The People's Project

New anthology coming Fall 2025

Hi, Friend.

I’m so excited to share this news with you all. Like many of you, my dear friend Saeed Jones and I have been talking—texting, calling, sending voice memos—about the election, the future of this country, and where we go from here. These are strange, dark days, and I suspect they’ll get stranger and darker. We need one another more than ever.

I started a list and texted Saeed about it:

Soon after, Saeed wrote a poem and sent it to me:

My Project 2025

after Maggie Smith

I am having more sex.
I am louder when I have sex.
I am asking more questions.
I am asking questions like “why?”
and “what happened to make you feel
that way?” and “do you feel safe here?”
and “what can I do to help you feel safe
here?” I know I like to talk; I love the sound
of my own voice, but I’m going to shut up
and listen more. Clearly, I haven’t heard
all that’s been said. I am protecting myself.
I am pulling up the drawbridge. I’m asking
Black women to pull up the drawbridge.
I’m Whitney Houston in the last verse
of “It’s Not Right, but It’s Okay.” I’m
paying my light bill and taking care
of my babies. I’m in the bath tub
covered in bubbles and surrounded
with candles and good wine and I wish
Frank Ocean or Bill Withers or Frank Ocean
and Bill Withers were in the bathtub
with me but their voices will do. I am
pulling the voices of people I desire
and love and trust and worry over
into me. I am inviting them into the bright
dark of my soul. I am gonna live forever
because all the money I touch looks at me
and says e pluribus unum, out of many,
one. I am the water Jesus drank in the desert.
I am god talking to herself. I am evicting
America from my body and making room
in the borders of my black bad bitch body
for everyone I was sent into this life
to love loudly.

Eventually, this conversation grew into the idea for an anthology: The People’s Project. Big thanks to our agents and to Jenny Xu, our shared editor at Washington Square Press/Atria, for their vision and collaboration.

Twenty-three other contributors are joining us for this project, and I’m absolutely thrilled at the brilliant folks who are on board: Marlon James, Imani Perry, Chase Strangio, Alexander Chee, Ada Limón, Ashley C. Ford, Mira Jacob, Alice Wong, Eula Biss, Hala Alyan, Victoria Chang, Aubrey Hirsch, Danez Smith, Abi Maxwell, Tiana Clark, and more. Whew.

Here’s the official announcement:

I’ll share the cover, pub date, and preorder links when they’re available. In the meantime, I hope you’ll look forward to The People’s Project being in the world this fall. We can’t wait to share it with you.

Take good care out there. If you’re like me, you’re holding the words of Toi Derricotte close: “Joy is an act of resistance.”

Joyfully and defiantly,
Maggie