Bearing Witness with Mahogany L. Browne

[00:00:00] Hey Black and Published family, it's Nikesha. I want to say thank you for rocking with me these last few years. Over the course of these five seasons, I've shared with you the journeys of countless writers, including myself. I've told you about starting out as a self-published author and when my first nonfiction book came out in 2022. I have a new novel coming out in January entitled The Seven Daughters of Dupree. The story is a generational epic about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations,

[00:00:29] told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. And it's available for pre-order now, everywhere you get your books. I am beyond excited for this novel. It is my first Big Five book, more on that later. And I'd like to make it a success and I need your help to do that. If you can, please consider pre-ordering The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. Now let's get to the episode.

[00:00:58] If I did not make a living, if they turned my lights off, I was going back to the nine to five and I would just be that person that writes on the side. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Mahogany L. Brown, author of the new YA novel, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe.

[00:01:29] The story is a real-time exploration of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, told through a chorus of young voices and born out of Mahogany's own battle with the virus. I had caught COVID before there was a vaccine. It was in the last week of March that I caught it. It stayed with me for 11 days. And I mean, I couldn't, you know, everybody was there. We were scared.

[00:01:52] But like to not be able to breathe or sleep or anything, like for that to happen and the only thing that we had was this fear telling us, that was the first story that came to me. Mahogany is a natural storyteller, whether that be as a journalist, poet, or novelist. First, she explains how poetry saved her when journalism became unsafe.

[00:02:15] Plus, what she wished she'd known sooner as she was circling the globe doing poetry in places like Poland and Australia. And the critique she got from a high school English teacher that actually became an asset for the New York Times. That and more is next when Black & Published continues.

[00:02:35] My first question for you today is, when did you know that you were a writer? I knew I wanted to write at a very young age, like fourth grade, but I guess I knew I was a writer when I was like 14, 15.

[00:03:04] And my aunt, who has passed this past year, was my first reader. And she just would be like, write me another story tomorrow. And I just was writing these, you know, Sweet Valley High had me really clink clinks. Okay. I was locked in. So I loved to just write those kind of like, you know, youthful stories, but around what's happening in Oakland, what's happening on Poplar, what's happening in, you know, in Berkeley.

[00:03:33] What does Richmond look like? So I was doing all the things that I read, but for like my people in my community. And that was high school. I knew then like, all right, stories is it for sure. After I realized that it's much harder to get a book deal, I turned to journalism. And I found like a love for it there too. The sense that you can write stories about everyday people. It gave me a whole nother stage.

[00:03:55] What was it about journalism that gave you comfort in an aspect where the opaqueness of the book industry did not? I think the Taurus in me, the impatience that I carry, I think journalism allowed that impatience to stave. Like I was able to feed the curiosity and the wonder that comes with writing stories.

[00:04:19] But I was also able to quell the anxiety of that just existing for, you know, you and your friends or whoever in this one little pocket until it's published. And journalism at that point, you know, it was a weekly newspaper. So in a week I get to see how it's going to affect, you know, the community or whoever I wrote about, what do they think about it? I get to have those conversations on a larger scale.

[00:04:41] I think it offered me that immediacy, that urgency, that community requires when we're talking about things that keep us at risk. When you were doing journalism primarily, were you still writing on the side? Like stories for yourself and things like that? I came back to writing stories as an adult. It went from writing stories to writing articles, from writing articles to writing poetry.

[00:05:05] It was a really unusual arc, even though my first like knowledge of poetry was fourth grade when I memorized and recited James Weldon Johnson's The Creation. So I knew poetry existed. I just didn't think I could write poetry because I'm not talking like that, right? And of course, being in AP literature in my junior year, I had plenty of people to get in the way of me believing in myself, including my English teacher who told me writing about Dante's Inferno.

[00:05:35] We were supposed to remix it. Writing about Dante's Inferno with the language of NWA was improper and I would fail. So I gave up on poetry in my teens, like quick. All you have to do is tell a kid no once, right? No, your stories don't matter. No, you can't talk like that. All you gotta do is say that once. And it took me five years to come back to poetry.

[00:05:57] So when I returned to poetry, I was a journalist, but the poetry was just this dare that I answered and then turned out to be like, oh, this is a way for me to journal my feelings. So everything that I can't put into this article, I'm still processing it through my writing. I'm going to ask this on the assumption because it happened for me starting off as a journalist. When did journalism become not enough to quell the storyteller in you? Come on now. That's a good one.

[00:06:26] So the misogyny we know exists, right? We knew. We know. It is. It was the amount of times that I actually was in harm's way and my male colleagues did not show up for me. It was like, you all right? Okay, that's good. Great. Best of luck. Cut. And it was just like, you know, there was no skin in the game as far as they were concerned because I'm just, you know, a colleague. I'm not your partner. I'm not your sister by blood.

[00:06:56] I'm not your wife or whatever. Like you had those people who were just like, oh, they would never do that to my queen, but they would watch them do it to their colleagues. Right? So a year and a half of that, I was done. I was done. The final instance was me having an interviewee threatened to pistol with me in the midst of this interview while we're driving down the FDR, speeding down the FDR. And I got out safely.

[00:07:21] I was not harmed because, you know, sometimes you got to show them that I'm willing to crash out with you. So what we doing? Right? And in that case, I was just like, oh, I'm really about to die. Like, this is it. And wow. We've seen what happened to Black women in journalism. You know, Dee Barnes is an excellent example of you not doing anything but your job and somebody putting their hands on you because their gross misconduct. That was it. That happened in 2001.

[00:07:49] And I got out of the car safely. I returned to my editor's office and the response was, oh, you can't write about that because of advertising dollars. So if you write that, the advertising dollars are going to pull their ads and then we're in trouble. And I was like, oh, this is really just about my, okay, cool. I really got to get out of here. You know what I mean? So let me just edit myself. Let me just write these poems. And that was it. I literally went from that car ride to only being a poet on stage.

[00:08:19] What was that transition like? Because poetry is not easy. Even in the slam circuit where it seems easier, I know it's not easy. Yeah. It was intense. There was no roadmap. There was no blueprint. And there was no union. There was no one to be like, this is how you do it. This is how you don't do it. You had people just spitballing a whole bunch of ideas. You got hustlers. You got folks with mental health care issues. You got folks who are, you know, addicts.

[00:08:46] Because it really is a rock star mentality in that, you know, the performance poetry world. It is the kissing cousin of a rock star. The CBGBs. And it is. Because you feel like, oh my God, when you're on stage, it's that, it's just divine light. So what I did was I kept the curiosity of the journalist in me. And I made those poems about observations of everyday life, everyday living. Of course, how it impacted me at that point as a young mother.

[00:09:16] My daughter was just 2001. I guess she was just three, four, four. Going on four. And yeah, there was no one saying, I'm going to pay you on time. Actually, they went out of their way to not pay you. So the slam became the one way to assure that there was, you know, a dollar amount at the end of that moment. Then I'm making chat books, going to slams, representing, you know, whenever I can.

[00:09:42] And as, you know, women do often, there's very few of us out there that, you know, can do it. So I think just my tenacity and my continuation of it kept me in the fray of like people who are doing it now or people who will be, you know, remembered for later. It went from slams. Then it went to teaching in schools, teaching poetry, group homes for teenage pregnant moms, after school, online. Those kind of like hand-to-mouth events. And then touring. And then touring.

[00:10:11] And touring is not cute. As a poet, again, no blueprint. So you are like, let's see how many events are happening in the span of a week in Atlanta or in Florida or in Cali. Southern Cal and NorCal, totally different, right? So once I could figure that out, then I knew, okay, you know, like the Underground Railroad for poetry, where can I stay? Because I'm not being paid enough to pay for a hotel. So like you then learn like the bartering system is coming into play.

[00:10:41] And then the collective is getting stronger because everybody is trying to get to New York and vice versa. So that's how I pieced it together myself. Jive poetic. I had the fortune of rolling with a man. So people at that point weren't trying to like run over me in the same way that I watched them run over other women. You know what I mean? It was very interesting. So, yeah, the patriarchy was alive in so many other spaces.

[00:11:07] And thankfully, I got to work with someone at that point who didn't just sit there and be like, oh, you know, it'd be happening like that. It just happens. Like deal with it. He more was a protector in that sense that he allowed me to stand up for myself because I didn't need him to speak for me. I just need a backup. I just need a backup. When I say this, I need someone else to be like, yeah, that's wrong. Right. And that's what he did. And in turn, we became pretty. It feels unstoppable.

[00:11:35] There were things that we were able to do in places we were able to go representing the United States as the first performing poets in Warsaw, Poland. Once they lifted that ban, that was, you know, huge. Representing the United States for the embassy in New Zealand and working alongside Aboriginal people in Australia. That was huge. And all of that happened because we just started piecemealing together what a community could look like. I'll help you over here. Can you help me over there?

[00:12:04] Let's make these different shows. Things like that. Yeah. But it was, there was no one, there was no one stream of revenue ever. That's a whole lot of hustle. Like listening to you talk about it. I hear the hustle in your voice. Right. Like, like the way that you're telling me the story. I'm like, that's a whole lot of hustle. And like, it's, it's still there. What kept you going? Because I'm drawn from my own experience. Like when you're out there hustling, you're just trying to figure shit out.

[00:12:34] And figure out where that next dollar is going to come from or whose couch you can stay on when you go to this event and do this thing. And okay, I got $300 on Wednesday that can pay for this down on Friday. And I've got just enough gas to go and come back. You was there. You was there. Like, I know what that looks like. Yes. What kept you going? Because I know you got tired. And you may have begun to wonder, is anybody listening? Does it matter?

[00:13:03] What, what was the tenacity of that fire that compelled you to keep on? I got to say, it was my daughter, right? I had a very small window. She was young enough for me to fail at something. And then like, you know, make a pivot plan. But I couldn't be that person that was like trying to take her to high school and trying to make ends meet. I couldn't foresee that for my future. I just was like, I brought this young person into this world. I'm going to have to provide for them.

[00:13:33] And I still got to provide for myself as a 21 year old. I'm still a child essentially. But I owe it to her, right? To, to have some stability. So the promise that I made to myself and her was, if this poetry thing don't work out. And, and I had one, one, one thing on my list. My list was if they turn your lights off. Everybody got their thing. You got your deal breakers for everything. Mine was if they turn your lights off, you got to go back to work in a DMV girl.

[00:14:02] I used to work for the state of California. That was easy work. Office assistant. I moved up in the ranks very quickly and I knew how to do it at 18. So I had a place to go back to work. If the art did not serve my entire family, right? If I did not make a living, if they turn my lights off, I was going back to the nine to five. And I would just be that person that writes on the side. And I still feel nothing bad about that. I just think it depends on, you know, what your comfort levels are.

[00:14:30] So that was what kept me in the game was knowing if they turn your lights off, you going back to the nine to five. Is that what you want? Right. So when you put that, that own pressure on yourself, like my expectation is to not have the regular nine to five. Then I have to do everything in my power, in my human power to make it so. And that means sometimes I didn't even get to eat. You didn't pay me enough for me to feed my daughter, feed myself and get a train ride home.

[00:14:59] So I'm going to get a train ride home and feed her. Or one time a woman, that audacity, she not, you know, because, you know, poetry, they pay you what they feel like. Sometimes, oh, enough people didn't come. I'm so sorry. You know, I can't, can't get blood from a turn up. Just can't do it. She gave me two single dollar bills, two single dollar bills with my daughter sitting right next to me. And that was the last time that ever happened.

[00:15:29] That was the first and the last time it ever happened. I was like, never again will I just assume that you will do your part. So letter of agreements became a thing because what? I work for the state. I know how to write a document. Okay. There's this document. You see it. Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. And I'm on time. I promoted. I brought my books. I did my part too. So that was it.

[00:15:51] I was no longer going to put myself in a position to be mishandled or mismanaged or taken advantage of because I had a larger horizon to consider. And that was my daughter's well-being. You mentioned that you were making chapbooks as you were doing the poetry and then going to do events that you had your books. What was that process like of taking your poems from the stage, putting them down in chapbooks and making sure that you were able to hand them and sell them to the audience that was there? Shout out to Kinko's.

[00:16:22] You know that life when you up in there and you're like, I got to put this down, face down and then resend it back up because double sided is not working proper. It was again, I'm not new to this. And I think it was one of those like, do you really want this? If you do, this is what you got to do to keep it. I learned that the chapbook was another revenue of income that was waiting to happen. You move someone in a staged space.

[00:16:52] Poetry can feel like a prayer. It can feel like a spiritual awakening if you know what you're doing. And more times than not, it is. Right. So you don't want people just to walk up and be like, oh, my God, I just like, how do I help? How do I support? Well, how you support. Here you go. Take it with you. And I learned that that was like what they wanted more. They love the pamphlets. I love making the pamphlets after that, after I could see one. It's a capsule of my becoming.

[00:17:21] This moment, this day, I made this thing. And, you know, two years from now, it won't even be the same. That poem may exist in a larger collection or compilation, but never again like this. So it's a beautiful capsule. And it's also, you know, a takeaway for the people who want to support you. It's extremely hard. Paper cuts for days. Wow, wow, wow. Do I recommend? Absolutely.

[00:17:43] You talked about going to Warsaw on the behalf of the United States, going to Australia, working with the Aboriginal people there. When did you know that more people beyond your community and those on the poetry circuit were listening and paying attention to what you were saying? I think it happened in waves. You like you'll hear it and then you kind of be like, you don't mean that.

[00:18:10] And then you like let it go because I don't know, I think our community teaches us to not be too big, right? You better humble yourself. And so I never held it long enough. The moment would happen, a young person would know my poem. Or I'm going over to Warsaw and have my work translated for the first time. And witnessing people, most of them spoke English, but like their first language was Polish.

[00:18:40] But like witnessing the change in their faces as my interpreter would like, you know, read along with me or we had the text up. They would get the information as I'm reading it and watching them change, like cellularly change. That was really cool. And I didn't sit in it long enough because I came from, you think you better? Humble yourself, right? Nobody's better than this. You ain't better than God. You ain't better than nothing.

[00:19:07] So you're always aware to play small. And I've been playing small a very long time as a Black woman in this country. I think it's the norm is that you just don't cause too much ruckus, right? Don't do too much. Especially you Black girl, brown skinned Black girl, shut up, right? At best, you lucky we're not making a joke out of you.

[00:19:30] So I did not keep my eye too long on those moments of achievement because I, yeah, I just thought I better hurry up and do the next thing before they stop me or they get in the way or. But I guess the first time would have been Poland. Yeah, 2003, 2004. And then it keeps happening. Every cycle I'll get, you know, a youth poet who knows Black girl magic from start to finish.

[00:19:57] Or someone sent me a video of a seven-year-old who memorized it for an oratory competition. And I was like, wait, somebody memorized my poem the way I memorized Jamie Weldon Johnson? That's a banana. So it happens in flashes. And so as those flashes have continued, and in my opinion, while you may still be humble, you've gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.

[00:20:21] When did, I guess, the itch or the bug to do books in a different way return to you? Or was that even your idea? Because I feel like it wasn't because you talked about Jason Reynolds saying you need to do this. So poetry, I was like, all right, this is going to be it. I'm a poet who knew I'm able to like go into these different spaces because I was a journalist. So now I'm coming back into the journalism world.

[00:20:45] But with a poetic mind, being able to, you know, have that amazing feature with the New York Times where I celebrated hip hop's 50th anniversary. Right. And I did it by creating a Shinto. So here I am in my journalism head. I'm in the New York Times, but I get to create a poem. That is lyrics. From hip hop lyrics that already like I get to do the thing that I said I really wanted to do.

[00:21:12] So that was really dope to like see those moments come back. Um, Jason was the one who said, all right, you need to write YA mo and this is why. And he was already in the YA game heavy. But I met Jason in Brooklyn, New York as a poet. And I was running the New Yurican and he was a, you know, good dude. I always keep, you know, our brothers in mind, especially if they're like good humans.

[00:21:37] I think we get caught up in dragging those who do the most harm instead of like really uplifting those who are like doing the work. And making sure everybody's safe. So I had seen him. He was out here killing it. And we were friends. And in one of the brunches that we usually had at that point, those little Brooklyn brunches, he was like, yo, I think you should write these books for these kids. Because you're already in the schools. At that point, I had been teaching for 10 years, maybe nine. I'm already teaching in the schools.

[00:22:06] He's like, so just put your book in there. So you can become a part of the curriculum in a different way, but in a way that doesn't require your body to always be on site. And I was like, I don't think they'll publish me, Jay. Dead ass. I didn't think they would because I speak the way I speak. And I'm remembering AP lit English teacher who said, you can't do poems like this in the first place, right? So now I'm going into the classroom in a book. It's going to be drama. I don't, they ain't going to want my, they won't, they won't publish me.

[00:22:36] And lo and behold, I was published. I received my first book deal, illustrated book, Black Girl Magic. The poem was turned into an illustrated book with Jess X Snow, an amazing artist and filmmaker. And from that first book, which they were like, well, it's, you know, it's a children's book. And I said, it is not. Even if you look at the illustrated book, it is rich, heightened, black and white and red. It's only three colors.

[00:23:03] And the poem, Black Girl Magic is talking about, you know, the mothers of the slain who we've asked to stand there and be present even in the midst of their loss. So I knew what we were talking about and my community knows what we're talking about. But in that moment, the children's book author was like, we're going to put it out as, you know, a special interest illustrated book. And I just wanted to get in. They call them the big five publishing. That happened.

[00:23:28] Woke Baby and Woke, A Young Poet's Call to Justice were the second and third books that I published with Macmillan. And that was all within 2014 to 2016. And then I sold my first YA novel to Crown. And it was on and cracking after that. So from going from the experience of being told that the way you write, which is really the way you speak, which is really the experiences that you are having as a young Black girl,

[00:23:57] are not worthy of even a paper to talk about Dante's Inferno to now being a part of the curriculum and having young people recite your words the way that you recited great poets at your time. How has that shifted how you see yourself and your work in this as an industry? I guess it just reminded me that we are the letters too. We're the Academy of Letters too, baby.

[00:24:26] Like you are tripping if you believe in your heart of hearts that you've civilized our conversation. Now I just move like I just know I belong. And that's very different. Before I was waiting for acceptance. And now I just move like I belong. And anytime I move in a room, I'm also making sure that I move that way so that whoever comes in after me, the door is propped open. You don't have to keep on pushing against, you know, finding a new lock cheat code.

[00:24:56] The door is open and you belong here too. What does it mean to just be able to get up there on stage or get up on these pages and just do your work and tell the story without all of these like, you know, fails, fail safes, booby traps. Just like, what is it? What would it look like for someone to have that kind of experience where it was just you belong? Like that feels like as Wakanda as it can get, you know, you just show up and yeah, you belong.

[00:25:25] So what if I'm never dealing with that again? That literally felt like 45% of my energy is me re-talking myself into wanting to be in a space, into wanting to create the work, into, yeah, I just thought I had. I'm fighting the whole time and I never get to be present. My nervous system is never not fried. I want that for someone else. So I think that's where I am now. And I think it took a long time to get there.

[00:25:51] A lot of studying, which we've always done, but like intentional. I'm reading about what was it like for Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni and Jane Cortez and Sonia Sanchez in the conversation collections where it's just their interviews. So I'm looking at just process at this point and learning. Everybody have the exact same feelings, like the same new, right? So once I realized, oh, that's the hoax. That's the realty is that they lied to us.

[00:26:19] That takes so much pressure off of me. It allows me to do the other work, the work I'm here to do. And so then in doing your work and having God on, so to speak, with the heaviest of quotation marks, since people can't see me, you now have a bird in the air means we still can breathe, which is very much, I think, rooted in your journalism background. When did you start writing this book to chronicle these stories of community during the pandemic?

[00:26:48] Thank you for that question. I wrote the first story that you read, which is from Malachi's point of view. Malachi Quinney's part one, two, three. Those were really part one and part two. Those were written March 2020. The first day that I came out of the COVID, like I had caught COVID before there was a vaccine.

[00:27:15] It was in the last week of March that I caught it. And it stayed with me for 11 days. And I mean, I couldn't, you know, everybody was there. We were scared, but like to not be able to breathe or sleep or anything like for that to happen. And the only thing that we had was this fear telling us that was the first story that came to me. Once the fog lifted from catching COVID, first thing I wrote was like this dystopia because I thought,

[00:27:44] oh, this is what's going to happen now. I'm clear. I'm looking at the news when I can open my eyes. And it was unreal. It was absolutely unreal. And still here we are. So you were writing as it was happening. Was that a relief for you? Or was it just as hard as it was for everyone still living through it who didn't find healthy ways to cope a process?

[00:28:13] I think it was a relief in the sense that I had somewhere to put the panic. I didn't have to hold that in my body. I could like write it. And then like, you know, I think it took me three years to write it because so much kept happening. And I wanted to write in the moment to the moment. I didn't want us to forget the fear. Like having a child, I forgot what childbirth feels like, right? My daughter's 28. I forgot.

[00:28:42] I know that we can forget frenzy and fear and pain if we're far enough away from it. And I know the mindscape of our communities make it even easier because everything is like, let me move on to the next thing that you can buy. We don't want to deal with healing. We don't want to deal with care. But we want you to buy this so you think you're healing. And then when that wears off, you'll come back and buy some other things.

[00:29:09] It was helpful because I got to be honest about what I felt and what I saw. Writing about that young person in the shoe happened to my cousin. That's why I'm writing about it because I'm literally talking to him while he's locked up. Talking to his mom while he's locked up. COVID is being brought in by the guards. And then they're just left to their own devices. No soap, no water. Just, you know, it felt like, you know, a setup. It felt like a setup.

[00:29:38] So I wanted to honor them, even if that meant that it would take a little bit longer to write. And it felt like sometimes I just, I was like, I don't want to write anymore about it. Like I'm living it, you know? So sometimes it was a great place to put the fear and the pain and the panic. And then sometimes it got real. So it got really real. Writing about one of the elder voice in here also being locked up in Rikers, right? It gets real to know that somebody can be in a holding cell.

[00:30:07] Rikers is a jail. It is not a prison. It's supposed to be there so that they go to the courts. But they can be there for three years without ever going to court. Ever. And I was like, this is, so I'm literally dealing with the, you know, the obvious inequities and inequalities. And then like living under the assumption of COVID actually taking us out. And some of us did not survive, right? Like you wrote about it too. You're writing about it.

[00:30:35] So to know that, wow, we lost that many people. So it was wild. But like you, there were days where I could be in it. And there were days where I was like, I got to walk away. Like it took me 19 months just to write the first draft. That's all I have right now is the first draft. It's 19 months. Wow. And. Congratulations. Congratulations. Like it was, it was a fight. Yeah.

[00:30:59] And so hearing you talk about the process of documenting it as it was happening, even the years after where you were refining it, did you have any pushback or was there any concern when you presented it to your team? Like this is next. Not at all. I have an amazing editor. Phoebe Ye is like one of my greatest cheerleaders. And if you get an editor, that's like a fan of your work, you are lucky. Right. You're not getting an editor who's trying to shape you into somebody else's voice.

[00:31:29] You get an editor who's like, I see you. And I just want to help that go to the next level. And when I told Phoebe what I wanted to write about and how I wanted to shape it, she was like, yes. Like, that's it. Yes. And I feel really spoiled in that sense, but I think it's the universe giving me back my licks. It's like before we had that lady say that weird thing to you in grade school here, here's all your flowers right now. Here's all your people. They're going to take care of you.

[00:31:58] So I feel like I'm really lucky in that sense that I can dream it and just go to lunch and say, I have this idea. What do you think? And she's like, oh yeah, absolutely. And there's things that I pitched something recently and they kind of stutter stepped on it. It was like, ah, let's wait. Again, the Torah sent me. I can't take weight. I don't know why I really need to prey on it, but I'm glad I didn't because I ended up selling

[00:32:27] that idea to, you know, Live Right Norton and the new book that's coming out, Seneca, is my first adult fiction. So it went from a YA novel series to a big book, adult fiction. I'm ready. Well, we're talking about Byrd and Ayrs. So can you read something from it so that we can dive into this novel? Sure. A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Brown is a YA novel told through

[00:32:52] a chorus of teenage voices who are learning to survive in pre-vaccine COVID-19 New York. In prose and verse, Mahogany gives vision to what teens lost as disease took over their world and forced them to rely on each other and their community. Here's Mahogany. A bird in the air means we can still breathe. All right. Yousef, 6x8.

[00:33:17] C76, or New York City Correctional Institution for Men, was a pandemic before the virus got its street name. If you're looking for a name, you won't find it here. We live in a place where the correctional officers call us by our last names but crown the buildings by naming the structures of stone after the wardens of this wretched compound. As if a fortress of concrete, razor-wire tears and steel named after you in the new age slave trade is an honor. But the block calls me digs.

[00:33:47] When I first arrive, I would draw on anything I could get my hands on. Envelopes, toilet paper, the wall, the sheets. Drawing has always helped me keep my mind mine, you know? Anyway, one person found out, then another and another. One of the older heads, this revolutionary dude named Maceo Sr., gave me the nickname. I'll bet Donuts to Dollar he nicknamed me because he misses his two sons, but I don't mind. I like it, and it's stuck.

[00:34:16] Next thing I knew, everybody was requesting me digs to create one-of-a-kind handmade cards with sketches of flowers, people's children's city skylines, and cartoon characters to send a kite across the water to their loved ones and get paid. It was my first real job. It's the only job I've ever had before I ended up here. I've been here for 37 months. I turn 18 in this place. The same month the virus shut the whole city down.

[00:34:44] No candles, no cake, just fear of a cough that had the power to shake your entire body and steal your breath away. At first, there was nothing different. They shut down visitation hours, which didn't affect me, but that act to keep us safe ultimately changed the dining hall's temperature for the worse. No one was allowed to leave the grounds to make sure the inmates would remain safe from the virus. But once the correctional officers started filtering in from the city to begin the 12- to 15-hour shifts.

[00:35:13] Wet and deadly coughs covered every inch of the building. Outside, most of the city had access to soap and hand sanitizer. No such luck behind these steel bars. When we heard the news of shelter in place, it struck some of us with a weird sense of humor. Is this shelter? Three hocks and a cot, an older inmate sang. One cough turned to five. Soap, what a dream. Five coughs turned to hundreds. Hand sanitizer, who?

[00:35:42] And in less than two weeks, we went from COVID-19 to almost 200 cases of COVID-19. It took lawyers fighting for us to get the vaccine over a year later. And it's the closest thing to normal, even though Maceo Sr. said this kind of life should not be normalized. Have you ever been looked down on or have people doubt you? That's how the world has looked at me since I left G-Mama's house.

[00:36:08] And my quiet nature doesn't mean you can step over, step on, or step to me. So on the day of my birth, in a mental space that should have been happy and hopeful, I was in the mess hall with hundreds of inmates. While waiting in line for breakfast, I lost my cool. Thank you. So from that section, I'll just get my first question. You said drawing has always helped me keep my mind mine. What's the importance of making sure your mind is always your own?

[00:36:36] I guess making sure your mind is your own. The same way we make sure that we are not being played, right? We are not being puppeted. Having your own minds in mind means that you're caring for your body. You're caring for your mental space. You're not just someone who's a pawn. And I think when I'm thinking about specifically, like I was writing towards my young cousin's

[00:37:02] experience, there was a lot of mental breaks that obviously happened. And one, COVID-19 had me in a mental break, right? The pandemic had many of us find out, oh, we were running. We just kept running from life by just busying ourselves. And when you had to sit down in a room for hours and hours and deal, yeah, I mean, it's different. People are like, oh, it's like prison. No, no, you can walk outside whenever you want.

[00:37:29] But there is a similarity, right? In the sense that this was the first time that none of us got to do what we wanted to do. It was a mandate to stay in that place of shelter, shelter in place. And so the mind can become a cruel, dangerous maze of insecurities running you, doubts running you, lack of confidence. Like all the things that we do in the world to make us feel better about ourselves, the

[00:37:57] play toys, we had to already be okay up here. And I think we weren't. So when you think about your mind being your own, that means what does it mean to be free of, you know, addiction, of mistrust, of the sickness of comparing yourself to others? Let's not pretend that the internet didn't help, right? Infuriate the insecurity. It like grew in so many, like the most beautiful people are now like, yeah, I look weird. I'm like, what are you talking about?

[00:38:24] But that, that's that comparison on that damn, that damn intranets can make you forget who you are. So what does it mean for, for your voice to be your own, for your dreams to be your own, for your choices to be your own and not a manipulation of, of a system that makes you think that those are your choices. That's what I mean when I'm talking about my mind is my own. And in that respect, you're writing to young adults, but you're also writing about them.

[00:38:53] And so they're 15, 16, 17, 18. Some of them have younger siblings and they are the stars of this novel, but also in their own lives and their minds are not fully formed. Were you seeing that in the experience of COVID and the pandemic as it happened, that made you want to write to what it is to try to step up and survive at a time where you're still

[00:39:20] growing and developing and becoming who you are going to be? The reason I think I wanted to focus on young people for this specific story is that they're the ones that had to give up so much of their childhood, right? They're growing into themselves. I learned who Mahogany was at my high school homecoming. Like I learned what Mahogany liked at my graduation.

[00:39:46] Like there are these pivotal community celebratory moments, moments of awakening that only happen in the recess on the yard, on the block, at the club, and being that I'm from Cali, I would say the side strokes, like those were important gathering spaces for you to know what does friendship really look like? Who am I really? What do I like? You don't have that anymore to find yourself. That can no longer be a compass. Our young people lost that, right?

[00:40:14] They didn't have that opportunity to figure out who they're going to be because I learned in this moment when I stud a step, that's what that means, right? They're like trying to figure it out online and where the glitches are and where like all these different ways that you never know exactly who is who. We got people catfishing. They lost that opportunity to come alive in a way that I think we took for granted.

[00:40:39] And that's why I thought it was a really important sector to speak to and apologize to and say thank you for giving up your childhood to assure that the rest of the world had a chance of living. One of my favorite chapters, if not probably my favorite chapter, is South at the Bodega. Okay. I love the voice because I can hear it in my head.

[00:41:01] But in that chapter, you talk about the fraud of the PPP loan and how these people didn't waste a good crisis and took it at the time to enrich themselves as other people were suffering and hurting and dying. What was the importance of lifting up that perspective? Because we don't talk about all the fraud of the pandemic often enough. Mm-hmm.

[00:41:30] Well, one, the bodega is really like the community center. And I wanted to show like here's a space of mutual aid networking, you know, that y'all think you can control. But you learn or you can't you really don't know what you're talking about. Like this is not a this is not only happening because of the Internet. This is not only happening because of a GoFundMe or a GiveButter. This is happening because that person at the end of the block has seen you for the last two years and knows your grandmother is gone now. You need a sandwich.

[00:42:00] Like something as small as that is also like so big. But like let's not play to play the fool either. The reason that we have to take care of each other like that is because y'all are crooks. And you sit up there and pretend or at least, you know, to us make it seem like here's an opportunity for you to pull yourself up from the bootstraps. PPP loans. We got you. And then you find out, oh, you're only giving loans to yourself and your friends.

[00:42:28] Like Marjorie from the Congress got a PPP loan. Tell me why. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. So it felt like a betrayal if I didn't speak it plain. And writing this story in the way that you did with the multitude of voices and really as a chorus, as you call some of them. What do you want your readers to take from this experience? I want my readers to walk away knowing that we got us.

[00:42:55] I think we lose the majority of our power when we keep looking to outside forces to come and save us. And if they do anything, they get to walk away with Maceo Seniors, like, you know, quip in mind. And I think that's what I think. With all of our Greek chorus, Hyacinth and Electra in mind. And they speak it plain.

[00:43:20] Because I think what happens is you say it a certain way and it feels so soft and it's not that big a deal, right? Like, you can take it as a request. Whereas if we are more devout in our demands for everybody's rising, like all of us should be rising. Our communities all should be lifted up. Not just, you know, the suburbs, not just the charter schools.

[00:43:48] If we demand it, I think people will fall back into rhythm with taking care of one another. Rather than waiting for other people outside of our community to come in and take care of us. You talked about Maceo's charge. He tells them to begin again. And let no one leave the kitchen hungry. And then Hyacinth ends the book and says, we are a generous legacy just trying to make our ancestors proud. Even when our backs are against the wall.

[00:44:15] What is the future that you see for this generation of children who lost years in the pandemic. And then have now gone to college and lost years due to raids on their campuses. First for protesting the genocide in Palestine. And now these immigration rape that are just really snatching people up and trafficking them to other countries with no due process.

[00:44:41] Are inheriting a world that, or a country at least, that is not reminiscent of the 21st century. But the mid-20th century. And hopefully we don't go back any further than that. What future do I see for them? Honestly, I don't see them surviving this world. I see them devising a world that has to usurp this world.

[00:45:11] Because this ain't it. This ain't it. Do they have everything they need to do so? I don't know. I can't call it. But I hope. And that's why we story, right? That's why we like poem. That's why we art. Is that we are just hoping for them to see a way out. Because I have no idea. I know they're going to have to be autonomous. Our freedom requires a certain kind of autonomy.

[00:45:38] Well, we're not looking at the PPP loans and the grants and whatever nonprofit organization to support the revolutionary practices and thinkers. The liberatory practitioners. Like, we can't wait for them to see us as valuable and give us money towards it. No way. You said autonomy, which makes me think freedom. And freedom makes me think liberation. What does liberation look like to you? Liberation, to me, looks like free health care.

[00:46:06] It looks like housing for everyone. It looks like mental health care check-ins that are mandatory for your constituents, your political constituents. Everybody needs to be on board because something's going on where y'all not even checking the boxes no more. So, yeah. Liberation, to me, looks like a real balance and check system where the community has power in removing these officers of their charge.

[00:46:36] Free education, free health care, mental health care, accessibility, check-ins and whatnot, and the people power over politics. So, I want to move to a speed round and a little game before I let you go for the morning. What is your favorite book? Ooh, Salvage the Bones by Jasmine Ward. Who is your favorite author? Toni Morrison. Who is your favorite poet? Oh, these are not fair.

[00:47:08] Because all of it changes every day. But who's my favorite poet? Sonia Sanchez. Name a poet you think we don't know enough about. Jive poetic. If money were no object, where would you go? What would you do? And where would you live? I would go to Japan. I would start a writing and wellness retreat in Antigua. Which I'm already going to do. So, that's happening. I'm coming. Right.

[00:47:38] And then, where would I live? On the continent of Africa. All right. Name three things on your bucket list. I don't have a bucket list. I just be doing stuff. I do. I jumped off the bridge in New Zealand. I jumped off a cliff in Hawaii. I jumped off the stone in El Yunque Forest in Puerto Rico. I ain't got no bucket list. You just be out here. I'll be trying to live it. Because I broke my ankle at a very young age. Like 24.

[00:48:06] And had to like learn how to walk again. And all this stuff. And I was like, I'm never going to be just sitting again. Never. I'm going to just be out here. So, bucket list. Okay. Things I would like to do. I would like to learn how to cook. Like from an amazing chef. Somebody from Top Chef. I would like to have a gallery installation of my favorite iPhone photos that I've taken.

[00:48:37] They're professional. Oh. I do have one thing I want to do. I want to take all my girlfriends on like an Oprah trip. Where I'm just like, just come fly. I'm going to just take you. And we have this island. This resort space. Whatever. For a week. And let's do it. That might be a good one. Okay. I love that. What brings you joy? My family. My family brings me joy.

[00:49:06] Books. Coffee. So much joy. Real Housewives of Atlanta. And Nick. It brings me joy. Married to Madison. Miss Quad. Brings me joy. I call it anthropological research. It is. It is. I see it. What brings you peace? That I'm not on any of those shows. Not a one.

[00:49:37] I see it. Um. What is your favorite sound? Mmm. That's my favorite sound. Mmm. I feel like that's the universal affirmation. Think about it. We be like, Ashe. We do this. Everybody. Mmm. Mmm. I love that sound. That's a good one. I gave it. It's called Rewriting the Classics. Classic is however you define it. Name one book you wish you would have written. Mmm.

[00:50:07] Jasmine Ward, Salvage the Cones. Yeah, I do wish y'all wrote that. That book was so good. I threw it. I cried. I didn't realize I was like, I didn't even realize I was crying until my partner was like, are you okay? And I was just reading the book. But the dog part happened and I was weeping. Weeping. Bruh. The scene about China lives in my head rent-free to this day. I knew you were my people. That one and Black Girl in Paris.

[00:50:36] One of my favorite stories of all time by Shea Youngblood, who's also one of my favorite authors. But like, her book changed me in a way that I was like, oh, I can write and be wherever I want to be. Yeah. Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? I think Brit Bennett's The Mothers. I would have been okay with it ending a little messier. Yeah. Because it came to a nice end, but I could have had it messier. I had those moments.

[00:51:06] I'm like, I love a mess. Like, don't solve nothing for me. Leave it like America. So now my messy question, and feel free to throw shade on your English AP curriculum. Okay. Name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why. Huckleberry Finn. I say that's a tie with Uncle Tom's Cabin. Yeah, I'd be like, fuck Uncle Tom's Cabin. I don't care about that book. I don't care about that story.

[00:51:33] I don't care about no white person looking at some egregiousness and being like, oh, so sad. I'm going to write about that sadness, girl. Get into it. So, yeah. I don't want them stories no more. No thanks. Same. Same. Final question for you today. You are dead and gone among the ancestors. What would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind? That I was here and stopped playing in my face.

[00:52:05] They be trying to erase us, man. Like, it's wild. It's wild. I've had someone come up to me and tell me a story about something that I've done and attributed to someone else. Right? And I'm just like, it's the gall for me. It's the gall for me. You came up to the person who did the thing and said, yeah, my friend was really the one who did. I don't like that. I don't like that at all.

[00:52:28] So, I want the record to reflect the work that I've actually done and the people who got to eat off of the bones of my labor. Even if they refuse to acknowledge it, that's fine. Like, my job has always been bigger than any one person. My job has been for our people. And when I say our, I'm talking about Black people. I'm talking about Black women. I'm talking about Black femmes.

[00:52:56] Because when I'm thinking about who made my house possible, it was the matriarchs. And they were always stepped over and they were always talked over, even though they did the work that made it possible for us to be there. Big thank you to Mahogany L. Brown for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Mahogany on the socials at MoBrown on Instagram and threads. And make sure you check out A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, out now from Crown.

[00:53:25] You can get a copy of the novel 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 page. It's at Black & Published. And that's B-L-K-and Published.

[00:53:51] There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Mahogany about what motivated her to keep saying yes to herself. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll holler at y'all next week when our guest will be Nicholas Smith, the author and illustrator of the new picture book, The History of We. I was working on some promo art for Ava DuVernay's film Origin.

[00:54:15] I made an art piece of this Black child named Albright in the 1960s, and he was banned from swimming with his baseball teammates because of racism. And I was just thinking to myself, like, I wish I could have told those kids, like, did you know that the first swimmers in human history look just like you? And so since I can't tell all those kids face to face this thing, I thought I would make a book about those kids' first ancestors. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then.

[00:54:45] Peace. 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.

[00:55:14] And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books Matter.