September 2026

Hello, friends.

A few weeks ago, I read an essay called Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor, which, in retrospect, may not have been the best reading choice for someone preparing to start submitting her work to literary magazines.

Peter Selgin, the essay’s author, had strong opinions.

Suddenly, I was thinking about my use of exclamation marks. Was it excessive? My italics. Were they distracting? Would editors hate my writing style? Did I even have a writing style?

And because anxiety is nothing if not thorough, I eventually frenzied my way to a bigger, scarier question: What if I submitted my work to a hundred publications and received a rejection from every single one?

Would that mean it wasn’t good enough?

If you read last month’s In the Margins, you might remember that I said rejection was part of the process and that I knew I would encounter it.

I meant it, too.

Apparently, knowing that and being mentally prepared for it are two different things.

Who knew?

Apparently, not Ebony.

I suppose that’s true of more than writing. We can prepare for things. We can talk to people who’ve lived through them. We can watch from the outside and think we understand what an experience will be like.

Then it happens to us.

Sometimes the experience confirms what we thought we knew. Sometimes it complicates it. And sometimes we discover there were parts we just couldn’t have understood until we experienced it for ourselves.

Here’s another possibility: sometimes even experiencing something isn’t enough to understand it.

Sometimes understanding comes later.

There are experiences I can look back on now and see differently than I did while I was living them. Time can do that. So can age. Sometimes new information changes the way we understand something we thought we’d already made sense of.

That’s been on my mind a lot lately.

I started Virginia Slims & Peach Cobbler thinking I was writing about my grandmother’s influence on me as an avid reader and writer. After several revisions (and I mean several), I realized the essay was really about the ordinary moments with her that shaped me in ways I didn’t fully appreciate until years later.

Well, the essay is officially done now, and I’ve started sending it out into the world. I’ve submitted it to four literary journals so far.

One of those submissions is particularly special.

Years ago, my cousin Angela Carole Brown published a personal essay about her mother, my late great-aunt Martha, in midnight & indigo, a literary journal that champions the creative work of Black women. Aunt Martha, Granny’s older sister, was the original rich auntie in my eyes. She is dearly missed.

Now I’ve submitted an essay about Granny to the same journal.

I have no idea whether they’ll publish it. Of course, I hope they do. But I can’t help imagining it: two sisters, remembered in the pages of the same literary journal by two writers in their family.

What a treat that would be!

I’m working on an essay with the slightly ridiculous title The Really Funny Thing My Kid Said That I Can’t Tell You About. And yes, there really is a (very) funny thing. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. Sorry, not sorry. 😂 What started with something my kid said has turned into a much bigger question for me as a nonfiction writer: What happens when a story is mine to witness, but not entirely mine to tell?

Then there’s We Can’t All Be Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love was the first memoir I ever read. It was given to me during a dark period in my life. Now, almost twenty years later, I’m reading it again before I finish an essay that has quite a bit to say about the version of finding yourself that Elizabeth Gilbert got to have.

Until next month...

I’d love to hear from you.

Tell me: What’s something you understood differently once you actually experienced it for yourself?

I read every reply.

That’s all for now, friend. I’ll see you next month and, as always, thanks for reading.

P.S. That article really spooked me, by the way. There were several italicized words in this issue, but I went back and changed them. Peter Selgin might see. 🫣

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