An essay about Netflix’s adaptation of August Wilson’s famed play and its messages on how systemic oppression informs violence.

George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is, if nothing else, educational. An adaptation of famed playwright August Wilson’s original 1982 play, Wolfe’s film is a dense but swift dance through a story colored by as much fiction as history. Much like its original author, it strives to provide insight into an experience known by only those who resemble its cast.

Born to a White American father and an African American mother, Wilson was influenced by revolutionary Black writers like James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka. …

A small essay about the attempted insurrection yesterday afternoon at the U.S. capitol by domestic terrorists emboldened by a President who should be impeached for his heinous action against the institutions he swore to protect four years ago.

It was yesterday evening, in the echoes of an attempted coup d’état led by the incendiary demands and conspiracies of a former President, that I began to write this. Few scenes of history can compare, moments that have been cleansed by the time passed. The time that has hollowed the emotional context that has deafened the importance of those vignettes. The breach of the U.S. capitol by the British military in 1814. …

A countdown of the 15 different stories from a variety of genres and mediums that made 2020 just that much easier.

2020 was a year colored by a bilateral emotional compass. Most of us were either up or down, rarely living between the lines. We all partook in different methodologies, pathways, and shortcuts to make our way to the other side, but there were still some similarities. For me and others, our time was best spent living elsewhere (for the most part). Journeying to unseen, unreal worlds in which reality dwells outside the forbidden door of imagination, waiting to be let back in when you’ve had your fill. …

An essay about the medium of Professional Wrestling and its ability to teach the basic rules of narrative construction, character creation, and the three-act structure of storytelling.

Professional Wrestling, as long as I can recall, has been dubbed as an entertainment slur. It’s a medium of storytelling that has so often been given the boot by major media outlets or mass pop culture attitudes that it’s hard to imagine it’s near decade-long span of break-room status. At one time, it was one of the major industries in television, a reliable form of over-the-top, hyper-dramatic, and occasionally vexatious programming that eventually gave birth to the culture and craft of reality TV. …

A short story that adapts the Little Red Riding Hood mythos for a new audience with a new character.

There once was a girl who wished to travel across the wood to bring her grandmother sugary delights.

Her fortunes went awry, and a last, her adventure did not arrive at the sweet end she had intended.

Now, in a village clouded by a history of gobbled up princesses, there lives a boy, or a girl, no one’s quite sure.

They enjoy the cutting of wood and love to assist in the more laborious chores. But they also enjoy braiding their hair on a brisk, autumn evening. Crawled between their Sister’s legs, enjoying the kisses of a warm night’s flame, and giggling about village here-say. …

An essay about giving thanks to those MCs who saw our struggle and provided us a moment of bliss, which so happened to lend to the voice of rebellious wordsmiths from the Bronx.

I would not consider myself a melophile, an obscure one-word term to define those who consider themselves enthusiasts or fanatics for the art of music. This can diversify by genre, of course, as few are probably just general aficionados of craft. More probably identify with specific genres, able to rattle off the chords of rock n’ rolls more irreverent characters or the rhythms of pop’s arcane originators. …

An essay about Supernatural and its impressive 15-year longevity and its endearing legacy to fans like me.

It was 1986, when best-selling author and scribe of fantasy and mischief Neil Gaiman received a telephone call from Karen Berger — then editor of his Black Orchard series at Vertigo. She informed Gaiman of her concern with the novelty of both the characters Gaiman and artist Dave McKean were constructing, and the unfamiliarity readers might undergo when reading these comics from then-unknown creators like Gaiman and McKean. …

An essay about the upcoming conflict between an increasingly divided Democratic party pointing fingers for tremendous losses in the house and a potentially Republican-controlled senate — all of whom are dealing with a newly elected Democratic White House.

It was mere hours after the formal projection of former vice-president Joseph R. Biden and his historic running mate’s, former Senator Kamala Harris, electoral college victory that the deep-rooted division sown into the democratic banner began to rear its head once more. …