deepen my working knowledge of Octavia Butler, and challenged me as a reader. I cannot say enough good things about bookclubs. LOL