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This episode features our conversation with Michael D. Whitney, which was live-streamed on November 9, 2025.

Michael D. Whitney is the author of Annetta's Michael: Living Life After Death Changes Everything. He is a new author on a path to share his profound individual and unrefined journey with the world. Michael's passion and deep love for creative writing evolved from an early adolescent age of 11, writing poetry and short stories, not knowing that his captivation by the power of words would one day be told with such vivid detail based on tragedy. Sustaining his own motivation, Michael's goal is to inspire and encourage the positive outlook on various challenges that individuals encounter throughout their lives.

His debut Memoir, Annetta's Michael: Living Life After Death Changes Everything, is a true testimony to survival, faith and the power of resilence. When not writing, Michael, this Louisville, Kentucky native and youngest of seven enjoys fishing, and cooking.

Find Michael on Instagram: @bookbrutha

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Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

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This episode features our conversation with Sherese Francis (poetry.), which was live-streamed on November 2, 2025.

Sherese Francis (she/they) describes themselves as an AlkyMist of the I-Magination, finding expression through poetry, interdisciplinary arts (collage, book and paper arts, sound and performance art, text art), workshop facilitation, editing, and literary curation. Their work takes inspiration from their Afro-Caribbean heritage (Barbados and Dominica), and studies in Afrofuturism and Black Speculative Arts, mythology and etymology. Some of their work has been published in Women’s Studies Quarterly, Furious Flower, Obsidian, Rootwork Journal, The Caribbean Writer, The Operating System, Cosmonauts Avenue, No Dear, Apex Magazine, Bone Bouquet, African Voices, Newtown Literary, and Free Verse.

Sherese has received grants and awards from Queens Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and The Caribbean Writer, residencies from WorksonWater, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Akademie Schloss Solitude, SeaSalted Honey in Senegal, Oroko Radio, and Powerhouse, and fellowships from Voodoonauts, Baldwin for the Arts and Anaphora Arts.

Additionally, Sherese has published four chapbooks, Lucy’s Bone Scrolls (Three Legged Elephant, 2017), Variations on Sett/ling Seed/ling (Harlequin Creature, 2018), Recycling a Why That Rules Over My Sacred Sight (DoubleCross Press, 2021) and Lady Liberty Smashing Stones (THRASH Press, 2022), and edited a poetry anthology/guided journal, Baby Suggs and a Purple Butterfly (Get Fresh Books, 2024). Sherese won Inverted Syntax’s 2024 Aggrey Book Prize for Poetry for PollyNation: A Seminary of Self, which will be published in 2027.

Find Sherese Francis online: https://futuristicallyancient.com/about-me/

Find Sherese Francis on Instagram: @afutureancient

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Support Black Writers Read on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/blackwritersread

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This episode features our conversation with Naomi Rivers.

Naomi Rivers writes lesbian romance and women’s fiction. Naomi Rivers is a wife writing team who believes in romance, fairy tales, and happily ever after. Their first novel, THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story, was written over twenty years to maintain their connection during multiple deployments. They are both retired U.S. military veterans and reside with their two rescue dogs on the east coast. Naomi’s work has appeared in I Heart SapphFic’s anthology Favorite Scenes from Favorite Authors and From a Black Perspective: The Homeland. Their second book, Why Not Us? was released on November 11. 2025.

Learn more about their work: https://www.naomiriversbooks.com/

Purchase THIS: A Simple, Complex Love Story: https://bookshop.org/a/114101/9798987329702

Purchase Why Not Us?: https://bookshop.org/a/114101/9798987329733

Find Naomi Rivers on Instagram: @naomiriversbooks

Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread

Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/

Support Black Writers Read on Patreon

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