I launched folklore & literacy – the blog site -in November of 2014. The original idea was to stage an online portfolio of my writing. It was a self-hosted site, a passion project in which I wrote pieces about literacy, and personal folklore inspired by books, writers, and art. The experience was fantastic and brought me into a community of bloggers that included Didi of Brown Girl Reading, Darkowaa of African Book Addict!, Kathy of K. E. Garland, Vanessa of Food in Books, Mek of Work in Progress, Nadine Tomlinson, and more. I was the sole writer, editor, and proofreader of the content on my site, and the “comments” section was often super engaged and always civil.
The idea for the Black Men Reading Series was hatched the summer of 2018 when I became curious about Reginald Bailey, one of very few black men who consistently posted bookish content on instagram. Between June of 2018 and February of 2019, six black men whom I’d never met agreed to allow me to interview them via email and post our “conversations” to folklore & literacy. But 2019 was a personally challenging year for me and in late fall of that year I allowed the site to disappear from the internet.
I have decided to re-launch the site and re-publish the Black Men Reading Series interviews. Stay tuned!