I wrote this essay when I was angry.

I consider myself a rational, reasonable individual. My life has been one of success—working hard, pushing the envelope, and achieving. Deep down, though, I think I’m very guilty of believing that if you build it and honor it, they will come.

Maybe I internalized that 1989 movie, Field of Dreams, a little too much. Because the truth is, you can build it, plant the seeds, water it faithfully—and still, nothing grows. Sometimes you have to ask: is this the right garden? Do I have the right seeds. Or is this one of those seasons of famine, not feast?

Over the last 24 months, the stumbles in my journey have forced me to admit something, I’d rather not, that the missteps hurt. I’ve been pretending that they don’t hurt. But they do. Even when you turn the other cheek, the bruise on the other one is still there. When disappointment seeps into your bones, or you let circumstances get under your skin, or you start connecting dots—boy you begin to wonder if you’ve been blind. On those days, I ask myself: am I becoming a conspiracy theorist? Or did I just choose not to believe my own eyes?

Even a calm, levelheaded woman has to acknowledge when she is hurt and angry. My logical side tells me, “It’s just business. It’s politics. It’s economics. It’s not personal.” But every time I put pen to paper, it is personal. Part of me spills onto the page. When you meet my characters, you’re also meeting pieces of me—my wounds, my fears, my hopes, even some dreams. It sounds crazy, but that’s the life of an artist.

Perhaps, we are a little bit off. Who else would willingly put their words or their creations out there to be scrutinized by strangers? You might have to be a little crazy to face bloodthirsty reviews or accept the brunt of someone’s bad day, all because of something you were burning to create.

To be a writer or artist requires audacity—the belief that your story is worth telling, your song is worth hearing, you canvas is worth showing off. And even the humblest creators have to admit we are audacious.

Again, I say you have to be a little bit off because the road to creation is long, filled with danger, rejection, and the occasional spiral into bone crushing doubt.

So to my fellow writers who hit walls—whether self-inflicted, systemic, or circumstantial—own the pain. Then release it. My art is my statement to the world. Within the pages, one can find my zeal and my anger. I own it. I Vanessa Riley get angry sometimes.

I promise you that my anger is a mirror of my passion. It equates to all the research and translations and microfiche that I will search to gather fresh facts. I work hard.

I don’t intend to stop. As I write this essay for my podcast, I intend to keep making art. Because I believe, that I have a message the world needs to hear.

In the coming months, until Fire Sword and Sea releases, you’ll hear me talking about it, the hardest book I had to write. Yes, it’s about pirates in the Caribbean where you will have a diverse crew on the top of the boat working together, while chattel slavery exists within the bowls of the ship. So a meritocracy on top with White and Black and Brown pirates with enslaved people chained below. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s action filled. It’s true.

I will shout it from rooftops, fight to get it attention. The story matters. Because when we hide the past, we hide ourselves. And when we hide our anger, we hide our authenticity. And the fight to make it public hasn’t been easy. It’s made me angry.

It’s ok to be angry, but we can’t let anger fester. Then it turns into cynicism, inaction, and paralysis. I’m a work in progress and I’ve had to take my bottled-up feelings and release them through prayer and being able to hope for more. I gave up the noise to make room for healing.

So, you’re not crazy. You are not a conspiracy theorist. You are human. You are hurting. But the world still deserves to see your art.

Anger isn’t always productive. It doesn’t move the needle by itself. Acting while angry can cost you jobs, power, and peace. So yes—be angry but be wise. Be quick to release any sour heat churning in your soul. My advice is to do what must be done. Do your calling.

And as for me, I’ll live to play in my art another day and I ‘ll let God fight my present day and future battles.

This week’s reading list includes:

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner – A classic on understanding anger, especially for women, and how to use it as a tool for growth rather than destruction.

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly – Examines how women’s anger has been dismissed, and why it’s actually a powerful, transformative force.

Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou – Gentle but firm reflections on disappointment, resilience, and the courage to be authentic.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde – Essays and speeches on anger, identity, and transformation through truth-telling.

This week, I’m highlighting Bookmarks, NC through their website and Bookshop.org

The preorder campaign has begun, get the collector cards for characters in Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build momentum for this historical fiction. Please ask your library to carry this novel and spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. This saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers that are in on the campaign. Get the collector cards while supplies last.

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—be a part of my crew. Your journey deserves community.

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

I spent Labor Day eve with my family. It was great catching up—finding out how everyone’s doing, whether they got the job they wanted, how things are going at work, how far they’ve come toward their goals. We talked about houses, kids, fences—life. It felt good to just soak in family.

The pandemic robbed us of something priceless: time spent seeing and being part of each other’s lives. And I’ll be honest; I internalized that separation. I grew incredibly comfortable in my own home. Never leaving my zoom or desktop computer, I am happy working, wrapped up in the fantasy world of the books I write. I call myself an introverted extrovert—or maybe an extroverted introvert. Put me on a stage with a mic, and I’ll light up. I will beam with energy and exhibit such showmanship.

But catch me at home with a hazelnut latte in one hand, a phone to scroll in the other, wearing my robe, bonnet, and slippers, I’m happy. And in the dead of night, I’ll find peace listening to a book or watching a cooking show. Right now, I’m get happy watching, With Love Megan. The show is warm and comfortable. Meghan is gorgeous and thoughtful. She shows us aspirational bits of the soft life, and I think we all want it. I dream of being the hostess who can make her guest feel comfortable light up with a simple gesture that shows she’s thinking about them. I love the idea of small gestures. I like the list of new foods that I’ll try to make, including slow cooker apple butter. If you know me, I am a slow cooker girl. I can do real damage with any one of the many slow cookers or crockpots I own.

Back to the point. My crockpots are inside. I love to cook for people inside. Being inside, that kind of comfort is seductive. And it can trick us into forgetting that life is happening beyond the TV and Kitchen, right outside our doors. Life is out there. People are laughing, crying, hurting, losing, winning—all outside our walls. And it’s worth checking in on people in all those moments.

Then Monday, I stopped by The Book Worm Bookstore in Powder Springs to check on Julia, my friend and the wonderful bookstore’s owner. She’s juggling so much right now—staff changes, city ordinances, personal losses.

It felt good to laugh with her, to commiserate, to talk about challenges in the book industry and to admire the many beautiful books on the shelves. Inside her store, there’s joy and love. But outside her walls, businesses are shuttered, city plans are in flux, and simple things like parking become a battles.

It reminds me that every business, every shopfront, has real people inside—living, breathing, working hard to create a life they love. They are under threat by higher costs and by the changing ways Americans work and live. Change that may have taken decades is here now. Without safety nets, folks are waking up to layoffs and losses of resources. I told you recently about AI infiltrating the family group text. Well, AI is taking entry level jobs, software programming jobs and more. In eight months things shifted, they are not going to shift back. These disruptions means, we need to check on each other more than ever.

If you’re not inclined to drive to a golf course to hang out or to throw a huge dinner for folks to come and sit a spell, you can find other ways to check in. The group text is a great way. Checking in can be a morning prayer, a parable of encouragement, or even sending Instagram reels back and forth. A funny reel says, “I wanted to make you laugh today.” An encouraging one says, “You matter to me. I thought about you.” A messy one says, “I’m messy and you are too.” That doesn’t take much time—just a couple minutes—but it can mean everything.

As we head toward fall, winter, and even the end of the year, I feel very reflective. And I’m not blind to the pain and uncertainty all around us. People are hurting. Some are failing. The struggle is very real. Which makes checking in even more important.

I don’t want to be so busy that I forget the people around me. I don’t want to lose empathy. And yes, I still wrestle with it—for people, for systems, for situations that caused harm. On social media, I see rumors and chaos, and I understand the temptation to root for that chaos, but we need to resist. We can’t lose our humanity.

We have to believe in our better angels. We must hold onto the faith that this too shall pass—whether or not we’re doomscrolling through the night. And while we wait for brighter days, we can do the simplest, most powerful thing: check in. Send the note. Make the call. Get out the house. Share a belly-rocking laugh. Love out loud.

When we check on each other, we remind ourselves—and the world—that we are in this race together. And we need to pull up those close to us, so we can all win.

This week, I picked a few books to help ups check in:

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman — This book focuses on the work and joy of sustaining deep friendships.

The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama — This book showcases resilience, community, and holding onto hope in difficult times.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones —This work of fiction explores family, separation, resilience, and the bonds that keep us checking on each other even in hard times.

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad — This memoir offer reflections on illness, survival, and rediscovering connection after isolation.

This week, I’m highlighting The Book Worm through their website and Bookshop.org

The preorder campaign has begun, get collector cards for pirates in 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 that are in on the campaign. Get the collector cards while supplies last.

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

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.

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

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

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