Desire Lives Within with T Clark

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast, and the author of the novel The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations, and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree was published January 27th, 2026, and is available everywhere books are sold.

[00:00:28] So if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. I'm trying to think about dreams when you have to think about getting your basic needs met, you know? It used to feel kind of like torturous to desire, and now it's like an opportunity for something nice to happen. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, and this is Black & Published.

[00:00:57] Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is T. Clark. Author of the short story collection, All This Want and I Can't Get None. The collection is made up of 12 stories that follow young girls and queer teens as they come of age in the small towns or big cities in the Northeast. And how their simple desires make them vulnerable prey to predators eager to take advantage.

[00:01:26] It was like, oh, Epstein. Oh, Diddy. Oh, you know, it's just like all of these people with these really harmful practices. And I think R. Kelly was like the seed for me. But the seed is like such a bigger truth about men in power and like taking advantage of people who are desperate in some ways and also just like hungry and hardworking. You know, it's like a lot of times the more you want or like the harder you want something, the more vulnerable you are.

[00:01:54] T. Clark, who is a native New Yorker, has been working on some of these stories for the last 20 years. In our conversation, they discuss the importance of epiphany and revelation in the creation of a story. Plus, the banality of rejection and why they credit so much of their success to good old ingenious luck. And in pinning a collection about desire, how T's desires have changed as their basic needs have been met.

[00:02:24] That and more is next when Black & Published continues. T, first question. When did you know that you were a writer? I've always been writing. You know, I was the kind of kid that wrote little books and stapled white pages together. But in college and grad school is when I really started taking it seriously. So in terms of like professional writer, I would say late college is what I knew that's what I wanted to do.

[00:02:54] But in my heart forever. So late college and did you get an MFA after undergrad? I had a year and a half off. All right. But when you did go into the program, were you the stories and what you were working on? Did it become this collection all this more and I can't get none? It did. Yeah. A lot of these stories were in my thesis from grad school and they've been like changed and edited since then. But the bulk of them were written at that time for sure. So you've been like on this, it seems to me this clean trajectory. Yeah.

[00:03:22] So in writing, no divots, no pivots. No, I mean, well, I lived in L.A. for a year in between. I mean, I got really lucky after grad school. I got a nice fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center. And then after that, I was just like thrown into the world. So I ended up working for Skechers Corporate in Manhattan Beach, California, which was definitely a detour and not something that I wanted to do or wanted to do after the fact. But even then I was like writing with the intention of getting back into that trajectory.

[00:03:52] But yeah, a couple of little sidesteps here and there. A few sidesteps, but no real detours. So how does it feel then to you to like have been so self-assured from the time that you were a child to take it seriously in college, you know, do your grad program, begin working on these stories to now have your book out in the world? It feels great. It sort of just feels like I just did the next right thing every chance I got.

[00:04:16] So that like clear thinking plus luck, I think really just set me up to have things go well. Feels great. Feels like now I just have to write another book. And is is short stories like your first form? Are you tinkering with a novel or anything like that? Yes, both. Short stories are my first form and I'm working on a novel. And I mean, probably poetry was actually what was very first. But that was like when I was much younger.

[00:04:44] And then short stories in college, grad school, etc. So talk to me about the collection about, you know, what was on your mind? And what were you thinking about when you were formulating these stories in grad school that then became the collection that we have today? Yeah, I was thinking about people that I knew, people that are from where I'm from, people who I felt like I was living in a world where nobody around me had the same stories that I did.

[00:05:11] Like, once I moved away from New Jersey and into Indiana, where I went to grad school, I feel like there was a big culture shock in terms of how people grew up, what kind of access they had, what kind of privileges they had. And so, aside from telling the stories that I feel like I needed to tell for my own well-being, I also wanted to tell stories of people that the people that I knew probably didn't know. What do you mean telling stories for your own well-being? What does that mean?

[00:05:39] Yeah, so writing when it's not, or even when it is, it's like very therapeutic for me. I think that this collection has helped me process a lot of the things that I witnessed and felt and heard about when I was growing up. And so, even if this never became a book that other people could read, these stories would have made their way to a page somehow. Just because, like, I had to get them out. I had to work them out. I had to make sense of what didn't make sense for a long time.

[00:06:07] Mm-hmm. What I noticed in the collection is that it's about desire. Mm-hmm. And desire for numerous things. Sometimes it's desire for friendship. Sometimes it's desire for love, for sex, for relationship with your family members. All of these different things about access and privilege, desires for those things as well. Right. Was that something that you felt you had not seen in a story collection that centered younger people? Yeah.

[00:06:36] Probably as a protagonist? I would say so. Not until much later in my reading career. But besides maybe, like, Jacqueline Woodson, I struggled to think about young Black characters exercising agency and, like, wrestling with what was for them, isn't for them, what they wanted. Yeah, it doesn't really sound like something I'd experienced much in my youth, at least.

[00:06:58] So then in exploring that topic, was that something that you were also exploring in life as well, since you talk about how writing this collection was very therapeutic and cathartic at times? I would say so. Yeah. I think, like, in terms of desire, when you don't have a lot of your basic needs easily and unthinkably met, it's really hard to want things besides, like, a nice place to sleep, a nice meal, like, basic love and nurturing, you know?

[00:07:27] And so it was an active realization that characters and myself as a person had desires that were just kind of, like, unearthed or unnameable or, like, messy or challenging, you know? There's, like, there's less time to think about dreams when you have to think about getting your basic needs met, you know? And yet it seems that you have dreamed the life that you wanted. Mm. Yes. Me, personally, yes, always. I think I'm, like, no.

[00:07:57] So even, I mean, we grew up how we grew up, but my mom is, I would call her, like, a chronic optimist. Mm-hmm. Like, she cannot actually see danger or is, like, fearless in the way that she approaches things. And so I have some of that in me where, like, I'm very convinced that whatever I need is going to come to me, whatever I want is going to happen, and I'm just going to, like, blindly believe that until proven wrong. So, yeah.

[00:08:23] I was able to sort of dream this life, but also really made a good effort at taking the next right step, putting myself in the right rooms and the right positions and situations. So then let's talk about your publishing journey. Talk about putting yourself in the right rooms and dreaming up this life. What did it look like for you coming out of, you know, grad school, trying to get an agent, getting a deal to publish this collection? Yeah, again, like, pretty lucky. I published the second story in this book, Nutcracker.

[00:08:51] I published it in American Short Fiction when I was, I guess, like a sophomore. And that was the first story where people started reaching out to me. And so I had a couple agents who were interested in my work reach out to me directly. And they were all mostly like, when you have a novel, hit me up. When you have a novel, let me know. And then there were a couple who were into short stories enough that they sort of were willing to go with that. And so the agent that I ended up with was one who reached out to me over LinkedIn, actually, quite randomly.

[00:09:22] Your agent, your now agent, reached out to you over LinkedIn? That's right. That's right. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And she had, I mean, she did her work. She had read a lot of the stories and was able to find them and all. But yeah, LinkedIn. So then once your collection got with your agent and you all signed together, what did she say about the collection? Did she have you add? Did she have you revise? What was the process? I mean, I signed with her, I think, in like 2017 or 18. Wow. And now the book is out. So it was definitely a journey.

[00:09:52] The collection was, I think there was a shape to it, but it wasn't done. It was always clear with everyone I talked to that I needed maybe two more stories, probably more stories about adults. And so I was working on those in the time being. And yeah, then years later, it was ready. Yeah, I was about to say, like you said you signed with your agent 2017, 2018. And it's almost nine years later that the collection is out. Yeah. Yeah. I guess when you put it that way.

[00:10:22] What took so long? You know, I was busy. You know, I'm not exactly sure. I think like I am in some ways I'm kind of a slow writer. So some of these stories came out of me very quickly and very easily. And then some of them I started working on in maybe like 2010 and still have not finished or hadn't finished until now. And so in the meantime of trying to finish this book, I was also trying to survive. So I was working.

[00:10:49] I moved to New Orleans, which really changed my priorities a lot. But before I was in New Orleans, I felt so much pressure about putting out a book. And then when I got to New Orleans, I found other ways to be happy and live. So the pressure was just less. And so I didn't rush it. And lucky for me, my agent was always like, it takes the time it takes. It takes. She was never rushing me. So I really just kind of took my time. And this is the story because I'm like, you know, it sounds like clean ascension.

[00:11:16] But then you talk about, you know, you started publishing sophomore year of grad school and it's been 10 years that before the book has come out. OK, there we go. And I mean, the oldest story in this book, Nutcracker, that one, I wrote the very first draft of it in 2005. So, I mean, it's it's recognizable. There's still some similarities, but it's very, very different. And still, like, I have been working at some of these stories for 20 years.

[00:11:41] What is it about tinkering with a story until it's right that excites you to keep going back to it over all those iterations and revisions and versions? I think that kind of goes back to, like, faith and unwavering belief, too. Like, I know if I work hard enough on a story and if I mess with it enough, I'll get it right. Or I'll get it as close to right as it needs to be before someone else needs to step in and help me see myself.

[00:12:10] But I enjoy the tinkering. I enjoy figuring out what the story is and the puzzle of it. So that's a part of the process that I don't mind. What are the ingredients, in your opinion, to a good story or to a good T. Clark story? Sure. I think definitely characters who are introspective or not. You know, so either, like, they spend a lot of time thinking about themselves or their lack of thinking about themselves kind of makes the story.

[00:12:39] Like, the narrator and the writer are kind of working together to think about the character. And definitely some change, something that makes a character different. I think I kind of do fall back on the idea of epiphany. You know, like, if a character can learn something or get some, like, bright idea, to me, that's enough to make a story. Revelation, if you will. And so once you signed with your agent, was it, well, we know it wasn't immediate.

[00:13:08] But once you went on submission in the collection that you all thought that you all had brought it as to where it could be, what was that process like for you? Yeah, it moved pretty quickly, actually. We sent it to maybe, like, 20-something different editors and a lot of very kind rejections until pretty much the last minute. And then, like, the last two, the two Black women on our list were interested. And then that's who we went with.

[00:13:36] So, yeah, even though that was a longer process, I still feel lucky in how it ended up. You know, I think it was, like, definitely the right fit with the right editor in the right house. You've used the word luck a lot in this interview. Yeah. And I'm not saying that that is not part of the process for writing. During my very first season, the author, Dante Almoniz, who had her short story collection, Milk Blood, he talked about, like, you know, publishing is about luck, timing, and opportunity. Totally.

[00:14:05] What does luck mean to you in the context of your writing and publishing journey? When you have admitted that you've been working on some of these stories for almost 20 years? Yeah. I don't mean luck to discount the hard work or the talent. I just mean that, like, in a given slush pile, you might have a handful of stories that are brilliant, genius, wonderful. But you just, like, haven't had your sip of coffee in the moment that you read them so it doesn't hit and you move on.

[00:14:34] You know, I think, like, rejection is so common. We all experience it. I experience it. And so any time that I can make it past that stage feels kind of lucky, no matter how good the work is. You know, just because it's like, yeah, I think that, like, the best stuff does tend to make its way to the top. But it's also a crapshoot at the end of the day, you know. Very much so. Yeah. So then once you were with your editor at One World, what was the process like? Did you have any notes for revision? Oh, yeah.

[00:15:06] And I don't mean that to say, like, yeah, there were so many. She, Nicole is my editor. She thought the collection was pretty clean. But then I think there were some bigger questions about endings and about characters and just making sense of things. So definitely, like, a full read-through notes, conversations. It felt very collaborative, more than, like, a to-do list or, like, someone telling me what to do. Mm. I like that. Were there any notes that you pushed back on?

[00:15:35] Yeah, definitely. There, I think it mostly lands in vocabulary and, like, the vernacular of characters. You know, like, this is a book that takes place in a very specific place. And so some of the, I remember in this one story, I was talking about the men in their coats. And I used the word snorkel. You know, you know about the Northeast? Like, we used to call North Face Jackets snorkels. Okay. And everyone who read it is like, what is a snorkel? And so, like, I think I ended up taking it out just for clarity.

[00:16:04] But moments like that, those are ones that I would push back on. Yeah. And, like, some dialogue things that just feel so correct to me that I wouldn't change. It's very much a Northeast story. Very much a city urban Northeast story. I feel like it's 80s, too. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like, that's the time period that it felt to me. Like, it felt 80s to me. Maybe 90s, but it definitely didn't feel like 2000s like now. Yeah, right. Right.

[00:16:32] I think 90s, yeah, between, like, 90 and 2010, I think is the stretch. Okay. So, I like that. All right, well then, can you read something from All This Want and I Can't Get None? Sure. Sure. All This Want and I Can't Get None is the debut short story collection from T. Clark.

[00:16:52] In 12 Stories, T unpacks what it's like to grow up girl, queer, non-binary, or same-gender loving in the Northeast at a time when predators were praised, the kids played hide and go get it, and consent was passed off as a platitude instead of as an invitation about who does and does not have access and privilege to our company, let alone our bodies. Here's T.

[00:17:18] I'm tempted to read from Nutcracker, just because I've mentioned it a couple times in this interview. Go for it. A few of the footwear guys at Modell Sporting Goods played this game where they'd hide behind the stockroom door, and when a cool cashier from the front swung it open, one would grab her by the arms, another by the legs, and they'd carry her over to a stack of cardboard boxes near the trash compactor and drop her there.

[00:17:41] Then they'd get on top of her, between her legs, by her face, and take turns dry-humping and grunting, you mind, girl, give me that pussy, girl. No, the girl would scream and laugh. Please, you're hurting me. She'd writhe her body beneath them and pretend to struggle under their weight.

[00:17:56] It lasted only a few seconds, and after they'd free her, she'd rush to grab a roll of receipt paper for the registers or swipe a Yankees T-shirt for her little brother, whatever she really went back there for, and hurry to her spot in the front, a little disheveled, a little honored. They got me, she'd warn the other girls, watch out. The other girls would laugh and lean in to hear the details, their elbows propped up on the counter. One might pretend to be scared, say, no way, I'm going back there.

[00:18:23] But every girl went back there because she had to and because she wanted to. Thank you. Sure. So I remember I started this collection, and I wanted it just because of the title. So let's start there. Where did this title come from? All is want, and I can't get none because I'm like, oh, that's super spicy. Yeah. So it comes from, logistically, it comes from the title story in the collection. The character is at a Walgreens, and she's hungry. I think it's CVS. She's hungry.

[00:18:50] She's looking at the snacks, and she wants them all, but she doesn't have any money, so she can't have any of them. And so then just like it kind of just makes sense to me in the collection that is primarily about desire and about like reaching for things, not necessarily getting them. Maybe you don't want them, you know? And then in hindsight, the can't get none sort of double negative there became really interesting to me because they do get some, you know?

[00:19:20] Can't get none. It's like, yeah, I can't have any, but also like I can't not have any, you know? It kind of plays on both of those. But all this want, so much want. There's so much want in this book, and I relate to that. Okay. So I remember, and I think I posted this on threads, I read the first two stories, and I'm like, what am I reading? I was like, and I meant that in the best way.

[00:19:46] I was like, I don't know what we're doing, where we're going, what I'm reading, but I am sat. Like, should I be worried? Should I be concerned? No, but for real, because at some point I was like, I don't know if I feel okay. Like, I feel a little disturbed. Specifically, Candy Girl. Oh, yeah. Okay. I was like, are we talking about Robert? I mean, I'm not inspired by that at all. Yeah. And Robert, I mean, as in Kelly. Of course. Yeah.

[00:20:16] I was like, and like, I'm from Chicago, so like, I know this story. Totally. Totally. And yeah, it was really important to me when I wrote the first draft. The first draft of that story, I had probably just heard the first, when that first article dropped, I can't remember the author's name, but you know, it was like. Jim DeBrogattis. Yes. That one. I think I had read that one and I was just so, it felt so distant and also so familiar. And when I wrote the story, it took place in Chicago.

[00:20:45] And then I was like, this is not my story. Like, I don't actually know what it's like to live there. And these people have lived this real life experience. And so I try my best to distance it from that directly. And then as time went on, it was like, oh, Epstein. Oh, Diddy. Oh, you know, it's just like all of these people with these really harmful practices. And I think R. Kelly was like the seed for me, but the seed is like such a bigger truth

[00:21:10] about men in power and like taking advantage of people who are desperate in some ways and also just like hungry and hardworking. You know, it's like a lot of times the more you want or like the harder you want something, the more vulnerable you are to predation. That story did there. But then there's what's the story about what the teacher or the security guard? The first one, all this one and I can't get none. Yeah.

[00:21:39] The title story with the security guard. Yes, that's right. Cause she goes to the CVS. She wants everything. And they end up going back to the security guard's house and it's her and the friend and they're keeping secrets from each other, but they should have probably been talking to each other. I've heard. And then at the end it's like, you know, you were always his favorite. One of the things that comes through beyond desire is how easily our girls are preyed upon,

[00:22:08] forgotten about, discarded at a time when they are seeking attention and affection and can easily find it in the wrong places. Was that really like top of mind for you? Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. What I wanted to do in this book is like, certainly not to normalize the behaviors, but

[00:22:31] like to normalize the desires or like to make sense of why someone at such an age would end up in such a situation. And it's just because like, there's no intervention. Like there's no one in the way. No one's like going out of their way to protect black girls on like a large scale, you know? And I think oftentimes you get in those kinds of situations because you have nowhere else to go. What was the hardest story for you to write in this collection? Hmm.

[00:22:58] The hardest story, technically, I think the last story, the thing about you, part of the ask, like I was saying before with my agent, we wanted a story with some older characters. And I think the gesture of the final story does the work that the older characters would have done, which is like looking back at some of these moments and actually thinking about what role you have to play in them. I never, ever want to suggest that any of these characters are at fault for their situations.

[00:23:28] But I think there is like sort of a, some kind of self-awareness that happens in hindsight. And so trying to get that story right was one of the hardest ones. Emotionally, I don't really think that any of them tore me up just because I'm like pretty distant from this age. You know, I couldn't, I couldn't have written this book completely 10 years ago. No way. But like now at my age, I think I can look back pretty objectively or at least like unromantically.

[00:23:59] In addition, I will say, I will say the story that takes place in Provincetown, Dark Times was a little bit hard to write just because I did live in Provincetown, but it was such a short stint and it was a very specific situation. So trying to fictionalize how a character would be there outside of like a writing fellowship was like a little bit of work. Took a lot of imagination, I guess. I just flipped through my notes.

[00:24:25] And so I have this note from After Insults for Ugly Girls, which is a story. And that's a hell of a title, by the way. Yeah, thank you. Where you make a distinction between, you know, the differences between pretty girls who are pretty versus ugly, good versus fast, smart versus for the street. And I wonder, do you think that girls can contain these as multitudes? Because we're all just one thing. For sure. For sure. Talk about hindsight.

[00:24:49] Like, I think that that age, that like 13, 14, 15 is where the world can look really binary. Like, this girl is cool. Everyone likes her. Therefore, I am uncool and nobody likes me. Whereas like, in reality, everyone is flawed. Everyone has positive traits. Everyone is both good and bad if either of those even exist, you know? But I think like the binary thinking before you mature out of these moments is really real.

[00:25:17] And yes, I think multitudes, multitudes upon multitudes live with these characters. They just don't see it. What does desire mean to you today that it didn't maybe 20 years ago when you first started with some of these stories? Right now, I think that my desires are much more frivolous and small. You know, like, I think back in the day, the desire was like, I want someone to love me. I want to have my own bedroom. You know, like things like that.

[00:25:47] And now it's like, I want a popsicle. You know, I think like growing up and being able to sustain myself and be an adult. I can like want little things and get them pretty easily. So desire lives within me, but it's also like, it's more fun than it used to be. It used to feel kind of like torturous to desire. And now it's like an opportunity for something nice to happen. What do you want readers to take from this collection? Depends on the reader.

[00:26:16] I want some readers to read it and feel like they recognize the situations and to feel honored on the page and like honored to be existing on the page in general. I think that I have read very few books where I feel like the characters and I were kind of like up to the same kind of thing. And so I would want people who have not experienced that to find that in this book. One of the great compliments I get is that it reminded someone of their high school experience

[00:26:45] or like they went through something like that. And I'm like, cool, where were you when I was in high school? I think it was such an isolating, lonely kind of experience. Like you were saying in the first story, how the two girls kind of had the same secret, but they both feel isolated and separate, even though they're going through the same thing. So I want readers to have that experience. I also want people to know what it was like for some of us.

[00:27:11] I think that a lot of people have grown up naturally and lucky for them in very different environments where two parents were in the house. They checked that you did your homework. They knew where you were. Like there are people who did not live like that much like the characters in this book. And so if you are in the grocery store next to this person, I want you to be like, okay, yeah, other people have had a harder experience. Maybe I should let them cut the line.

[00:27:38] You know, compassion, empathy, always the goal. Always the goal. And what are you working on next? You mentioned that you have a novel. So what's going on? I am working on a novel. The general idea of it is about a mother-daughter pair who move through different housing situations. So it kind of opens with a fire and then that forces them to leave the home that they live in.

[00:28:05] And then it follows them over maybe like 10 years moving around with and without each other and kind of like making sense of their relationship. All right. So I want to move to a speed round in the game before I let you go for the afternoon. All right. So what is your favorite book? Let's go with Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. Who is your favorite author? Today, let's say Bonnie Jo Campbell. Who is your favorite artist, any medium?

[00:28:32] Ooh, let's say Earl Sweatshirt, the rapper. What do you think is the best book to film or book to series adaptation? Ooh, Station Eleven. If money were no object, where would you go? What would you do? And where would you live? I would live in New Orleans. I would go somewhere with a beach and where the economy is very kind to the people who are from there.

[00:29:00] So I don't know where exactly that is, but somewhere that is tropical and beautiful and doesn't treat their local population like a second afterthought. It sounds like Florida because it's not. Yeah. Well, careful. I guess I mean like if it's Florida, it's the Panhandle. I love the Panhandle. The sand is beautiful, but I don't know about all of the people there. I think it can be pretty conservative. I have friends from Florida. I love them. I love Florida, but I don't know if that's exactly the answer. I know it's not the Caribbean.

[00:29:27] So I'm just like, I don't know where you're saying like, is there a space in the Caribbean where the people who are from there are doing well and we can visit and contribute to that? I don't know it exactly. Me either. Name three things on your bucket list. Let's go with visit Antarctica, maybe foster a dog. And how about scuba diving? Okay, I'll take it. What brings you joy? Community.

[00:29:56] And what brings you peace? My cat. And name an author whose career you most admire. Percival Everett. He's got a lot of books. He's real low key. And then he kind of like hit it, you know? Yeah. All right. So our game is called Rewriting the Classics. Classic is however you define it. Sure. Name one book you wished you would have written. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi. All right.

[00:30:24] Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? Hmm. Maybe a little life. I would give the characters like a little bit more time. I don't know that I would want to add 100 more pages to that book. It's very big. But I think there's like an inevitable abruptness at the end. And I wonder if there's a way to like make it longer. And name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why. The Odyssey.

[00:30:55] I'm just saying that to be spicy. Actually, I never read the Odyssey, but I know there's like discourse around what we read in high school or whatever. And the Odyssey folks are like, you didn't read the Odyssey? And like, no, I didn't read the Odyssey. I don't have to read the Odyssey. I'll watch the movie. At this point. Right. Exactly. I think I did read it. I want to say we read the Odyssey and the Iliad. Mm-hmm. And what do you think? Hmm. Yeah. I'm sure it's like so powerful and so meaningful for the people who need to read it.

[00:31:25] But also, I read so many books in high school and so did you and so did we all. And the Odyssey just wasn't one of them. And that's okay. And that's okay. That's okay. Tell Threads. Threads does not agree. That's okay. It's okay. Final question for the day. When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors, what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind? Oh.

[00:31:50] I would like to be remembered for making people feel seen. Mm-hmm. A mirror. I say. Yeah. I say. Big thank you to T. Clark for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow T. on Instagram and Threads at TClarkBigTime. And make sure you check out All This Want and I Can't Get None. It's out now from One World.

[00:32:15] You can get a copy of the collection from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout. That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram page or YouTube page. They're at Black & Published. And that's B-L-K-A-N-D-Published.

[00:32:43] There, you can watch a bonus clip from my interview with T. about the importance of consent as a theme in the collection. And what writing about the issue did for them as a person. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll holler at y'all next week when our guest will be Amina Brown, author of the essay collection, Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl. And I started writing and I was like, what are all the themes in Christian publishing that I couldn't talk about?

[00:33:12] And the first thing that came to my mind was titties. I always wanted larger titties. And I really wanted a C cup and I feel that my prayers were not answered the way, you know, I was just like, in a sense, kind of shit talking to my mind. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.

[00:33:41] What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books Matter. Bye. Bye.