Does Your Story Have What It Takes To…

When Everyone Kept Secrets is our inaugural short story anthology. I found this mission-driven independent hybrid publishing company to uplift and liberate the voices, stories, and authentic lived experiences of Black & Brown Southern women writers. (All Black and Brown people in America are from the South. 🤎)

This anthology is the beginning of the legacy SOMO Publishing House is establishing. Our motto is, "We Publish to Disturb the Status Quo.” We mean that with our whole chest.

If you’re ready to disturb the status quo that thinks our cultures, accomplishments, icons, and legacies can simply be erased… Join me and 19 other writers in a little Literary FAFO.

Your investment is on a sliding scale, you choose the level that is most comfortable to you.

Grandma’s Kitchen—You have more than enough, and are living in the overflow. You are honored to give a little more to hold space for others to participate. Your investment is $750

Grandma’s Parlor—You are maintaining. You don’t need additional assistance but you aren’t in a position, yet to offer assistance to anyone else. Your investment is $500

Grandma’s Front Porch—You are on the come-up. You need the support of your community but you won’t take more than is necessary. Your investment is $275

*It is my desire to be able to offer two scholarships to writers sitting on Grandma’s Front Porch. Part of the mission of SOMO Publishing House is to remove or lessen restrictive barriers in the publishing industry that keep many Black and Brown women writers from taking advantage of opportunities. One of those barriers is financial.

What’s Included?

• Manuscript Critique (up to 7,500 words)

• ISBN assignment (for anthology print and eBook)

• Library of Congress Control Number registration (for the anthology)

• Copyright registration (for the anthology)

• Professional interior layout design (print and eBook)

• Professionally designed book cover (Print and eBook)

• Inclusion in anthology (digital and print)

• Print and eBook distribution via major retailers:

• Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and others

• Up to 5 complimentary author copies

• Three mock-up graphics for social media promotions (copy included)

• *Inclusion in Virtual, live streamed launch party.

• Quarterly sales reports for the first year.

• At-cost pricing for additional personal copies to sell

• 100% of profits from personal sales stay with the author

Reckonings, Revelations, Naming What Has Been Hidden
These stories center on personal truths being uncovered—often quietly, often painfully. They may include:

• Survivors reclaiming their narratives

• Family secrets revealed

• Truth-telling as resistance or healing

• First-person awakenings or coming-of-age insights

• Confronting silence, denial, or inherited shame

Tone: reflective, intimate, vulnerable, raw
Examples: confessions, hidden family histories, spiritual reckonings, internalized bias being unlearned

Exposing Injustice, Confronting Abusers, Breaking Cycles
These are bolder, louder, more externally charged pieces where truth is not only revealed but weaponized to confront and disrupt. They might include:

• Characters directly calling out harm (familial, societal, spiritual)

• Rejections of respectability, silence, or erasure

• Generational or institutional accountability

• Subversive humor or satirical rage

• Acts of rupture or defiance (spiritual, emotional, relational)

Tone: fiery, declarative, unflinching, often righteous
Examples: letters to absent fathers, stories about corrupt religious leaders, maternal confrontation, or characters publicly reclaiming power