About Avril … About SomerEmpress

Author Bio

Among her favorite authors are Gloria Naylor, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, Elizabeth Nuñez, J. California Cooper, Paule Marshall, Daniel Black, Kiese Laymon, and Jesmyn Ward. Born in the Commonwealth of Dominica, Avril is a first-generation graduate of Swarthmore College, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, and of Pennsylvania State University, where she earned her Master of Business Administration. She lives with her family in Pennsylvania. Her debut novel is forthcoming.

In the Beginning

SomerEmpress began as a blog, Life As An Art Form: Quips and Commentaries in Prose and Poetry, a space where Avril Somerville showed up honestly and on her own terms. Perhaps readily apparent, Somer is an endearing abbreviation for Somerville. Empress arrived as a gift from her brother, a practicing Rastafarian, with a deep reverence for Empress Taytu Betul of Ethiopia. The title of Empress conveys regality, power, and queenship, so it was divine alignment when Somerville decided to build an independent press centering Black women writers with powerful stories to tell. All of this only fueled Somerville’s longing to write and share publicly, thereby granting a platform for those seeking to preserve their authenticity while doing the same.

Press: as in a printing or publication press; as in “any of various pressure devices (such as one for keeping something from warping)”

Answering the Call

Between being momma, wife, daughter, and laborer, and amid the busyness of doing, the writer who finds this space feels something deep within aching for release and begging to be shared and yearns to carve a literary home that does not require her to become anything other than what she desires to be in a landscape cluttered with content creators and littered with literary icons. She recognizes this urge in her quiet moments, in her domestic life, in the seemingly mundane, and in the synchronicity of encounters and conversations. Moreover, she understands the deep self-work required to break through, heal, and become. This stirring in her belly is an imbuing of spirit, an overwhelm that won’t let her be, no matter how many hats she wears at any given moment or the earthly titles she holds. Without a doubt, this woman knows her story deserves life on the page because it is medicine—food for the soul—that must reside on the shelf and in the canon of Black writers she already holds in high regard.

A Journeying of Self-Validation

Avril Somerville published SomerEmpress Publishing, Inc.’s first book, A Journey of Life on Purpose, a collection of personal essays and poetry exploring community, race, identity, love, womanhood, and creativity, because she believed her voice deserved a home while still in the first editing stages of her novel at the time. Though she still had hopes of her debut novel being accepted by a traditional publisher, she believed strongly that waiting for the industry to validate her work went against the grain of everything she encouraged other writers to believe—that writers hold the authority to legitimize their own work, and that being courageous first meant betting on yourself. So Somerville built and incorporated SomerEmpress Publishing, published A Journey of Life on Purpose, and claimed her rightful place in the public literary conversation.

Whether poetry, essays, short stories, plays, memoirs, novels, or affirmations, Somerville’s work is anything but conventional because everything she writes is divinely timed, Spirit-led, ancestrally guided, and incapable of being housed in a single container or genre.

Expanding the Canon

Ultimately, SomerEmpress Publishing, Inc. seeks to return agency to the writer and stand in the gap for emerging Black literary voices.

Inarguably, the power of the traditional publishing industry is concentrated in a few hands that have historically misread, undervalued, and underrepresented the diversity of Black literary voices. These writers are unique. They might not come with MFA degrees. They may have never participated in workshop circles or submitted their work to literary magazines. By and large, these writers stand outside rooms where gatekeepers gather with seemingly “good intentions,” and by default, “good” is what the industry is familiar with and what they believe people should read. Writers aligned with SomerEmpress are writers with powerful stories but little access and/or know-how about the “literary landscape” or publishing.

Though unpublished, these writers have creative desires and urgent stories that are often dwarfed by more pressing priorities at any given moment.

Consequently, SomerEmpress Publishing walks alongside its writers, coaching them to craft a mission that keeps them whole, while asserting their voice as the powerfully transformative force it is, especially now, when the threat of erasure is hardly a perception, when that voice matters most. We encourage our writers to design their writing experiences, create their own conventions, and write like their life depends on it. “Tell it like you wish to tell it,” we tell them, then we give them the space and tools to do precisely that.

At SomerEmpress Publishing, Inc., we take the responsibility of being someone’s answered prayer to heart. In turn, we lovingly affirm and regard our writers because only they know the story they need to tell. Ultimately, we are committed to writing and publishing stories that center, celebrate, and liberate us in any and every form the gift demands.

Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize

In five years, SomerEmpress Publishing will carry a catalog that expands the shelf of what Black literature looks like—preserving voices, honoring forms, and building trust and community for writers who carry powerful stories and need a home worthy and built precisely for them. That catalog includes Black women writing their fullest selves, and Black men whose stories deserve the same loving care, dignity, and stewardship.