Reading

The verdict is in about the word of the year, 2026

| Sheree
Damon Davis and Kiki Salem

If you’ve been around here for a few years then you’ll know that I choose a word each year to act as a guiding source for the year ahead.

I hold this word lightly as a beacon to support my movement through the year as I navigate through society, this world, with the ebb and flow of commitments, responsibilities, projects and inspirations. 

Last year, fugitivity took hold of me and kept me refusing those things that have already been refused of me throughout the year. 

Fugitivity and visual journaling went hand in hand in 2025 to the point that I was able to create a loophole of retreat, a space of freedom and play for most of 2025. No doubt fugitivity is changing my life and remains in my rucksack as I traverse into 2026. The year of the horse ( more on that later).

So what is my word of 2026? 

Usually I have something chosen at the back end of Oct moving into November. It just comes to me, lands and takes up root as something that just feels right. And something I want to carry for a year or more and explore.

That didn’t happen this year. 

I had the feeling of being ‘unapologetic’ to the max but that felt, as a word, so dated. I feel it has been co-opted by mainstream and capitalist culture that to hear it now feel so twee for me. It’s original radical power being neutered.

Then we had radicale ( with an ‘e’) meaning to get to the basic root of something. Its natural origin. It’s fundamental and essential, changing from the roots. As well as radical being judged as unconventional, pushing things to the limits.

But again this word didn’t sit well within my gut. I wasn’t feeling it.

For me my word of the year has to be embrewed with feelings as well as be able to stand the test of time, the year and beyond, as well as act as talisman, inspiration and haven. Words of the past has included voice, water, shakti, open, listen, love etc. 

I have a tall ask for my word of the year but none of my words of the year so far has let me down. I suppose it’s a difficult act to follow after fugitivity as this practice has changed my life in so many ways.

But choose a word of the year I will because after so long in this practice, I would feel naked walking into 2026 without some word(s) at my back as support and/both motivator.

I’m making the commitment here now to go with – AfroSurreal – as my words of 2026.

Of course AfroSurreal is much more than a word it’s a whole artist and literary movement which blends the weird and absurd with the reality of blackness. That the reality of blackness, being black today is  surreal. 

AfroSurreal is  also a way of {BEING} that roots me further into the RIGHT NOW. Creating the future that has to happen right now. 

I’ll be exploring more and sharing about AfroSurreal over the next couple of days to get my basis understanding and direction down. And then look out for more posts about how I’m moving and shaking with AfroSurreal(ism) for the coming year.

I’m excited to see where this word will take me. A good sign if any that I’m chosen the right word ( movement) for 2026. 

Over on patreon

| Sheree

I spend so much time and energy on the work I share at Sunderland University, one or two sessions, out of their social work studies that I’ve decided the share what I create over on my Patreon in a special collection.

It’s just the power points for now. I’ll go back in at some point and share the resources as well. But I just thought it might be of some use for someone else. I’m not expert either. And my style and message has changed over the six years of doing it. I’m mighty please withy last one, November 2025, because I just centred blackness all the way. I was unapologetic and intend to stay this way.

Go check them out if you’re interested.

What I’m reading

| Sheree

I was reminded that I had this book in my stash while listening to Marquis Bey talk on an episode of This Is Hell!, titled ‘ To steal one’s life back: On the power of fugitive Blackness’

It made me run straight to the book and start reading it with the hope it will support my fugitivity practice as well as provide some juicy quotes for the workshop I’m facilitating with WOC Azadi Collective this Sunday about my fugitivity and visual journaling practices.

It’s all sold out but you can read about it here and get in touch if you’re interested in coming along to some other sessions in 2026.

#decemeberreflections2025

Ring Shout

| Sheree

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark is a book I can’t get out of my head since I finished reading it.

A dark gothic southern historical fantasy novella set in 1920s Macon, Alabama, just after the 1915 film The Birth of the Nation which is being used to grow the KKK but to another level of Ku Kluxes. Monsters upon monsters.

And who is there to fight them and save the day if not three black women armed with blade, bullets and bomb. Helped with special powers and kinship with Gullah women and the supernatural.

Published on October 13, ( my birthday) 2020, this book blurred all the genres, redefines narratives and timelines and had me hooked from start to finish. It messed with my expectations and just left me wanting more.

I hope there’s going to be a sequel as these characters are too powerful and inspiring to be left in one novella.

More, I want more!

Girl’s Reading for Pleasure

| Sheree

I’ve got a reading streak going on with kindle – not including the physical books I’ve read this year.

I’m at about 210 days and 70 books done. I surpassed my projection of 50 books on kindle.

Anyway when I get sick, I get to taking it even slower and instead of watching pap TV I turn to books to escape from my uncomfortableness and irritability.

It soothes me to read a good book. And I’ve been getting into speculative fiction. I would have said I’m crime fiction and romance fiction till I die. But once I’ve come to realise, really see how both of these genres prop up the capitalist, white supremacy, patriarchal, colonialist system, I can no longer read them with joy.

I can no longer read them full stop. So to fill the void, I’ve been reading non-fiction by black authors and speculative fiction by black authors too.

If I’m gonna be buying this shit then let me buy the shit that supports my people and continues to help me get free.

So here’s a selection my recent reads.

Anti-racism is anti-capitalism

| Sheree

I really appreciate it when you’ve bought a book and are ready to dive into it, but you’re just not feeling it. You can’t get into it. So onto the book shelf it goes, collecting dust. Maybe even taunting you.

And then, over time, into a different time, you pick up said book again and you dive into this time, deeply. It’s singing it’s message through you mind, body and soul.

This practice happened for me with Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and here it’s happened again with What is antiracism? by Arun Kundnani.

It’s that time of year again where I’m due to go back into Sunderland University and lecture within the Social Work Department around anti-racism. This started in 2020, in the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the world. Up until this point there had been no addressing of race and racism within social work training. And you could still say this is the case as one session, 2-3 hours long, is hardly making a dent into racism and its consequences. But I digress.

Anyway each year, my thinking and practices have changed as I’ve read more and developed more as an anti-racist, anti-capitalist agitator, organiser and activist.

I share my learnings and findings as I want to bring about change for everyone. And this transformation can’t be just limited to working on a personal level as the usual anti-racism training/ education would have us believe.

The problem is not just on an individual level, our unconscious biases etc, the problems are structural and are engrained into the bedrock of our societies, countries and communities.

Anyhow, this book What is antiracism? is not only giving me the historical evidence of racism, the term and practices, but is also sharpening my argument around how racism and classism go hand in hand and that you cannot have a revolution without black workers leading the way. As black workers have always fought for freedom and the dismantling of capitalism for everyone, not just for (white) workers as the revolutions within Europe have done.

We have the French Revolution in the 1700s, lead by the urban masses. We have the Russian Revolution lead by the vanguard party for the proletariat. But we have the Saint-Domingue Revolution in the 1700s lead by the enslaved for abolition of all enslavement in the colonies and Europe, in tandem with the French Revolution happening in Paris. The first time that black and white workers were fighting a common cause together on this scale.

Which revolution succeeded?

The revolution lead by the enslaved, black forced labour, which created the sovereign state of Haiti, a black revolution which had at its heart radical action to transform all societies.

This is what we need now.

Love Locks

| Sheree

This week saw me on my travels again as I visited Liverpool. I was there to see Of Monsters and Men, and the release of their new album, All is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade at Jacaranda Baltic. Which was awesome. Intimate and heartfelt.

Before I met up for lunch with my son, I took a walk around Albert Dock and came across the sea barriers full of love locks. Apparently for years, people have come for miles to attach their own lock as a message of unbreakable love. There are some people that think this is an eyesore and that they are damaging the barriers. I say, WTF.

What does it really matter if people want to add to the tradition? What really is the problem? They’re metal barriers there for people’s safety why not add some locks to them as a symbol of love? They don’t weaken the barrier. Probably make them stronger.

Isn’t love supposed to make us stronger? Yes there’s pain and suffering, but a whole heap of joy that comes with it. I’m learning about love at the moment as I read All About Love, by bell hooks, in collaboration with a friend. We read and talk about it. And I’m finding this most useful in developing a new understanding of love. And I suppose I come from the perspiration that I talk about love as the foundation of all that I do/ {BE}. But how can I say this if I don’t really know what love is? Talk is cheap but true understanding and embodiment of love is another story.

And I’m open to learning.

Fugitivity Study

| Sheree
Patreon Post

I love me a good crime novel. Or even a romance. I’ve loved them from time. I’ve used them as escape, distraction, research even as I’ve always harboured desires to write them. I’ve been on a reading spree this autumn and these genres of fiction have been my go to. Devouring them in a matter of days.
Now I see how I’ve been checking out. I’m not dissing the genres, the writing, the individual books. But I am dissing their intention. Yes they’re for escape but they are also there along with consumerism and mainstream media to numb us. To help us stay muddled in thought and actions, propping up the racial capitalist system.
I’m taking back my time and attention and I’m starting my personal study curriculum.

Continued over on Patreon, check it out