Bits and Bobs: WaPo Column Recaps and Rihanna-Inspired Writing.

April 2, 2015

Bits and Bobs: WaPo Column Recaps and Rihanna-Inspired Writing.

Yesterday marked the publication of my third column at WaPo’s Act Four (if you missed the news, I’m a weekly contributor there now. Seriously. Pinch me.). I wrote about Trevor Noah, who I knew nothing about until it was announced Monday that he’ll be the new host of The Daily Show. My second piece was about Mo’ne Davis. The first was about the transition of an amazing multicultural bookstore inside 14th and V’s Busboys and Poets location in DC to a Politics and Prose satellite store. I love Politics and Prose, but it’s pretty white by comparison. For context, 85% of the children’s books at the old store, Teaching for Change, were either by or about children of color, which is unprecedented. The rest of the stock was similarly targeted toward readers of color and it was a rush walking in there, every single time. It’ll be missed.

I also wrote about Rihanna, ’90s black pop princesses, middle-school bullying, and my long learning curve for self-advocacy yesterday, over at Medium. If you read that one and dig it, please share it. It could use a bit of a push.

I’m considering starting a weekly newsletter for writing links and announcements like these and for letting y’all know what I’m reading on- and offline (right now, I’m knee-deep in James Hannaham’s Delicious Foods, Tracy K. Smith’s memoir Ordinary Light, a re-read of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, this interview with Kiese Laymon, and hopefully, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, which I’ve borrowed as a non-renewable digital copy from my local library. It’s due back in about 11 days and I’m not sure I’ll get to it before they gank it back).

If that kind of Tinyletter deal is something that interests you, something you’d sign-up to have emailed to you on a weekly basis, leave me a comment letting me know. I’d like to gauge interest before I start anything else.

Also, apropos of nothing, two days ago on YouTube, I found this long lost unreleased Dilla beat I rocked for months after he passed away back in 2006. It still goes. Y’all should give it a spin today:

Appearances and Publications, Current Events, Pop Culture, Race

Aaliyah, brandy, bullying, Comedy Central, Monica, Rihanna, The Daily Show, Trevor Noah

Posted by:

slb

slb is a writer and professor in Baltimore, MD.

10 responses to “Bits and Bobs: WaPo Column Recaps and Rihanna-Inspired Writing.”

andreakbeltran

April 3, 2015 at 10:28 am

Congratulations on your WaPo news! And I’d love a tiny letter.

Reply
1. slb
  
  April 7, 2015 at 2:03 pm
  
  Thank you! And noted!
  
  Reply
Olutimehin Adegbeye

April 5, 2015 at 5:48 am

Yes please @tinyletter!

Reply
1. slb
  
  April 7, 2015 at 2:03 pm
  
  Thanks for weighing in!
  
  Reply
beautynobility

April 7, 2015 at 6:28 pm

Most definitely for the tiny letter!

Reply
1. slb
  
  April 7, 2015 at 6:29 pm
  
  Thanks for weighing in!
  
  Reply
Danielle. (@dascruggs)

April 10, 2015 at 6:50 am

I’d be interested!

Reply
1. slb
  
  April 11, 2015 at 5:11 pm
  
  Thank you for weighing in!
  
  Reply
rumimonger

April 15, 2015 at 10:06 am

yes please to a Tinyletter from you! I just picked up a Tinyletter subscription to someone else and it is a great platform. please add lisa@coolerminds.com

Reply
virgobeauty

May 21, 2015 at 12:31 am

But of course 🙂 a weekly newsletter, Bring it on.! Looking forward to it.

Reply

about stacia

Stacia L. Brown was born in Lansing, MI at the very end of the 1970s. She grew up in Baltimore, MD–the county, not the city. She graduated from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in DC with a BA in English and worked a few office gigs, while trying to jump-start her writing career, before moving to New York for grad school.

At 27, she finished an MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. She spent the next six and a half years working as an adjunct writing professor first in Michigan at Grand Valley State, Kuyper College and Grand Rapids Community College, then in Maryland at The Community College of Baltimore County and, for one dazzling semester, at MICA, while also working as a freelance writer for various publications, including The Washington Post, where she currently serves as a weekly contributor, New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and others.

In 2010, she became a mother.

For a semi-complete list of Stacia’s online publications, visit her bylines page.

Her short story, “Be Longing,” was selected for publication in It’s All Love: Black Writers on Soul Mates, Family, and Friends (Doubleday/Harlem Moon 2009), edited by Marita Golden. Her poem, “Combat,” appears in Reverie: Midwest African American Literature. Her essay on adjuncting as a single mother appears in the Demeter Press title, Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy, edited by Sekile Nzinga-Johnson.

Stacia served as the 2013-14 Editorial Fellow for Community Engagement at Colorlines. In June 2015, she was part of the inaugural Thread at Yale class. She was a 2015 participant in Women’s Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices training program. She was a 2019 Tin House Scholar and a participant in the Cambridge Writers Workshop in Paris, also in 2019.

In addition to her work in print, Stacia is also an accomplished audio storyteller. In November 2015, Stacia became the creator and producer of Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City, a radio and podcast series that tells intergenerational stories of place and memory in Baltimore City. Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City is part of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)’s 2015 Finding America: Localore project and is produced in partnership with WEAA 88.9.

She is the creator of Hope Chest, a collection of audio essays written to her daughter and present in podcast form at SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts. Hope Chest has been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts and the Third Coast International Audio Festival podcast, Re:Sound. It was named one of Audible Feast’s Best New Podcasts of 2017. She also created and produces a micro-podcast for middle-grade book reviews, which her daughter narrates and hosts. It’s called Story on Stories.

In 2018, Stacia landed a gig at WAMU, as a producer of the NPR-syndicated daily news program, 1A. In 2020, she relocated from Maryland to North Carolina, where she produced radio and podcasts (including the incomparable Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon) for WUNC, North Carolina’s NPR station before moving onto other sonic endeavors. In 2022, she served as an advice columnist for Slate’s weekly parenting advice column, Care and Feeding.

Stacia resides in Durham with her amazing daughter Story.

Stacia L. Brown