Where have I been? Well, besides being a thirty-year-old with anxiety and chronic headaches, I’ve been doing woeful writer’s block and I finally got to play everyone’s favorite game, Is this COVID or Seasonal Allergies? (it was COVID unfortunately this past week). I’m sorry to admit that I’ve neglected this space — a space I intended (and still do intend) to cultivate as a means of a creative outlet between publishing my first book (American Sex Tape, University of Wisconsin Press, Fall 2022) and working a full-time apprenticeship and witnessing all the beauty and bullshittery of everyday living. Regardless of the highs, lows, and mehs lately I’m happy to return to Substack with the encouragement of some friends and a few readers of my newsletter.
I’m still working out what exactly I want to share and what I find valuable to devote my energy to. I’m also still very cognizant of the touchstones and talking points that stream down screen daily for us who participate in the culture online. With that being said, I’m focusing my energies on writing to not only inform and entertain, but to also satisfy my enduring need to be weird. Human life is too odd and messy to not want to give all of our nonsense the artistic treatment. I’m disinterested in writing for the sake of joining the chorus on the hot take of the week when there are much better writers who can write much faster than I can. Be forewarned, I want to write about Disney adults and the wives of dictators and the pro-wrestler, Chyna. Let’s stay weird with it.
So what is Mka Letters doing right? I’m working on building out two newsletter columns. In Demon Time, the personal and political shape my conversations and interventions on sex and sexuality. I planned to post a piece on my recent visit to the braiding salon in which I received a crash course in Nigerian soap operas and sexual politics between men and women from the perspective of my very charming and funny hair stylist. But I felt my essay was falling short of capturing the funny absurdity of that Saturday’s sexual wisdom, as well as failing to transcend my own ignorance or biases about Black and African women, domesticity, and sacred cultural spaces for minorities in this country. Once I re-tool that essay, I hope it will do what good writing does: astound and overwhelm, but also make you cry and laugh. My second column, still in the gestation stage, is The Kids Are All Yeet (where you’ll find this quick and dirty update). I’m hoping to bring collaborations between myself, friends, family, and cultural consumers to this space to talk about everything from the Digital Age and coming-of-age as a Millennial. So continue to watch this space. I hope to be back on schedule by the end of this week once I get a clean bill of health.
-Jameka