With a little help from his own words and actions — This was originally published on fiza.substack.com. We lost another Civil Rights giant late last week, and I’m having a hard time moving past this initial stage of mourning. …

Finding humility in anti-racist work — Excerpted from Issue 17 of Foreign Bodies. Read in full here. “I’m not welcoming these calls,” Neal Lester, a Black professor at Arizona State University known for his extensive knowledge on race and society, told his third caller that morning, a white columnist at The Arizona Republic searching for some…

The first great millennial novelist (or something like that) — This was originally published on fiza.substack.com. In 2015, The Guardian’s Justine Jordan wrote about a new Irish literary boom dominated by women writers attuned to the more dynamic and radical. …

An ode to Afrofuturism — This was originally published on fiza.substack.com. The latest issue of Bitch Media’s quarterly print publication begins with editor-in-chief Evette Dionne’s short ode to the Harry Potter series, a head-shake to the problematic author behind it all and a dedication to fill the subsequent pages with affirming, transcendental stories that empower…

The winds will carry me and I will ache for morning again — It started with a promise to embrace the unpredictable. …

A touch of warmth during a cryptic time — If all feels overcast and all you see is gloom, might I suggest a minute under the sun? I have been tethered to my bed, to this house for about a month now and the sun, which has admittedly kept its distance for much of February and March, has still…

When news breaks, I am called to perform, inform, report, write. But it’s an itch I’m hardly scratching. — I’m no longer part of a newsroom, but loved ones (and friends of friends) have been coming to me with pandemic needs and questions and requests for coverage. …

Where my head’s at amid the coronavirus pandemic — Can you get away from the noise for a bit? Find somewhere quiet, even if it means drawing a second bath or locking yourself in the bedroom closet? Just somewhere to decompress, put your body at ease as your mind inevitably wanders? Remember, if you’re feeling a sense of panic…

On bridges, breaths and sitting up to write again — Tuck from the core, hold, then lift into bridge; don’t let the thighs, the back, the torso do the work. PAIN. Use your core, Fiza. Breathe, bridge. PAIN. Breathe in, Fiza. Then breathe out. Breathe in. Tuck from the core. Breathe out, and lift from the core. Lower the bridge…