Black History Month, to me, has always felt like a constraint on the consumption of Black culture; Black art, Black movies, Black books… Black history are all binged within this month while largely ignored throughout the rest of the year. While I appreciate the intent of the month, and the spotlight it brings, I think that spotlight is too small, and it is too often aimed at the things that aren’t as beneficial to Black progress as one might believe. When it comes to fiction during Black History Month, the books given the spotlight tend to revolve around slavery, Black struggle, and Black trauma, creating the stereotype that Black books only cover the abovementioned limited range of subject matter. And that’s just not true. There are so many books by Black authors covering a wide range of subject matter, across a plethora of genres. It is my hope that these books are more often explored throughout the year, so I’ve made a list of ten Black authored books for the ten remaining months of 2025, each with subject matter that relates to a theme or relevant occasion occurring during the month it has been assigned to. A Black Authored book for every month.

I would rather be writing many things other than this. This exposé that will bring more drama to my life than the zero I usually allow. But, as the title of this post indicates, I was recently discriminated against at Dread Con by the organizers of the event, namely, Michelle River, who also runs Eerie River Publishing. I considered not writing this post and just going on with my life. I even reached out to a few people to ask their opinion on what course I should take, if any. And I was surprised to find that most people I spoke to told me that I shouldn’t call out a publisher who has just started what may eventually be Canada’s biggest horror convention. They said I would ruffle feathers, upset those in the Canadian horror community. They said I would be burning a bridge that might lead to future opportunities. But how can I burn a bridge I was never allowed access to?

2024 was kind of a downer of a year in general (if you want the details as to why, you can check out my breakdown of this year’s failures in my previous post: Realizing that Self-Publishing isn’t the Way). But one of the bright spots of this year was my reading, which never fell off despite how hectic things got. I had started out the year by posting a super ambitious list of books and movies I intended to read and review. And while life made it so I wasn’t able to follow through on most of those reviews, I have read most of the books on that list, and I do still plan on reviewing many of them in the future. For now, here are my five favourite books read in 2024.

For a long while, I was working a degrading, soul stealing, low paying job, and not getting fulltime hours. My rent is wildly high, as many people can relate to, with the world inflating and such. The combination of these things made it so I was seriously considering putting my stuff in storage and living out of my car to save a bit, and stave off this constant feeling of being in over my head. Drowning. Meanwhile, in my author life, I was hustling as best I could. I had just released my eleventh book, In the Darkness, Eyes and Teeth at the end of April. I had been promoting my other books, marketing regularly, all that good stuff. At the end of April, I looked at my sales. 55 books sold (a good month for me at this point in my career). Then I looked at my royalties for that same month. You’d think I had made a decent bit of profit. What I made from those 55 sales was $77.63. And that’s in Canadian currency. When converted, that equates to 54.83 USD. It was then I realized, there must be another way… I also realized that everything I was doing in just about every aspect of my life had to change.

I have been failing for quite some time now. And in a lot of different ways. Since I told myself that I could be successful with my writing, I have been failing. Which is not unheard of. Failing is part of the process of trying to make it as a creative type, or as anything that requires any kind of effort. I just hadn’t thought I would have embraced it so wholeheartedly. It was a Substack milestone that helped me realize I was on my way to yet another failure. Though this one would be of monumental proportions. And it is a failure I am unwilling to accept.