Writing is how I see the world. I think of it exactly that way—like a lens. Through writing, I witness myself and my own experience in this body I’ve been given. I’m wading through the blessings, the convoluted realities, the questions, the lessons, and the weight it all entails. In this miraculous act of seeing myself, I come to feel gratitude, understanding, and empowerment. I come to live.

As we close Women’s History Month, I’m considering what it means to be a Black woman making language today. I’m sitting closely, as I always do, to this quote by Toni Cade Bambara pulled from her vital craft essay, “The Education of a Storyteller,”:

“What are you pretending not to know today, Sweetheart? Colored gal on planet earth? Hmph, know everything there is to know. Anything she/we don’t know is by definition the unknown.”

As Bambara says here, we as Black girls and women are naturally instilled with knowledge. Our knowledge is ancestral, inherent, and most of all, communal. When I think about community, I think about the writers who are pulling me forward these days—less so the canonical literary giants, but my brilliant peers. I think of Tamia Miller, who writes the kind of work rooted in that Black girl instinctual knowledge Bambara speaks of—stories of familial dynamics accented by humor, narratives immersed in body image, crushes, grief, and transformation. In Tamia’s stories, I read my truth, my complications, my Black girlhood in all its exposed fullness. She reminds me why I write—to make Black women feel seen the way her work makes me feel seen.

In honor of Women’s History Month and the power of centering and elevating Black women’s stories, Tamia and I had a conversation about what it means to be Black women making sense of the world through the written word.

Courtney: When and how did you begin writing?

Tamia: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t write. My mom tells this funny story where when I was little before I could properly form sentences, I would take notebooks and write on every line and every page. In my little mind, I was already writing. So in some capacity, writing has always been a part of my life. Journaling and personal stories were my first love.

C: Were there certain things you wrote about? Did you turn to writing when you were happy?

T: The other night, I was on the phone with my best friend, and we pulled out our old journals. I read snippets to him and realized all my entries were usually written when I was angry—friend drama, someone in my family who made me mad, or something happening at school. A lot of passion, but a lot of anger. Also, a lot of romance.

C: That makes me think of Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger.” She says anger is the way women alert the world to injustice. What’s your relationship to anger now?

T: Growing up, I was shy and really afraid of anger. Writing was a safe space where I could keep my anger contained. I thought, “Okay, I can be as angry as I need to be on the page, and just leave it there.” Whereas now, when writing for an audience, I have to ask myself, “How can I not just leave the anger, but turn it into something impactful that can help someone else?” I wonder, “What about this issue angers me? What’s the real injustice here?” Anger is a form of curiosity.

C: What’s it like revisiting your past self in those journals?

T: I miss getting to be that innocent version of myself. I grieve the younger me who was naïve to so many injustices. The older you get, you see the harsh realities of what it’s like for [Black women]. But there’s joy, too. I get to remind myself that a lot of the simple things that made me happy then still make me happy now—spending time with my family or visiting my grandparents, going to the beach, music. There’s beauty in that.