—— KWELI JOURNAL ——
Launched in December 2009, Kweli is an online literary journal that celebrates community and cultural kinships. In this shared space, you will hear the lived experience of people of color. Our many stories. Our shared histories. Our creative play with language. Here our memories are wrapped inside the music of the Muscogee, the blues songs of the South, the clipped patois of the Caribbean. We currently publish four (4) online issues each year.
Submit your work
(September 1 through May 30)
—— CURRENT ISSUE ——
The December 2024 issue of Kweli Journal includes Mecca: In My Head by Constance Collier-Mercado, Remember Jerry Springer by JP Infante, Favorite of Heaven by Princess Joy L. Perry, Chaos and Car Horns by Sajan Saini AND MORE. We invite you to read the work of all the contributors in our fiction, nonfiction, and poetry sections. Please see the links below.
The cover art for our December 2024 issue is Another Event by Esteban del Valle. Esteban del Valle is an interdisciplinary artist from Chicago.
—— FEATURED ARCHIVES ——
#PoetsforPuertoRico: Kweli Edition
Intro by Vincent Toro
Now…today… again… in the aftermath of Maria, we find ourselves having to deal with an occupier that has left our families to die and then lies about the impact of their own maliciousness toward us. READ MORE
Cold
by Naima Coster
The cold is a thing any woman can grow accustomed to. Lacey May learned how in precisely three days, which was quicker than anyone who knew her would have ever expected. READ MORE
Ain’t That Good News by Brit Bennett
Just to reassure herself that she hadn’t imagined him—that this long, lanky boy on the front page with those soft eyes had used his knobby hands to spread her daughter’s thighs like a wishbone before he hogtied her with her carnation pink sweater and tossed her in the Calcasieu River. READ MORE
What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris
The house is silent and smells like a mix between the old people that kiss my cheeks at church, and the tiny storage unit where all our stuff lives now. READ MORE
The Only Good Indian is a Dead Dead Dead Dead Indian by Kenzie Allen
Forgive my impatience / for nostalgia, your penicillin or wine, / your muddling through pleasure / as a map whose compass was inked / by men who put darker men / to the lash READ MORE
Searching for Salvation at Antioch by Jodi Savage
After Granny developed Alzheimer’s disease, she began hallucinating. Her phantoms ranged from people having sex in our backyard, to the mafia having a sit-down in her bedroom. READ MORE
Something Sweet on Our Tongues by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
Melvin Moses Green burst into line, triangling a muscled arm around Fat Rod’ney’s head. He slapped the back of Rod’ney’s neck where a strip of bare skin showed. Fat Rod’ney just kept stumbling forward, shoving a tray of jiggling fruit cocktail and milk, eyes teary at the sting but still cheesing. READ MORE
What We Aren’t (or the Ongoing Divide) by Jennifer N. Baker
Though I can’t place where or how I first heard it. This term was rarely used in the household I grew up in, though profanity was a staple. Perhaps the word is so ingrained in African-American DNA I came into the world with it already in my vocabulary. READ MORE
