A Re-introduction & Post Election Hugs
A debut author defining and re-defining herself in our new political moment.
Hello! 👋🏾
I want do a quick disclaimer that I’ve my migrated my email list to a new platform, Substack. That is where you’ll find my newsletter to comment, share, and like *and* it’ll still come straight to your inbox. If you prefer not to receive this newsletter you can always click the link to unsubscribe at the bottom of this post.
My name is Freda, I'm an artist, writer, and consultant. With my consulting work, I often fill roles such as researcher, facilitator, strategist, program designer, project manager, and writing coach. My debut memoir, The Gloomy Girl Variety Show, comes out with Feminist Press on January 14! You can pre-order a signed copy from my favorite indie bookstore here.
You should support indie presses and bookstores because you believe in everyday people being able to create things and get an audience for their work. And because writing is labor. Don't you?
Since we’re all still thinking about it, some thoughts on the election that isn’t a “hot take.”
Friends, it has been a wild past few days. I will not lie to you guys that I have been despondent since Nov 6. I'm not here to tell you that now is the time to "get to work," because that feels hollow. I felt oddly betrayed (weird) by America (absurd, right!) for what will now (it's always been but sue me for having hope) be a deathly time for Black, queer, disabled, and immigrant folks not just for the next 4 years but for a very long time. I don't have platitudes for you because I don't have them for myself.
Recently I started reading @the.afromantic's How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind and it is a beautiful book that I hope you pick up. In it he talks about radical compassion:
“[To] ethically walk and sit and fight and build alongside another whose condition may be utterly unlike your own... to impart care, exchange feeling, transmit understanding, embolden vulnerability, and fortify solidarity... it persists even and especially towards beings who are the objects of contempt and condemnation...it extends especially to those who discomfit one's own sense of propriety."
I think that's what has made me doomscroll searching for a sense of control these past few days, some indication that radical compassion had won. And sadly on a large scale, it did not and never does. But I hope we can practice it with each other so this world does not annihilate our spirit. 🖤
Why is this important?
Because my parents are working-class Nigerian immigrants and I am a first-generation college graduate who has had mental and chronic health struggles throughout my whole educational and professional experiences. Because we are under a political climate with sensational disinformation about immigrants eating your cats and dogs, immigration mental health has a long way to go, and the experience of being Black and immigrant in America is under-discussed.
Why talk about identity and publishing?
Throughout American history, Black people are the only group of people to have been forbidden by law to learn to read. What stories did we miss out on by the various ways Black people were not allowed to engage with literature? In a systematic disenfranchisement sort of way.
If you’re curious, you can read more about the realities of being a writer in the
What topics will I write about here?
I currently write about Black women's mental health, chronic illness and disability, Black feminist thought, being a child of Nigerian immigrants, and contemporary Black & Diasporic art & literature. And I'm excited for that work to grow, change, and transform and I'm permitting myself to follow my curiosities. I'm currently working on a new project, I Dream of Labor: Disabled in a Productive World, about the politics of Black, immigrant, and disabled burnout recovery and forming digital intimacy through representation in parasocial relationships.
Before you go...
Please share how you are doing and if you saw any kinship with my experience or just want to say hi!
Also, I want this space to be mutually beneficial and I’d love it if you could answer this poll.
In Gloomy Girl news
Brittle Paper, Freda Epum’s Forthcoming Memoir Explores Living with Disability in America
Movers & Makers, SW Ohio artists, organizations receive thousands in state funding
A writer friend suggested I make a playlist and I’m pretty into it
Thank you for reading my first newsletter on this platform! Zoya says hi!
Fantastic newsletter Freda, and congratulations on the forthcoming memoir. So excited to see you share more of your stories, essays, and literary/artistic explorations.
i would vote for all of the options but i could only choose one!!!