『Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley』のカバーアート

Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

著者： Vanessa Riley
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概要

 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 社会科学
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  • The Vicarious Vicious Keyboard

    The Vicarious Vicious Keyboard
    2026/03/10
    What if I told you the most dangerous weapon most of us carry… isn’t a gun or a knife?It’s a keyboard.Millions of people every day wake up, pick up their phones, and step into a strange theater of human behavior—where cruelty spreads faster than truth, outrage travels farther than kindness, and strangers feel emboldened to destroy someone they’ve never met.And the worst part?For some people… it feels good.That rush. That attention. That viral moment.Today I want to talk about the dark side of something we all do.The Vicarious Vicious KeyboardHuman nature is something I study.It’s one of the tools I use to make my characters feel real—solid… and undeniably human.People aren’t perfect. So my characters aren’t either.Sometimes they want to do something selfish. Something indulgent. Something that brings them no real benefit at all.And that impulse? That foolishness?It speaks to the heart of all our pent-up reckless desires.After all, don’t we love reading about things we’d never do ourselves? Not in the real world.Things we lack the guts—the raw courage—to do?I remember the first time I learned the word vicarious. It was on one of those weekly vocabulary lists in school. You remember when we had homework, and Mom would drill you on the list, while she cooked.Vicarious—adjectiveAccording to the Britannica Dictionary, vicarious means experienced or felt by watching, hearing about, or reading about someone else rather than by doing something yourself.Light bulbs flashed. Thunder rolled.I understood this. My life changed a little. Suddenly I had a word for something I’d always felt but couldn’t name: and the dangerous desires of the human heart had a vehicle.That thrill of experiencing something through someone else.I can be an astronaut. I could be a Duke. I could be a NASA mathematician. I could be a hockey player. I could be a cowgirl riding backwards on a horse. Anything, even a serial killer.But like most things… we in the digital age take things too far.We don’t know when to stop.And the internet—well, the internet makes it easier for us to keep going.Yes, social media and endless scrolling. I’m look at you.Have you ever put up a post and suddenly—miraculously—it get clicks? I’m talking serious clicks.Once I made an IG post about the imagery in the Sinners movie poster; it reminded me of Ernie Barnes and his iconic painting The Sugar Shack—the same painting immortalized on Good Times and on Marvin Gaye’s I Want You album cover.“That swirl of limbs.That sense of joy, rhythm, resistance.The juke joint as sacred space.”Well, that post—that simple observation—went viral in April of 2025.Almost a million views.Over ninety-five thousand likes.And I’ll be honest… it felt good.It had me checking the app again and again like an addict. Refreshing. Watching the numbers climb. For a few moments I even wondered—what could I do to capture that magic again?I liked that rush. If I could do it again, I would. But that’s the magic of viral.A scroll through threads or a dash through Twitter will show you the posts with the most likes are often vile or viscous.Some of the most toxic posts go viral. The same feeling I had checking art comments must be the same for those who post hate or speech about harm.Are people willing to chase the clicks even if it means posting cruelty?Are these fiends, checking their toxic feeds for engagement? Does negative attention spur them to post something even crazier?Is there a craving for attention, so strong that negativity will do.Have we grown so safe behind a a keyboard that we lean in at a greater propensity to bully?Or is it something darker—something more insidious? Does the hurt inside bubble up until it spills out online?Do endorphins kick in when the crowd joins the pile-on.Let’s be honest—every nasty thread post or tweet can’t be a bot.I keep asking myself: what’s in it for someone to be that hurtful? That’s the part of the vicarious journey I don’t get.But I do see the consequences:Actors doing their jobs—playing fictional characters—suddenly have to issue statements condemning racist or homophobic harassment from so-called “fans.”Any given day on Twitter—and honestly, I don’t recommend it—you’ll see people wishing harm on others simply because they didn’t like a character… or because someone attended an award show.This newfound comfort with cruelty makes me wonder if our lives have become so hollow that we now live evil vicarious lives, victimizing others with a keyboard?When I was writing Jacquotte Delahaye (Fire Sword and Sea), I had to wrestle with her darkness.She’d endured terrible things, the cruel deaths of people she loved. Betrayal. Loss.And I had to walk a fine line. I don’t do trauma porn. I believe we write of violence without hurting or triggering readers, if at all possible.For Jacquotte, I wrestled with her resolve to survive and achieve her dreams with her...
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    15 分
  • Shut Up and Write

    Shut Up and Write
    2026/03/03
    Every time the world feels unstable, and an artist dares answer an interview question, we get the same memo: stay in your lane. Entertain. Distract. Don’t dare analyze what’s happening. Don’t name it. Don’t challenge it. Shut up.I’m sorry to inform you—I’m not your minstrel on demand. If you’re big mad about that, go sit in the corner and think about why.Art has always been political. Perhaps your outrage is the real performance. So maybe, you need to quiet and listen.Shut Up and WriteIn February 2018, Fox News host Laura Ingraham responded to comments made by NBA superstar LeBron James with a phrase that ricocheted across the culture: “Shut up and dribble.”She was reacting to an interview James gave alongside Kevin Durant, in which he spoke not only about basketball but about race, leadership, and the lived reality of being a Black man in America. Ingraham dismissed his words as “barely intelligible” and suggested that someone “paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball” should keep his political opinions to himself.But here’s the thing: the minute you ask a Black person about their experience in America, you are no longer asking about “just sports.” You are asking about history. You are asking about citizenship. You are asking about survival. And you are asking for our truth.When you tell him or her or them to shut up and dribble, what you are really saying is:Perform. Entertain. Produce. But do not speak.That phrasing doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It echoes a long American tradition—of Black bodies celebrated for talent but silenced in intellect; commodified for labor but dismissed in leadership; applauded for artistry but censored in analysis. From minstrel stages to modern arenas, the script has too often been the same: dazzle us, but do not disrupt us.And yet, LeBron did not shut up.He went about his business—on and off the court. He used the moment to amplify conversations about injustice, education, and opportunity. He built schools. He funded scholarships. He made sure that his platform included not just athletic excellence but civic voice. When he was told to shrink, he expanded.I guess that is what unsettles people. Not that LeBron dribbles—but that he keeps speaking.So on Threads, Twitter, pretty much all your parasitical streets, I hear authors being told a version of that command:“Just shut up and write.”Don’t talk politics.Don’t analyze power.Don’t interrogate policy.Stick to romance.Stick to fiction.Tell us about dukes and wagers and stolen glances, but do not dare connect the past to the present. In my June release, A Deal at Dawn, some readers are dying to know if the Duke of Torrance survives a chronic illness Black communities still suffer from today, but many more want to hear about the hurt-comfort caregiving in his bathtub or his foot fetish.In Fire Sword and Sea, some want to hear about the hijinks of women cross-dressing as men but forget about the systems of government that oppress them and force them into piracy as their way to survive.And since I’ve been writing to you weekly, I’ve gotten those nasty little emails telling me that I should stick to writing historical fiction and leave politics alone.To those folks, what the heck do you think I have been writing all along?When I describe women rising up in hostile systems, about enslavement and trafficking, about corrupt leaders, white supremacy, about diseases neglected because they ravage Brown bodies—I am writing politics. I’m writing about policy. I am writing about power. Corsets and cravats and crowns never dilute the truth.You cannot celebrate the art and forbid analysis.You cannot applaud the talent and mute the testimony.You cannot consume the culture and silence the creator.The expectation that artists remain apolitical is itself political.It says:We want your labor, LeBron, not your leadership, JasmineYour imagination, Micheal B, not your insight—DelroyYou are for entertainment, forget the lived experiences that got you here.But identity is not something I can toggle off between chapters. When you ask me about my work, you are asking about my worldview. When you ask about my characters, you are asking about justice and injustice as much as you reading for love.And love is power, and it is always political.We are living in times that feel combustible. Many are waking up to realities they once refused to see.They don’t know who to trust. They want words of comfort. But where are you going to get that? You told me to shut up and write.Writers, creators—moments like this, it’s easier to retreat—to binge-watch comfort shows, to lose ourselves in manuscripts, to hide in deadlines and drafts. I, too, would love to stay in my rom-com era. I would love to focus solely on shenanigans and happily-ever-afters. But even I can only binge-watch MythBusters, hockey, and Bridgerton for so long.So no, I cannot just shut up and write.I must write. Writing is my blood ...
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    12 分
  • Fifteen Seconds and a Slur

    Fifteen Seconds and a Slur
    2026/02/24
    For any writer or creator, the edit is your best tool or best weapon. Every paragraph, article, headline, every broadcast, even every post is a choice—what stays in, what gets cut, who gets protected, and who gets exposed are choices. If you have the power to edit, you have the power to do better. Let’s talk about the superpower that comes with great responsibility.Fifteen Seconds and a SlurThe edit is intentional.The greatest tool any author carries is not talent, not inspiration, not even discipline. It is the edit. The edit is where intention meets responsibility. It is where raw creation becomes art.No one—no one—sits down and instantly produces a masterpiece. Manuscripts are not born polished. They are wrestled into being. They are drafted in confusion, in bursts of brilliance, in gaps of missing facts and half-remembered details. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve left myself placeholders—XXX—so I can go back and hunt down what I actually meant: the correct monetary value of a tavern meal in pirate haven Port Royal, the historical cut of a waistcoat or falls of breaches, the name of a street or rue in Hispaniola. It’s never right on the first go.Returning to it on the next pass, the next edit—that’s where the magic happens. The edit is the intentional power to clarify what you meant. The power to fix what you missed. The power to elevate what almost worked into what truly does.I’ve worked with brilliant editors and those who gave me brilliant headaches. I even hire my own. A good editor helps me see what I cannot see. They bring perspective, distance, and rigor. But even then, I choose. I decide what advice to accept, what to reconsider, and what to reshape. Editing is collaboration—but it is also stewardship. Before any manuscript moves to the next level—before submission or publication—it carries the weight of my choices. Another set of eyes will add more to the manuscript. Every perspective reveals something new. That’s how diligent writers reach the best version of a book earthly possible.Writers are not the only ones who wield this magic tool.Video editing is editing. What you choose to upload to your social feeds—what you trim, what you blur, what you cut out—matters. I am more conscious of accidentally revealing mailing addresses in the background of one of my post office runs. Everyone should hide vulnerable information that should not be public, and watch for angles that misrepresent.The edit shapes our experience. On TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Instagram—even if you wander back to Twitter—you should be curating what we see. That curation, that social edit is power.Journalists edit, too. They decide:* Whose names appear?* Which details matter?* Which context is included?* And which bits of info are left out?That is why it unsettles me when journalists act as if they are powerless—when they behave as though they must show everything, or they both-sides-things normalizing crazy, and seem to be okay with pieces that distort or wound.When civil rights leader and Rainbow Coalition founder Jesse Jackson died peacefully at 84 on February 17, 2026, after long battles with Parkinson’s disease, the headline was clear: a giant of the civil rights movement had passed, noting Jackson was:* A key figure in the struggle after Martin Luther King Jr.* A two-time presidential candidate.* A successful hostage negotiator (over 100 returned to the US).* A man whose life reshaped American political possibility.Yet in a brief radio mention—a mere fifteen-second clip to commemorate his death—the spot highlighted not only Jackson’s death but his son’s past troubles. Fifteen seconds. In a moment meant for legacy, painful and tangential details were inserted. That is an edit. That is a choice.Editing is not neutral.The same lesson unfolded at the BAFTA Film Awards. During a broadcast on BBC, Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson shouted a racial slur while actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan stood on stage presenting an award. Both men—accomplished, respected, peers among peers—were subjected to one of the most dehumanizing words in the English language, the N-word. The live moment was shocking enough. But the editing was worse.The slur remained in the BBC broadcast and was replayed worldwide three hours later. The corporation later apologized, saying producers in the truck had not heard it. Meanwhile, other moments—such as calls of “Free Palestine”—were edited out of the rebroadcast. Actor Alan Cumming, hosting the ceremony, initially offered an explanation centered on Tourette syndrome and apologized “if you are offended.” Later reactions grew sharper. Producer Hannah Beachler criticized what she described as a throwaway apology.Editing is a choice.The decision to leave a racial epithet while removing a political statement is not accidental neutrality. It reveals priority. It reveals what is deemed urgent to correct and what is allowed...
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    14 分
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