Today’s conversation is with writer and poet Khalisa Rae Thompson, who is co-founder and co-director of Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference. Her writing has been featured in a number of literary and popular venues and she is the author of Real Girls Have Real Problems and of Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat. In this conversation, we discuss the intersection of writing and memory work, poetry and community connection, and the politics of publishing on Black life.