Drafts for an Epic is a series of essays that illuminate intergenerational histories of Black Southern female cultural production. The project focuses on the archives of the artist, architect, and designer, Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984) in order to more fully highlight the quiet histories and lineages of Black Southern female cultural production, of which Meredith is demonstrative. Rather than a conventional historical biography, Drafts attempts to locate Meredith within an ongoing tradition of Black queer feminist grammar, so that we might continue to extend and deepen the recorded, documented archive of Black women artists who criticism has not always served and, as a result, bring greater awareness to the vastness of the brilliant Meredith’s life.

Jessica Lynne is a writer and art critic. She is a founding editor of ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Art in America, The Believer, Frieze, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2020 research and development grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and 2020 Arts Writer Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation. She is currently at work on a collection of essays about faith, art, and the US South.