An Espresso Press production

Every creative life begins somewhere.

The childhood memories, the jobs we almost stayed in, the books that changed us. The lucky breaks, the long seasons of doubt and the ordinary Tuesdays where we choose, again and again, to return to the creative practice — and to ourselves.

Each week, Coffee With Ella sits down with black women writers, bookworms and the people shaping literary culture to explore everything that happens before, beneath and beyond the finished book.

Together, the conversations reveal that there is no single way to build a creative life, but countless ways of shaping one that feels truly and deliciously like your own.

Interested not just in the finished books but in the lives that make them possible, every conversation becomes part of a living archive of black women’s creative lives — capturing the ideas, practices and ways of thinking shaping literary culture while they’re still unfolding.

Launching August 2026.

New episodes every Ordinary Tuesday.