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i love when a song is an acquired taste. you can listen to something once and go huh. there's something here even if im not quite ready for it yet. and you listen a couple more times. and then bam a couple weeks or months or years later you listen, youve finally worn the song in and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever heard
But it’s hard to get away from yourself, you know? Even if you think that you have. We bring ourselves wherever we go.
— Bryan Washington, Palaver: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, November 4, 2025)
Happy Black History Month 2026!
It’s Black History Month, and we’re celebrating as we do with books by Black authors (almost entirely) starring Black characters! For even more titles, check out past years’ posts. Picture Books Dancing with Water by Gwendolyn Wallace and Tonya Engel An intergenerational story about a nonbinary child who learns the tradition of well digging in this picture book about community, hope, and…
Yes! The Bongus must be holding a palaver!
(Tarzan Volume 1 #4)
Just saw someone say palava means problem in Yoruba.
Open the schools.
I also once saw someone say Jesu Christi is Yoruba for Jesus Christ.
Open the schools and keep them open.
Palaver (xe/they), oc I'm cooking up rn. Just some silly doodles for now. Xe is chewing holes into my brain and trying to live there. Still deciding some design details atm, like where the tassels will be on xeir body.
Palaver: A Novel
by Bryan Washington
Design by Na Kim.
Cover art by Keita Morimoto.
Prompt 27: Palaver
Character: Ihzu’to Venha Location: Eastern Thanalan Tags: None
Talk, talk, talk.
It was not the first time he had heard similar words. People enjoyed words. Endless prattling on and on as if it would make a difference. Words like that were always the same.
Ihzu’to was no stranger to death. Nor was it as if his own clan had rites and practices of their own. But the ones out here always felt so empty. People made promises. People asked for revenge. People asked for forgiveness.
People often asked why.
As they spent their days palavering away and wishing things were not the way they were, Ihzu’to was actually solving the deeper issue. Mothers wept over sons and daughters taken by creatures of the night. Not Flame nor Blade sought out the root of it.
Ihzu’to was a hunter.
He could hear them. The way they spoke of if-onlys and what-ifs. Empty, unfulfilling words. Words did not cut down what caused the pain. Words did not bring peace.
He could hear them say how someone should do something. Someone should have done something.And they were fools. Little did they know the creature that had taken that life was already gone. Met with the end of his blade.
He wondered how many lives could have been saved had they only spent less time with words. He was but one, and there were so many. Empty, useless words.
People like that would spend their whole lives waiting for others to save them. Ihzu’to was full aware.
He did not linger on it. He had no regrets for being too late to save one more. This world was cruel. This world was dark.
He pulled up his hood and left the lichyard as the rain started.
Talk, talk, talk.
Words were not the way of his world. But people liked words. People would talk their way right into the grave. And Ihzu’to... Ihzu’to spoke with his sword.
