Lampblack: Lab[our] Issue Launch

Saturday, 4:00 pm EDT - 6:00 pm EDT September 30, 2023

The Center for Fiction

In partnership with the Brooklyn Book Festival, Lampblack invites you to share in the launch of our third volume: Lab[our] at 4pm ET on Saturday, September 30th. There will be live readings from the magazine, featuring t’ai freedom ford, James Stewart, Mali Collins, and jamilah malika abu-bakare. Merchandise and copies of the issue will be available for purchase, along with drinks at The Center for Fiction Café & Bar.

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2023 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT

About the Lab[our] Issue

Together, we’ve witnessed the strike actions of essential workers: writers, actors, nurses, teachers, fulfillment center operators, service providers, and incarcerated people. These same minds, hands, and hearts have created what you now hold, and we ask that you read and reference their work with care. In Volume 3, writers from across the diaspora unite to share what labor means to them. Between the writers you will read here, and the editors who brought them together, we aimed to bring visibility to the untold ways our effort supports a larger, hostile system at work⏤ and how we survive it.

Lampblack’s Lab[our] issue features works by writers Norell Edwards, James Stewart, t’ai freedom ford, Merryl Njimegni , Kenny Caroll, jamilah abu-bakare, Samuel Samba, Mali Collins, Naomi Jackson, and Elías Beltrán.

Lab[our] Cover Design by Adam Brinson (@adamsbadatart) & Cover Art by Naomi Extra (@naomisoextra)

30% of the proceeds from the printing of this issue will be redirected into Lampblack’s Direct Aid Program, and the rest will be used to support the organization’s operations in the future.

To pre-order your copy of Lab[our], please click here.

Featuring

jamilah malika abu-bakare

jamilah malika abu-bakare

jamilah malika abu-bakare is an artist and writer interested in exploring artistic practices that move us towards freedom. Her work has played or shown from Sweden to LA and across Canada including Contemporary Field Gallery (Vancouver, BC) Circuit Gallery (Toronto, ON) and Espace Pop! (Montreal.) Her writing has appeared in Canadian Art magazine, CBC Arts Online, and Active Cultures Digest.

Photo Credit: Reginald Eldgridge
Mali Collins

Mali Collins

Mali Collins is a writer and assistant professor of African American American Studies at American University where she teaches the cultural and political histories of Black Motherhood across the diaspora. She is also an abortion, birth, and postpartum doula working in her home of Baltimore, MD. Her first book will be published by Ohio State University Press in 2025.
t’ai freedom ford

t’ai freedom ford

t’ai freedom ford is the author of two poetry collections, how to get over from Red Hen Press and & more black from Augury Books, winner of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn where she is an editor at No, Dear magazine.
James Stewart III

James Stewart III

James Stewart III is a Black writer from Chicago whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Midwest Review, Zone 3, the Forge, 580 Split, Cleaver, and Another Chicago magazine, among others. He earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA from North Central College. He is also co-founder of the reading series Exhibit B and sits on the board of the Guild Literary Complex.

Photo Credit: Tuan Bui

About Lampblack

Launched in 2020, The Lampblack Literary Foundation is a nonprofit organization created by Black writers to support Black writers. Through direct aid, online and in-person literary programs, and a magazine dedicated to voices from the African diaspora, we aim to expand the reach of Black literature on the page and in the world. Visit lampblacklit.com and follow us on Instagram @lampblack_lit to learn more and get involved.