Publications
Our publications experiment with format, cost, and distribution to get black arts discourse to as many people as possible.
Most of our writing is done through direct commissions. We accept pitches to our newest venture, however, The Brief—Print Edition.
Currently writing for us or interested in doing so? Read our Style & Tone Guide, which includes details on pitching.
Out in November - Print Newsletter
The Brief — Print Edition
We’re excited to announce The Brief, a brand new print newsletter that treats art and arts writing as collective sites of political struggle and imagination.
Each issue contains essays, reviews, illustrations, position pieces, and announcements and calls, that bring aesthetic and political analyses into close conversation. We describe the newsletter as political arts writing that makes you think again.
Our first of 3 issues comes out in November. You can subscribe to all three issues for one small donation.
Special Edition - Current Resident
Undoing Time
In Fall ‘25 we we embedded Emily Mulenga’s piece The Time is Now in online ad spaces throughout Seattle. We love the internet but we also love print projects that people can hold on to, so we commissioned ruth gebreyesus to write about Mulenga’s work.
Undoing Time begins with the fact that “It’s unclear if the clocks [in Mulenga’s piece] are counting up or down to zero,” and ruminates on the existential urgencies of the present. Her writing is interspersed with images of artists’ work, photographs of protests, cartoon stills, political posters, and more. The publication’s bright yellow paper reflects the cartoon styling’s of Mulenga’s work and makes the publication as visually alive as the work it responds to.
The project was designed by Zoë Pulley and edited by Jessica Lynne. It was printed on Neenah ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers at Girlie Press in Seattle.
We would love for you to have a copy but we sold out multiple times!!!
Arts Criticism Newsletter
The Brief — Digital Edition
Our quarterly newsletter is devoted to brief, unpretentious arts writing that makes you feel again.
We commission arts writers to ruminate on black art from around the world, focusing on formal analysis, conceptual wandering, critical takes, and dropping readers into hyperlocal art scenes. The writing is fast, punchy, and free.
Subscribe to The Brief — Digital Edition, which comes out four times a year.
Annual Journal
A Year in Black Art
Our annual journal features writing done by Arts Writing Incubator participants and our guests and collaborators. For many years, the journal was edited by our Executive Director; later, we extended invitations to guest editors. The journal is currently edited by our very own Jessica Lynne.
Free PDF copies of the journal can be accessed on our website, and hard copies of the journal are dropped at locations throughout Seattle for free—part of our mission to make black arts discourse available and accessible to as many people as possible.