Aya Collective Publishing

Some of you have been with Aya Collective Publishing from the beginning.

Perhaps you were one of our first workshop participants in 2017. Maybe you attended one of our early public readings, gathered with us in a writing space, or picked up a copy of The Gospel According to a Black Woman, the first book we published in 2020.

Since then, there have been more texts: Incomplete Stories, Let the Black Women Say Ase’, Finding the Voice Within, Reconsidering Eve, and others. Many of you have purchased and read these books, shared them with your networks, recommended them to others, brought them into your classrooms and conversations, and continued to return to support the work we are building.

As we look toward Aya Collective’s 10th anniversary in 2027, we want to remember this history—not only from our perspective, but through the people who have encountered the work along the way.

We want to hear from you.

We invite our readers to contribute to a special online collection to be published in celebration of Aya Collective’s 10th anniversary.

This collection will explore a simple question:

What has an Aya Collective book made you think about, remember, question, reclaim, or see differently?

Perhaps a particular passage helped you find language for something you had been carrying. Maybe a story reminded you of someone in your family. Perhaps a book challenged something you believed, affirmed something you already knew, or gave you permission to see yourself—or your community—differently.

We want to hear those stories, stories that tell of the memories, reflections, questions, connections, and transformations that emerge when a text becomes part of your life.

Possible themes include:

• Spirituality, faith, and religion
• Life, love, loss, and remembrance
• Self and communal affirmation
• Voice, agency, and self-determination
• Health, healing, and wholeness
• Mothering, family, and kinship
• Memory, ancestry, and legacy
• Black womanhood and identity
• Community, belonging, and collective care
• Knowledge, learning, and wisdom
• Liberation, transformation, and becoming

These themes are starting points, not limitations. If an Aya Collective text sparked something in you that is not represented here, we want to hear that too.

What to submit

Please submit a 350–750 word reflection that responds to at least one Aya Collective publication.

In your submission, please include:

• The title(s) of the Aya Collective book(s) you have read
• The theme(s) you are responding to
• Your 350–750 word reflection

We encourage you to write from your own experience. Tell us what the text stirred in you, what it helped you remember, what themes you identified in it, questions it raised, or how it connected to your own life, work, family, spirituality, or community.

Stipend: $50.

Submission deadline: November 15, 2026

Please send submissions to ebony@ayacollectivemn.com.

As we approach ten years of Aya Collective, we are reminded that a publishing house is not built by books alone. It is built through the relationships, conversations, memories, and communities that form around those books.

Our readers have been part of this story. Now, we invite you to help us tell it.