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Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

De: Vanessa Riley
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Join bestselling author Vanessa Riley as she delves into untold histories, reflects on current events through a historical lens, shares behind-the-scenes writing insights, and offers exclusive updates on her groundbreaking novels.

vanessariley.substack.comVanessa Riley Ciencias Sociales
Episodios
  • Between the Book and Me

    Between the Book and Me
    Jan 6 2026
    Someone said, “Reading is elitism,” and I knew immediately—we’re in trouble.When people start calling books the problem, it’s never about books.It’s about control.A mind that doesn’t read is easier to steer.Easier to distract.Easier to convince that vibes are enough and history is optional.But reading—especially our reading—was once illegal.Punishable by death.So no—reading isn’t elitism.It’s survival.I saw a screed on Threads that made me stop and stare.“Reading is elitism,” the post declared.It left me scratching my head.Why now?Why is this sentiment surfacing at a moment when people are desperate to escape the hellscape we’re living in—when they’re trying to learn, to grow, to imagine ways to resist?Is it something more sinister?Because an algorithm shaped by bots and billionaires has no interest in a smart, savvy, or hopeful electorate. It wants control. A mind that doesn’t read—one that lives on vibes alone—is easy to steer. It will thrive on chaos. It shall be misled, distracted, and ultimately enslaved.That post made me angry. The kind of angry that pulls my inner poet out of hiding.Yes, Vanessa Riley has been known to write poetry. If you’ve read Island Queen, Sister Mother Warrior, The Bewildered Bride, and others, you’ve already seen my poetic bent threaded through the prose.And don’t you have a new book out? Fire Sword and Sea, next week, Jan. 13? Ain’t nobody have time for all this.No. Nobody does, but I made time. For I got big mad.I reached for the pen—or rather, the keyboard.What came out was a poem I now call Between the Book and Me.Between the Book and MeReading is a privilege, a refuge, a right sorely won.So miss me with the BS, the apathy.Because I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou).Maybe it’s my generation.For we came from a time when we were raised as Beloved (Toni Morrison),and hoped for Something Like Love (Beverly Jenkins),Only to learn we were an Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison),Never a Native Son (Richard Wright).We sought out books to find The Souls of Black Folk (W.E.B. Du Bois),but kept our gaze fixed on librarians and mentors,for Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston).And they knew what books to pick for our good.They understood which passage would give us hope.When we learned that life—she—was No Crystal Stair (Eva Rutland),They gave us books that fed a Hunger (Roxane Gay),Because they knew we would ache when Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe).They understood that verses on a page, in a hymnal, on a screen,would become Kindred (Octavia E. Butler)—Something to remember, to retain, to hug.That touch, that warm embrace, when nouns and verbs paint pictures,Keeps the flames of imagination burning.It will stoke The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin).Reading makes a difference.When peaceful with a psalm or enraged and ready to fight Fire Sword and Sea (Vanessa Riley),Try opening a book—keep going—Fill your soul with words and dreams.Get so full you must Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin).So it makes me sad when some insistOur whole story lives only in the Narrative of the Life… an American Slave (Frederick Douglass),or the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs).No. Black Boy (Richard Wright).No—Black girl.No bright child misled into craving The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison).Rise up from The Street (Ann Petry).Savor words as if they are rare,Growing sweeter when harvested in the mind like A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry).If you read, you will learn this:That you are more than Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde).You are The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James).You are an Island Queen (Vanessa Riley),Swaying to a Harlem Rhapsody (Victoria Christopher Murray).You see, Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)—Between a book and you—AreA mother’s prayer,A grandmother’s wisdom,An ancestor’s war song.So don’t turn your back on reading.Don’t dismiss the act our forefathers and foremothers chose, even under the penalty of death.Reading isn’t elitism.It’s essential to survival.It’s defiance, spelled out.It’s the way to live.This week’s book list is in my poem. Go to the show notes. Get the full list. I’m supporting Novel Neighbor through their website and Bookshop.org.We are less than a week away from the release of Fire Sword and Sea. She comes out on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—That’s Black pirates, integrated crews, and secrets—of those who sailed the seas for adventure, a better life, or because they darn well felt like it. Read their truth. Get folks talking about this book.Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Novel Neighbor or one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small who are with me.Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s get everyone excited to read Fire Sword and Sea.Show notes include the poem mentioned in this broadcast.You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com , under ...
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    9 m
  • From Hellscape to Angel Wings

    From Hellscape to Angel Wings
    Dec 30 2025
    The title of this essay changed from ‘What the Hell’ to ‘Was I Really a DEI Hire?’—and then reality set in. 2025 was a year of whiplash: pride, disbelief, resistance. But I’m still here, with a new book coming in January, while finishing my thirty-first one. I’m a storyteller. And in 2026, I’m coming in hot. I choose ASCENT.From Hellscape to Angel Wings – 2026, Come Get Me.The title of this podcast essay changed several times before it settled into place. It moved from I’m So Glad We’re Almost Out of 2025 to What the Hell to Was I Really a DEI Hire? I want to talk to the manager—and then, reality and sense came to me.That confusion, the whiplash between pride, dishonor, and disbelief, pretty much sums up my experiences in 2025.Don’t get me wrong—there were extraordinary moments. This podcast and speaking to you weekly is something I enjoy. Speaking in front of a packed ballroom of over 800 people at the Jane Austen Society Conference was breathtaking. Traveling to NY for a girls’ trip and to share the stage with Eloisa James was amazing. Some of these moments I never imagined would happen. When I first began writing Regency-era stories, I encountered resistance from people who insisted diversity in that time period was “fantasy.” As if Black people magically appeared in 1865, to be liberated from talent-sourcing camps by a war between the states. And in 2025, we still love our euphemisms. We’re supposed to forget all the atrocities with no second thoughts about lineage and history.For the record, there are entire civilizations—from African kingdoms to complex global networks—that existed. Beauty and scholarship and faith existed before the transatlantic slave trade and colonization.But we’re encouraged not to think about any of that.When I first said I wanted to write about Black women pirates, I’m pretty sure they thought it would be like the movie Girls’ Trip, just set on the high seas. I don’t think the collective thinking—the industry, the world, the gatekeepers—was prepared for the history I uncovered. I found depth. I chose danger. I decided to make visible a period in the 1600s where women took a stand and chose violence. They fought for what they wanted.And I see the conversations beginning. Folks are judging the women through modern lenses. Unfortunately, women are still critiqued the same way. They are made into third-class citizens for not choosing to have children, for not choosing to be a mammy, for choosing careers, ambition, and self-determination over settling. These are conversations we still need to have.And we will have them—with fire, with sword, and seas of truth.My upcoming novel is a naked exploration of feminine power. It’s leadership forged in chaos. It’s truth standing upright in a collapsing world.Back to Publishing:The landscape for 2025 has been equally surreal. Peers have had books that weren’t available on launch day. Others couldn’t get their advance copies because they were held up by tariffs in Canada. I’ve had porch pirates steal mine. Tracking shipments has become a chase that maybe my Lady Worthing might be able to solve. Who knew that a billion-dollar corporation couldn’t get a handle on UPS? Perhaps this is only affecting a few. Perhaps, it’s only an issue for certain publishers. Perhaps, only certain authors are in limbo. Oh, the DEI of it all.And yet.Here I am, a day or two before the New Year, finishing a WIP, my thirty-first book. Thirty-one. This one will be published in 2027—the fourth Lady Worthing mystery, Murder in St. James’s Park. I don’t think I killed enough people. Severn House will have to tell me. So no matter how chaotic or frustrating the system can be, there’s nothing I would rather do than sit down and write stories.I’m a storyteller.I come from a Southern mother who loved literature and a Caribbean father from who loved—loved—loved—telling stories. Storytelling is not just what I do. It’s what I am.So as I step into 2026, my word—my declaration—is ASCENT.Ascent means growth upward. Earned success. Elevation in status and income. It carries momentum. Inevitability. It is not loud, but it’s unstoppable.My ascent into 2026 will be the manifestation of faithfulness. When you are faithful to your craft, faithful to your words, the seeds you planted return as harvest. The earth becomes gentle because you have cared for it. So no matter how crazy—and I mean crazy—this world becomes, no matter how many disappointments or kicks in the teeth you endure, do not give up.Because if you give up, they win.If you give up, every lie they told gets declared as truth.They don’t care that you’re tired.They never cared that you’re human.They do not care if you’re sane.They will rejoice when you are defeated. That side partied too much in 2025.And I’m sorry. I have my dancing boots on right now. I’m too stubborn to give up. I’ve come too far from where I ...
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    12 m
  • When Records Don’t Exist, Storytellers Do

    When Records Don’t Exist, Storytellers Do
    Dec 23 2025
    I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.But fiction is as essential as the air we breathe.When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.Still a StorytellerRight before I sat down to finish this essay—and to record this podcast—I completed the copy edits on my thirtieth book. Thirty books. Nine with traditional publisher, Kensington Books. I am proud of all the writing I’ve done, but I’m particularly proud of A Deal at Dawn, a novel I’ll be talking about more in 2026. I’m proud of it for a simple, powerful reason: I told a story, a complete story, one with a beginning middle, climax and end.When I was growing up, being called a storyteller didn’t always carry a positive meaning. Sometimes it was a euphemism for someone who told lies. Years ago, I was interviewed on a podcast by a preacher who genuinely could not understand why fiction mattered. He kept circling back to the same question: Why are you writing lies? As if nonfiction were the only form of truth that could be wholesome or valuable.I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.Fiction has the ability to transform, to tell a message or moral, and to leave impact in ways nonfiction or true to life people can often miss. When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.Historical Fiction is important for marginalized groups. We often don’t have cradle-to-grave records of most human lives. Especially before computers, there are gaps—vast ones. The Truman Show, was a 1998 movie where Jim Carrey played a man whose entire life was scripted, recorded, and broadcast on television. I found the concept terrifying. And now, in our real world, where our apps listen to us, ads stalk us, and algorithms search for the precise moment where we are most vulnerable to be persuaded the invasion of our privacy is true.I merely wish that all the people watching and recording… that all this was for our good. Instead it shapes narratives—often not to preserve truth, but to exploit it.When I wrote Fire Sword and Sea, I had to piece together the life of Jacquotte Delahaye using the records of her contemporaries—white Europeans like Anne Dieu-le-Veut and Michel Le Basque. These lives. Anne’s and Michel’s were deemed important by the chroniclers. Their records survived. Jacquotte’s did not. That absence does not mean her life was less meaningful or less extraordinary. It means the people left to tell her story were also label unimportant. They weren’t given the opportunity to record and make sense of history.I am profoundly aware of how fortunate I am to be in a position to tell stories like hers, about bold women who dared to dream and live different lives.In the absence of storytellers, we are surrounded by people presenting lies as nonfiction and weaponizing so-called “truth” to influence the next generation.I call on the storytellers to step up and do their job—those who care deeply about history, those willing to tell the good and the bad and, yes, sometimes the ugly, alongside the beauty—need to come forward and write. And if you can’t write, share the stories that moved you. Talk to friends about the storytelling that matters.I watch the news and see stories about modern- or present-day activities being suppressed. There are times in 2025, where I wonder if storytellers will survive. The number of writers particularly in marginalized communities who’ve been impacted, by layoffs, positions eliminated, and those just so tired that they quit—I wonder about those storytellers in the upcoming years. It seems scary.Don’t believe me, track Publisher Weeklys deal announcements or the sections that announce firings.Traditional publishing is hard, impacted by an unwillingness to support authors or that they don’t want the heat that can come by championing true facts in a world where truth is something people want to shut down. I don’t know what it means to exist in a nation where only certain truths are permitted, while others must be redacted, distorted, or denied. How can anyone claim strength if they shatter at the mere presence of truth, hard ones that you want suppress?There are days I look at the screen, I don’t know what to say.Today, as I finish my thirtieth book—a novel that places sickle cell anemia, an ancient disease, at its center—I find myself asking: What is the truth of a “happily ever after” when forever is not guaranteed?That may sound like heavy material for fiction. But that is exactly what storytellers do, make hard topics understandable and compelling. Storytellers want to sweep readers away from the status quo. Storytellers want to bolster a reader’s courage and humor. Sometimes, storytellers show paths where none seem to exist. Storytellers offer encouragement. And we, storytellers honor and tell the truth. All of it.So...
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    12 m
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