Life

There is a version of Steven “Pappy” Strong that most people never get to meet. The Book Trap had that conversation exclusively, sitting poolside with Pappy to talk about where he’s been, what it cost him, what almost took him out for good, and the publishing house he’s now building from the ground up. What we found was a man who has earned every word of his story, and is finally in a position to tell it on his own terms.

For decades, the publishing industry operated on a familiar hierarchy: access was scarce, information was gated, and opportunity flowed through a narrow set of decision-makers. That structure worked until now. We are living through a quiet but decisive shift in publishing, one driven not by rebellion, but by economics, technology, and changing consumer behavior. Publishing houses are no longer evaluated solely by their ability to grant access to print. They are being measured

A woman returns to the page and asks what it really costs us to stay committed to a story never written with us in mind. Through Carrie Bradshaw, Big, and the chaos we've mistaken for love, this inaugural Sis, Am I Trippin'? column is an unflinching meditation on healing, self-sabotage, and the decision to finally stop auditioning for roles in other people's narratives.

You're not going to like what I have to say, but I'm used to being the one to address the elephant in the room. Just Charge it to the Game, face the facts, and let's agree to do better, because your refusal to talk about domestic violence is exactly why it keeps getting worse. When I was going through it, the statistic everyone quoted was one in four women. Now, depending on the data set, the conversations, and the spaces you’re in, we’re hearing numbers closer to one in thre