An Interview With Ebony Tomatoes
Conducted by Jamilla Philson
All images courtesy of Ebony Tomatoes
Writing Editors: Cecilia, Ava, Cheyenne, and Binny (left to right), at the release of the“ Beyond the Margin” / Photo by Brie Nunley
1. What is Ebony Tomatoes and how did it come to be?
A: Ebony Tomatoes is a literary and arts magazine that promotes the work of Black writers and artists with intersectional identities. Our main topics are community, organizing, personal identity, gender and sexuality, and all of our work is from a first-person perspective. None of the stories that we're telling are from people who are outside of that experience. It's all from Black writers and poets and artists who have a personal connection to the things they're talking about. And that's been really special.
Ebony Tomatoes started in my junior year of college. I was at NYU in the film program and that was a very creative space but I didn't feel like it was a very inclusive or diverse space. I remember just feeling kind of frustrated like my professors weren't really understanding my work because I was writing stuff about like lesbian Black panthers and things that were kind of outside of the realm of, like, what a lot of my peers were writing about. I know that other Black women in the program felt similarly. I was quarantined in my little room in the East Village and I was like“ damn, I wish I just had a community where I could exchange work with Black women writers [and] Black non-binary writers as well.” That led me to create a Black women's writers group and that was the writers that ended up becoming Ebony Tomatoes. A lot of the members of that writers group are now the co-founders and editors of Ebony Tomatoes. It just kind of took off from there because we were like, let's grow it from just a workshop to something a little bit bigger and a little bit more permanent.
2. I love the initiative of the magazine as well as the collective in general. I would love for you to elaborate on the role you see your magazine playing in the greater landscape of Black creatives as well as Blackness in the literary and publishing worlds?
A: I think that question is really spot on and that's something that I've definitely asked myself as I've worked on Ebony Tomatoes for three years. There was a report that came out last year that said that 73% of people in publishing are white and 78% of publishing executives are white.
So even in these really big magazines that I respect and learn from, you're losing a part of that perspective not having Black people in these spaces, and not having Indigenous people in these spaces. Ebony Tomatoes is a very unique collective in the sense that we are talking about the things that other magazines aren't because as a group of people who are marginalized and oppressed, the things that we're thinking about editorially are actually a bit more revolutionary. We’re existing in almost a different world, a different space where if you look at the types of issues that we've come out with, they discuss how outside of politics we can mobilize our communities on the ground. Our last issue was about the Black Lesbian and Transgender experience. Our issue before that was about Liberation movements around the world in Sudan, Palestine, and the Congo. We’re featuring Sudanese writers and Afro-Palestinian writers who might've not otherwise had that platform because it might not have fit what a lot of other magazines are looking for. So we'll see other conversations about internet discourse, social media, girlhood, all of those things, which is really important and really special, but I think Ebony Tomatoes brings a space where we’re like“ let's talk about revolution.” Let's talk about the things that will liberate us as Black people, as Black writers. I think that that's a really necessary space and that we're providing that. I think another thing is that we're completely independent. All of us are truly a collective where we're all working to maintain it. And I think a lot of magazines, you know, have a lot of ads or are purchased by larger companies who kind of control what kind of stories they're telling. Which is obviously gonna influence what types of stories are being told and how the team is running. It definitely has some difficulties for sure. But I think the plus side is that it gives us a lot of freedom to talk our shit and say what we need to say and do what we need to do.
3. How do you stay constantly inspired by the art and creation of others but also in yourself in this chaotic world right now?
A: I feel like the biggest inspiration for me is when we get a piece that comes to us and it's unique, personal, and urgent. When I'm like,“ wow this is a story that needs to be told. That's not one that I would have thought about and I'm really glad that it exists.” So a couple of examples of that in our Liberation issue, which is about Palestine and Sudan, we had Samah Fadil, an Afro-Palestinian writer and she wrote a piece called the Five Stages of Grief through her experiences as a Palestinian woman and as a Palestinian writer who wanted to help people from there. I just felt like that story was just so personal but also so insightful. I feel like she brought a perspective that no one else really could have. I think all of the work that I do soliciting writers and editing the work has helped produce stories that move cultural discourse forward and is really important but also adds something fresh and unique to the cultural conversation. Another example of that was in our Black lesbian and transgender experience issue, this writer named Sól Girard wrote about Twa Mák: Divinity in Dykehood and it was about how they explored their gender through voodoo and African spirituality. Usually you'll see someone either talking about gender and being trans or you'll hear about someone talking about Orishas and African spirituality. I think what's really inspiring for me, working at Ebony Tomatoes, is seeing writing that kind of brings light to the different themes that you don't usually think of intersecting. That is the benefit of bringing in such a diverse range of writers who are thinking about things like, what does it mean to be Black and Palestinian? What does it mean to be a spiritual worker and a Black transgender person? These are the combinations that I feel I don't really see in the media, you're really only seeing one or the other. But I think it just adds a certain nuance and depth that I find really inspiring and necessary. I think there is a necessity of it, especially with the fact that mainstream media is being controlled by billionaires and politicians who should not be having such a say in what journalists, writers, and poets are talking about. Seeing writers censor themselves before they even get published makes me really frustrated. That's why it makes me feel like this stuff is necessary. We need to keep doing this and doing that work.
“Seeing writers censor themselves before they even get published makes me really frustrated. That's why it makes me feel like this stuff is necessary. We need to keep doing this and doing that work.”
Ebony Tomatoes 21st Issue“ Liberation” / Design by Baaba and Photography by Nina Osoria Ahmadi. Model: Monique Ezeh
4. What challenges do you feel like Black creatives may face today and how do you think your publication is healing that?
A: I think Black creators face so many challenges. Some of the biggest challenges I think are visibility, support, and compensation. I think those are the biggest challenges that I face as a Black writer and that I think most of the people in the collective also face, just being recognized for our work, being shouted out for our work, and having our work circulate in wider spaces. Nepotism and class play a really big role in what writers get published and what creators get a platform. I think that’s really unfair. You shouldn’t have to know someone to get published. You shouldn’t have to pay an application fee or anything to be published. I don’t even think you should even have to network and grab a coffee with someone everyday to get published. I think if you have something good to say and your work is strong, pertinent, and urgent, then you should be published. I think that Ebony Tomatoes does a good job of that. We don't have submission fees as of now. We don't charge writers to submit to their work. We started a trial compensation structure where we are working to try to compensate our editors and our writers for everything they do. But that's something that I'm working for because I think that's really important. We really judge what we publish off of the quality of the work. I think that it's very much merit-based but also like our structure as a collective is very non-hierarchical.
We always ask the writer: what do you think of the edits we made to your piece, are there any edits you feel uncomfortable with, do you wanna talk about them further? And there'll be like that back and forth. So the writer can really engage with the editing process as much as they want to. It's more of a collaborative process. I think in other creative spaces, there's kind of a hierarchy where the editor usually has the final say in what’s coming out. Yes, that is true in the sense of like, I [as an editor] am looking over everything for the first and last time and wanting it to be the best it can be. But it's more like we're all working together because we all have similar values and our experience of Blackness, although Blackness is very multifaceted, there are certain fundamentals that are understood. We all know how hard it is. We all know the challenges that we're facing. I think all of the editors of Ebony Tomatoes come to work with that awareness. I definitely think that's something that's missing for sure in like a lot of other spaces.
5. What have been your favorite/most memorable submissions published?
A:Twa Mák: Divinity in Dykehood by Sól Girard was one that I loved just because it fits a really unique intersection of gender and spirituality, which is something that I'm really interested in. I thought Sól did a really great job of explaining that. Another one of my favorites was called Dear Rachel by Monique Ezeh, which was in our Liberation issue. It was by a Black writer who wrote a letter to Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Gaza in 2003 because she couldn’t stand by and watch what was happening thus deciding she needed to be on the ground and help. Then, she was unfortunately murdered in Palestine. Monique wrote a letter to her in our issue and I thought it was really beautiful, very well written. It was clear that Monique had a strong grasp of the history of this conflict and It was clear that the emotion really came through and I felt like the fact that it was a letter just added a sense of personality, voice, and rigor that I really loved. That was definitely one of my favorite pieces.
Another one of my favorite pieces was called Quicksand by Payton Selby. That essay was about her experience with having an eating disorder. It was very personal, it was very painful. I tend to really like pieces that are coming from a urgent place within the writer where you can tell that it's coming from a real sense of feeling, a real experience, and they're expressing it in a way where you're with them and they’re holding your hand as like you've walked through that experience with them. I think that Peyton did a really beautiful job at explaining what factors in a Black girl's life will cause her to stop eating or cause her to want to disappear. That's a theme that actually shows up time and time again in our submissions. There was another poem about disordered eating called Hunger by Saffy. That was a really, really beautiful poem, probably one of my favorite poems that I've ever read through Ebony Tomatoes, because it was equally as raw and personal. It explores, again, this intersection of what it means to be fat and Black and have an eating disorder. The invisibility, vulnerability, and the unique sort of pain, but also hope that comes with that. Saffy's submitted a few things to us and like it's been great having a relationship with them through the collective. Another one of my favorites that was also in our Black Lesbian and transgender experience was called In Loving Color: How It Feels To Love a Black Dyke by Cheyenne Edwards, one of our editors, who's also a very good friend of mine. It was about her experience being in a like Black on Black relationship, and how rare that is in the lesbian community because a lot of queer relationships are interracial. But Cheyenne was like, actually, no, it's really sacred and really special to be a Black woman who loves another Black woman. There's so much to share and learn from each other and it's just like a really special thing. I thought that that specifically was a story that I don't really hear very often.
I thought that added so much to the issue in the way that it spoke on how it is good and lovely and healing to love another Black person as a Black person. Having more stories like that can kind of break through this idea that whiteness is like the most desirable [option], that whiteness is the most beautiful and the thing that you should be striving for. I thought Cheyenne broke those boundaries down very well and very beautifully. I think all of those are some of my favorites. I also really like any piece that challenges something, I would say. Not just “racism is bad” or basic forms of critique in leftist spaces that we already all know. But I think those essays or writings that bring it a step higher and are like “what are some things that we're still holding onto” even in people who are aware and conscious of social issues. That’s the next level that Ebony Tomatoes seeks to publicize.
6. Any advice for emerging Black writers and creatives?
A: My advice, which I am taking myself, is that persistence is huge. It is not easy to do what we do. We face a lot of opposition. Black writers statistically don't get the same amount of funding as white writers. Black writers statistically don't get the same opportunities or recognition as non-Black writers. That's just the reality. When you're starting off as a writer and you're also working on improving your writing and your art, I think it's important to be like, “okay, this is the reality, but I'm gonna do it anyway.” I also think another piece of advice that I have for Black writers is to be aware of the community you're building. I would say that the community aspect is really healing and really beautiful. A lot of this work just cannot be done alone. I would say share your work with your friends and have them edit it. The editing process is just as important as the writing itself. To be a good writer, remember that you should be editing. You should be putting your work out there and sending it to people who want to read it. Don't be too precious with your work, because if you wanna be a writer, you're gonna write a lot in your life. After working on a project for so long, my partner had edited it and ended up telling me it actually needed some work. I had a whole crisis about it. But then, I realized that’s what makes you a better writer, is by putting yourself out there, crying a little bit, dealing with the rejection, and then still continuing to write more. I still need to say what I need to say. I think that's kind of the biggest thing that I would say because it's hard, but it's always worth it. You have yet to create your best work.
Ava and Cecilia selling magazines at a zine crawl at Bluestockings Cooperative
7. Personally for you, what has been the most rewarding part of this whole process?
A: I'm doing the final touches on our upcoming issue called Against the Tide: Community Care in the Collapse of Empire (launching on February 9th). It’s all about how do we take care of each other? This was a very difficult issue for me. It was difficult for us to find people to interview. It was difficult to solicit writers for this for some reason. It was difficult to find narratives that went above what we all already know. We all know it's important to do mutual aid, to volunteer, to donate to initiatives. But I wanted this issue to take it a step further. I wanted to be like“ what are people actually doing that's new?” Things that are genuinely revolutionary in their communities. What are they doing as far as offering physical and spiritual resources or mobilizing in a really specific way? After months and months of editing, writing, soliciting, formatting, designing, and working with photographers, [I was] getting to a point where you see the magazine, you see the spread and it's like beautiful. The stories are beautiful. It all comes together in a way that is even better than I could have imagined. I think that's the most rewarding part. But just seeing the visual products of all of the work that we've put in, all of the work that the editing team has put in, and seeing it go from like a little seed of an idea to a million first drafts to edited final drafts.
Seeing the finished product is just so fun and rewarding. It gives me that tingle in my stomach, I'm like“ oh my gosh, we've created something new. We've created something beautiful. This is a physical thing that you can hold and touch; it's on people's coffee tables. People are reading it.” A lot of times you don't have dedicated spaces for Black writers. If you were a white editor, a lot of times white editors will not understand the perspective you're coming from as a Black writer. I feel like they'll censor certain things without even meaning to. Having an uncensored, but still quality and raw account of what it means to be Black right now in America, what it means to be facing all of these problems right now, but having like a printed version of it that you can't take off the internet because it's on a page feels very important. I definitely think that part makes it all worth it for me.
“Having an uncensored, but still quality and raw account of what it means to be Black right now in America, what it means to be facing all of these problems right now, but having like a printed version of it that you can't take off the internet because it's on a page feels very important.”
8. How do you use the magazine as a tool for activism while still supporting and uplifting a creative cultural community?
A: I feel like for Ebony Tomatoes specifically, activism and creativity go hand in hand. I think what makes us unique, [is that] when you give Black and Indigenous writers a microphone, you're gonna hear stories about activism. You're gonna hear stories about people who are making change or wanting to make change either within themselves or within their communities and families. It matched our focus on uplifting a certain community, even as diversity and inclusion efforts are being rolled back on a federal and political level. So, all of our writing I view as an act of resistance.
Even in my role as an editor-in-chief and founder, as someone who just loves to write, I can contribute to my community and can advocate for the stories that I want to hear as a reader. To be honest, I don't think activism can exist without creativity. I think if you're really advocating and imagining, to change the world requires that you can imagine a new world. If you wanna change society and not just critique society, you have to consider what will replace our presidents, what will replace billionaires, and what comes next? If we tear the system of capitalism down, what comes next? What do we need to unlearn and what do we need to create? That's where creativity comes in. Our writers and editors are asking themselves those same questions and our body of work is a testament to that. For example, if we have a new piece about something as personal as struggling with an eating disorder, the“ what’s next” is when we [begin to] unlearn the Eurocentric body standards, when we unlearn that we don't have to be white and skinny and Bella Hadid-core. What comes after that? Our work explores that. There's self-love that comes after that. There's being able to laugh and eat and be merry with your friends and sit around a table and cry. Pretty much every one of our issues has mentioned something about that, which is really cool. The activism is in the creativity and the creativity is in the creating but also the imagining and [understanding] there's just a world where we can be the“ what’s next.”
In this issue that we're doing now Against the Tide: Community Care in the Collapse of Empire, Binny, one of our editors, interviewed OlaRonke Akinmowo, who is the founder of the Free Black Women's Library, which is a social art project in Bed-Stuy. She created a free library where she got a hundred books from her friends and started a pop-up on a bus. Then, she developed it into a whole library where she hosts workshops, brief circles, comedy events, but also has a space for people to come, read, and be in community for free. The reason why that piece is in this issue is because it is something that would exist in a decolonized world. That's something that would exist in the anti-capitalist world. That's someone that has imagined something beautiful and important and she's done it. That is the kind of stories that we want to put out, people who have not only imagined those things but have also done them and experienced them. To me as a reader and hopefully everyone else reading, it’s an inspiration to me because it shows we can do more than critique and shake our fists at God. We actually do have the power to create the changes that we want, to imagine the world that we want. There's a whole world of people who are doing that exact same thing. We can take it a step further. Oppression is not the end of our story. It is not the end of who we are. It's just the beginning. We kind of want to take it to that point, to the beginning of the new world.
A photo from Ebony Tomatoes newest issue Against the Tide: Community Care in the Collapse of Empire / Photo by Kendra Shiloh Russell
9. How do you hope your content resonates with your audience?
A: There are two things. The first is kind of what I mentioned before, where I want people to imagine new worlds. That's increasingly important. I want people to read our work and come away with a sense of feeling inspired. I think that is something I see a lot of online in social media discourse where it’s a critique without really considering what’s next?
Billionaire-funded magazines are giving us our news. They're removing fact checkers from Facebook. There is a clear disinformation campaign. Our working class and third world peers are suffering and not getting the resources they need. We all know this and people are talking about this, but what now? What do we do to regain our agency? What are we doing to take our power back? Me and the other editors specifically look for work that embodies and imagines that. I hope that [the audience] can take away that even if you're not Black, even if you're not queer, you're being oppressed most likely in some way. Furthermore, how do we address how you're gonna take that power back for your community? How are you create a world for and by the people [where] we're not overrun by a 9-to-5 and meaningless tasks. We truly are imagining an anti-capitalist future where we can all be liberated. I think the biggest thing that I want readers to take away from our work is this sense of liberation and sense of freedom. Not only from external forces of oppression, but from the little voice in our own heads that's saying we're not good enough, saying we don't deserve to be loved, saying that we don't deserve a healthy queer relationship or just because you look a certain way or are in certain circumstances, it's damning you to a certain type of suffering.
A lot of our work is very personal. People are talking about their families, their grief, their sadness, their anger, their rage. [We’re bringing these stories onto a page or onto even a screen and have it edited and polished by an editor that understands, an editor that gets it. Then as a reader, it's resonant because you can tell this was created by a group of people who support each other and care about creating the best work possible.
[The audience begins to] understand that“ I can get free from the colonizer in my mind, I can get free from the sense and the feeling of somatic colonization in my body. I can also, as a result of that, take charge of and resist the capitalism, imperialism, colonization, racism, and misogyny that exists in the outside world.” There's a sense of activeness and resistance that is really exciting in our work. We're not just reflecting for reflection sake, we're not just creating art for creating art sake, even though we'd love to do that too. Black liberation always feels the most urgent because we are always on the front lines of anything that's happening in politics. Any legislation that passes that cuts back the freedom of women will cut back the freedom of Black women first and usually most severely, which is unfortunate, but it comes through in our writing because it's like, this is affecting our lived experience. For example, Cecilia, who's one of our writing editors and also one of my very close friends, worked in Survived and Punished, which is an organization that works with helping people who are imprisoned and activism is a really big part of what she does. Yumna, who's another one of our writing editors, another one of my very good friends, is based in Texas and she does a lot of organizing with Tarrant4Change there for voting justice and rights and she's also Sudanese, so a lot of her work is advocating for her own family in Sudan and the work she does. So all of these things for us are very much personal and very much urgent. That's what compelled us to continue this work even when it's really hard. For me as well, along with Ebony Tomatoes, I also work on farms which is reflected in some of my writing in this issue. I went to New Mexico and I interviewed the executive director of the Taos Land Trust, which is a conservation nonprofit. It was very applicable to how I view agriculture as an extension of activism. I think that's very important to me and was reflected in my discussions with Darien, the executive director, who's Latine and is returning to Indigenous land practices in the Southwest. I think that that has a lot of intersections with the work that we're doing too.
I also want people to know that just because our work is platforming Black writers, that the work of Black writers is [still] applicable to every single person. Even white men. Everything that affects Black people affects everyone else to some degree. Racism is harmful for everyone.
Misogyny is harmful for everyone. Homophobia is harmful for everyone, because to be afraid of a group or to be violent towards a group is to live in fear and it is to hand your power over to people who do not have your best interest in mind, to politicians who do not have your best interest in mind. It also blocks a certain level of imagination and love, which is the most liberating force that exists. I think I want people to take away, even as a non-black person or as a non-indigenous person, this magazine is still very much for you. You can still take away so much and learn so much. For complete social liberation, whatever that even means, I think everyone needs to have an awareness of these things and be involved in their own ways. Our work is for everyone, but we're offering a platform to writers and creatives who are traditionally overlooked by publishing platforms because of that fear, because of that reluctance to love and to be uncomfortable for a second. That level of discomfort and unfamiliarity is so transformative and so special.
“to be afraid of a group or to be violent towards a group is to live in fear and it is to hand your power over to people who do not have your best interest in mind, to politicians who do not have your best interest in mind.”
10. What is next for the future of Ebony Tomatoes? What topics and themes do you want to explore in your future issues?
A: [As I’ve said before] Ebony Tomatoes is coming out with a new print issue called Against the Tide: Community Care in the Collapse of Empire. We also have a new website out. It's awesome. I'm also planning to, after this issue is done, start back up our writer's workshop,but I would like for it to be for both Black and Indigenous writers. It's the first time that I’m considering opening our writing space to non-Black writers because I think that there's so much intersection between the Black and Indigenous struggle. That level of coalition building will come to be really important and really necessary, especially in the next few years. Right now I'm bringing over some pieces from our printed issues onto our websites to make them completely free and accessible. I'm excited for that too, that more people will be able to read the stuff we’ve been putting out in the last like year or so. We'll continue sharing stuff about Black history and Black writers on our social media, as well as highlighting the stuff that we're doing!
