Introducing….

I always get stuck here. Who am I? What do I do? Who gon’ read this? How dare I publish a website featuring my short narratives, poetry, novel excerpts, and future bomb-ass literary journal for young black writers? See what I did there? *wink wink*

My name is Latrice. Or Janna. Or Ella. Still trying to decide on my pen name. It may be Ella though hence The Daily Ella. What do you think? I am a almost thirty living in New York City with two “lovely” felines, Margaret and Jean Grey. I live in a big but lackluster studio in the Bronx that I wish I would get around to decorating more, but that’s not the point. The building’s nice. The neighborhood’s semi-dingy. But, we have a laundry downstairs. *shrugs* Enough of that. That’s not what you’re here for. I have three college degrees but I’m MOST proud of my Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing. It was a long time coming! Thank you to those who gave me the extra push although my impulsiveness was all the push I needed. That joint gets me troubleeeee. More on that later.

Here’s the thing: I have been working on this for over a decade. I tried the Blogspots. The Tumblrs. The Bloggers. The whatever I could use to publish my work. Shoo.. I even had notes on Facebook which my dumba** deleted when I thought I lost my zest for writing. Yes. I use the word zest. I’ve managed to find a few around in long-lost notebooks, but there’s a few that I would die to find! *cough* Response to the Catastrophe 1, 2, AND 3! *cough cough*

But, anyway, I am a writer. I’ve been writing since the first grade. Stories (although knockoffs of what I was currently reading), poems (some rhymed. some didn’t), and don’t get me started on journaling. I still have my journal from the fifth grade. I was going through some thangs! Lawd Gawd *Adam O voice*. Listen, if I am going to do anything, I’m going to write, ok? There is nothing more fulfilling to me than writing… well, french fries, but this ain’t about food. I do this because this is one of the very few things that make me happy. Ok. That’s dramatic. There are plenty of things that make me happy, but that’s for another post.

So, what’s in store for The Daily Ella you ask? Let’s see:

I will be featuring poetry “From The Archive”… circa mid 2000s, early 2010s when sh*t was sweet! *ugly laugh*, flash fiction of some sort, random narratives or Short Reads, “Free Write” which will be the blog!, the unfolding of Anemone Bloomed, a YA/NA novel coming in Spring 2022; character sketches, little excerpts, posts framing MTV’s Making the Video (ya’ll remember that?), book reviews or what I’m currently reading, and last but definitely not least, Write in August, an online literary journal for young BIPOC writers! Gotta find the writers, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it! *nervous laugh* It’s going to be amazing. I promise! *crosses fingers while trying to type*

I got work to do! But I hope ya’ll stick around for the madness! I’m excited! Margaret is trying to sit on my laptop which means that I need to wrap this up!

Inspired by my favorite childhood series, From the Files of Madison Finn, she always closed her emails to her penpal with some sh*t that flies. So, I’m bringing it back!

Til’ the seatbelt in first class flies,

Ella.