When I was
Called from
Eternity–
I was
Baptized by water
Then, fire.
-JBHarris, July 2022
Tag: writing
And It Starts…
Oh my!
Family, I must tell you that I know I have to catch things up. Bare with me while I do! There are pieces I scheduled and didn’t complete, poetry I have to post, and things I have to do for sanity and business sake.
The inundating of posted work and think pieces is coming.
Trust me…it’s coming.
NEW WORK-50 DAYS OF NIGHT (Coming soon!)
I know we are about 4 months from Halloween, but as the benevolent being I am, I wanted to announce this work soon to come starting September 12, 2022!
As a horror fan who desires more representation of the melaninated, this project will be a set of 50 short stories—one story per night for 50 nights. The 50th night ending on Halloween—as my writer girlfriend Tonia says is Goth Christmas.
For this project there will be vampires, Reapers, werewolves, witches and all matter of other mischief of my own making.
I will give you this teaser—you will need to follow every night, otherwise you will be lost! Remember, I wanted you.
I am excited to bring this work to you, I am so proud of it, and I believe you all will love it too!
The Burden Of The Pen: “Here Is What I Have To Say…”
You are a writer, so write. I will never tire of saying this. What I will leave you with as this series closes is just that—write. Be willing to stand on what you believe in, what you know, what you want to know more about—and … Continue reading The Burden Of The Pen: “Here Is What I Have To Say…”
The Burden Of The Pen: “I Don’t Know What to Say…”
Writers are people. We have emotions, thoughts, biases, hangups and issues. Sometimes the hardest thing—especially now!—as the world is spinning towards the sun that we don’t know what to say. Or what to write. Being known as a writer (especially in the social media age) … Continue reading The Burden Of The Pen: “I Don’t Know What to Say…”
WEAR RED
May 5th is MMIW Day. I am not a Native/Indigenous woman, but I support Native/Indigenous women. This piece is dedicated to Native/Indigenous women who survive, who thrive, and whom we are all looking to bring home. -JBH
If oppression
had a color
it would be red–
to tell you when
to stop,
how to be,
to tell
you where you
cannot go–
to erase you.
By making you
unapproachable.
There are women
whom are
my mirror on
this land that
was both stolen
from them and
was chained to me.
I look for them.
Remember them
because their face
is my face!
Being seen and unseen.
I will wear read
to be seen!
I will wear red to look.
I wear red to
remind myself
that they, too,
are my sisters.
I will never forget.
Neither will I
abandon them.
I will always wear red.
-JBHarris, May 2022
30-DAY WRITING CHALLENGE (2022)- DAY 2
When I think of my earliest memory, I think of my father.
When I was about three, my father would take me to my grandmother’s house while he worked and my mom went to work. He had a habit of picking me up, and carrying me to the door. In these earliest memories, I am in the cute purple coat, and nested into his shoulder.
Comfy and safe.
For this particular memory, I remember how brown the bricks on my grandmother’s house were. How deliberate his steps were. How precious I was to him, even as a three-year-old daughter. It is this since of safety that I have sought since I have started dating. If there is a man that could make me feel safer than him, that was my queue that he was someone I could be serious about.
The thing which is resonates the most to be about this memory is the sound–the sound of my father’s feet. The sound of the gate shutting behind him. His feel on the brick walk way. And how he held me, all precious and as if I was all there could ever be in the world.
And it is a reminder that whenever I miss my father, he is still there.
30-DAY WRITING CHALLENGE (2022): DAY 1
As great as social media is it is incredibly problematic! Don’t get me wrong, one of reasons that some of you even know who I am is because of social media (with that follow me on IG/Twitter (@authorjbharris) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/thephoenixalsorises))! Yet, these are the 5 things that I see are problematic on this invention known as social media:
1.) Illusions become reality. In the social media reality that can be sculpted with filters and hashtags, it is easy to think less of your life and more of someone else’s. It is becoming harder and harder to figure out what is real and what isn’t!
2.) Knee-jerk friendship ending. Social media has made ending friendships way too easy; manipulating communication and weaponizing language in such a way that friendships which took years to make, can be ended with keystrokes. That is disturbing to me.
3.) Cowardice is viral! Social media has made it way too easy to create a sock puppet account and accost other people rather than saying what you need to say, or want to say, feel bold enough to say without any ramifications.
4.) The oversharing! Social media is not the place for your heart to bleed, or all to blow up in your face. The dark urges of humanity feed on suffering.
5.) Apps make us selfish. Social media is addictive because it allows us to focus just on us…for as long as we want. This is to the detriment of all things around us which need our attention! Being that focused on us, just us, will have us develop a type of narcissism that thrives on just we want–and life doesn’t work or accommodate to just us!
As great as social media is, remember that the world outside your phone still exists.
The Miles Matter: Overview
This overview will include spoilers. But by the time you are reading this, Spider-Man: No Way Home should be streaming. -JBHarris
I am a writer. I am a Black woman. I am a writer. I am a blerd.
With that said, I am also dedicated Spider-Man fan. Thanks to my cousin Jason, I will always be. I mean, I was engaged in a torrid saga with a man whom I nicknamed Peter Parker, and I was MJ!
But enough of that.
What I want to talk about this month is representation. I want to talk about Miles Morales, and why the MCU keeps playing in the face of the Black fandom about him! The last straw was Jaime Foxx saying to Andrew’s Spidey (after he unmasked), that he thought he was Black. Moreover, he said, “There must be a Black Spider-man somewhere then.”
I took my daughters to see this particular Spidey installment Opening Night in the States: December 17, 2022. What follows for the next 4 weeks is going to be my options, my reflections, my feelings about why Miles is crucial to the MCU cannon, and why confining Miles Morales to comics, animation and video games is not good enough.
So, I have one question: Where is Miles Morales?
In The End, It All Still Matters
I decided to believe in myself, and this series enough to make this a book of essays. Look for this book of the same name in May 2022. -JBH
I am a lover and a fighter. I am a silk hand in an iron glove. I am the same woman that can house love and fury, which do sometimes intersect in my linguistic acrobatics.
For that reason, I won’t give up on love. That emotion is too powerful to abandon, and love to great a reward to forsake. Yet, there are still so many things in the world that need to be changed, realized, and can be, will only be changed through love.
I am learning that love is three fold: power, acknowledgement and resolve. Love is never something weak, to be looked at as if it were something weak. Yet, even as it relates to writing, this is still a work of love. A record that someone in the world saw, lived, and left a record of someone whom strived to do better. To love a little better, a little wider, and to protect a little more. But, by heart–and I feel much like the Apostle Paul this way! The desire in me to change the world is so great, and also there are days where I want to leave the world to burn by the timber and fuel of its on ignorance! But I am reminded of my own heart, that ability to love, right?
In that own inner wisdom, I have said, “We fight, because we cannot afford to die.” This, too, is love.
I Breathe Fire 