Bad Bitches Go Way Back in Time with Chet'la Sebree

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast and the author of the novel The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree was published January 27th, 2026 and is available everywhere books are sold.

[00:00:28] So if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. Two most fascinating things I learned about my family like is my last name my last name and like, look bad bitches go way back in time with my family.

[00:00:49] What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Tayari Jones, author of the travel memoir and essays, Turn Where? A Geography of Home.

[00:01:09] It's a book that sent Shayla wandering across the country and around the world in search of a deeper connection to home and family and left her considering one of her own. Shayla's book is like, everything keeps coming up baby. I just felt like every time I asked these questions of home and belonging, I just kept thinking, what is this kid gonna feel? Where are they gonna feel connected and rooted and is this sort of intergenerational leaving and uprootedness?

[00:01:37] Is this what I'm gonna pass on? Is this what I want to pass on? And I still don't have answers to those questions. Shayla may be best known for her poetry with three collections under her belt, but in Turn Where? It was the form of the essay that forced her to be her most honest. In our conversation, she breaks down the three questions that have been the driving force of her itinerant literary life and how they provided a framework for the book.

[00:02:04] Plus, how the decision to parents as a single person gave her clarity in other areas of her life. And, why she believes there's still nowhere else for her to go as a Black American, even though safety in the United States is shaky. That and more is next, when Black & Published continues.

[00:02:33] Well then, let's get into it. Shayla, when did you know that you were a writer? I wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a small child, maybe seven or eight, maybe nine. But when did I know I was a writer? I think maybe sometimes I'm still convincing myself. I definitely knew I wanted to write. Always, always, always. I think graduate school, I knew I was building the skill set to become a writer.

[00:03:00] And even when I published my first book, I had terrible imposter syndrome. So I was like, am I a writer? Three or four books deep, I am one. I was going to say like, because like this isn't the first book anymore. So what are we talking about? It's not the first book, but it's the first book of nonfiction. So I can call myself a poet. I feel very confident being like, yes, I'm Shayla Sabree. I'm a poet and essayist. So I think this has been a stretch, a grow. And yes, I am a writer. I've been a writer for most of my adult life. Okay.

[00:03:30] But I can't pinpoint one. You gave us like eight, nine. So I will say that's the origin. And you feel very confident in a title of poet. And you're growing, stretching into the space of essayists. What was the impetus behind the stretch to go from writing in verse to saying, no, I need more words. I need more space and turning to prose and nonfiction in your collection that you have.

[00:03:56] So my second book field study blurs the line between poetry and nonfiction. And I think I wrote that book in order to prove to myself, I could write something that was a book length arc, or I could sort of follow a thread for a longer period of time. I love a sonnet, so I love a short poem. And so I think writing field study convinced me I could write in long form. But really it was that I was finishing field study, which is about a black woman's relationship and the fallout of it with a white man. I was finishing the edits in 2020 in May and June.

[00:04:25] And I was like, I can't believe I'm writing this book about this white man when all of these people are dying. And when people who look like me continue to feel so fundamentally disenfranchised in a place that they should be able to call home. And so I started by writing what I thought was a sort of 30 page essay that I sent to my agent who said, this is not one essay. I think this is the beginnings of several. I just felt like there was more that I wanted to say that a poem could not hold.

[00:04:51] And she said, this single essay also cannot hold all the things that you want to say. And so we started building out a book proposal around this book. And it looks so different when I was building that book proposal. I thought it was going to be about like a contemporary black girls green book. So what it meant for me to travel as a black American woman throughout the country, particularly because so many people went on road trips during the pandemic, because it was the only sort of way to get around that felt somewhat safe to get out of one's own space.

[00:05:18] But I thought about how that was still such a fraud experience for us as black Americans. And so what started with that question of where do I go? Where do I feel safe? Where is home? What does American this mean to me? Those sort of questions that were cooking and brewing in summer 2020, which were questions I'd had, you know, for a long time. But I had enough time and space to think about them in summer 2020. And I spent two years convincing myself that I could write essays and then sold this book on proposal.

[00:05:44] So the questions that are in the final version of Turnware are the questions that you initially had after completing field study and sent the essays to your agent? Yeah, it actually started with a question in the book called Are You One of the Americans that I was asked in summer 2008 in Italy. That was where the whole collection started. That question, wanting to be abroad, doing research about James Baldwin. And then we finally sort of came to these three fundamental questions. Where are you from? Where do you call home? Where, if anywhere, do you belong?

[00:06:13] And that sort of guided the whole book. What is it about the rootedness of where that interests you? I think I'm aware that some people have a stronger connection to a singular place. And I've always sort of envied that or really strong family connections. And I feel like I've never been rooted to a specific place or a specific group of people. And I wondered if it was because I moved a lot as a child or if it was my family structure.

[00:06:40] And so I think I've always kind of been obsessed with where, whether it's like a physical place or even where the universe began, where human life actually begins, how humans came to be. I think I'm constantly sort of searching for origins and rootedness and grounding in a way. And so for me, the where of this project is sort of like, is there a specific place? Is it a people? Is it a feeling? But just trying to locate myself, I think, and locate myself in sort of this larger landscape.

[00:07:09] Okay, so two sort of grounding questions. Where are you now? Like literally, where are you now? I'm physically in my office at George Washington University because they're doing maintenance work at my apartment. And GW is in DC, yes? Yep, Washington, DC. Okay. And do you feel grounded there? I think there is a way in which DC feels like perhaps the place I've known as an adult as my own home. I moved here from 2010 to 2014 and then I left.

[00:07:35] And I felt so called to move back to this place in my sort of years of not being here and really felt a grounding when I finally landed here. Now, in this administration, does this place feel like home and grounded? Absolutely not. I mean, my office, I'm looking at the Washington Monument from my office window. I am five or six blocks from the White House. I come to work and pray that some nuclear crisis doesn't happen while I'm here. And that some unfolding at the White House doesn't happen while I'm here.

[00:08:03] It is a tense place to be currently. I had a friend who asked me just this morning if I'm worried about traveling abroad this summer. And I said, no, I think being at home and being an epicenter of potential international conflict is actually quite hard. I think I'll feel better in Berlin and Lisbon. I have some travel coming up this summer and I have a layover through Qatar. And the person that I'm traveling to meet, she's like, are you okay having a layover in Doha? I was like, isn't that where they negotiate peace?

[00:08:32] I think I feel okay in Doha. I think I'm good. I think I'm good in Qatar. I think I'm going to be okay in Doha because that's where they negotiate the peace. I'm just saying, how am I supposed to feel safe here? Why is here safe? Yeah. So I completely understand what you mean. Like, you know, maybe not the United States is the safest place for us to be.

[00:08:58] So then going back to the collection and thinking about these questions that you've had forever, how they guided the structure of this book, where you went and what you wanted to learn about yourself and your family, but also about what it could mean to bring life into this situation that we call life.

[00:09:18] Why was that maternal connection such a strong point of reference and introspection for you in this book? What's funny is it was not intentional. At the beginning, I didn't think that this would have anything to do with wanting to be a parent. And I think my agent just kept asking me, why now? Why are these questions at the forefront now? And in 2020, I was really grappling with these questions about do I want to be a parent? I was dealing with some health challenges.

[00:09:47] I was in a place that I felt, I was living in a place that I felt fraught about and thought, you know, I don't think I could start a family here if that's what I want. And so it was actually in the writing of the essays. I said to my editor at some point, I said, you know, everything keeps coming up, baby. And it wasn't, I just felt like every time I asked these questions of home and belonging, I just kept thinking, what is this kid going to feel? Where are they going to feel connected and rooted?

[00:10:15] And is this sort of intergenerational leaving and uprootedness? Is this what I'm going to pass on? Is this what I want to pass on? Is there something else I can give them? Can grappling with my relationship with the country and my hurt, my woundedness, my frustration, can me grappling with it more, create more space for them to feel rooted, grounded, safe? And I still don't have answers to those questions. But I think the questions about do I want to become a parent? And where do I feel safe? And where do I sort of want to build the life?

[00:10:43] I was tired of picking up and moving every two years. So the question of where do I want to build a life really became like, where do I want to raise this child? And they just started to feel intrinsically linked and that I couldn't untether them. What is it about the form of the essay and revision that allows you to be perhaps more precise and nuanced than a poem? My poems are quite short. Even if it's a longer poem, it's a longer poem in parts.

[00:11:08] So I'm able to sort of pivot and look at things from a lot of different angles in these sort of short bursts. And I feel like the essay requires me to sit in something for so much longer and to endure. And to know that I haven't gotten it right. And I think with poems, I know I haven't gotten it right. I sort of dismantled the whole thing. And I'm like, what is the core? Let's pluck the core and start over again. I do the same thing with an essay, but it's so much harder. That first essay in the book, which is maybe five or six pages long, was like a 25 or 30 page essay that I ultimately had to dismantle.

[00:11:38] Because I said, there's a lot of beautiful things happening here, but what am I actually saying? And with a poem, I feel like I can just sort of give someone a burst of an image and let them meditate and let them experience it and walk away from them. And while I can do that in an essay, I think I have to look more closely and look more clearly and bear more truth. I like to abandon people in an ocean of emotion in an essay, just like, here you go. And that's actually not, yes, you can do that in an essay collection, but not the entire time. And it's not sustainable.

[00:12:06] You actually have to face the thing and look at it and say, okay, now I'm going to say the thing I don't really want to say, which is how I experienced the essay. Whereas with the poem, I can sort of hide behind a lot of scaffolding. That is the poem's structure, that it is not necessarily impenetrable, but there is sort of a veil and scaffolding in poetry that I feel like I have to remove in order to be present in the essay. So an essay requires you to be most honest. Yeah, I feel real naked in the essay collection.

[00:12:33] Okay, so then you talk about working through this with your agent. What was it like putting the proposal together and going out on submission to find a home and an editor for this collection who does not have the same relationship that your agent has with you and then working through that? I mean, I think my agent basically had to pry that proposal out of my hands. She was like, you can't keep tinkering with it. Just leave it alone. Let me take it out.

[00:12:58] So thank you, Carrie Sparks, for releasing it from my hands or ripping it from my hands, whatever you want to say. But then it became just sort of editorial conversations where it felt like, are we a good fit for one another? And my editor, Maya Dial, immediately during our first conversation felt like my person. I think I was running late from something and sort of was rushing back to the hotel room. And it was February and her radiator was hot. And I feel like both of us were sort of wiping our foreheads and apologizing because we were overheated.

[00:13:28] And it just felt like Black girl communion. Because I think at some point we just started talking about how the heat was affecting our hair. Yeah. And it just felt like, oh, I feel very at home here. And I think some of the editors who were reading the proposal really couldn't understand why I was talking about traveling abroad and not just my domestic experiences. They were sort of like, we don't really understand this leap to abroad. It's only a couple of essays. Why is this important?

[00:13:51] And she immediately said, I love this leap you make to looking abroad because it's a way of saying, when I go abroad, I'm able to see my home differently, even if I'm not able to feel fully connected with them. I'm able to see the U.S. differently from this leap to this other place, which I thought was a very clear arc that I was making. I think it's a clear arc for Black people, period, full stop.

[00:14:12] And so the fact that your editor is a Black woman, she understands the leap because the only time Black Americans feel American is when you are not in America. Thank you. And it just felt like so many people weren't getting it. I'm like, I'm not really sure why you're doing this. And she got it immediately. And I thought to myself, OK, we're talking about Black hair care. We're talking about the fact that we both scurried in here from other things. And we're both talking about the clarity of the arc of this project. Great. And it just felt like this immediate connection.

[00:14:42] I think we both thought we botched it because it didn't feel terribly professional and put together. But it felt like I was talking to my homegirl immediately. And so for me, that felt like a connection that felt home and safe. And I immediately was like, I think I really want to work with Maya. I don't know if we have other meetings scheduled, but this is the person I really want to work with. And it's been an incredibly fruitful experience. I've loved working with her. Even the moments where we were sort of in the weeds and she's like, this is still not working.

[00:15:11] And I'm thinking to myself, I cannot look at this essay again. But she was just in my corner cheering me on. And yeah, I feel very lucky to have worked with her. Yeah. Let's talk about those tense moments because we've already established that the essay for you requires a level of vulnerability that you can kind of discard when you're writing poetry and hide behind pretty words and metaphors and all the things that make poems beautiful.

[00:15:34] What was the essay that you kept having to tinker with and revise until the production deadline? Or past the production deadline? I think the essay that gave me the most grief was The Way Forward.

[00:15:52] It's an essay on Black citizenship and this trip I took to St. Louis to the site of the Dred Scott court case and where I feel like the heart of some of the legal disenfranchisement of Black Americans is rooted. And it has to do with my experience in art museums. And for a long time, that essay was just not working. She's just like, what are you saying here though? And I was like, I don't know. I feel like The Way Forward is looking back so I can go forward. She's like, but forward to what?

[00:16:20] And this is another essay that ends up turning towards fertility and trying to have a child in a way that happened pretty last minute where I was sort of like, oh. So The Way Forward is to acknowledge the wound and to acknowledge that it'll never heal. And she was like, is that the arc of the whole essay? And I'm like, no, yes, maybe. And so I made this strange biological turn where I talked about wounds pretty intensely and then talked about how maybe it's not the wound healing, but it's like creating something else and creating new life.

[00:16:49] And that it's not just to heal, it's to thrive in a place that doesn't want you to survive is essentially the arc. But I returned to that essay so many times because, and I still don't think it's perfect. I still feel like it needs work and tinkering, but I had to let it go. But there was something for me about this idea that we must walk forward wounded that just haunts me. You know, I'm a person also with autoimmune disorders, which comes up in that essay where I'm just like, oh, it is this constant presence. We're never going to heal as a country.

[00:17:18] And what does it mean to live in a body that will never heal and never be cured? What does it mean to live in a country that will never be cured? It doesn't mean halting. It doesn't mean giving up. It means continuing to push forward and do potentially a thing that they don't want you to do, which is to continue to create and make life. And so that one gave me a ton of grief and was the one I probably tinkered with most. But I think that turn here, that final essay, was probably the hardest to write.

[00:17:47] It's largely a direct address to a future child. And I think I thought when I was writing this book, when I first started this book, that I would be a parent by the time that this book was in the world. I am not yet a parent. And I think having to sit down and write that poem that I, or write that essay that sort of blurs the line between poetry and nonfiction, I think I imagined doing it in very different circumstances. So I think I delayed that thing from the very end.

[00:18:16] What did the editorial process teach you about yourself as a writer? I'm used to writing very much so in a silo as a poet. I write with my community and have some feedback, but I really only have one reader and it's someone who's known my work for a decade now. I have one sort of dedicated reader when I'm sort of like, I'm ready to have this thing edited and torn apart. So the back and forth of so many of these essays was different for me. And what I learned is that I'm a Taurus sun and a Taurus moon.

[00:18:47] And that laughter, you know, bullheaded, stubborn, where I'm like, I want it this way. I don't know if it makes sense to anybody else. And so I think having to sort of shake my bullheadedness when it came to some turn the phrase in particular, I think my poet self was doing things that made sentences opaque to readers at times because I was trying to be opaque. In general.

[00:19:11] And so I think the editorial process taught me that I'm actually quite stubborn, that I perhaps need to let a little bit more oxygen in the room, and that I'm capable of more than I thought I was capable of. I think I went into this essay collection, like I said, not feeling like a capital W writer, but feeling like a poet. Definitely a capital P poet, but definitely feeling like I had something to prove here. And so I think I tried to write a whole bunch of really traditional narrative essays. And my editor just kept pushing back, like, stop trying to write what you think an essay is. Write a Shayla Seabry essay. That's what I bought.

[00:19:41] Do it. And I think I was like, I think you bought traditional essays. And now I'm experimenting all over the place. And I think finally turning in one of the more experimental essays and having her be like, yes, sis, lean into this was such a relief. And I don't know if I wouldn't have done it if she weren't in my corner. Which essay was that where she asked for more of that kind of style that you were hesitant to do? I think when I first turned in Rootless of Genealogy, where I was sort of like, this has gotten loosey-goosey.

[00:20:09] It's an essay that's framed as archival documents. And so it's a series of archival documents. And I was really scared to send it to her. And I think I sent it to her during the delivery draft. I told her Heart in the Heartland was going to be in vignettes. But during the delivery draft, I turned in Rootless of Genealogy and I was sort of like, I don't know how you're going to feel about this. But here it is. And she was like, I love this. Is there more space for this? And so I think American Passports, I'd recently changed to something more experimental as well.

[00:20:37] But that's how that first essay went from a 25-page essay to driving directions. It's what feels like it gave me the permission to edit A Movable Feast so it was a little bit more lyrical. I hadn't finished Turn Here Yet, that final essay. And so it made that turn. So I think her saying, yes, this is working so well, helped me lean in in some other places where it could be a little bit more lyrical, experimental, a little bit more collage related.

[00:21:03] And I felt more comfortable in that space as someone who came from poetry, who didn't want to connect all of the dots but wanted you to see the resonances between different conversations. I think the experimentation works. Thanks. Well, no, really as a reader. And I finished this book at some ungodly hour in the morning as we... I remember. I was like, what time did you wake up? Like, I'm just up and so I'm going to read Shaila's words because I'm in it and I'm nosy.

[00:21:30] But no, I think it works because sometimes essay collections can be very dense. Because people are trying to show you how smart they are. Uh-huh. I was definitely trying to do that at the beginning. Look at me. I can write big essays. And it's not that the experimental forms makes you any less intelligent. But I think there is something to be said about the power of story.

[00:21:55] And that stories can be told in multiple forms, in multiple ways, with all the creativity and imagination one has. And still be boxed into this genre of essay. And so I think you did that very well. Thank you. Thank you. And I do like the juxtaposition that's there now. There are some that are really lyrical.

[00:22:18] And then in the gallery of Good Hurt, when I put that in there, I think Maya and I both had a conversation briefly about like, okay, is this slightly too academic? And too much about art criticism in conversation with sort of what else is happening in this essay collection. But the argument of it is essentially like, I sometimes feel at home most in a gallery around Black artists and in community with them. And so it felt like it was in conversation. But it's such a different essay than the essay that precedes it. That's about traveling around the country visiting my friends. All right.

[00:22:47] So I can think of no greater time than for you to read something from Turnware so we can get deeper into the collection. Yes. Yes, I guess. Turnware, a geography of home by Shayla Sabree, finds the poet using the form of the essay to answer questions about who she is, where she's from, and to where or whom she belongs as she traces her roots and considers bringing a child into the world. Here's Shayla.

[00:23:14] I'm going to read from the essay I just mentioned, Heart in the Heartland. And I'm going to read about another writer, in fact. I think you know Dante Almoniz, yes? Yes, that's where we met. Yes. I was like, didn't we meet at the Miami Book Fair? In Miami Book Fair, we were at dinner with Don Teal and a bunch of other folk. Yes. So I'm actually going to read a section that's about her and about visiting her in Madison, Wisconsin. And Heart in the Heartland is framed as definitions of the word heartland.

[00:23:43] And so there are three different sections, and each section has an example. And so the definitions we are looking at are, one, heartland, noun, the central states of the United States regarded as representing traditional social attitudes and moderately conservative politics. The second one is, two, a region that is especially important to or associated with a particular activity, organization, or ideology.

[00:24:09] And the section I will read from is the third one, which is the poetic definition of heartland, which is a place where love resides. And so this is example three from A Place Where Love Resides, Madison, Wisconsin, August 2021. On stools in front of a dresser mirror, Don Teal and I do our hair. Her five-year-old locks at my recently shorn growth. She has lived in her new home as long as I've been on the road, just a few weeks.

[00:24:38] She moved from Florida to the Midwest to be a professor, and I packed up my place in Lewisburg and took a leave for my job for research travel. We are both still sorting ourselves in this transition. She is deciding which markets she likes, and I'm mapping where I'm headed next. My trip to Madison is the first time we've seen each other outside of writerly spheres. Pandemic Zooms cemented our friendship after meeting a few years earlier at a writing residency.

[00:25:06] On this first trip, we do fun shit, eat oysters and sea bath, dress in jumpsuits, and put on bright lipstick. Sing loudly into the thick endurance of August. I'm in town for a week, so we also do adult business. We clean and pack books, figure out how to cover the transparent window panes of her bathroom door. And while I've given up a permanent address for exploration, there is still a life I must keep up with. Storage bills, doctor's appointments, hair maintenance.

[00:25:36] I thought of the latter before I packed up my CRV, asking a stylist to cut my uneven COVID lengths up to my chin. But now, after three weeks on the road, I need to unfurl my two-strand twists, wash my hair, salve my scalp, and retwist. I'd planned to do this in the privacy of the hotel I booked for myself in Illinois, before going to stay with my friend Molly. But Danteal needed to do hers, too, after the move. We prepped the space.

[00:26:02] Spread out a mix of shea butter, coconut, and argan oils after I untwisted my hair throughout the day. Perched beside each other, talking to each other's flipped visages, we remark on how there are few people with whom we have shared this wet neck, towels draped, hair clipped and cordoned off in a series of sections as water wriggles down our cheeks. It's intimate. We both have saved our wash day rituals for ourselves and certain loved ones for various reasons.

[00:26:31] Both are natural hair journeys shaped by shame and family respectability politics. But this, our heads and arms craned to make sure the manipulated strands fall in the appropriate direction is different. This marks a graduation in our relationship from writer friends to friend's friends, as she put it. Thank you.

[00:26:52] So I want to start at the beginning with your exploration of your family and the passports and genealogy and all of the things. What did you learn about your family in doing this exploration and deep dive and going on trips with your dad that you didn't know before you set out to write this book? One of the things is that no one's quite clear if my last name is my last name. Wait, what? Because that's not in the book.

[00:27:21] It's sort of like vaguely mentioned. My grandmother, before my dad and I took the road trip, I was talking to my grandmother on the phone. We were on speaker and I was in my place in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And I think I asked who my great, great grandfather was. Like beyond, so I knew my father, his father Howard. I knew of Henry. And I said, well, who's Henry's father? And my grandmother was like, oh, I don't know. I think he was raised by white folks. He said, what? Yes.

[00:27:49] So wait, is Seabree his last name or their last name? She said, I don't know. He's like, I don't know, sis. Like, keep it moving. And I think what I determined in the research is I think it is our last name, but I'm still not sure. It might be the white folks' last name. It might be our last name. Who knows? But there aren't that many Seabrees and there aren't very many black Seabrees. And there's a town in Kentucky near where my family's from called Seabree, Kentucky. I don't know where the last name comes from.

[00:28:17] And I did a lot more research that ended up in the essay, but that sort of was fascinating thinking. Okay. So if I have a child on my own and pass on this last name, I don't really even know who it belongs to. And the people that I do know that it belongs to aren't people with whom I'm super connected or my father's super connected. So it also just felt like I'm attached to this name that feels like it's mine, but also not mine in a way. And so that was an interesting sort of exploration that happened.

[00:28:44] But what I loved most is actually finding out about my mother's side of the family and finding that in the 1850s, her ancestors were women living on their own as free black women in Maryland. Oh, my what? Hannah and Sarah were out here on their own in Maryland just doing their thing. And I was absolutely fascinated by that, totally in love with the idea that I was doing something as a single black woman moving forward in my life, deciding that I wanted to become a parent on my own.

[00:29:10] And that there is this history of these women that live near where my mother ended up buying property as an adult that lived on their own. And I think Sarah worked as a laundress and Hannah was quite old in the census records. But I wonder how long they lived together with like four or five or six kids that they had in the household and what it meant for them to have that sort of autonomy. They didn't own, but they rented. But what it meant for them to have autonomy. And as you read in the collection, my mother is a powerful woman.

[00:29:39] And she had my brother at 16 and my mom is an executive and a lawyer and has made a quite wonderful life for herself. And she was like, I just felt like I didn't want to become a statistic. And I felt like I fought so hard to give you all what I could. And to see the agency and the power and the capabilities that she had and to see that that is what I am understanding as an intergenerational, powerful womanhood was really exciting in the collection. So those are probably like the two most fascinating things I learned about my family.

[00:30:09] Like, is my last name my last name? And like, look, bad bitches go way back in time with my family. I think I want to name the episode that bad bitches go way back in time. I think that might be the name of this episode. That is so fun. You mentioned earlier that you were at one point moving every two years.

[00:30:33] And I believe when you announced the deal for this book, it was with a picture of all of your kids lined up on Instagram talking about, you know, you were taking this trip to write this book. And on page 59, you say, I equated stasis to settling, be it a relationship, a job or a place. And then further down, you say, what if there is no place I can drop my full weight?

[00:31:00] And what could a constant free float do to the child I hope to create? Have you found the bottom? Touch wood, knock on wood. I think I have. Even though I'm about to like move for a brief season, I'm going on debatical. So of course I'm packing up all of my shit and moving again. And I think I found anchor in a number of different things. I think I've really, over the past few years in writing this book, really redefined what family is for me. I love the people I was born to.

[00:31:28] But I think in writing this book and thinking about this child, I really celebrated the fact that I have a wide definition of family. That the women, particularly women of color in my life that just pulled me down, are such family to me. And like, they're there through and through. One of them came to like a doctor's appointment with me and she wrote partner on the board. She was like, I am your person. I am your non-romantic life partner. I've got this. But I think the anchor is one, redefining family.

[00:31:56] I think, too, I've stepped into like owning my queerness more in the past five or six years. I felt like I knew it. People in my life knew it. But I just feel like I hadn't fully stepped into my bisexuality. And so I think being more honest in that and being like, I also want a kid who knows my whole self and doesn't feel like mommy is cordoned off in these ways. I think feeling confident in myself as a professional also helped me sort of drop that anchor. Like, I don't want just any job. I want the job that's right for me. I don't just want any publisher. I want the publisher that's right for me.

[00:32:24] And just feeling like I know myself a little bit more clearly. And I think moving back to D.C. helped with a lot of those things. Yes, it's incredibly fraught, but it does feel like home in many ways. And so being in a physical space that feels a little bit more like home and that I feel like I can understand and navigate and see myself clearly helps me feel like I've shirked some of the anxiety. That I want to be here, even though it's complicated. But even though I'm leaving for the year, I do intend to come back and perhaps even buy a place to like really root myself. I know, right?

[00:32:54] Not buy, not mortgage. I said it and I immediately started sweating. But it's hot in here. I've found the podcast. But I think there's something about making the choice for myself and my life around wanting to have a child and like having a lot of clarity around that actually oriented a lot of other things. Like I've made this decision that will upend my life when it happens. But I've made this decision. I know this is what I want. How does everything else fall into place?

[00:33:22] What is everything else that I want to fall into place? And it might happen. It might not. But I think making that decision, knowing I'm pursuing it, gave me a lot of clarity about what else I do and don't want. And what I will and will not do. And at what cost. Where I'm like, okay, I've got clarity about this. I know who I am. I know what I want. I hope it happens. But even if it doesn't, it's made all the rest of this stuff real clear. Can't do this. Will do this. Might do that. So, yeah.

[00:33:46] And so as much as this book is about personal journeys of home and homing, it's also about national ones. We are recording the day after the Supreme Court ruled that to consider race in creating a minority access district is unconstitutional, which is the exact opposite of what the Voting Rights Act of 1965 said when it was initially written. So they're using it.

[00:34:14] It's uno reverse day today for the Supreme Court. And we spoke briefly about only feeling American when you're not in America. With the third question being where do I belong? And you mentioning that you're about to leave again and go on sabbatical. In this moment, do you feel like you belong in this country? No. I mean. I don't even know if that's a safe question to ask. My bad. Really? I don't know if that's a safe question to ask anymore. What is a safe? I mean, there's so many things I don't feel like safe questions to ask.

[00:34:43] What is safety here at this point? There are moments. And again, who knows if this is safe to say. There are so many moments where I think of the parallels of this to Nazi Germany. And I'm sort of like, oh, is this the complacency period where everyone was sort of going about their lives before shit really popped off? Is that where we are? It looks a lot like it. And I think about, you know, the echoes of right now to the reconstruction era, right? So what happened in a reach of construction immediately led to Jim Crow. So I certainly am seeing all the historical resonances.

[00:35:13] And do I feel like I belong here? No. But it goes back to that same thing that Baldwin says in that interview that he has in the Paris Review. But there isn't any other place to go. You know, yes, there are other places to go. But where as a Black American will I actually feel like I belong? This is the country that frames my understanding of Blackness. That frames my understanding of what it means to be a queer cisgender woman with disabilities. Like this, my frame of reference is rooted here.

[00:35:42] And even if I go to another English speaking country, it's a different frame of reference. Right? And so no, I don't feel like I belong. But have I ever? I'm not sure I ever have actually felt like I belong unless I go abroad and someone's like, you're an American. And I think, sure. Yeah. I sure am. And I don't know what that means long term. I was just having a conversation this morning. Where would I raise a little Black kid abroad? Like if I were to depart from this place, where would I raise that child?

[00:36:11] Where will they ever feel like they belong? It's the question in the book. It's a continual project. I still don't have an answer. But I don't know what happens in the next couple of years here. Like that voting, that ruling really does feel like, okay, we're at one of these turning points again. We know we're here. Are we going to look at it? Are we going to do anything about it? Or is this going to continue to roll the direction that history has told us it might?

[00:36:32] I've been saying for years now, especially with all of the book bans since 2021, 2022 is when it really started to ramp up. What I've been saying is a reference to who I believe was a German philosopher. Don't ask me that man's name. I don't remember.

[00:36:49] Basically that what we are experiencing with book bans and the removal of language from cultural monuments, the resurgence of restoring Confederate names and statues is cultural genocide or ethnocide. And his theory is that the cultural genocide precedes actual genocide.

[00:37:11] So to say that we are in the complacency period of Nazi Germany before the train started and the camps were filled and the things happened is kind of where we are now. That feels really scary to say out loud. Part of the reason I'm leaving the city for the year is like, I need to get clarity, space, peace, because thinking about procreating needs time. I felt real different when I was writing on the way forward. Like it's an act of survival.

[00:37:40] It's a thrive. And like, it feels real different when it feels we're at this moment. I wrote that essay almost two years ago now. I finished it. Yeah. Almost two years ago now, and it feels quite different in this moment to say that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do it here in the nation's capital. Now, I just applied for tenure. So GW is going to be my academic home. And so I don't know what that means long term in terms of creating life, where to live, what to do.

[00:38:08] So even though I'm talking about buying when I move back to D.C. in a year, it depends on what it looks like here in a year as well. In the city, in this country. So with all of that said, of how these large questions have framed very personal experiences from you, what do you want readers to get from this text when they come to it? I think part of it is I felt so lonely in some of these questions. I felt so lonely in this feeling of lack of belonging and feeling like I don't know where to call or quantify home.

[00:38:37] And I realized in writing it, there are so many people based on the conversations that I had that feel the exact same. And so many people who feel lost and feel alone and feel they don't know where home is. And they feel they don't really know where they're going here in their late 30s. Like, am I having a kid? Am I buying a house? Is this the right job? Am I on the right path? And I think I want people to feel in community. Minda Honey wrote a blurb for the book that says something about like midlife crisis for the Black millennial.

[00:39:05] And I was like, well, yeah, I've arrived here. So I want to be in community with the other Black women that are like, what am I doing now? I want to be in community with other artists who pick up and go and who are building a life towards art and feeling community with other artists. But then start to ask questions of like, I'm building this life in art. What is the other side of this? Is there another side of this? And it's not for everyone. You know, not everyone wants to be a parent. And I fully celebrate that. I was a person for a long time who didn't want to be a parent. And then the universe laughed in my face.

[00:39:33] And so I think I want people to just feel in community that they're not alone and feeling isolated in this country or isolated in their lives and confused about where they're going, despite the fact that everything looks very clearly laid out in front of them. And they're like, oh, this is the life I've built. Is this the life I want? Because I think that's a reality that a lot of us are coming to in our late 30s. You know, like, is this the marriage that I want? Do I want this? Is this just, you know, or it's like, oh, okay, I built this thing.

[00:39:59] Is it time to pivot? And that pivot is hard and it's lonely. And it seems confusing at the time. But it feels also really good being like, oh, I made the pivot. I think I'm doing the right thing. And maybe you made the wrong pivot and then you have to pivot again. And I think that's part of just being alive. I don't think we acknowledge it enough. I think we're like, you're on this one path and it's supposed to be smooth. And I'm like, no, everyone's making U-turns and left turns and backing up on one-way streets. Or sometimes you just burn that bitch to the ground. Burn it to the ground and be like, let me try something totally different.

[00:40:30] All right. I'm going to move to my speed round and the game before I let you go for the morning. What is your favorite book? The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison. I was like, oh no. Yeah. Who is your favorite author? I don't have one. I love that. That's too much pressure. It's too, I love so many people. Yeah. Okay. Who was your favorite poet? Give me one living, one dead. I'm like, does that make it easier?

[00:41:00] Lucille Clifton. Figured that was coming. Okay. One living, the living one's a lot harder. I'm like, one living. I'm just going to, it almost feels like a cop out because she's a U.S. poet laureate. But I love the way Natasha Treadway fucks with form. So Natasha Treadway. Name a poet you think we, the regular people, don't know enough about. Shara McCallum. And what is the difference if you think there is a difference between poetry and spoken word?

[00:41:27] I think that for me, the main difference is the visual, like not the main difference, but one of the, I think, fundamental differences is that poetry that's meant for the page does something extraordinary on the page. I think it's really meant to be visually enjoyed, like where people are putting line breaks, how they're using seizure and white space, how they're breaking up the stanzas. I think there's something really embodied about being able to read the physical text, whereas spoken word is meant to be heard.

[00:41:56] And yes, there's cadence and line break, et cetera, but it's a really different experience than being like, oh, I see it on the page and how it's manifesting and how someone has organized this in a way to hopefully allow me to read it aloud in a way that has that similar cadence and intention. Who is your favorite artist? Any medium. Ooh, I love Alison Saar's work. Name three things on your bucket list. Travel to all 50 states before I'm 50. Make a human. Have a baby.

[00:42:23] I was like, I thought that was going to be the first one. I was like, oh wait, that big thing? Make a human have a baby? So that's two. What is my other bucket list item? It's fine if there are only two. Those are two different ones. I was like, I'm gonna go with those two, yeah. Having a baby is for life. So like that's- I mean, truly. And I think writing books was like one of my incredible life goals. So I'm like, okay, yeah, I've done the book thing, have a baby and travel to all 50 states before I'm 50.

[00:42:53] Yeah. Okay, so then if money were no object, where would you go? What would you do? And where would you live? I would go literally everywhere. I've hated as much. I would go everywhere because I'm like, how do I choose a place? Maldives, Thoroughbore, Italy, Zanzibar, bike, all the places. Faishells. What would I do? I would write full time. I would be a person who writes poetry and essays all the time and reads voraciously.

[00:43:24] I write from research and experience. And so like I would do those things to no end. And where would I live? Probably coastal Italy. I love pasta and I love the water. Like Positano. Yeah. What brings you joy? Food. 100% food, but fellowship. Food and fellowship. So like my people, my people bring me so much joy. I love laughter. There's like almost nothing as good to me as sitting around a table, eating food with people and laughing hysterically.

[00:43:53] It's just like nothing else brings me that kind of joy. This is how we met. Yes, it is. This is exactly how we met. It's one of my favorite things to do. What brings you peace? Water. So baths, showers, rain, oceans, rivers. I, any sort of water, it feels maybe it's the being raised in the church, but I feel like water is like a God-like spirit to me. It feels like it has the power to renew, change, settle.

[00:44:22] So yeah, it brings me tons of peace. And who as a writer's career do you most admire? I think before writing this book, I would have said Baldwin or Lourdes partially because their writing took them abroad and they lived abroad. But I also see how much that really cost them personally. And so I most admire the breadth and depth of their work and for the literary careers and clout that they had. But I think anyone who's actually able to manage having a public life and a private life

[00:44:52] that maybe a public life that isn't as what it seems like robust, but a private life that is robust and is able to strike a balance between those two. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head, but like people who have sort of like hit that sort of balance and sweet spot, I think is what I'm aspiring to at this point. All right. So our game is called Rewriting the Classics. Classic is however you define it. Name one book you wished you would have written. I'm going to go back to the bluest eye, Toni Morrison. There. All right.

[00:45:21] Name a book whose ending you want to change and how would you do it? Oh, oh, this is a great question. I'm like, oh, which book would I? Now I'm turning around to look at my bookshelf. Currently, I'm actually thinking about the ending of John Bircher's After the Lights Go Out and I won't spoil the ending. I think the ending works so well for that book. I'm just so upset. And I don't think there's any way to not make that the end of that book devastating.

[00:45:51] But I would change it. Just to not be devastated. Just to be more gently devastated. Because I love a devastating ending. Don't get me wrong. I love to be sort of abandoned, like I said, an ocean of emotion. But I was like fucked up at the end of that book. You are my kind of reader. You are my kind of reader. Yes. So I think I just, I think I would, I don't, I don't, I try to find some way to soften the blow of that book. All right.

[00:46:21] And my messy question. Name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught or overtaught tenure track professor and why. And you can do dead people. I think that, like I said, I love a sonnet and I think we can do it without Billy Shakespeare's. I love a sonnet. And I'm like, I don't actually think we all need to learn Shakespeare's sonnets. We can fuck with his plays, but we can learn sonnets from a lot of different people. People only need to read a handful of William Shakespeare's sonnets and keep it moving.

[00:46:49] There's a long history that preceded him and followed him. And people are doing far more interesting things with them than he did. So yeah. Thank you. See how easy that was again, sweating. It was like the mortgage thing. I was like, yeah, the mortgage. Oh my God. Final question. When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors, what would you like someone to write about the words and work that you've left behind? I think that I ventured towards vulnerability as a way of making space for other people's full humanity.

[00:47:19] Like I remind myself that often when I'm on the page and I want to sort of back up from what I'm saying, it's often like, but you're not. Yes, you're doing this because you're grappling with these questions, but you're not doing it for you. You're doing it for other people who are also having those questions so that they don't feel as alone and isolated in their space. It's what you go to literature for to be like, I feel seen, reflected. It's what you go to art for in generally. And so I hope that my work influences other people to do their work so that there is this community of voices.

[00:47:47] Tracy McMillan Cottom says something like, I want to build a body politics so thick with Blackness because Blackness is humanity. And I think I'm always arcing towards that as a goal, like building a body politics through my experience and lens of the world that lends to other people feeling safe, feeling seen and making their own sort of contributions. Big thank you to Shayla Sabree for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Shayla on the socials at CNSabree on Instagram and threads.

[00:48:17] And make sure you check out Turnware, a geography of home. It's out now from the Dial Press. You can get a copy of the essay collection from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout. That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram or YouTube page.

[00:48:43] It's at Black & Published and that's B-L-K and Published. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Shayla about whether she believes having a child will make her feel rooted and at home. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll holla at y'all next week when our guest will be Tara Shelton Harris. Author of the novel, Where the Wildflowers Grow.

[00:49:09] We as Black women, we hold and we juggle so many balls in the air. We throw so much at ourselves. And the most important thing that she learned that it was okay to just rest and be herself and slowly unpack, you know, these things that had happened to her and be at a place of peace with it. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace. I'll go. Peace.

[00:49:38] What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black books matter.