Ebony Tomatoes Collective is a literary and arts magazine for personal and political liberation—by a Black, intersectional collective.
Featured Writing
Fresh new pieces, hand-picked by our editors
The Village
I Think I’m Going to Raise Hell: In the Depths of Texas with Denita Jones
On a Tuesday in Neptune Beach, Florida, at a polling site, the air was thick with humidity. The enduring heat lingered alarmingly through the South’s November as Election Day loomed. A much more tangible and immediate theft of air awaits Americans driving past Orange Air Pollution Watch signs that line highways. A suffocating environmental threat expands with every new road lane that is painted. When Florida’s imprisoned population of 157,000 people sit behind bars in the sweltering heat, a drive to a polling site just ain’t been doing it.
By Yumna Elhdari
The Self
You and I in Technicolor
They tell me in the moving pictures
that boys like you need girls like me
to grow them up into men who save people;
to grow them up into men who love people.
By Cadence Beck
The Self
to mama
Matrilineal bonds and girlhood is on my mind, always. This poem came to be after reflecting on my relationship with my mother and the gaps in our lineage that I may never come to understand. Growing up, my mother would consistently recall her childhood home and a number of fruit trees her mother pruned, one being a cherry tree. In this poem, I allow myself to reflect on my grandmother’s backyard—a woman I never got to meet in a setting I will never see. Though in reality I play the role of estranged queer child, in this piece I allow myself to reimagine a relationship with both my mother and grandmother, one that is still touched by the rotting of time, but also softened by motherly love.
By Atarah Israel
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Against the Tide
Against the Tide: Community Care in the Collapse of Empire is a testament to the power of grassroots organizing and resistance. Featuring essays and interviews with U.S.-based activists in the wake of the 2024 election, Against the Tide is a freedom cry and a call to action. Our editors went to The Free Black Women’s Library in Bed-Stuy, to enviornmental land trusts in New Mexico, to raves led by Black queer DJs, to non-profits in Texas, and beyond to connect with community leaders building a liberated future. Our 23rd issue reveals that oppression is not the end of our stories. With imagination and action, it is only the beginning.
The Village
The stories across the Black Diaspora
The Keys to Lesbian Camp
The SelfThe Keys to (Lesbian) CampBy Tiffany HarrisFrom "Beyond the Margin: An Exploration of Black Lesbian Identity" “I get that it’s a gay thing, but do you really need to wear your keys on your belt to a job interview?” my mother asked, gesturing to the carabiner...
to mama
The Selfto mamaBy Atarah Israel butchered pumpkin seedsand rosebud-coated tongues,you plant apologies and nothingelse on my doorstep. it is summerand meaning has escaped me:those fickle clouds and their shapeless ideologies,their abstract tendrils envelope me...
You and I in Technicolor
The SelfYou and I in Technicolor By Cadence Beck Ivory fingers on redbone skin, your eyes were dead and filled with the sins of your daddy’s daddy long before I thought that someone might help things by keeping cans of light beer in the fridge for you. By keeping...
A Conversation with Saffy Osei about Deeper: A Collection of Offerings
The VillageA Conversation with Saffy Osei on Deeper: A Collection of OfferingsBy Sophie Koutsoftas My first introduction to Saffy Osei as a writer was their piece Love Letter to Saffy written for Issue 18 of Ebony Tomatoes Collective. Simply put, Love Letter to Saffy...
Meet Pucker Up! The punk band for bad bitches
The VillageMeet Pucker Up! The punk band for bad bitchesBy Ava Pauline Emilione When Pucker Up! was still in the works, Shug and Demi—the band’s lead singer and bassist respectively—sipped on drinks at The Bog, a beloved local bar in their hometown, Scranton,...
Gndr
The SelfGndrBy Phaïssa Grenaëlle Verdilus “How do you identify”? I unhinge my mouth to answer but no sound comes out “How do you identify”? I identify as fire NO. Not like the fading flicker of a lighter But like a hell mouth where parents, strangers, and politicians...
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