2024
Huckleberry Jim
Review of James,
by Percival Everett
Times Literary Supplement
April 5, 2024
Contents Under Pressure
Review of the Whitney Museum Exhibition
“Henry Taylor: B Side”
The Threepenny Review
Spring 2024
Peanuts and the Absurd Art of Growing Up
Personal essay
The Common Reader
January 19, 2024
2023
Working for the Man
Review of Cahokia Jazz,
by Francis Spufford
Times Literary Supplement
October 6, 2023
What’s the Big Idea?
Essay on conceptual art and the work of
the artist David Hammons
Commonweal
October 2023
Essay in Symposium on The Mysterious
The Threepenny Review
Fall 2023
American Wake-Up Call
Review of The Late Americans,
By Brandon Taylor
Times Literary Supplement
June 30, 2023
All That Makes the Musician
Review of Easily Slip Into Another World,
Memoir by jazz composer Henry Threadgill
(and Brent Hayes Edwards)
The Wall Street Journal
June 17–18, 2023
Short essay for Roundtable on Comics
The Nature of Cities (online)
June 2023
Connecting Flights
Braided essay on aviation, mysteries, jazz,
The Black American experience, and more
The Common Reader (Aviation Issue)
May 24, 2023
The Quiet Dark
Personal Essay
The Threepenny Review
Spring 2023
Their Island Story
Review of the novel The Other Eden,
By Paul Harding
Times Literary Supplement
February 10, 2023
The Angle
Lyric essay
Hunger Mountain
Issue #27, Winter 2023
One or Many?
Review of the book The Need to Be Whole:
Patriotism and the History of Prejudice,
by Wendell Berry
Commonweal
January 2023
2022
Big Man and the Little Men: A Graphic Novel
Other Press
November 22, 2022
Let Us Go Then, You and I
excerpt from my novel
Action, Spectacle
Winter 2022
Come Back, Bobby Fischer: On Competition,
Fairness, and Democracy
Essay
Michigan Quarterly Review, Special Issue:
Fractured Union—American Democracy on the Brink
Fall 2022
No Wonder
Review of the book Teaching White Supremacy:
America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of
Our National Identity, by Donald Yacovone
Commonweal
October 2022
Say What You Know
Review of the book His Name Is George Floyd:
One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,
By Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Times Literary Supplement
August 12, 2022
Keep Looking
Review of photography exhibit
Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street at
The Bronx Museum of Art
Commonweal
July 13, 2022
“Table Talk” piece
The Threepenny Review
Summer 2022
Tobacco
Short story
Sandstorm
Spring 2022
Purple Patch
Review of Gathering Blossoms Under Fire:
The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965–2000
Times Literary Supplement
May 13, 2022
Half the Story
Review of the book Woke Racism: How a
New Religion Has Betrayed Black America,
By John McWhorter
Commonweal
April 25, 2022
La Bohème
Personal essay
The Threepenny Review
Spring 2022
Elected for Orderly Conduct—Barack Obama’s
Impossible Job
Review of the book The Black President: Hope and Fury
in the Age of Obama, by Claude A. Clegg III
Times Literary Supplement
January 21, 2022
Hard-Won Wisdom
Review of the memoir Generations, by Lucille Clifton
Commonweal
January 15, 2022
2021
December 28: Happy Birthday, Lt. Uhura,
and Thank You for Your Starship Service
Short essay on the actress Nichelle Nichols
The Common Reader
December 28, 2021
Washington Stories
Personal essay about growing up in Washington, DC
Phi Kappa Phi Forum
Winter 2021
Make Mine Marvel
Review of All of the Marvels, by Douglas Wolk, and
The Story of Marvel Studios, by Tara Bennett and
Paul Terry
The Wall Street Journal
November 20–21, 2021
African American Cinema Through Black Lives Consciousness
Book review
Cineaste
Winter 2021
Just Enough Light to See By: Conveying Meaning in
Nonfiction Writing
The Writers’ Chronicle
November 2021
Colson Comes to Harlem
Review of the novel Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
The Wall Street Journal
September 4–5, 2021
Essay in Symposium on Childhood
The Threepenny Review
Fall 2021
The Black Picture Show
Review of the books The Content of Our Caricature:
African American Comic Art and Political Belonging
and Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books
The Common Reader
August 4, 2021
When Black Was Born
Review of the music documentary Summer of Soul
Commonweal
August 1, 2021
Six poems: “Robin Scott,” “Stingray,” “My Other Grandparents,”
“My Brother’s Apartment,” “A Walk with Her,” and “9/11 Poem”
Subnivean
Issue 03
June 2021
Root Response—Letter from New Orleans
Essay on forgiveness among African-Americans
Commonweal
June 19, 2021
Ming Yang Fu, Or, Seeking Words at Age Thirteen
Personal essay
Chicago Quarterly Review
Volume 33, 2021
Listed among Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2021 in The Best American Essays 2022
There’re People Living Under Here
Review of the art exhibition Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,
at the New Museum in New York City
Commonweal
April 26, 2021
The View from Beneath
Review of Richard Wright’s novel The Man Who Lived Underground
Wall Street Journal
April 24, 2021
What Made the Civil Rights Movement Successful--And What Came Next
Review of the books Black Magic, by Chad Sanders, and The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights, by Thomas C. Holt
The Washington Post
February 21, 2021
The Home of Two Cliffs
Personal essay
The Threepenny Review
Spring 2021
The Past and the Iceberg: Black Horror Films, Then and Now
Cineaste
Spring 2021
Blues for Mister Stanley
A remembrance of Stanley Crouch
American Book Review
Winter 2021
Fear in the Gut, Change in the Air
Review of the film One Night in Miami
Times Literary Supplement
January 22, 2021
Masked Men
Essay on the storming of the U.S. Capitol
Commonweal
January 18, 2021
Time Is Precious: A Conversation with Clifford Thompson
Interviewed by the writer Julie Marie Wade for…
The Rumpus
January 4, 2021
Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White
Book review
Los Angeles Review of Books
January 4, 2021
The Four Phases of Malcolm X
Review of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
Times Literary Supplement
January, 1, 2021