The Lampblack Model

social uprisings swept across the United States and beyond, twenty-one Black writers—mostly alumni of the MFA program at Rutgers University in Newark—came together to consider how they could best support one another, creatively and otherwise. Initially they gathered as a virtual reading group but as time passed they brainstormed how to reach Black writers outside of their immediate network. Their answer: Lampblack, a nonhierarchical community organization that, among its programs, offers direct aid to Black writers and publishes a magazine for “voices from the Black diaspora.” According to its mission statement Lampblack “provides monetary relief for