akwaeke emeziKonto zweryfikowane

I say all the time that shepherding the work into the world is a different beast from writing and finishing it. There are costs in training people how to speak about your work, in making sure it isn’t erased by violent gazes who want you to be something you are not.

I learned this almost immediately with Freshwater, and I continue to learn it with each book. This memoir was especially taxing because the industry does not have the range to center Black spirit, period.

I fought to write this book, I fought to protect it in editing, and I fought to protect it in rollout. I don’t know a world where I get to just…make my work.

From designing this whole tour, making personal asks to the convo partners, to insisting the publishers center Black readers, mandating that I would only talk to Black journalists, sweetheart, all of this was my concept, my labor. All of this was me.

Down to styling myself with @KateBomz for the TIME shoot because we didn’t have a stylist, down to demanding the glam team they said we’d have before changing their minds and saying to do hair and makeup myself, down to sourcing local hair and makeup three days before the shoot.

Because *we* decided to execute a vision that no one asked or expected us to, because we moved by *our* standards, and the result was work that couldn’t be denied. This is how DEAR SENTHURAN exists. We deserve more support and we will give it to each other.

There are countless people making phenomenal work that’s denied all the time because meritocracy is a myth, let’s be clear. But I’m thinking about what it looks like when we turn more and more to ourselves.

This is the first time I’m doing book publicity where the interviews consistently give me energy and don’t leave me drained, because I am centered in Black spirit, unmoving, because I am talking to *us* and us alone.