short fiction Archives | midnight & indigo

Issue 16 is here!

midnight & indigo — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 04:00:55 +0000

Nine Black women writers from across the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe share unforgettable short stories and essays that span four continents and nearly a century of Black women’s lives. A sixteen-year-old navigates a birthday party, crazy Jamaican family, and a road trip. A dinner party with friends reveals a secret. A woman at a village burial and remembers every version of herself. Another is days away from a new life in San Francisco when the world closes. A Black American student discovers that the mirror Africa holds up is not the one she packed. From 1940s South Carolina

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Summer Sister

F.A. Battle — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 05:00:34 +0000

“Here I come, slowpoke!” Even though she was behind me, I could tell Tonya was smiling. Grinning in that nice-nasty way she did when she was getting the best of me, pretty as a picture and laced with venom. The words buzzed around my right ear like a mosquito, making my jaw twitch. I swatted to shoo the irritating tickle, only to find an even more disturbing sound beneath it. The pap, pap, pap of Tonya’s sneakers hitting the pavement and getting louder as she closed in on me. The noise threw me into a panic like a monster was

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God is in the tree

Briana Thomas — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:11:43 +0000

My grandmother’s mango tree is so big it’s like the size of an oak tree. It takes up so much space in her backyard that the next tree is more than six feet away. I’ve only known it to be big and powerful, sometimes daunting when the hurricane winds pass through its branches. How long has it been there? Nobody knows, but it creaks and sways as if it is ancient. I wonder how many seasons it’s seen. It’s much too big for me to climb so I always just say hello, play, eat, and read at its roots so

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A Manifesto of the Tethered

Amarachi Okeke — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 13:02:58 +0000

The hut reeked of stale breath. The sour air pressed against Anaka’s nostrils like a second skin. Smoke curled from a rusted iron bowl in the corner, thick with the smell of burnt leaves, dried piss, and something sweet going to rot. Anaka’s knees were pressed into the gravel, and he felt the sharp bite of stones through the skin of his knees. The torches hissed softly on the walls. No wind moved. He was sweating. The villagers stood around him in a ring, quiet and watchful. Their faces were streaked with charcoal and ochre, unmoving in the flickering firelight.

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The Wait

Unity Powell — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 17:27:29 +0000

There are days when you feel like you woke up in the middle of something. This was one of those days. The shrill sound and deep vibrations of my phone alarm dragged me out of my sleep, like a fight I didn’t sign up for. I reached around blindly until I found it under my pillow. I overslept. Again. Another rushed, careless morning. I washed up quickly, rummaging for leggings, a black camisole, and something, anything, like a colorful cardigan or jacket. The cute jacket was my attempt at expressing style, a small gesture to show I cared about my

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Issue 14 is here!

midnight & indigo — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 01:56:09 +0000

It’s here – midnight & indigo issue no.14! Eight Black women writers from the U.S., the Caribbean, and Africa share unforgettable short stories and essays that prove memory is anything but still. In Issue 14, you’ll meet a father searching for home, a daughter uncovering family secrets in the middle of a storm, and a woman who turns a pot of pepper soup into both heartbreak and healing. You’ll travel from Brooklyn’s ever-gentrifying streets to the wide skies of Montana, step inside a body learning to carry pain with grace, and witness the power of names, places, and moments that refuse

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Bleu Rivers

Love makeda — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 04:00:35 +0000

Sometimes I close my eyes and all I can see is me in Bleu—me in his arms, me in his whispers, me in his dreams. I try not to close my eyes. Try not to forget that I vowed to escape the smallness of this island. It suffocates me. Mama, the most. She blames me for Papi’s death. It happened three years ago when I was only fourteen. And I couldn’t have stopped Papi’s dinghy from getting lost at sea anymore than Mama could. Still, if she was the hammer, I was her nail. She never failed to hit me

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The Music issue is here!

midnight & indigo — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 04:00:29 +0000

It’s here – our inaugural Music issue! midnight & indigo celebrates 12 Black women writers across the U.S. and the Caribbean with our inaugural Music issue; a collection of essays and short stories in which sound shapes identity, memory, and Black resilience. Press play, turn the page, and allow this issue to become the soundtrack to your literary soul. Contributors include: Tyiana Combs, Kathy Graves Rosemond, Ashley J. Hobbs, Latoya Johnson, Nwenna Kai, Ladidas Lumpkins, Jessica McCall, Natasha Atim Moore, Ilisha Nicole, Dinkinish O’Connor, Carolyn S. Parker, and Dr. Felicia L. Rutledge. GET YOUR COPY TODAY! IN THIS ISSUE: Essays

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To Decay

Leandra Marshall — Mon, 26 May 2025 21:05:19 +0000

Clutching three rotten apples in a single hand, she stood at the screen door and waited for the shifting dark clouds to veil the relentless sun. There was a summer storm sliding over the valley, promises of flash floods providing bittersweet reprieve from the heat. Sweat dried sticky on the back of her neck even in the shade of the narrow entryway and something prickled there, all the peach fuzz rising at once. She licked her chapped lips, tasting his spit and waxy remnants of saccharine strawberry lip balm. With one bare foot wedged in the gap under the screen

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Iya Agba’s Kenkele

Temitope Famakinwa — Mon, 19 May 2025 22:56:36 +0000

It was a terribly hot September. Though it drizzled now and then, the thick stagnant air of summer refused to give way to the tranquility of autumn. Stubborn tourists trotted the streets in shorts and sleeveless tops, undeterred while the Locals wandered about, glancing at the lifeless grey skies with frustration and concern. That afternoon, nothing deserved pleasantry. The outdoor tent of Sobiro restaurant was packed with a cluster of sweaty impatient customers. Habibat took their orders with practiced grace, resisting the urge to blow herself with her order pad. She considered dashing to the toilet to take off her

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