The Reading Diva

Author's note: I was on the committee for Black Ink the first three years of its existence and was on a panel during last year's virtual conference. I attended the in-person portion of the 6 th Black Ink Book Festival on January 14. The event was at Trident Technical College’s Complex for Eco nomic Development. This was the first in-person event for Black Ink since 2019 and the first time it was held outside the peninsula . This year’s theme was “Black to the Future”, which focused on Black futurism, science fiction and fantasy.   About 25 a uthors e xhibited at the event . Several of them were from the Charleston area and the stat e b ut there were also some from out of state . As in previous years, most of the authors were self-published but there were a few that were published by the major publishers (or will be published soon). There were also three independent publishers in attendance. Turning Page Books hop , t he only African American owned bookstore that has a p