By Bailey Drumm
The Fire Inside: Collected Stories & Poems from Zora’s Den is a collection of prose and poetry written by members of Zora’s Den, a writing group centered in Baltimore, Maryland, about the empowerment of a group of writers expressing womanhood and the power women hold in their autonomy. Zora’s Den is a place where these women can express themselves unapologetically, with support, encouragement, and sisterhood.
The Den began as a Facebook writing community of Black women that was started in 2017 by Victoria Adams-Kennedy and named after Zora Neale Hurston. The foreword, written by Zora’s niece, Lucy Anne Hurston, and the preface explain the inspiration for the collection and how Zora led these women to write with “fire in the belly.”
In the midst of the cultural awakening that the U.S. is currently undergoing, this collection is a moving example of the way women, especially BIPOC women, think, feel, and have interacted within a blinded world. And in The Fire Inside, there are moments of subtlety and an admiration of their bodies, juxtaposed next to pain and suffering under the hold of a man’s aggression.
As I looked over my notes for this review, there was a word that I wrote next to my comments time and time again: POWER. The power of the Den itself is moving. The collection as a whole is powerful. Then, to look at every piece individually and really explore the embers of each fire burning inside the collection, it’s mystic, overwhelming, and beautiful. The piece “Legacy” by Chenise Lytrelle exemplifies just that, rounding out the collection by recalling the pain and torment experienced by women who came before her, who were able to walk on with pride and awakening. That same bold feeling of pride punches the reader from the first piece, “Finding Zora,” by Jacqueline Johnson, as she writes, “We wore our braids like crowns.” The collection also explores the relationships between mother and daughter, alongside the character’s relationships and struggles with folklore, tradition, ancestry, religion, and culture.
Throughout the pages, there is love, unity, and confidence in the tone of each piece, even if a piece itself is addressing cruel, degrading actions. There are no curtains to hide behind for these women when it comes to discussing freedom, oppression, and growth. They tackle the individual struggles that young women suffer, and how it is possible to grow stronger, year by year. Though every person experiences different pressures, pains, and expectations, as women of color, Zora’s Den experiences it together.
The Fire Inside allows the reader to glimpse the outcome of the Den’s figurative kitchen table, where the women can speak freely and honestly about their grief, pleasure, dignity, and other experiences as Black women and the outcome surely is a flame.
Kennedy, V., ed. The Fire Inside: Collected Stories & Poems from Zora’s Den. Baltimore: ZD Press, November 17, 2020. Available as a paperback or eBook from Amazon. Visit the group’s website to learn more about a recent call for submissions, for The Fire Inside (Volume II).
Bailey Drumm is a fiction writer whose work has been featured in Grub Street, and whose digital art was displayed as the cover art for the 2017 edition of Welter. She is an M.F.A. graduate from the Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program at the University of Baltimore. Her collection of short stories, The Art of Settling, was published in the spring of 2019. Find out more at Bailey-Drumm.square.site.
*****
Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.