Criticism
The Beauty of the Ambassador by Malik Wilson
September 2026
A sense of belonging, paired with a sense of exile, is the sine qua non of the artistic spirit, and Malik Wilson argues, a true spiritualism. In The Metaphor of the Ambassador, he argues that this image, especially how it is encountered through years of living in Washington, DC, enriches notions of adventure, community, continuity, and consolation. A true ambassador - one who is sent by another - should love some of the things of his called-to land, but in his should will be unconvertible, distant, in ways hard to tell. Yet even when home, his adventurous spirit, his sense of duty should call it for his beloved assignment. His ability to see both places, refracted upon each other, allows him to be both critic and participant, lover and nudger, as he partakes in the beauty of both places. Malik Wilson sits with such ideas, and considers the bearing they can have over our own lives, our own living.
Criticism/Memoir
The Beauty of Paris by Malik Wilson
October 2026
Men and women from the world over have been seduced by Paris' quiet, sensuous call. Whether rich or poor, king or pauper, so many have felt the stir, have been assuaged, consoled, brought to bear. In The Call of Paris, Malik tells his own story - 5 week-long trips alone as a young man, and how the city's speech, its very grammar, unfolded and changed him. Ernest Hemingway noted that to be "in Paris as a young man, it stays with you, because Paris is a movable feast." How it moves, and how the feast beguiles, is the subject of this short memoir.
History/Memoir
African Americans Abroad, Edited by Malik Wilson
November 2026
African Americans Abroad is Malik Wilson's attempt to distill universal principles from three remarkable African Americans who worked in the Foreign Service or participated in foreign diplomacy abroad. Wilbur Wright, Ernest Wilson, and Wendy Wilson-Fall were all 'noticed', called upon, by people in the furthest places, people who knew little (or nothing) about the particularities of the African American experience. It begs the question, what did they see, and how do the crafted braids of sameness and difference, discipline and freedom, newness and tradition, show up when we are worlds away? Their experiences provide a kind of moral bas-relief of efficacious self-development, restless curiosity, and the doused scent - that all three carry - of other places, other ways.