Spotlighting midnight & indigo
By Kristen Caruso, written June 2025
“For Black women who write and the readers who’ve been waiting for our words.”
As explained on their website, midnight & indigo began years ago, on a Christmas morning with a typewriter wrapped up in a bow and 10-year-old Ianna A. Small, the founder and editor-in-chief of the press. That typewriter, combined with Small’s immense love for reading and writing, would inspire her to search for books with characters that look like her, and eventually write them herself: “Something magical happens in the pages of a book, when you see yourself reflected in the characters you love,” Small says. “Or the first time you see your own words staring back at you from a previously blank page.”
Ianna A. Small is the magic behind midnight & indigo Publishing and midnight & indigo, a cozy corner of the literary world where Black women writers’ stories come alive. By day, she’s orchestrating a symphony of words as editor-in-chief and cheering on the next wave of storytellers through midnight & indigo’s writing program. By night, you might catch her lost in a Black or South Asian novel, yelling at a twist in a Korean horror movie, or perfecting her roti-making skills. She binges Insecure, The Golden Girls, and cultural food documentaries like it’s a competitive sport, and dreams of one day running midnight & indigo from a lounge chair overlooking the archipelagos of her happy place: Greece. A proud Syracuse University alumna, Small is a member of ACES: The Society for Editing and the Editorial Freelancers Association.
Founded in 2018, now having published over 400 Black women writers in print and ebook journals, online essays, and special speculative fiction anthologies, midnight & indigo has become a powerhouse in amplifying the voices of Black women all over the world highlighting their contributions to the literary landscape. For Small, midnight & indigo is more than just a job, it’s her purpose and passion, and she’s proud to say that the press is not backed by any corporate investors or huge budgets, just the talent and hard work of their team.
As for publications, midnight & indigo publishes a triannual journal, available in print or as an ebook. The journal focuses on short stories, essays, and speculative fiction. Each issue publishes anywhere between eight and 22 works and writers, with beautifully photographed and designed covers. Their online journal is updated all year round on a rolling basis.
Their current issue, The Music Issue (Issue 13), combines the intricately linked relationships between writing and music, exploring the generational, powerful, deep, and often complex connection Black women have to different genres. From church hymns to K-Pop to Nat King Cole to ‘90s CD booklets, the inaugural music issue highlights 12 writers through essays and short stories.
On their website, midnight & indigo also posts glimpses of the content of their journals as essays and blog posts, such as “What Writing a Romance Novel Out of Spite Taught Me About the Fictional Man” by Desiree Winns. A cleverly honest and much needed essay, Winns describes how her frustrations with the lack of Black woman leads in romance novels—and men’s dismissal of romancing Black women in real life—drove her to write one of her own.
Another featured piece is “Candles in the Window: A Generational Blessing of Hospitality” by Lex Dunbar, a personal work of how always being welcomed home by their great-grandmother and her hospitality being passed down to them, Dunbar found a home in their queerness and trans identity. These beautiful essays show just a glimpse of the talent and powerful voices that exist in the rest of the midnight & indigo publications.
Apart from publications and literary journals, midnight & indigo also offer opportunities for Black women to learn about different aspects and genres of the craft. In 2022, midnight & indigo launched its Writing Program for Black Women Writers. Here, Black women can participate in a variety of online, virtual workshops and seminars taught by authors, creatives, and writing professionals, all created specifically for Black women. The classes are tagged with different topics: craft, fiction, nonfiction, and editing, with course options of length ranging from one day to four weeks. Some of the upcoming workshops and courses this fall include “Exploring Memoir: Personal Story & Power for Creative Nonfiction Writers” with Dhayana Alejandrina, “Decolonizing Our Writing Voice” with Dr. Kiara Lee, and “Polish and Pitch: A Black Woman Writer’s Guide to Self-Editing and Querying” with Catherine Mwitta. Since its launch only three years ago, more than 600 writers have participated in the online writing program.
Another service offered by midnight & indigo is Developmental Editing & Story Coaching, with Small herself being the editor. Patrons have the option to choose between a shorter (under 7,000 words) and longer (under 90,000 words) piece of work to be reviewed, receiving an analysis of many story elements including pacing and flow, character, and style and voice, as well as a one-hour, face to face feedback session. The goal of these editing sessions is to strengthen manuscripts and take them to the next level. Developmental editing is not the same as copy editing—it will focus on the big picture, structural feedback and issues of a manuscript.
midnight & indigo is not only an organization that publishes and broadens the reach of Black women writers’ voices and stories, but they also encourage, inspire, and guide new and upcoming writers to do the same. “Black women have always written—across kitchen tables, in the margins of time, through memory, imagination, and truth,” their website states. “midnight & indigo was founded to hold that work and honor the writers behind it.”
If you or anyone you know is a Black woman looking to be published, midnight & indigo’s upcoming deadlines are August 31, 2025, for speculative fiction, and September 30, 2025, for short stories and creative nonfiction. Spread the word and keep an eye on midnightandindigo.com/write-for-us for more information and new calls for submissions!
To find out more about midnight & indigo or support them, you can follow their Instagram @midnightandindigo and Facebook @midnightandindigo or sign up for their newsletter here.
“midnight & indigo is a literary journal and publishing company dedicated to celebrating and nurturing the voices of Black women writers worldwide.” (All quotes and Small’s bio came from midnight & indigo’s website, midnightandindigo.com.)
Kristen Caruso (she/her) is a junior at the University of Rochester but calls New Jersey home. As a double major in English and business with a minor in French, she hopes to combine her areas of study in a publishing career. Kristen’s interest in publishing began as the editor-in-chief of her high school’s yearbook organization and continues to thrive on the editorial board of her university’s art and literature journal. She enjoys coffee, the color green, poetry, nonfiction about trees, the ocean, Rochester snow, New Jersey pizza, music that’s somewhat bad, and lists that are too long. Find her on Instagram @kris10caruso.
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