Black Ink Book Festival 2023 Recap

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 6th Black Ink Book Festival on January 14. The event was at Trident Technical College’s Complex for Economic 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 authors exhibited at the event. Several of them were from the Charleston area and the state but 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 Bookshop, the only African American owned bookstore that has a physical store in the state, also sold books at the event. 

 

A few authors that caught my attention include:

• Noue Kirwan, whose romance book Long Past Summer was published by Harlequin and has been compared to the movie Sweet Home Alabama. 
• Local author Winnifred Tawaw, who has a four-book Young Adult fantasy series called God’s Scion. 
• Kylen Barron, whose book Unspoken Truth, features a secret that leads back to 1950s Charleston and Philadelphia. 
• Anthony Kelly, a local author who has written several books. The one that caught my attention was Saving Miss Caroline, about a South Carolina boy who travels to New York for the summer but is worried about his best friend back home. The book takes place during the summer of 1989 and uses Hurricane Hugo as a backdrop. 

The keynote speaker for the event was New York Times bestselling author Namina Forna. She is the author of the popular Young Adult series The Gilded Ones. She said it took her years for her family to take her writing and screenwriting seriously and for the entertainment industry to take note. It wasn’t until the movie releases of Black Panther and Get Out that she was able to gain traction and get her books published by one of the major publishers. She told the audience to stay the course and encouraged writers to write the genre they feel is best for them.

Next year’s theme will be focusing on murder, mystery and mayhem. The in-person event will be back at Trident Tech during the Martin Luther King holiday weekend in January 2024.