Griot, Storyteller
My Writings
southern goth, historical fiction, magical realism. physical editions coming soon
Honey is Jemima Joèl Brady’s debut novelette about a woman who has been burdened with a terrible secret that she feels has kept her from her mother’s love. Her daily home life is now stained with the unwanted company of a loose spirit girl unable to crossover, who shares an interest in her mother’s love, and perhaps is stealing it all away. Every evening, the two make the mother a bedtime tea. Seeking new luck to make an unrivaled tea, the woman looks to honey to help her reclaim the love owed to her by her birthright in a trip to a town called Sweet Bottom. But in Sweet Bottom town, she finds an unexpected and intoxicating romance that challenges her deepest desires.
Honey is a 30-45 minute Southern Gothic reading. Jemima enjoys writing historical fiction, magical realism, and southern goth. Some of her favorite authors are Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Zora Neale Hurston.
Wade in the Water is a Southern gothic historical fiction novelette by Jemima Joèl Brady that dives into the sacred beauty of the namesake practice within the African Diaspora. It follows the story of an enslaved woman named Blue, living on a sugarcane plantation called Atwater. Blue is struggling to accept the birth of her newborn son—a child born from the theft of her innocence at the hands of her enslaver. As she deals with an unasked-for Jezebel reputation amongst her community, for the burden of her own beauty, Blue continues to seek refuge from her favorite nearby pond. Only now, the troubles of her womanhood follow her into her happy place. Drifting back into an old romance that has gone sour, with an enslaved artisan named Vaughn, Blue is swamped with distraction from her baby. But Blue’s mother, Felicia, refuses to let her daughter sink into her own despair; she enlists the help of the village’s root-woman to drag Blue out of her own sorrowful drowning. Will Blue embrace her new motherhood or resist it instead?