Welcome Table Talk #6: The Sacred & The Secret: Writing the Women of the Black Church
Time & Location
October 13, 2026, 07:00 PM EST
Webinar
Wintergreen Women Writers Collective (Wintergreen) and Torch Literary Arts (Torch) are embarking on an intergenerational three-year project for Black women writers called Welcome Table Talks. The virtual discussions will cover various topics related to organization building, literary freedom, legacy, and more. The virtual discussions are free and open to all.
Join us on October 13th for our next Welcome Table Talk discussion - The Sacred & The Secret: Writing the Women of the Black Church featuring Dr. Latorial Faison, 2026 Poet Laureate of Virginia (Wintergreen), and Deesha Philyaw, award-winning author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Torch Literary Arts). Moderated by Ashley M. Coleman (Torch Literary Arts), this conversation will remind us that Black women’s presence and positionality in the Black Church and community is, in a word, complicated.
Faison’s historically soaked landscapes resonate in “Mama Was A Negro Spiritual” (Nursery Rhymes in Black). Philyaw’s younger generation of women congregants in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies have a serious bone to pick, with the church, with men, with one another!
Click here to RSVP. You will need a free Zoom account to attend.
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, the LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction (with Dawnie Walton) and Reckon True Stories (with Kiese Laymon). She is currently at work developing TV shows based on her short fiction. Deesha’s debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is forthcoming from Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in September 2026.
Latorial Faison is a Virginia poet, author, professor, veteran military spouse, and mother. She is the author of historical research, The Missed Education of the Negro: An Examination of the Black Segregated Education Experience in Southampton County, and over a dozen poetry collections, including Permafrost Poetry Prize winner, Nursery Rhymes in Black (Univ Press of Colorado), Blood at the Root (Finishing Line Press), Mother to Son, the 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History trilogy, and other collections. Faison’s work has been featured in Callaloo, Obsidian, Prairie Schooner, Artemis Journal, RHINO, Southern Women’s Review, About Place Journal, West Trestle Review, and Stonecoast. Faison is a Pushcart nominee, recipient of the Tom Howard Poetry Prize and fellowships from Furious Flower Poetry Center, AWP, and VA Humanities. An alum of UVA, VA TECH, and VSU, Faison is Assistant Prof. of English & Dept. Chair of Languages & Literature at Virginia State University. In 2026, Faison was appointed the Poet Laureate of Virginia.
Ashley M. Coleman is an author and music industry executive whose work sits at the intersection of literature, culture, and community. Her debut novel Good Morning, Love (Simon & Schuster, 2022) was featured by Joy the Baker and Katie Couric Media and named one of Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of June 2022. As a journalist, her bylines span Essence.com, The Cut, Apartment Therapy, and GRAMMY.com — reflective of both her literary range and her deep roots in music culture.
Coleman is a fellow of Torch Literary Arts (2023) and Kimbilio (2025), and the founder of Permission to Write, the writing community she established in 2017 to create space to support for Black writers. Philly born, LA based, she brings a decade of experience working alongside artists from marginalized communities and a nuanced, insider understanding to stories about creativity, identity, and what it costs to be heard.
About Wintergreen Writers Collective
The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective is a 501(c)3 organization that gathers Black women writers in a literary community that seeks to publish, document, preserve, and celebrate their creative work. More than 70 women from all over the country have taken part in one or more of the Wintergreen retreats or programs over the last 38 years, coming to a place where they can do the sacred work of literary and cultural production. Wintergreen Women are prefiguring a world where the history and legacy of Black women writers are honored and preserved—a world where Black women writers have access to intergenerational spaces where, in community and mutuality, they can nurture one another and locate resources to support their creative practice. Members of the Collective share their knowledge and creativity as a way of encouraging and engaging one another and their extended literary and scholarly communities.
About Torch Literary Arts
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established with love and intention in 2006 to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Torch Magazine has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.
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