The House of Roses Press

An imprint · 8 pieces

Essays

On writing, heritage, and building as a Black African woman.

004

The Proof Issue, October 2026

  1. The Index Is Not the Territory

    My AI built a week of posts for Sanyu Botanicals from a database of what we owned, and never opened the folder itself. On the difference between knowing about something and looking at it, and the whisk that nobody else could show.

    28 September 20265 min

  2. Know Before You Go

    True Access maps where disabled South Africans can actually get in. Building it taught me that an accessible app has to be accessible when it fails, too, and that silence is the most inaccessible thing software does.

    28 September 20265 min

002

Eight Apps, One Year, June 2026

  1. Poetry Is the Algorithm of Feeling: Why I Write

    From "Inside Her Roses" to national television, my journey with words and why poetry remains my first language.

    11 June 20265 min

  2. Creativity as Resistance: Being a Black Woman in Tech and Art

    Navigating two worlds that weren't designed for me, and building new ones that are.

    10 June 20266 min

  3. African Women and the Fifth Industrial Revolution: We Are Not Late Adopters

    The narrative that Africa is "catching up" to the 5IR misunderstands both Africa and the revolution. African women are not late adopters of AI. We are building the version of it that the continent actually needs.

    21 May 20267 min

001

The Launch Issue, April 2026

  1. Building While Black, Building While Woman: The Infrastructure of Being Seen

    The most invisible labour in African tech is the constant work of establishing credibility in spaces not designed to grant it. Here's what building 8 applications as a Black woman in East London taught me about the infrastructure of being seen.

    9 April 20267 min

  2. Graphic Design in the Claude Era: How AI Changed My Visual Creative Process

    I'm not a trained graphic designer. I built the brand identity for 8 applications, a poetry brand, and a botanical product line. This is the AI-powered design workflow that made that possible.

    19 February 20267 min

  3. 1,000 Commits, 8 Apps, One Year: What Building Actually Taught Me

    A year ago I wrote my first line of JavaScript. Today I have 1,000+ commits across 8 production applications. This is not a success story. It's a true story.

    22 January 20267 min