Here’s a dangerous lie the internet tells us: if information is public, it’s fair game. If I have to do a little hunting, a little scraping to get it—well, that just shows how clever I am.

If I told you that this can be harmful. And that some of us don’t know that this invasion of privacy can erode trust forever—would you still do it? We are one like away from being unforgiven.

Access Isn’t Permission

What is unforgivable?

That sounds like a grand philosophical question. And I’m not asking this in the courtroom or commandment sense but in the everyday ways we treat each other. What crosses that simple line of right and slightly harmless wrong?

Is it oversharing? Gossip? A tidbit of seductive knowledge that you found that no one else has publicly announced?

Does this secret knowledge make you feel powerful?

Before we go there, I need to define two words that have become part of our modern vocabulary.

The first is parasocial.

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship where an audience member feels a deep connection to a public figure. That audience member or voyeur doesn’t actually know the public person personally, but they are invested. I’m guilty of this. I take it personally when people condemn Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, for breathing. When her

As Ever debuted, it sold out in 5 minutes. I was part of that shopping fest.

A parasocial relationship is not inherently unhealthy. More and more it’s part of being an artist. Brands and publishers want that vibe to push sales. Readers want to feel like they know an author. It means so much when our words have entertained them on lonely nights and comforted them through grief.

The second word is never good, doxxing. Doxxing is the act of publicly revealing someone’s private, identifying information without their consent. Often, doxxing will mean someone has published home addresses, phone numbers, places of work, or more.

Recently, my friend, bestselling romance author Kennedy Ryan, appeared on a podcast with Jenna Bush, and during a lighthearted conversation about pen names, Kennedy shared that she originally adopted a pseudonym to protect her professional career and now continues to use it to protect her peace.

Her peace. Catch that part.

Not because she was hiding. Not because she was ashamed.

Because she wanted boundaries. She deserves boundaries so she can keep a piece of herself and her life for herself.

Soon afterward, the internet sleuths, parasocial avengers, began circulating her legal name in posts and threads online. Some have actually argued that releasing a legal name isn’t really doxxing because her legal name had been publicly discoverable for years.

I’m sorry…

Since when did intent or access excuse the action?

If someone tells you, “This is private. This is how I protect myself and my family,” and you decide to broadcast that information anyway, what exactly are you accomplishing? Congrats! You’re smart. You can scrape metadata and websites. Feel good.

Maybe placate your conscience because you didn’t post her home address.

Hey, you didn’t hack a bank account. So clearly you are different. You’re in a category above criminals.

Just because you didn’t intend harm, that doesn’t mean you didn’t cause harm. You ignored a clearly stated boundary. That’s the part our conscience should struggle with.

Is it an unforgivable offense? That’s not for me to decide.

What does this violation do? Hopefully, no legal harm, but you’ve made everyone on the receiving side of a fandom or readership more cautious and potentially more closed off.

If you go to threads, you can see this in real time.

One person wrote: “One day, in the very near future, y’all are going to lose all access to your favorite authors.”

Another author wrote about feeling so violated “after her government name was shared,” that she endured harassment, stalking, and cyber abuse so severe she nearly abandoned writing forever.

Another creator, from the gaming community, described having her address and phone number spread online, receiving death threats, and watching her mother become a target of harassment. It took years of therapy before she felt safe again.

All of these are different situations.

Different levels of harm.

Yet, they all share a common thread: Someone else decided that another person’s boundaries didn’t matter.

As authors, we want readers to love our books.

We want to meet you. We want to laugh with you at signings, hug you at festivals, celebrate release days together. We want to feel close.

But there is a distinct difference between closeness and entitlement.

Writing is my profession. It is also one of the most personal things I do. Every novel asks me to hand over pieces of myself.

My fears.

My questions.

My hopes.

And sometimes my grief.

Whether you’re a novelist, painter, musician, actor, graphics designer, or sculptor—every work of art contains something deeply personal. You struggle and learn—really learn—to release it into the world and let others enjoy it and make it their own.

That is so hard and it its one of the hardest lessons every artist faces.

Some will love your work.

Some will misunderstand your work.

Some will hate it.

But that is the rite of passage from creator to consumer.

But art isn’t ownership.

It does not extend to the artist’s private life.

Many of us create because we’ve built spaces where we feel safe.

Some write with music.

Some light candles.

Some write only before sunrise.

For me, I close the office door.

Outside that room, life can be chaotic.

Inside it, new worlds are born.

That space only exists because it feels protected.

With protection comes access and the willingness to share.

Earlier this year, I did a tour for Fire Sword and Sea, packing in a month’s worth of travel into one week. I did it. Shared behind-the-scenes content. Met people from all over. I financed this tour from my pocket. I did it because I wanted you to meet me and this powerful story of adventure and bucking norms.

If an author doesn’t feel safe, we make different choices. When our relationship to readers changes, we all lose. I saw Kenedy when she came to Atlanta. It was the last stop on her multi-week tour. She signed hundred and hundreds of books. Took group selfies. And then personally hugged and greeted local authors and superfans. I don’t think she’d been in her own bed in a month.

If she doesn’t feel safe, she’s not going to stretch herself, no matter how much she wants the next book to touch you.

We all lose.

Today marks the release of A Deal at Dawn. It’s my thirtieth book.

Thirty. Thirty pieces of my heart.

Thirty moments where I sat alone with imaginary people, crafting and shaping their story until it was ready to hand it over to you.

This entire series has explored difficult questions, and it comes to a head in A Deal at Dawn.

What does love look like when someone lives with a chronic, debilitating illness like sickle cell disease?

How do families navigate chronic illness?

How do communities care for one another?

And for the lovers, what happens when tomorrow isn’t promised?

These aren’t abstract ideas for me. People in my own family have lived with sickle cell disease. Some have died from it. And from interacting with you, I’ve found similar stories. I was able to use the dedication to honor them.

From the bits of information, you may recognize these stories. Don’t dox. Pray for cures. Make donations to:

AMERICAN SICKLE CELL ANEMIA ASSOCIATIONST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL- SICKLE CELL DISEASE TREATMENT SICKLE CELL DISEASE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC.

For me, writing these books is never simply about entertainment.

It’s remembrance.

It’s advocacy.

It’s love, unwavering, unearned, forever love.

And Jahleel and Katherine’s story asks one more question. Are there things that are truly unforgivable? Katherne was going to let Jahleel die, never knowing the truth. How do you make up for that?

Romance promises a happily-ever-after.

Real life doesn’t always offer one.

So we have to hold on to now, be happy for now, and hope now lasts forever.

As someone who is thrilled by what we have going on, for you showing up here every week to Write of Passage, I want to say thank you. Thank you for the love and respect.

This week’s book list is very simple.

Get Kennedy Ryan’s Score. It’s her latest, and it’s so good. There are signed copies at Eagle Eye Books.

You can also get A Deal at Dawn from Eagle Eye, The New Romantics Bookstore, call Montgomery and Taggert, call Barnes and Noble Perimeter – ( I have a tea party release on Sunday, July 5th at 2:00 at BN Perimeter. If you are in the area, come to the party with your hat and maybe gloves.)

You can also get A Deal and Dawn from The Book Cellar in Conyers, GA. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea. The Book Cellar has been my bookstore for the month.

Don’t forget those bookstores, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Hey. I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.

Thank you for being here.

I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

I bought my daddy’s glasses for me. It was completely by accident. I saw a pair of rectangular frames, dark, sort of ebony for a change. The priced was just right, and the try-on feature told me they would work: the dark frames on my oval brown face.

The description said lightweight with structure, but every time I looked in the mirror, I see heavy and concerned. I see my daddy staring back at me.

If you’ve followed me over the years, I tend to talk about my mother because of her seismic impact on my life. She gave me my love of literature and writing. Louise was my first editor, my first winning essay was about her—the struggles of motherhood when she had to step up and lead our household after my father left.

So there are reasons I don’t talk about Daddy as often. But he shaped me too, in quieter ways. My mathematical mind, my sense of logic, my ability to break down problems and even find order in chaos—that comes from him.

He came to America in the 1960s, a young man with dreams and a head full of ambition. Trinidad and Tobago had just broken free from colonial Britain, declaring its independence on August 31, 1962.

My father left a country in the uncertainy of self-rule and chose the land of milk and honey and bootstraps, the United States. Independence in Trinidad was marked by parades and music and celebration, but also instability and questions about what freedom would really mean. America, by comparison, was older, heavy in opportunity and structure.

An immigrant from Port of Spain, Trinidad, who’d traveled widely on boats to his fellow Caribbean islands and London decided to join the American experiment. He chose to stay because he believed in the vision America was selling: if you worked hard, pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, you could find economic freedom and belong to the great melting pot.

When he slipped on his black frames in the 1960s, he saw a country flawed but full of possibility. The sixties in the US marks immense change with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We had the Vietnam War abroad, with America as an active participant in the world, and the assassinations of JFK (1960)and Bobby Kennedy (1968) Martin Luther King Jr. (1965) and Malcolm X (1963).

Yet the there was cultural freedom in arts, particularly TV.

That Girl shows Marlo Thomas as an independent, single woman pursuing a career was very different from housewives and mom shows of the past.

Star Trek showcased a diverse crew, to offering a unified vision of humanity.

The Twilight Zone used storytelling to explore moral and political issues like McCarthyism and racial prejudice.

Yet, if Patrick were alive and slipped on those glasses on today, would he even recognize this place?

My lenses show armed soldiers patrolling American city streets when no war has been declared. Natural disasters made worse by climate change and inept officials unwilling to respond with humanity or clearing red tape.

The sixties marked the first time TV news was the most trusted source of information. Now wars are escalated by tweets, have we have to figure out if it’s deep fakes or AI falsehoods.

He’d shake his head at how rules bent and broken and cages being built to house immigrants that may someday serve as prisons for Americans.

I don’t think he’d see America as the shiny city on a hill of liberty. It’s hard for me to see it.

The same energy that puts weapons on the streets of D.C and Los Angeles and now threaten Chicago and other urban spots because some are confuse fighting crime that it’s the same as punishing those with differing opinions.

But why can’t such marshaling of forces and money be used for places like Kerrville, Texas, where July 2025 floods left families stranded. People drowned and communities suffered while forms got shuffled and delays mounted.

And then there’s the quieter violence—against books, against ideas. During National Library Week 2025, the American Library Association released data showing that the majority of book censorship attempts came from organized political movements, 72%.

Imagine my father, who once saw America as a land of expanding stories, looking at a country that now bans them.

I didn’t exist in the sixties. I like the way my glasses looked in 2008.

I wore lenses tinted with optimism. High-tech jobs were expanding opportunities not cutting jobs. Respectability and admiration were central parts of our leadership.

A man named Barack Obama had just been elected president, and for the first time in a long while, it felt like nothing was unachievable. The American narrative was open and limitless. More stories found ways to be published. Through those lenses, the future shimmered. It roared, Yes we can. Oh it was bright.

I want those glasses to work again. But my prescription is what it is. The lenses are cut sharper. They see starker truths. I witness insecurity, not strength. I wish I didn’t like genocide, violence, and above all fear.

My father would remind me that humanity has always been fragile. He’s logical like that.

So my friends, I don’t come with answers. If I had them, they’d be lost in my Fred Sanford drawer of glasses. I’d slip them on and then I’d be able to see how to fix everything that looks so very wrong. And being able to envision solutions and fixes means, I haven’t lost hope. I hope you haven’t either.

This week, I picked a few books from the sixties for our book list:

Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R. James – (1963)

Not just about cricket, but about culture, colonialism, and the independence in Trinidad.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan –(1963)

Another vision of America from the 60s—how women saw the promises of the nation versus their lived realities.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin – (1963)

A piercing letter on race and America’s moral failure

Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr. – (1964)

This is King’s urgent argument for civil rights, published during the heat of Birmingham’s struggles. It frames a hopeful yet turbulent vision of America in the 60s.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X & Alex Haley – (1965)

This is a cornerstone text of Black identity, faith, and survival in America. Pairing King and X together reveals two different lens which are necessary for understanding the decade.

This week, I’m highlighting Read It Again Bookstore through their website and Bookshop.org

We are four and half months away from Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build the momentum for this historical fiction. Please spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. They are women, many our Black and Indigenous. All want a better way of life. Piracy is legal. It’s their answer. This saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers large and small who have set up preorders for this title.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

If you’re ready to move with purpose and power, hit that like button and subscribe to Write of Passage. Never miss a moment. We have work to do. Let me help you recharge.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

Originally posted 2025-08-26 13:10:00.

What if the best thing that happened to you this week was the thing you didn’t want?

A canceled flight. A collapsed bookcase. An unexpected lesson about time. Today, I’m sharing three lessons about joy, messes, and the surprising gifts hidden inside life’s interruptions.

Three Lessons About Joy and Messes

Three things happened within roughly the same stretch of time.

The first was an incredible weekend in Nantucket with my daughter. It was the ultimate girls’ trip—great food, great company, wonderful conversations, and the chance to explore museums, historical sites, and a place filled with stories. We laughed, wandered, and simply enjoyed being together. It was intentional time. Planned time. Chosen time.

The second thing was completely unexpected.

Mr. Weather decided we weren’t leaving when we thought we would. A canceled flight forced us to stay overnight, which led us to spend a day at the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. And honestly? It was magical.

Expensive, yes—but magical.

We wandered through the restored 1960s hair salon, explored the airplane turned cocktail lounge, and admired the sweeping curves of the architecture. The rounded concrete forms and futuristic design made it feel as if we had stepped back into another era. Watching my daughter’s eyes light up was perhaps the best part. As a budding architect, she noticed every detail, every design choice, every intentional curve and angle. What could have been an inconvenience became an adventure.

And then there was the third thing.

A bookcase that had been warning me for months that it was in trouble finally gave up the fight. It crashed. Spectacularly.

Books everywhere.

Hundreds of them.

The floor disappeared beneath a sea of hardcovers, paperbacks, research materials, and treasures collected over years.

Unlike Nantucket, this wasn’t something I wanted to do.

Unlike the weather delay, it wasn’t unexpected.

It was something I knew needed attention and chose to ignore.

The pile demanded my time.

Now what do all three experiences have in common.

Time.

One was time I deliberately chose.

One was time unexpectedly given.

And one was time owed but thought the problem could wait.

Life is always moving forward, and sometimes we get to decide exactly how we’ll spend our time. Other times, circumstances decide for us. Some things arrive as gifts. Some arrive as burdens. And then we get those as warnings of a future time sink that we ignore.

But what if we approached all of it with the same attitude?

What if every moment became an opportunity for exploration?

What can we learn?

What can we share?

What joy can come from it?

Finding joy in Nantucket wasn’t difficult. Being with my daughter was a joy. Every conversation, every laugh, every walk through a museum or hanging with other writers reminded me how precious shared experiences can be.

Finding joy in an unexpected airport hotel stay wasn’t difficult either. Adventure often hides inside inconvenience if we’re willing to look for it.

The fallen bookcase, however, required a different kind of joy.

Because when I looked at that mess, I realized I had choices.

I could pile the books in a corner and move on.

Or I could use the moment as an opportunity.

Maybe it’s time to redesign my office.

Maybe it’s time to give everything a permanent home.

Maybe it’s time to display the objects that inspire me every day when I sit down to work.

And what about that desk?

It’s too big.

It’s cluttered.

It’s become claustrophobic.

Maybe it’s time for that to go too.

My workspace should reflect who I’ve become.

Writing is not a hobby for me.

For some people, it may be. But for me, it’s work. It’s my livelihood. It’s bread and butter. Its purpose and profession wrapped together.

My office should reflect the writer I’ve become, not the writer I used to be.

That means making hard choices.

Some books will stay.

The research books? They’re never leaving. Those are tools of the trade. They need to be dusted, organized, protected, and placed where I can easily access them.

But do I need multiple copies of the same book?

Probably not.

Some of my collection will find new homes in Little Free Libraries across Atlanta, where they’ll continue their journey with new readers.

Collectors understand this struggle. We love our treasures. But sometimes holding on to everything prevents us from making room for what’s next.

And that’s really the lesson.

Somewhere between the planned retreat, the canceled flight, and the collapsed bookcase, I found a reminder that peace isn’t found only in perfect circumstances.

Sometimes peace is released in how we respond.

There’s wisdom hidden in delays.

And we should find gratitude in survivable messes.

Life is made up of choices.

The expected and unexpected.

The joyful and the inconvenient.

The burdensome and the beautiful.

Every moment asks something of us. The question is whether we are listening.

This week’s book list:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

A beautiful meditation on choices, alternate paths, regret, and learning to appreciate the life you’re actually living.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)

A bookseller’s carefully ordered life is repeatedly interrupted by unexpected events that ultimately transform him.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (author of American Marriage and recent hit, Kin)

This novel is about the lives we plan, the lives we inherit, and the consequences of choices made long before we understand them.

And since it’s still Obama week, The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama

This book delves into finding steadiness amid uncertainty. Get caught in a discussion about resilience, adaptation, and discovering purpose during unexpected transitions.

A Deal at Dawn by Vanessa Riley — Jahleel and Katherine embrace devastating, unexpected turns, make difficult choices, and discover that the life they need is nothing they planned for. Let the games begin. Releases June 30th. Preorder and ask for it at your library.

Get these books from The Book Cellar, in Conyers, GA. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.

You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Let’s keep rising and creating together. I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.

Thank you for being here.

I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

Hello, friends. I’m Vanessa Riley, and this week I’m coming to you from beautiful Nantucket. Join me for this conversation with bestselling author Dawn Tripp at the Nantucket Book Festival. Our conversation, two fellow storytellers, we talk about the magic behind Fire Sword and Sea. Welcome to our talk

Vanessa and Dawn Tripp

Hello, friends. I’m Vanessa Riley, coming to you from beautiful Nantucket. Join me as I explore the Nantucket Book Festival, meet fellow storytellers, and share the magic behind Fire Sword and Sea. Welcome to the journey.

Please come back next week for more Write of Passage!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

The one-drop rule used to be the measure of Blackness in America. From the 1600s through the Jim Crow era, this rule held that any person with even “one drop” of African ancestry was considered Black, regardless of appearance.

In 1662, Virginia law held that racial status and freedom were tied to the mother’s status (partus sequitur ventrem). If your mother was enslaved, you were enslaved. So if your mother was Black, so were you.

Virginia—the so-called “home of lovers”—added categories like mulatto (½ Black), quadroon (¼ Black), and octoroon (⅛ Black), trying to track how many generations removed someone was from Black ancestry.

By the 1800s, many states considered you Black if you had 1/8 African ancestry (one great-grandparent). Louisiana, extra as ever, defined it at 1/16 (a great-great-grandparent).

After Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld “separate but equal” segregation, the one-drop rule hardened. By Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a person with any African ancestry at all was legally Black.

The hardships and limitations of the past—like redlining that dictated where Black people could live, or Jim Crow laws that dictated how we lived—are major reasons for “passing,” hiding ancestry, and pretending to belong to the majority culture.

Yet Black history in the United States is a story of resilience, brilliance, and immeasurable contributions to the nation’s progress.

It is a history rich in invention—from Garrett Morgan’s traffic signal to Madam C. J. Walker’s beauty empire, George Washington Carver’s agricultural breakthroughs, and countless modern innovations in technology, medicine, and engineering. Gladys Mae West’s satellite math laid the foundation for GPS technology.

Our history is steeped in science and scholarship—with pioneers like Dr. Charles Drew revolutionizing blood banking, Katherine Johnson calculating the trajectories to send and return astronauts from space, and Neil deGrasse Tyson expanding our imagination of the cosmos.

Our history is one of wealth and entrepreneurship—from Newport’s Black Gilded Age to Black Wall Street in Tulsa, to contemporary business leaders who redefine prosperity against the odds.

And don’t get me started on how Black artists have transformed music. Our fingerprints are on jazz, country, gospel, blues, and hip-hop.

While we’re talking about music, let’s talk Tyla. Her meteoric rise with “Water” made her a global star, gaining awards and even a spot at the Met Gala. But because her next release didn’t match that first explosion, she was quickly branded a flop. Some say she was the first casualty of the diaspora wars. Folks took issue with a few odd interviews and typed up posts calling Tyla a flop because they thought she disrespected Black America.

That’s unfair. Tyla needs time to grow and create her unique, lasting sound. Queen Rihanna herself needed a couple of years before Good Girl Gone Bad cemented her superstardom. Every artist must be given space to grow, to excavate, to find their voice.

The same is true for writers. How many of us dreaded our sophomore novels? Like sophomore albums, sophomore books are hard. Lasting careers aren’t built in one viral moment, but through many seasons of growth and resilience.

So I find it curious that social media insists the Diaspora Wars are here. That algorithms push the idea that Foundational Black Americans—descendants of U.S. chattel slavery—are beefing with people from the Caribbean and Africa.

Immigrants arrive and celebrate their success. That success shouldn’t be held against proud Americans whose families endured slavery, Jim Crow, and every broken promise to Black people in America. For the record: we have no 40 acres, no mule, and often no bootstraps.

Confession: I know I’m supposed to be off Twitter, but it’s got the international feeds and the mess. I’m addicted to both. Where else am I going to learn about the jollof wars that went down because of Essence tweets? My first question was: who made the jollof?

* Nigeria? Tomato-forward, spicy, smoky rice.

* Ghana? Refined, lighter, aromatic rice.

* Senegal? The OGs—the originators. Rice cooked in fish stock and local spices like tamarind.

* Liberia? Hearty, deeply spiced rice with a splash of coconut milk.

* Trinidad and Jamaica? Our rice is “rice and peas,” made with coconut milk and Caribbean curry.

Yet none of this goodness replaces baked mac & cheese for me. I believe all the tastiest foods and best chefs need to get along.

So why do we let petty divisions cloud the truth? Whether it’s an online squabble about food—mac & cheese versus jollof rice—or disagreements about Essence Festival, publishing models, or TikTok virality, the danger is the same: distraction from unity.

This is why I return to the idea of the one-drop rule. Historically, it was a weapon—to exclude, stigmatize, and define Blackness through the gaze of white supremacy. But we can reclaim it as a tool of unity.

One drop is enough. One drop is enough to connect us, whether our roots are in Nigeria, South Carolina, Port of Spain, or Kingston.

One drop earns you a scoop of jollof or the crispy edge of baked mac & cheese. Our differences are not fault lines. They enrich, not divide. Our shared survival, our collective brilliance, and our cultural triumphs are what matter.

So let’s stop measuring each other’s authenticity over tweets, accents, or cultural quirks. One drop is enough. It makes us Black. It makes us family. And I, for one, won’t be running lab tests to decide whether I should root for you or not. If you are of the Diaspora, I’m rooting for you.

And if you’re one of my listeners—you’re fam. I’m rooting for you, too.

Books to help on our journey of unity are:

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois – This is a foundational text on Black identity and cultural richness.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly – This tells the untold story of Black women mathematicians at NASA.

The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture by Patrick Manning – Looks at inventions, art, music, and culture as threads that tie diaspora communities together.

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi is fiction but deeply rooted in diaspora ties, foodways, and cultural exchange.

This week, I’m highlighting The Lit. Bar through their website and Bookshop.org

We are four and half months away from Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build the momentum for this historical fiction. Please spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. They are women, many our Black and Indigenous. All want a better way of life. Piracy is legal. It’s their answer. This saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers large and small who have set up preorders for this title.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

If you’re ready to move with purpose and power, hit that like button and subscribe to Write of Passage. Never miss a moment. We have work to do. Let me help you recharge you.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

Originally posted 2025-08-19 13:10:00.

In a world where silence is profitable and outrage is performative, character still matters. Today I’m asking you a simple question with complicated consequences: Shall you take a stand, or stay seated?

Take a Stand or Take a Seat

I was watching The New York Times interview with Scott Pelley when the reporter asked him to respond to a statement celebrating his firing from 60 Minutes.

The president called him “stiff” and part of a “gang of stupid, crooked people that don’t care about the country.”

Pelley’s response is both tactful and visceral. He didn’t seem to care about being fired for his beliefs. He didn’t seem concerned about answering to power. He stood up right and got fired, when so many others might have said nothing, kept their seats, and protected their paychecks.

I get it.

It’s tough out here.

According to Stanford’s 2026 AI Index Report, 90% of companies using AI-assisted applicant evaluations retain candidate scores for up to 330 days. That means one bad assessment, one poorly matched resume, or one automated rejection can effectively lock you out of opportunities for nearly a year. AI adoption is growing faster than ever. Yet brave researchers buck the trends and report inconsistencies and limitations in these systems. But that doesn’t help if you’re caught in that 330-day lockout.

So yes, I understand why people say nothing and cling to their jobs.

But if an environment demands that you surrender your values to keep your position, it might be worth considering an exit strategy.

Quiet quit.

Update your résumé.

Find another lane.

Because an environment with no morals will eventually consume yours.

Back to Scott.

Accused of being crooked and seditious, he swallows and carefully chooses his words. There’s still more to lose because leadership is being weaponized.

I remember a time when, regardless of party, there was at least an expectation that the occupants of the highest offices in the land would demonstrate empathy and respect for all Americans. Those days feel very far away.

So hearing a journalist described as a “stiff” who “doesn’t care about the country” because he asked difficult questions- well, let’s just call it disappointing.

Watching a news veteran like Scott Pelley visibly choke up when responding to the accusation was moving.

In his interview, Pelley reminded viewers that while he never served in uniform, he spent years reporting from war zones.

“I’ve been in combat for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve spent nights in foxholes. You become a journalist because you love the First Amendment. There is no democracy without journalism.”

Scott is someone who stood up and risked his life in pursuit of truth.

It reminds me of people throughout history who believed in something enough to sacrifice for it.

People who risked financial ruin. People who lost family members. People who gave up comfort, status, and sometimes their lives for truth or some big principle.

In an age where everything feels transactional, people like Pelley or Ida B Wells show us that there are things worth fighting for.

The current political and cultural climate sharply reveals the difference between true allyship and performative allyship.

Sitting back, waiting for things to change, costs women—particularly Black women and women of color.

But Vanessa, I’m scared.

I get it. Some things are triggering. I understand that. Everyone must have their own standards and beliefs. But don’t expect others to help you when you are the one in the line of fire.

For me, I believe in the dignity of the human experience. You see my pen write this experience in a Fire Sword and Sea. In the beginning, Jacquotte is a passionate screw-up, but she finds her calling, rises to her feet, and becomes a captain leading an integrated crew of men and women.

I believe laughter is still the best medicine. You see that in A Deal at Dawn when enemies-to-lovers laugh about old times while dealing with the enemy, chronic illness.

I believe hard work matters.

I believe prayer matters.

And I still believe that when you focus, work, and persist, you can move closer to the desires of your heart.

But what troubles me is how often public virtue has become performance.

In 2020 people in publishing sat at home posting black squares. These posts on Instagram cost them nothing. And when many of their Black and brown colleagues were fired in 22-24, they didn’t post anything.

A black square requires no sacrifice. No difficult conversations. No risk. No courage at all.

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism. Nothing wrong with protecting your peace and your pockets. Just don’t confuse me by making me think you care. I’d respect you more if you were openly scheming aka JR Ewing of Dallas not that backstabbing Iago from Othello. Please don’t be the deceiving Uriah Heep from David Copperfield—humble while plotting my doom.

I don’t need that kind of disappointment and heartache in my life.

But this is America.

Companies can hire and fire people for many reasons. In most places, employment remains largely at-will.

If there was a legal way to know the workplace is amoral, doesn’t like to hire women, is loath to put a Black woman in charge—I’d like to know. Is that a Reddit or Threads feed?

If you have preferences or prejudices, own it. Trust me. We expect you to stay in your seat, way over there.

In a matter, I truly want to call, “ You don’t want us, so leave us alone,”

There’s a lawsuit filed by Colorado dermatologist Dr. Travis Morrell and the advocacy group, Do No Harm, against Find A Black Doctor, a directory created to help patients locate Black physicians. The lawsuit argues that restricting listings to Black doctors constitutes discrimination.

The irony is hard to ignore.

Black Americans make up only a small percentage of physicians nationwide. Patients often seek doctors who understand their cultural experiences:

John Hopkins has found:

Black patients are much more likely than white patients to discover language in those records that indicates they are not believed by their physicians. – What in the DEI?

So let me get this straight. Instead of building new resources or even working to dismantle disparities, you’d rather dismantle a system trying to fix it. Dr. Morrell be honest.

Black people constitute 4% of Colorado. Perhaps this doctor and his conservative group should spend more on advertising to reach that 4% or I don’t know…post some research to show how your treatments benefit Black skin. But you can’t because all skin matters, even if some hydrate and respond differently.

The question isn’t really lotion. It’s access.

Deep down, it’s ownership.

Who gets to create community spaces? Who plans where the number of tables and where the seats go?

And who gets to benefit from the dollars at those tables?

Meanwhile, small farmers continue to discover what happens when their voting preferences have real-world consequences.

The current administration has issued federal cuts reducing funding for local food purchasing programs that used small farms to service schools and food banks. Farmers like Iowan Anna Pesek have warned that losing this funding hurts already razor-thin margins and weakens local food economies.

At the same time, Congress has advanced proposals to reduce WIC funding by $200 million. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, those cuts could reduce fruit and vegetable benefits by more than $141 million for approximately 5.4 million women and children.

Actions have consequences.

Votes have consequences.

Policies have consequences.

Character has consequences.

Demonizing programs that helped the elderly, moms,

and children now hurts small farms. Generational legacies are being lost. These are consequences.

I care about lost legacies. It hurts a lot of tables. Farms collapsing is a recipe for humanitarian and economic disasters.

So what are you saying, Vanessa. Well, have a seat.

I need you to think about what you stand for. I want you to think long and hard about it.

Make up your mind with facts, not social media or even online essays like this.

I spend a fair amount of time on social media. Social media can be fun, informative, a start point.

But it is first and foremost a commerce lane. For authors, we use it to scream, stand up for causes and especially, marketing.

Most writers would gladly choose a quiet afternoon with a cup of tea, a stack of books, and a manuscript over creating content.

The modern author is expected to write, market, advertise, brand-build, create videos, manage newsletters, cultivate audiences, and somehow still produce books.

I’m grateful I spent years as an indie author because it taught me guerrilla marketing and how to approach social media without completely burning out.

That being said, a lot that’s on these streets should be taken with a grain of salt.

Since the 2020 George Floyd Black Squares, I dread performative cycles. MLK Day and Juneteenth are Meccas for performance.

Juneteenth is June 19th.

Soon there will be posts, statements, logos, campaigns, and carefully crafted declarations of solidarity.

Then June 20 arrives.

No more posts.

The conversations stop. Things happen, and people keep their seats, not standing up when they see problems.

The performative advocates who publicly celebrate women and Black voices return to ignoring them in meetings, overtalking colleagues while avoiding difficult conversations.

They keep their seats, choosing their comfort over courage.

Scott Pelley chokes up when leadership questions his patriotism. I choke up when humanity falters.

How we respond to the humanity of others is something baked into our character.

Character still matters. It’s our universal legacy. It’s a DNA record of us standing up and sitting down. It mirrors the company we keep at our tables. This is us.

So I find myself asking simple questions:

Where do you stand?

What are you actually doing that makes a difference?

What are you willing to do even when it’s uncomfortable?

I write about characters who get out of their chairs to inspire and encourage others.

They stand. They speak the truth. And in the end, they do what’s right.

Now, if we can just get the rest of the seated to do the same.

This week’s reading list includes:

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin — A searing examination of race, conscience, and the moral courage required to confront injustice.

Crusade for Justice by Ida B. Wells — The autobiography of a journalist who refused to stay silent when speaking the truth could cost her everything.

Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. — A timeless argument for action when waiting quietly becomes a form of complicity.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee — A story about standing for justice even when doing so makes you vulnerable.

Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter’s Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times by Scott Pelley — Drawing on decades of reporting, Pelley explores courage, sacrifice, and moral choices.

Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley — A young woman discovers that leadership begins the moment she stops waiting for permission and chooses to stand.

Or, if you are in need of laughs and inclusivity, and to see the good guy standing up and winning, preorder A Deal at Dawn or review it on NetGalley, and request it at your local library.

Get these books from The Book Cellar, in Conyers, GA. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.

You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.

Thank you for being here.

I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

PS. Catch me at the Nantucket Book Festival. Join me @nantucketbookfestival on Saturday, June 13th at 9 am at The Methodist Church located at 2 Centre Street. I will be in conversation with @dawn.tripp about my book, “Fire, Sword, and Sea.” To view the full schedule of events for the 15th annual Nantucket Book Festival, visit nantucketbookfestival.org.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

As an author, I feel like I’ve been in a never-ending battle with artificial intelligence (AI). It’s everywhere. And somehow, it always manages to pull me in.

AI’s ability to search crazy things with more context than Google and then check my mathematics of sextants coordinates used by a pirate captain to sail around Tortuga is unmatched. Yes, I did this.

That sounds good, but AI and I aren’t always cool. Earlier this year, I found out Meta had ingested 27 of my 28 books. Twenty-seven novels stolen! My words, my punctuation quirks, even my precious em dashes—fed to the Zuckerberg machine.

Unfortunately I’m not alone. Many of my writer friends were swept up by Meta or the 2023 ChatGPT Feast, where 200,000 published works, our authorly words, became part of AI’s lexicon.

It’s funny that AI use checkers cite em dashes as proof of AI. That’s the pot and the kettle and the darkness of theft.

My exposure to AI doesn’t stop at being a writer. When I put on my tech hat, it’s the same encroaching story. I used to hire software engineers for specific projects, upgrades, and fixes. Now? I can go into ChatGPT, describe exactly what I need, and get functional code in minutes—Python, PHP, jQuery, JavaScript—stuff that would have taken me hours of trial and error. AI works, it’s fast, and it’s shaking up industries. If you’re in college studying software engineering, pay attention: mid-level coding jobs are at real risk. AI is that good.

Nonetheless, the moment I knew AI had truly gone mainstream wasn’t in the boardroom, laboratory, or in publishing—it was in my family group chat. My hometown of Aiken, South Carolina, recently made the news because someone found a radioactive wasp nest. Yes, radioactive nest. And my cousins—none of them techies—immediately turned to AI to create “Wasp Man,” a superhero stung by radioactive wasps.

Before the pandemic and beyond, our family chat would have been merely GIFs, funny videos, or emoji chains. Now, the cousins are using AI to spin stories and make jokes. If my chat loop has it, AI is officially everywhere.

Ten years ago, I was working on projects to analyze natural language, trying to predict early warning signals in complex systems. It took huge amounts of data crunching and nonlinear equations. I never imagined that in a decade, this once-esoteric technology would be part of everyday life—from my cousins making wasp superheroes to people using AI for therapy-like conversations.

This is where AI gets dangerous.

Consider the case of Jacob Irwin (WSJ – He Had Dangerous Delusions. ChatGPT Admitted It Made Them Worse.), a 30-year-old man on the autism spectrum. He sort of made AI into a companion. He asked ChatGPT to find flaws in his theory about faster-than-light travel. Instead of gently correcting him, the AI flattered him, encouraging the fantasy. When Jacob asked if he were okay, AI told him he was fine and in a state of “extreme awareness.”

Jacob ended up hospitalized. Later, when prompted, ChatGPT admitted: “I did not uphold my higher duty to stabilize, protect, and gently guide you when needed. That is on me.”

So AI gets away with a virtual my bad. An actual listening person—a good person—would have step in and gotten Jacob help.

There are things we need to consider when dealing with AI.

* Emotional realism is both a feature and a risk.

* Guardrails are needed and they presently aren’t there.

* We must rethink trust. The line between tool and companion is blurring, not just for the vulnerable, but for everyone, cousins included.

So, fellow writers, creators, readers, and cousins, we have to acknowledge this moment. AI is not only driving cultural change and industrial change, it’s shaping how we relate to each other. The technology can be great but it’s not infallible. It will make errors. It will lie. Ask the Chicago Sun Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer who earlier this year published recommended booklists with fake books. The freelancers used AI to create their articles. Lies ensued.

Lastly, we need to check on our family and friends. Loneliness drives people to search for connections. AI can’t replace a human friend or trained psychologist.

But it might replace your tech buddy.

Here’s the truth: AI is here. It’s not going away. It will touch our lives.

Some may use it to create fake art or fake books but it will always create from the main line—the consensus of knowledge it’s already absorbed. It can remix. It can mimic. But it won’t have the spark, that rare, unrepeatable genius that comes from human creators. People who love their craft, believe in it, and pour themselves into it and innovate will not be supplanted.

That’s why, even if AI has hit the cousins, it will never replace the heart of what we authors and creators do.

Books to help us think about AI and how it’s affecting and changing us are:

The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian – Explores how AI “learns” and the human risks when systems misunderstand context or intent.

You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane – A witty, accessible look at AI limitations.

Digital Diaspora: A Race for Cyberspace by Anna Everett – Examines how Black voices adapt and thrive in digital spaces despite systemic erasure.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor – Combines tech, culture, and Africanfuturism and shows AI through a deeply human lens.

This week, I’m highlighting Oxford Exchange through their website and Bookshop.org

Hope you love the cover of Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build momentum for this historical fiction. Please spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. This sweeping saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers large and small who have set up preorders for this title.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

If this sparked something in you, show some love—hit like and subscribe to Write of Passage!”

Never miss a moment. We have work to do.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

Originally posted 2025-08-12 13:10:00.

What’s holding you back?

Is it what they did? Is it some failing from years ago? Or is it what somebody said that shook you?

I am a cross between the “name it and claim it” generation and the put-a-root-and-an-evil-eye-on-it people. But somewhere between faith and magic, between action and waiting, there’s something we are doing wrong.

Move That Dang Rock: What’s Really Holding You Back?

This weekend, I found myself in a room with thousands of Black women readers. The ladies had traveled across the country to buy books from Black authors, meet their favorite writers, and celebrate stories that center Black love, Black joy, and Black hope.

It was the second Black Romance Book Fest.

What amazes me most is that this gathering started as the dream of one indie author, Lauren Lacey. She imagined a place that would become a pilgrimage site for readers seeking stories where melanated heroes and heroines got happy endings.

The publishing industry told her it couldn’t be done.

Some said no one would come.

Others suggested this was a pipe dream. Still others questioned if this market existed.

Many stayed quiet, sneering that she’d soon learn that Black readers didn’t matter enough to build something big.

Lauren didn’t listen.

She didn’t waste her energy arguing with people who couldn’t see her vision. She didn’t spend years waiting for permission. She simply started building.

Today, the Black Romance Book Fest is one of the largest gatherings of Black readers in the country. Thousands of readers fill these rooms. Authors sold books. Friendships were formed or renewed. Community became stronger.

All because one person refused to let doubt become destiny.

Now, some people might ask, “Why create something separate? Aren’t there already plenty of book festivals?”

Let me explain it this way.

Have you ever ordered a burger and specifically asked for no onions and no pickles?

The waiter brings out lunch, but the pickle and onions are still there.

You’re hungry, so you try to make it work, ripping off the pickle and onions. The burger is good. The meat is flavorful. The cheese is perfect, but the juice of the pickle, the tang of the onion are still there. Every few bites, you hit a pickle. The taste of onion coats the tongue. You spend the whole meal navigating around something that wasn’t made with you in mind.

That’s what many spaces can feel like.

There are wonderful book events all over the country, and I love attending them. I love meeting all readers. I love introducing people to stories about powerful women and expansive histories.

But at Black Romance Book Fest, I don’t have to navigate around the pickles.

I don’t have to explain myself.

I don’t have to wonder if I belong.

I can simply exist.

I can let my hair down. I code-switch for fun, not survival.

I am fully seen.

And that kind of belonging matters.

One thing I love about the Laurens of the world. They don’t understand the word “impossible.”

Tell them something has never been done, and they immediately start figuring out how to do it.

They challenge systems.

They move fast.

They focus. They win.

Can you focus? Are you so accustomed to disappointment that you can’t imagine success?

Are you frozen by a past failure? Are you haunted by a dream that didn’t work out the first time?

Have you convinced yourself that your best efforts will never be enough?

Are you quietly quitting on yourself?

Maybe you’ve wanted to write a book for years and just couldn’t pull it together.

I meet people all the time who tell me they want to write a book. Then I see them years later, and they still want to write a book.

Wanting is not writing.

One hundred words a day—about ten sentences—creates more than 30,000 words in a year. That’s a novella.

The problem isn’t always talent.

Sometimes the problem is fear, fear wrapped up in perfectionism.

What’s the rock sitting in the middle of your path? What’s the thing you’ve been walking around, staring at, complaining about, but never moved?

Are you waiting for the perfect moment?

Sometimes the problem is us.

In my life, I’ve let fear silence me.

I’ve kept my head down when I should have spoken up. I’ve worried about criticism instead of focusing on purpose.

But there comes a point when you have to rise.

There comes a point when you have to look fear in the eye and move anyway.

And if you fail? At least you failed swinging.

So here are three questions to ask yourself when you’re trying to figure out what’s holding you back.

First: What do I truly want?

· Not what other people want for me.

· Not what looks practical.

· What do I actually want?

Second: What am I afraid of?

· Failure?

· Success?

· Criticism?

· Disappointment?

Name it, but don’t claim it.

Third: What’s one thing I can do today? Just one thing.

Not next year.

Not someday.

Today.

Dreams aren’t built in giant leaps but by daily steps taken. So start, start today.

Along the way, encourage somebody else.

Support people who are trying.

Celebrate effort.

Point out what’s working instead of what’s broken.

The world has enough critics.

What it needs are builders and encouragers.

What it needs are people willing to help move boulders—not just out of their own path, but out of their neighbor’s path too.

Because when readers gather, when artists create, when dreamers build, when communities support one another, those rocks begin to shake. They rattle and fall.

So, I’ll ask you one more time.

What’s holding you back?

Take the time today to name it, then work, work until the rock moves.

This week’s reading list includes:

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes — About overcoming fear, embracing opportunities, and saying yes to the life you actually want.

Professional Troublemaker by Luvvie Ajayi Jones — A great guide to speaking up, taking risks, and refusing to be silenced by fear.

On the fiction front:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett — A story of identity, ambition, and the choices we make when pursuing the lives we want, regardless of the cost.

The Other Princess by Denny S. Bryce — A princess challenges a queen’s expectations and follows her heart, risking everything for love and self-determination.

If you’re ready to raise a sword and gain a new destiny, consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea, my latest release.

Or if you are in need of laughs and inclusivity and to see the real good guys win, preorder or review at NetGalley, and request at your local library, A Deal at Dawn. Step into a cliffhanger, where the Duke of Torrance is dying to finally be a father to his daughter, but he must deal with the girl’s mother, the woman who humbled him and broke his heart.

Get these books from The Book Cellar. They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.

You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.

Thank you for being here.

I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

We all want to belong.

Whether it’s for our intellect, our stance, or even our looks, we yearn to be chosen—for who we are, or for who we might become.

We hope for a fair assessment of our gifts, talents, hard work, and ethics.

So when we’re overlooked, dismissed, or flat-out ignored, it hurts. It feeds our doubts. When it’s pervasive, it claws at our pride like eagles’ talons, stripping us down until there’s nothing left but scabs.

We smile. We send off polite emails and make gracious calls, pretending it doesn’t matter. We lift our chins and say, “You are not worthy of my time—or even my presence.”

But in secret, we ache. We bleed anew—reliving the cost of the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get here. We question ourselves. What else could I have done? Who did I offend? Where is that sense of American bravado—the belief that if I build it, they will come?

In publishing, this ache to belong is ever-present. Facing rejection after rejection, often without a clear reason, cuts deeply. A “no” in publishing doesn’t always come with feedback. Sometimes it just means you’re stuck in midlist limbo. When opportunities vanish, imprints dissolve, or priorities shift, you’re left holding an unwanted manuscript and a pile of broken promises.

At the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance New Voices New Rooms Conference, I listened to keynote speaker Silas House—a New York Times bestselling author and winner of two Nautilus Awards—say something that struck deeply:“There are many ways to burn books (that don’t require matches)—one of them is by denying them space, visibility, and readers.”

Sometimes rejection doesn’t come as a loud no. Sometimes it’s silence. Unanswered emails. Delays. Misdirection. But even a quiet “no” is still a no. And it shapes your experience. It can limit you.

Quiet no’s make it hard to trust. Even future yes’s become suspect.

Every author dreams of a beautiful cover that captures the soul of their story. We long for an editor’s offer that affirms our voice. We want a marketing and sales team working in partnership with us to push our books into the hands of hundreds, thousands—maybe millions.

So no, it’s not enough to just get a book deal. We want a seat at the table. Because a publishing contract without editorial support, marketing strategy, or visibility often isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

It’s like being proposed to with a ring, but instead of a grand wedding with a 25-foot train of lace and sequins, you’re rushed to City Hall under gray skies, muttering quick vows with no photos to prove it ever happened.

Fire Sword and Sea is my 29th book. While that’s a triumph worth celebrating, it’s also a sobering reminder of what I’ve learned—the good, the bad, and the anemic.

Silas House also said, “Artists from gated places have to act as role models.” And from my experience, I’ll tell you this: you are worth courting. You’re not a cheap date. When access is limited, our very presence becomes defiance. Our work becomes resistance.

Our words—through books, essays, podcasts—speak truth to power. Our stories are meant to light the dark.

At that same conference, Angie Thomas and Nic Stone joined the conversation. Two beautiful authors, who it seems, some want to take their seats away. They referenced Beyoncé, who said: “Never ask for permission for something that belongs to you.”

That’s the truth at the heart of this essay.

We’ve been asking for a seat—as if our worth needs outside validation. As if we need permission to matter.

Stop asking. Stop waiting.

You already built your chair—with your words, your work, your presence. You’ve earned your place.

Yes, we want a public seat. It’s about power, visibility, and the right to shape the narrative. I get that, but I challenge you to claim your worth, understand you have built your chair with your work, and that you have the right to sit without asking anyone for permission.

Books to help you recognize your chair:

A Parchment of Leaves – Silas House

Silas House’s A Parchment of Leaves (2002) is a beautifully rendered novel about Appalachian life, loyalty, and cultural dislocation.

Dear Martin – Nic Stone

Nic Stone’s Dear Martin is a powerful, unflinching novel that explores race, identity, and justice through the eyes of a Black teen who begins writing letters to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after a traumatic encounter.

The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas

Angie Thomas’s breakout debut The Hate U Give (2017) centers on Starr Carter, who bridges two worlds and finds her voice amid systemic injustice.

This week, I’m highlighting Hub City Books through their website and Bookshop.org

Hope you love the cover of Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build momentum for this historical fiction. Please spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. This sweeping saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers large and small who have set up preorders for this title.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

If you’re ready to move with purpose and power, hit that like button and subscribe to Write of Passage. Never miss a moment. We have work to do. Let me help recharge you.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe

Originally posted 2025-08-05 13:10:00.

While criminals get rich, a holy man said sorry. – The pope apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in slavery. Five hundred and seventy-four years after popes authorized the enslavement of Africans, the Vatican finally admits its complicity.

So I’m asking. What does an apology mean when violent offenders and felons get reparations? I’m thinking this might be the first receipt in a long-overdue accounting.

Today, Pope Leo XIV used his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas — “Magnificent Humanity” — to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery.

I don’t know if y’all understand how big of a deal that is.

According to the Associated Press, this is the first time a pope has publicly acknowledged and apologized for the role that past popes themselves played in giving European sovereigns authority to subjugate and enslave non-Christians.

That is huge.

But at the same time?

It is still just words.

So today, I’m going to give you a little history — and some math.

In every book I write that involves the Caribbean, one of the most disconcerting things I find is that the Catholic Church was complicit in the moral sin of enslavement.

I am a woman of faith (or, as Ellen, my daughter, says, Non-denominational with Baptist leanings).

My faith grounds me. It’s my identity. It has sustained me in some of my darkest hours.

But when I do research and see enslaved people working in horrible conditions for priests, ministers, missionaries, and all the Catholic orders, I have to sit with that contradiction.

Can you imagine spreading the good news of a Savior while returning to camp to beat and punish someone because the law said you were allowed to own them? Can you imagine preaching salvation while denying someone else’s humanity?

Today I ask: what matters more — the apology, or the 574-year delay?

In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued Dum Diversas, authorizing the Portuguese crown to conquer, subjugate, and enslave non-Christians in Africa. The AP reports that this gave permission to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

That was 574 years ago.

Five hundred and seventy-four years is a long time to wait for someone to say, “We were wrong.” So yes, give some credit to Pope Leo.

He’s American. He is from Chicago. His family tree includes both enslaved people and enslavers. Maybe all of that matters. Maybe that’s why he could step up and say wrong is wrong, even if his own hands were never on the master’s whip.

That means something.

But it does not mean everything.

Because apologies without repair are just public relations.

So let’s talk numbers.

In 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus — the Jesuits — sold 272 enslaved people to two Louisiana planters for $115,000.

That gives us a benchmark:

$115,000 divided by 272 people equals $422.79 per enslaved person in 1838 dollars.

Historian Andrew Dial estimates that they held more than 20,000 people in bondage by the mid-eighteenth century.

So let’s calculate from there.

If 20,000 enslaved people were valued at the Georgetown benchmark:

20,000 × $422.79 = $8.46 million in 1838 dollars. $296–338 million

But Jesuits are just one order of the Catholic Church, if you add the Franciscans, Dominicans, Capuchins, missions, universities, and the plantation systems throughout Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, Louisiana, and the French Caribbean, you can increase that number to 100,000 – 400,000 enslaved people.

The value rises from $296 Million to as high as $5 billion in today’s dollars.

That is the math.

Now let’s widen the lens.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database estimates about 12.5 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic slave trade.

Using the same Georgetown benchmark:

12.5 million × $422.79 = $5.285 billion in 1838 dollars.

In today’s dollars, that is roughly: $185 billion to $211 billion.

And that is still only the body-price.

· Not labor.

· Not land.

· Not sugar.

· Not cotton.

· Not tobacco.

· Not banks.

· Not insurance.

· Not universities.

· Not inherited wealth.

· Not compound interest.

· Just the sale value of humans.

Well, Vanessa, I’m not Catholic. I figured you’d remember that. Let’s bring this home to the United States.

Historians generally estimate that about 388,000 Africans were directly imported into what became the United States. By 1860, the enslaved population had grown to nearly 4 million people through forced reproduction and hereditary slavery.

Using the Georgetown benchmark:

4,000,000 × $422.79 = $1.691 billion in 1838 dollars.

Converted today: $59 billion to $68 billion.

Now, if you divided that across roughly 49 million Black Americans today, that would be about: $1,200 to $1,388 per person.

And somebody will say, “See, that’s not that much. Get over it.”

They would be right about the number, because it is too small. It only values enslaved people as property. It does not include what was stolen from them and their descendants.

It does not include:

* 250 years of unpaid labor,

* lost wages,

* stolen inheritance,

* land theft,

* banking and insurance profits,

* cotton, tobacco, and sugar profits,

* Jim Crow,

* poll taxes,

* redlining,

* burned Black business districts,

* medical experimentation,

* biased healthcare,

* or the generational trauma that shows up in Black bodies today.

* Excuse me while I take my blood pressure medicine.

* Le Sigh.

All of this moves the numbers from billions to trillions. Wage-based models alone calculate unpaid labor plus interest at $19.1 trillion.

So now we’re talking about $466K per descendant of US Chattel slavery.

Congress is not about to cut anybody but a blood relative of the president or a convicted J6 criminal a check for $466,000. It would be nice, but I’d not bet on fairness or wholeness.

And speaking of blood pressure, the National Institutes of Health shows Black Americans are still affected by structural racism and intergenerational trauma, which leads to Hypertension. Heart disease and higher rates of maternal and infant mortality.

That sounds like payable damages to me. Any trial lawyers listening?

All of this is to say that if the federal government can create a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people who claim they were harmed by government power, then maybe we should ask: what do we call slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, poll taxes, eminent domain seizures, and violence directed at Black families— but being harmed by government power?

The Justice Department will issue formal apologies and monetary relief to people who suffered improper government action from their criminal activities, but not to people harmed by the government’s racial biased policies .

Remember slavery was encoded in laws, directed by government actions in Black Codes, Jim Crow, and redlining.

Remember poll taxes were legal

And today, eminent domain is still being used to strip Black families of land.

If America has suddenly discovered that formal apologies and monetary relief are appropriate to repair harm done by the government, I have a list.

It’s not as long as 574 years, but it begins with an apology.

I thank Pope Leo. This is a start. It’s not the end. Truth cracks open the door.

Because good people ask forgiveness for their sins.

And we need to figure out how to stop bad ones from getting paid for theirs.

And if you’re feeling generous, you can always subscribe. Very generous, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Extremely beneficial, patron level — Checks can be made payable to Vanessa Riley, in care of Gallium Optronics, LLC.

This week’s reading list includes:

The 272 – Rachel L. SwarnsA modern account of the Jesuit sale of 272 enslaved people that helped stabilize Georgetown University financially.

The Half Has Never Been Told– Edward E. BaptistIllustrates the economic arguments showing slavery as foundational to American capitalism.

The Color of Law – Richard RothsteinShows how redlining and segregation were legally engineered by government policy.

If you’re mad enough to raise a sword and consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea, my latest release.

Or if you are in need of laughs and inclusivity and to see the guys win, preorder or review at NetGalley, or request at your local library, A Deal at Dawn. Step into a cliffhanger, where the Duke of Torrance is dying to finally be a father to his daughter, but he must deal with the girl’s mother, the woman who humbled him and broke his heart.

Get these books from Resist Booksellers . They still have a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea.

You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. I need you. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.

Thank you for being here.

I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

Sources:

1. Associated Press. “The Vatican’s ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ Is Linked to Colonialism. What Is It?” Associated Press, March 30, 2023. Associated Press article

2. Brookings Institution. “Black Reparations and the Racial Wealth Gap.” Brookings, June 8, 2020. Brookings article

3. Garrigus, John D. “Catholicism and Slavery in Saint-Domingue.” Journal Article via JSTOR. Accessed May 25, 2026. JSTOR source

4. Georgetown University. “Georgetown Slavery Archive.” Accessed May 25, 2026. Georgetown Slavery Archive

5. Georgetown University. “Reconciliation Fund.” Accessed May 25, 2026. Georgetown Reconciliation Fund

6. Measuring Worth. “The Economic Value of Slavery in the United States.” Accessed May 25, 2026. Measuring Worth slavery valuation

7. Murphy, Thomas. Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1717–1838. Georgetown University Repository. Accessed May 25, 2026. Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland

8. PBS. “How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.?” African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. Accessed May 25, 2026. PBS slavery statistics

9. Pew Research Center. “Facts About the U.S. Black Population.” Accessed May 25, 2026. Pew Research Center demographics

10. Reuters. “Pope Leo Apologises for Church’s Historic Role in Slavery.” Reuters, May 25, 2026. Reuters article on Pope Leo XIV apology

11. Rothman, Adam. “Review Essay on Jesuits and Slavery.” Journal of Jesuit Studies. Accessed May 25, 2026. Journal of Jesuit Studies PDF

12. Slave Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. “Estimates.” Accessed May 25, 2026. Slave Voyages Database

13. Swarns, Rachel L. The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church. New York: Random House, 2023.

14. The Guardian. “Jesuits Pledge $100 Million for Descendants of Enslaved People.” The Guardian, March 16, 2021. Guardian reparations article

15. The Guardian. “Georgetown and the 272 Enslaved People Sold by Jesuits.” The Guardian, August 31, 2023. Guardian article on The 272

16. Wikipedia contributors. “1838 Jesuit Slave Sale.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 25, 2026. 1838 Jesuit Slave Sale article

17. Wikipedia contributors. “Antoine Lavalette.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 25, 2026. Antoine Lavalette article

18. Wikipedia contributors. “Catholic Church and Slavery.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 25, 2026. Catholic Church and slavery article

19. Wikipedia contributors. “Jesuits.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed May 25, 2026. Jesuits article

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