Just One Thing with Nefertiti Asanti

The author as Baby Bop on Halloween in The Bronx, circa '95

Halloween may have come and gone, but you can still trick-or-treat with Nefertiti Asanti’s October issue flash “lil miss jackson.” Here Nefertiti shares just one thing about the piece:

“lil miss jackson is part of a collection of pieces I am writing that celebrate Black children's agency and triumphs. The title character of this piece is a reimagining of who my mommy might have been as a kid. Aspects of this story was told to me by my mommy and late grandma, but a lot of the content in this piece was made up during a free-write session with my Black writing group in Oakland. In this group I've been attending for the past four or five years, it's been a safe place for me to tell the truth prismatically. There's some truth or real events up in here, but I permitted myself to make things up while doing my best to honor the people's real lived lives being implicated. I decided if I'm going to write about Black people, Black children–people I love–I must tell stories rooted in integrity.”