“…be brave.”
Uncommon Lit Publishing Company is an independent Black female owned and operated publishing company established in San Francisco June 2019.
“THUG GIRL: Butterflies With Concrete Wings Still Fly” is the company’s debut publication written by author O Lorr William who represents the less than 3% of San Francisco’s remaining Black population.
The publication was produced October 2019 in partnership with Outskirts Press.
While society is finally confronting the roots of privilege and rampant cultural inequity with deep analysis and conviction to social change, Uncommon Lit Publishing (ULP) is elevating a non-traditional narrative.
We are all bearing witness to public outrage and an outcry for the fair and equitable treatment of those most marginalized. This presents an opportune time to position Literary Arts as an instrument for social justice. Academics are reading The New Jim Crow and today’s high school youth are reading The Hate You Give. There are many folks trying to increase their emotional intelligence around our societal wrongdoings. Plenty of good people are trying to do their part to change the world for the better but the reality is, system change is slow and it requires multiple strategies, approaches and solutions coalescing over time.
ULP’s debut author, O Lorr William, is telling stories that boldly centers the humanity of Black and Brown female and male archetypes who are far too often not featured as the hero or heroine of their journey.
ULP believes Literary Artists play a role in the systemic change our nation is working to achieve and this role is imperative.
Our debut novel: “THUG GIRL: Butterflies With Concrete Wings Still Fly” is being promoted widely both as part of engaging community through street outreach and as part of classroom literature curriculum. This is essential to our book-based campaign to increase literacy amongst low to no income communities of color. By giving them this relatable piece of literature coupled with an Author Signing and Author-Led workshop, we can inspire marginalized young people to read and write their stories.
The novel THUG GIRL is a vivid coming of age saga about the intertwined paths of five best friends. The author reveals the world through the eyes of the granddaughter of a prostitute, a daughter born in prison, a girlfriend in love with a dope-fiend, a sister who sells drugs to feed her child and a mother torn between serving God and serving the natures of her flesh. These are friends born into the cesspools of drugs, sex and violence and these are their stories of surviving the twenty-first century at the Wild West edges of America. They are living in a coastal hometown being controlled by a mysterious force called the Unknown Dynasty and their city has become the epicenter for this affluent shadow society. In this society, where only the most brilliant, powerful and wealthy seem to be thriving, a THUG GIRL must make a place for herself and nothing or no one can stop her from rising.
In the book synopsis above, note the fictional parallels author O Lorr William draws to current day realities. There is the interconnectedness of friends that form familial bonds in the absence of parenting and who lack guidance, resources and growth opportunities. There is the environmental factor of a hierarchal society ridden with the resulting attributes of poverty and crime, untreated mental health and little to no means of personal wellness. There is the overarching cloud of prosperity for some, the pangs of disparity for others and the presence of those that “have” leaving their shadow everywhere they go for the “have nots” to merely see what they can not touch. Yet, in the face of these considerable disadvantages and widespread misfortune, there is ultimately still hope in ones desire to be great.
This is the current world we live in and documenting this truth, no matter how fictionalized the account, is important to add to the artistry of our literary canon.
ULP believes we can reshape the way the world views and treats what it fears or fails to understand.
