On this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Honorée Fannone Jeffers, author of the epic novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. Honorée is also the author of five critically acclaimed books of poetry, including the award-winning collection, The Age of Phillis, based on the life and times of Phillis Wheatley Peters.
[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_03]: What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and you're listening to Black & Published on
[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_03]: the Mahogany Books Podcast Network, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights,
[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_03]: and storytellers of all kinds. And I'm excited to share with you five of my favorite episodes
[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_03]: from the last four seasons. This week we're going to throw it back to season two and
[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_03]: my conversation with award-winning author Honorée Fanning Jeffers, author of the epic
[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_03]: novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, The Age of Phyllis, and several other poetry collections.
[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_03]: What I love about this episode is how gracious Miss Honorée was with her time. I had asked
[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_03]: for 90 minutes, like I always do, for interviews. Her team was like, since you get an hour,
[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_03]: okay? And then once I got on the call, Miss Honorée said we could go longer. But it
[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_03]: wasn't only her time that I was grateful for, but also how generous she was and vulnerable
[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_03]: she was in answering my questions about her journey as a scholar and author, her inspirations,
[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and the influences of her family. And then after we finished recording, she talked to
[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_03]: me for another 15 minutes about my own writing career and said, sister, it's time
[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_03]: to talk more about me at a later date. But for now, here is Deeply Profound with Honorée
[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Fanning Jeffers.
[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: When did you know that you were a writer?
[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_02]: When I was a little girl, I used to write little bitty stories when I was like in
[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: third grade. But now my mama remembers that I started writing stories when I
[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: was in kindergarten. And she said that I wrote a story and I gave it to her and said I wanted
[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: to get it published. And I may have thought about publication because my daddy was a
[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: poet, a Black Arts Movement poet. Lance Jeffer is my daddy.
[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_03]: You say you started off writing stories, but your father was a Black Arts Movement
[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_03]: poet. So is that what drew you more to poetry in your career?
[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Not at all. As a matter of fact, I fought being a poet because of my father, but he was a very
[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: brilliant man and he cast a very big shadow. As a matter of fact, I mean, I would go to
[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_02]: conferences with Black poets of his cohort and they would always remind me that I would
[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: never be the poet that he was. And they're right. I'm not the poet that he is. I'm a
[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: different poet. But in terms of my empathy in my work, I would say that's my mother's
[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: empathy, Dr. Trellily James Jeffers. And Mama is actually a beautiful writer, but she spent
[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: as women have been want to do in history. She edited his work and helped him with his
[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: work. And so I think in a real way, I'm doing this not just for me, but you know, the
[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: cultural stories that I tell are, you know, inspired by her voice and my own voice is in
[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: there. But she gave me the land and she gave me the culture and she gave me the people.
[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: That was not my father. And so I think I do a lot of what I do for her.
[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Ooh, that resonates. I think I definitely see that influence in the novel itself and how you gave
[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_03]: voice to Jesse Fawcett just not being an aside to Dr. Du Bois' career.
[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And he took credit. Listen now, I love me some Dr. Du Bois. I love some Dr. Du
[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Bois. But if we're going to keep it real, he took credit for a lot of her work. You know, I
[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: want to give credit to her in the same way that, you know, Belle, the protagonist's mother,
[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Belle, she stays in the background. But we know she has a very strong voice.
[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. I love how you gave her her own voice in her own chapter. A lot of that chapter was
[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_03]: triggering for me as a wife and a mother. Like the line we say, I got to take the baby
[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_03]: to a bathroom. My daughter is only three months. And so when I go to the bathroom, I take her
[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_03]: with me to the bathroom.
[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot that has to be balanced with women. And I wanted to tell that story at
[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: the same time I was telling a very intellectual story, a very historical story, because I
[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: think that people act like you have to choose, right? You either tell the domestic interior
[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: or you tell a serious literary intellectual book. And I said, no, I'm going to show people
[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: that this is what goes on in black communities simultaneously.
[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes. And it was so very well done. I think I knew I was in for a good ride and a good read
[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_03]: when Ailee says she's a little girl at the very beginning. She's like, are you in there
[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_03]: talking to yourself? Like I am, but it's an intelligent conversation. I was like, oh,
[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready for it. She was in ninth grade. Right. You know, my mother used to always say
[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: that when I say I'm talking to myself, she said, well, make it an intelligent
[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: conversation. You know, so my mama had has these little things that she'll say.
[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I only stole a couple of them.
[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But I make up my own. She would make up. I get that for mama. She would make up her own sort
[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: of proverbs and different things like that. So I made up my own proverbs, like there's
[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_02]: one where Bill is talking about her brother Roscoe and says everybody in Putnam County
[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: knew their boy was crazy, plus the full tank of gas. I just came up with that.
[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because my family would sort of come up with these sort of things.
[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very literary, but it's not viewed as such.
[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I think my favorite is if wishes were horses, assholes would ride.
[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: If wishes were horses, assholes would ride.
[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I enjoyed that part.
[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: My cackles.
[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: That was funny to me.
[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted there to be humor in the book because there's so much pain in the
[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: book, you know? So but that's I look at this as a blues novel.
[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what the blues does.
[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: The blues negotiates pain, you know, sorrow and joy.
[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes sexuality, sometimes heartbreak, sometimes references to racism, you know,
[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_02]: all of that. But then there's humor to try to work through the bad feeling.
[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I was trying to do.
[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And having so many of those unique turns and bends of a phrase and, you know,
[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_03]: doing language like Toni Morrison says, do you attribute that or credit that from
[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_03]: your background and strength as a poet to then do that in prose?
[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes. I think that, you know, people are definitely seeing my poetry.
[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But but it's kind of funny, sister, because there were many drafts of this novel.
[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I brought it to my agent.
[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_02]: My agent is my first editor.
[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: She's the first person that believed that I could write a novel,
[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_02]: even when I did not want to write a novel.
[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself.
[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So I brought, you know, one of the drafts back and she said, what happened?
[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You ripped all the poetry out of this.
[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, Sarah, that's, you know, her name Sarah Burns.
[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, Sarah, you know, don't you think it's cheating
[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that I have poetry in here?
[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, cheating hell.
[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: This is your language.
[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: This is your book.
[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: She said, Arnie, what did you do?
[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That's my nickname.
[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, well, I said, all right.
[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So then I went and I redid it and I brought it back.
[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, oh, thank God, you know, but, you know,
[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: but these are the things when you don't have confidence in yourself.
[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I had been laughed at.
[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I was at a conference, I won't say when and I won't say where.
[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But there was a group of writers, female women writers.
[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_02]: One of them was black.
[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I said, all right, fiction, too,
[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: they all started laughing at me.
[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and so it hurt my feelings real deep.
[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have to tell you before that moment,
[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I never really had any desires for my fiction to see the world.
[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But when them women started laughing at me,
[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought, watch me work, you know, and I and that that was the moment
[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: that I became a fiction writer, I think, like a serious fiction writer.
[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_02]: When they laughed at me and I'm joke with people, I show hope,
[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: don't nobody ever laugh and say you can never be a physicist.
[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Because once someone tells me I can't, you have to prove that you can.
[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to prove that I can.
[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And it took a while for the love and the passion of it
[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: to come to me instead of just I'll show you.
[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Right? This is the hell of a book.
[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, I did my best, you know, I did I did my best.
[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And I had a lot of encouragement, but it really wasn't until I'd say maybe
[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: two years ago, a year and a half ago,
[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: that I really felt like, oh, OK, I can do this.
[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you know, let's talk about that those feelings of insecurity
[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and the doubt when you're coming to your own work, because I've heard you say it
[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_03]: in a few different interviews that you just wanted this book to be a beach read.
[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Like before you say it just wanted to be a beach.
[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like every laugh.
[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's like I wrote like a beach read really.
[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's like, I guess I could see if you're not confident.
[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Then you just want to do it as quickly as possible.
[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Or, you know, your your editors and your agents are telling you
[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_03]: we need a novel and you're like, I just want to do short stories.
[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And I see how the how that can be when you're not sure
[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_03]: that you can even do this big thing that you want to do.
[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_03]: How did you overcome those feelings?
[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Or is it still ongoing that you're overcoming it because the book is now out?
[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, wow, these are some beautiful questions, sister.
[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the whole notion of I just wanted to do a beach read was not just my confidence,
[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: but the fact that I was deep in the middle of writing The Age of Phyllis,
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: which is the poetry book that came out last year.
[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I really felt like I had to give
[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_02]: the proper attention to Miss Phyllis, to Phyllis, we the Peters.
[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so.
[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really know if I had any more to give to another book.
[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Now what I realize is that I'm always working
[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_02]: on several books at the same time.
[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: The reason that I do that is because I can become very depressed
[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: if the words aren't aren't aren't flowing OK, on one project.
[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And so then I will pivot to another project
[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: to make sure that I'm always working.
[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. I'll pivot sometimes that pivot is overt and intentional.
[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes.
[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I just start dreaming and I wake up
[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and I write something down and it doesn't become apparent
[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: until months or sometimes years later.
[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: What I'm doing.
[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So to get back to, you know, the whole notion of the beach read.
[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, some of it was my confidence.
[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of it was I was writing on another book.
[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And some of it was.
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: See, I'm you know, I'm from the deep south.
[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So you reared not to think too well of yourself.
[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so so what I'm about to say is deeply uncomfortable for me to say.
[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, I don't think I really understood how profound my thinking was.
[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that is because I had listened
[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_02]: to people who had diminished me.
[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a deep southern accent.
[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_02]: You hear that?
[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Also, the way I carry myself is just like a regular sister.
[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I've always been this way.
[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that when people see me on stage when I'm reading, right,
[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_02]: even if it's a stage in a classroom, right, that's when they see
[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_02]: the power that I carry within.
[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think also that what people
[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_02]: should understand is that the power that I carry within is not just my power.
[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, it's an ancestral power
[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that I had to accept that, that that was my duty, my charge.
[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It took a while for it to become a joy.
[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_02]: There was a moment where it was a burden because there's a lot that you carry
[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: when you write about the ancestors, commune with the ancestors
[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: when you're a deeply spiritual person.
[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that people still have a white Western idea
[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: about how intellect is supposed to walk in the world.
[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And this, what I look like, a deep brown black woman nudging
[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: in the dark skin, kinky curly hair,
[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02]: wearing my little quirky outfit, because I'm always going to be cute at all times.
[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, sometimes I move back and forth in, you know, from quote unquote,
[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: the standard dialect to the vernacular I co-switch.
[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorite songs is Pony.
[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So every time I'm on Instagram, I'm like, y'all like, that's not
[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_02]: the way that brilliance is supposed to walk in the world.
[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_02]: OK.
[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And so therefore I believed that for many years.
[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It took me a long time to accept that I am extraordinary.
[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until Miss Lucille took me under her wing
[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_02]: because Miss Lucille was the same way.
[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a regular sister.
[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm telling you the extraordinary mind of that woman, right?
[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And her ability to see past, present and future all at once, right?
[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: She was a visioning woman.
[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And I met her right around the time that I became a visioning woman.
[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so she helped me with that.
[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's very difficult.
[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's, I think even though I'm a radical feminist, it's very
[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02]: difficult for me as a woman to take, you know, to consider myself
[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: to be as smart as a man.
[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm being honest here, right?
[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Miss Lucille met me during a real needful time.
[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And Miss Lucille, she saved me.
[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I always lift up her name, whatever I am, because
[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: she saved me.
[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember when I was coming up for tenure and she came out here
[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_02]: to Oklahoma to give a reading at Oklahoma City.
[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was, it was a time, because there was only one other black
[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: woman in the department who had tenure.
[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I showed up at the, at the auditorium and, and there were
[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: white colleagues of mine in the room.
[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And before the reading though, before I saw them, I saw Miss Lucille.
[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody came and tapped me on my shoulder.
[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: They said, somebody wants to talk to you.
[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And I turned and it was Miss Lucille.
[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And I ran across.
[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I threw myself dramatically at her feet.
[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, Miss Lucille is, I'm having a horrible week.
[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: They are trying to destroy black women this week.
[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And she said, I think they have been, you know, real, real cool
[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and calm.
[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They have been trying to destroy black women since we got off
[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: the ship.
[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So you better get your mind right.
[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But let me tell you what she did.
[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what I'm trying to say about how she moved in the
[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: world.
[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So she knew that I was being tormented, right during that
[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_02]: tenure process.
[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And when she stood from behind the podium, she was reading and
[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: she was holding people in the palm of her hand.
[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And then she said, my good friend, Ani Jeffers is in the
[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: audience.
[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And she began to talk about me.
[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And I saw these white folks on my job looking across the room
[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_02]: at me.
[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_02]: She could have called anybody's name.
[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But she called mine.
[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I love black women because at our best, that's what
[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02]: we do.
[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And you mentioned that Miss Lucille was with you when you
[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_03]: began to dream.
[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And you were talking about the story of the story.
[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And he talks a lot about how in trying to navigate what
[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Ailey's story was going to be, that you began to dream of
[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_03]: the ancestors.
[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_03]: So before we get to your reading, how has coming to
[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_03]: understand your dreams and your own visioning of your art
[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_03]: and your intellect?
[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_03]: How has that influenced you to give you, I guess, permission
[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_03]: for lack of a better word to put out this text that you have?
[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm an Afro-Indigenous person.
[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we call black presenting, I am African American.
[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I was reared as African American.
[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have Native American ancestry.
[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It has been a real journey for me to be able to feel like I had
[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_02]: permission to write an Afro-Indigenous story.
[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have been encouraged by Native American colleagues
[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: like the great Gary Hobson, the great Kimberly Weezer,
[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_02]: one of my former students who's now a very accomplished
[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_02]: scholar and poet, Rain Gomez.
[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I've been encouraged to write that story.
[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until I came out here to Oklahoma, which is, you
[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_02]: know, the site of the final removal site of the
[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Southeastern tribes that I began to understand that very
[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_02]: highly educated Native American scholars view oral tradition
[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and visioning as a valid way to transfer knowledge and to
[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: acquire knowledge.
[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So I came out here around 2002.
[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Ms. Lucille was still living, and we would have conversations.
[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We wouldn't have them every day, every week, every month,
[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: but whenever we would talk there would always be this depth of
[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: discussion.
[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is when I began to sort of expand my view of what
[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: intellect was, and also to understand that the visions
[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: that I was having were not separate in another category, but
[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_02]: they were part of my creative journey.
[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is happening at the same time that I'm beginning to
[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_02]: look at my historical research as also being part of my creative
[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_02]: journey.
[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But you got to understand, I started having visions back in
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: graduate school, back in like 1994, 1995.
[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're talking about eight years right into this.
[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But I also say this, and I'm not trying to, you know, scare
[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: anybody or be whatever.
[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You ignore the ancestors to your own peril.
[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_02]: They will punish.
[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They will punish.
[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_02]: You will have nightmares.
[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: You will wake up with scratches on your face.
[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And they get rowdy.
[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think they will get extremely rabid.
[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_02]: They will get rowdy.
[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that I talk about ancestral connections
[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: differently than, for example, Tony Morrison.
[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02]: She too was a visioning one.
[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because she talks about the way that that
[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_02]: love is first came to her was a woman climbing out of water.
[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. She had a vision.
[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that if you're paying attention, you know that there
[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: are deeply spiritual women among that whole cadre of black
[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_02]: women of the 70s and the 80s who all hung together.
[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So there are a lot of women in the 70s who were just
[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Silent Sanchez was very good friends with Tony Morrison.
[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Silent Sanchez and Miss Lucille were very good friends.
[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Tony Morrison was Miss Lucille's editor at random house.
[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Tony Morris and help to nurse Tony Kate Bambara
[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_02]: when she was passing away.
[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Alice Walker was in the middle, you know,
[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_02]: so there's a whole cadre of them.
[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think that again, you have to be very intentional
[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02]: with the way that you look at things
[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_02]: because other folks aren't really aware of this.
[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Even some black people who aren't aware
[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_02]: of Black literary history do not understand
[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_02]: that all of these women were, you know, together
[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were all very spiritually connected.
[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That's beautiful.
[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And so in talking about that literary history
[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_03]: of women who are all connected,
[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_03]: you have done that with your novel,
[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_03]: you're following your main characters,
[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_03]: A.D. Pearl's matrilineal line.
[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_03]: So let's get to the reading
[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and then I definitely want to ask people questions before.
[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_03]: OK.
[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And for those who don't know,
[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: the love song of W.E.B. The Boy is an epic novel
[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_03]: spanning the generations of a Georgia family
[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_03]: through the eyes of one woman, A.D. Pearl Garfield.
[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to read from a portion of work
[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: about A.D.'s favorite sister, who's Lydia.
[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_02]: If Lydia Garfield's life were a song,
[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: it would have been a blues,
[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: like her uncle Huck sang down at the family reunion every summer,
[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: plucking his banjo, crooning in a baritone while Mr. Luke,
[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02]: the man who was the love of Uncle Huck's life,
[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02]: clapped his hands and padded his feet.
[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody in the yard urged Uncle Huck to sing,
[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_02]: sang that song, but they didn't pay attention to the words
[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: that Uncle Huck sang the pain of his life
[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: that he had to call Mr. Luke his best friend,
[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_02]: though Mr. Luke and he were joined forever
[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: as tightly as if they'd stood in front of a preacher
[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_02]: and said vows.
[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: The folks ignored the tender bold touches
[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: between the two men, the pats on the shoulder,
[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: the forehead kisses, the folks called out praise instead.
[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Boy, that Huck show could sing.
[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Got that voice smooth like butter.
[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's what Lydia had done
[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: when she picked up her habit.
[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: She was trying to sing her pain,
[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: knowing that for the rest of her life,
[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: she had a burden to tote.
[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_02]: She couldn't ever put it down.
[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It didn't matter how pretty people said Lydia was,
[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: pretty one shit.
[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Pretty didn't mean a goddamn thing.
[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_02]: When people call it Lydia that,
[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: they might as well have spit in her face
[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: because the man who first called her pretty
[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: had been the one who'd handed her this load.
[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_02]: There were other names she was called at school,
[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02]: red bone, high yellow, light-skinned,
[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: stediddy heifer, the one who thinks she cute.
[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But Lydia was never called ugly.
[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Her beauty was assumed because of her paleness,
[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: her hair that reflected light,
[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_02]: her eyes that changed colors depending on her outfit.
[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Pretty, pretty girl.
[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Her grandfather had called her that
[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02]: back when she was six years old,
[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_02]: back when he used to hurt her.
[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't remember when it started,
[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: only that when she emerged into memory,
[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_02]: the hurting already was a fact of her life.
[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_02]: When Lydia met the young man who would become her husband,
[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_02]: he made the mistake of commenting on her looks.
[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_02]: He'd almost lost his chance with those three words
[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_02]: she'd heard too many times.
[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, pretty girl, don't call me that.
[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_02]: She turned her back on the young man,
[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_02]: flipping her hair over her shoulder.
[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Most black folks didn't like that gesture.
[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't use it often, only when she wanted to be
[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_02]: rude on purpose to make a point
[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_02]: that she knew what people thought of her.
[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: High yellow girl, stediddy heifer.
[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_02]: She felt her anger rise like a bear moving in a cave,
[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: ready to come out, ready to attack.
[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It was Lydia's sophomore year of Rutledge College
[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and she'd ridden a car packed with her sorority sisters
[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_02]: to Atlanta for the Morehouse basketball game,
[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: but none of them wanted to see who won.
[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They'd crossed over for Bada the week before
[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and were anxious to show off in their orange
[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and white jackets with their line names printed
[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: on the back to make their beta call
[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_02]: to their sisters from the Spelman chapter
[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and maybe score some numbers
[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_02]: from some cute Morehouse dudes.
[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: At the concession stand, there was that guy trying to flirt
[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_02]: saying the wrong things though he was good looking,
[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_02]: tall, very slender, a chocolate brother
[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_02]: with real smooth skin, too handsome
[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and well-groomed for Lydia's taste
[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_02]: like he spent a lot of time in front of the mirror.
[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He wore a blue velvet tracksuit
[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: with the jacket unzipped to reveal his white T-shirt,
[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_02]: a white Kangol hat like he thought he was LL Cool Jack.
[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Those gold chains around his neck,
[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Bama with a capital B.
[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_02]: When Lydia flipped her hair, the guy told her,
[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_02]: be careful, she didn't want that wig to fall off.
[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_02]: She turned back outrage.
[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_02]: This is my own hair.
[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yours if you bought it.
[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_02]: He looked so serious.
[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't know he was teasing until he asked her,
[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_02]: could he have one of her hot dogs?
[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_02]: She let him move closer.
[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_02]: She guessed he was all right.
[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_02]: You got a dollar.
[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Aw, that's cold.
[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_02]: One man they on cost for 75 cents a piece.
[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to make a profit.
[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Times are tough these days.
[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You kind of skinny to be eating faux hot dog.
[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He lifted her wrist, but she didn't pull away.
[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_02]: His touch was warm.
[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a little piece of leather, the well put together.
[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_02]: He threw his head back laughing.
[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_02]: He told her his name, Dante Anderson
[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and wanted to know where was she from?
[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_02]: She sounded proper, but didn't nobody say stuff like that
[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_02]: unless they were from the country.
[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Lydia told him she was from up north, from the city,
[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_02]: but her mother's people lived in Chickaseta.
[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: She gave him her name,
[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_02]: but wouldn't give him her phone number.
[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Chickaseta, though your people from the country,
[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I bet you can burn.
[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You know how to fry pork chops?
[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Lydia?
[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Damn brother, you must be hungry.
[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_02]: First you want my hot dogs?
[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Now you're looking for a home cook meal.
[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He laughed again and moved forward in the line with her,
[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_02]: though his friend was motioning.
[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It was time to leave.
[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_03]: So reading the book,
[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_03]: when we get to the end of that first song
[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_03]: and you give the lineage of the book
[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_03]: that you're going to go through,
[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, well, this is like reading the Bible.
[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_03]: When you get to the New Testament in Matthew
[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_03]: and they give the lineage of Jesus.
[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, I did that on purpose.
[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I see that.
[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I did that on purpose
[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02]: because this is a holy lineage of black women.
[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It very much gives that feeling.
[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_03]: But in going back to what you said earlier about,
[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, the oral tradition and holding onto memory,
[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_03]: why was it so important for you to write this history down?
[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Even though it's fiction, it's still history.
[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Why was it so important for you to do that?
[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I've noticed that every maybe 10 years,
[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_02]: people forget what has come before.
[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, I view black literature
[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_02]: and black women's literature in particular
[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to be sacred to me.
[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Black literature saved my life as a young girl.
[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that my story,
[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_02]: the particulars of my story may be unique to me.
[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But the fact that the literature saved a life
[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_02]: is not particular.
[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: There are many people who feel that way.
[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And so for me, when you read the book,
[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_02]: it's not just a family story.
[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just a story of America.
[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just a story of how this region came
[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_02]: to be what it is today.
[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_02]: There are also gestures towards black women in the book, right?
[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Ida B. Wells Barnett, Jesse Faus is Ornill Hurst
[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_02]: and Alice Walker.
[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_02]: We get very quick references to Kimberly Crenshaw,
[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_02]: James Baldwin, and of course, the great WB DeBoise.
[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I wanted it to be an emotional archive
[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_02]: that people could come back to.
[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And it makes me feel good when the young folk,
[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, young black folk in particular.
[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I want everybody to read my book,
[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_02]: but I did write this book for my people as,
[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_02]: as, you know, the great Margaret Walker Alexander wrote
[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_02]: for my people with their dirges and their deities, right?
[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_02]: This is for my people.
[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So I want it, you know, them to be able to learn
[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_02]: from something, but don't nobody wanna be lectured to,
[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, or have something shoved down their throat.
[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to give an emotional archive
[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_02]: that was filled with beauty, right?
[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, I want to,
[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to give people something
[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_02]: so that when I'm gone, you know, I left something
[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't just take.
[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So it is very important for me
[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_02]: to impart this black woman's naturalennial story
[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: because I feel like black women are always in the background.
[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And the only time we get pulled to the forefront
[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_02]: is when somebody wanna use us.
[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I wanted to bring us, it's our time now.
[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I've said that before, it's our time now
[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_02]: to step out into the light.
[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And in stepping into the light
[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_03]: and illuminating these stories of these black women,
[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_03]: you did not hold back on the brutality they faced
[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_03]: or experienced and how they headed it off.
[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And you saying that the book is a blue song,
[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_03]: how did you feel writing such brutal chapters
[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_03]: alongside, you know, the fun coming of age story?
[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Cause I tweeted this to you.
[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, it was all fun and games
[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_03]: in the coming of age story.
[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It was all fun and games before we got to that song.
[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, well, one of the things
[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_02]: before I talk overtly about the brutality, my sister,
[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the things that I try to make
[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_02]: an implicit promise to the reader
[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that, yes, you're gonna have to walk
[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_02]: through this horrible tunnel,
[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: but there will be joy when you get through there.
[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The joy is that we are all here, black people.
[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We were not meant to survive.
[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So I make that promise to the reader
[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_02]: without even giving spoilers, I let them know,
[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_02]: it's gonna be all right once you get on the other side of it.
[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But you've got to travel through this.
[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the reasons we have to travel through this,
[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_02]: it is an insult to our ancestors to say
[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_02]: that you won't reparations,
[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_02]: but you don't wanna hear about what they went through.
[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Everything in that book is historically possible.
[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_02]: The brutality against black women
[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_02]: has been documented by people who do work on slavery history.
[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_02]: There's also, when I talk about the,
[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to be very delicate here,
[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the intimate abuse of children, of black girl children.
[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_02]: The age of intimate consent in Georgia
[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_02]: before it became a state in the 18th century
[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_02]: going forward was 10 years old.
[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So anyone with some critical analysis skills,
[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_02]: some logic skills can say to themselves,
[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_02]: well, if this was happening to free white children.
[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_02]: What was happening to enslaved black children?
[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_02]: What were happening to enslaved black children?
[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, exactly.
[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So we need to begin to talk about these things
[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: because when we began to talk about
[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_02]: why black people are still so hurt,
[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_02]: it's not just angry.
[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Behind that rage is a hurting thing.
[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a living, pulsing rage.
[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's because unspeakable things were done to us.
[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you can't speak about it, you can't prove it.
[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I spoke about it.
[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Was it difficult for me to write?
[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't, I gotta tell you,
[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want to write that section.
[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I think in telling the hard truth
[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_03]: of all of these characters
[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and having all of those different aspects,
[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_03]: what I saw is that they all responded
[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_03]: to what happened to them as children in a different way
[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and informed who they were as adults.
[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just think that if we don't acknowledge
[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_03]: the pain that we have as children,
[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_03]: because a lot of times we don't acknowledge child.
[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, oh, it wasn't that bad.
[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_03]: It was just childhood.
[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But that walk it off.
[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. Yeah.
[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_03]: It continues with you and it never leaves you alone.
[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I definitely saw that you did that
[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_03]: in creating these characters.
[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_02]: In the same way that the abuse
[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that black people have suffered in this country
[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_02]: when it was in its infancy is still with us.
[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know?
[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Very much so.
[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm gonna put a pin in that
[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_03]: and I wanna do a speed round
[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_03]: and like a little game before I let you go.
[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_03]: What is your favorite book?
[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_02]: The Rise Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Who was your favorite author?
[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Zora Neale Hurston.
[00:41:36] Ha, ha, ha, ha.
[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_02]: My second favorite is Toni Morrison.
[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Who was your favorite poet?
[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Lucille Clifton.
[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Barnon, Mike Draw.
[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_02]: What brings you joy?
[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right about now, sleeping.
[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so tired.
[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't imagine.
[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't imagine.
[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And what brings you peace?
[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Prayer.
[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_02]: If you were a color, what color would you be and why?
[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Orange.
[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Orange is fire.
[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Orange is vibrancy.
[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Orange is beauty.
[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Every color is jealous of orange.
[00:42:21] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the way I feel.
[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a poet saying right there.
[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So my little game is called Rewrite the Classics.
[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_03]: What's the one book you wish you would have written?
[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh wow.
[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_02]: The one book I wished I had written
[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_02]: is The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a classic.
[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a good book.
[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It is.
[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it does everything, you know, culturally.
[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I just love it.
[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, Alice Walker's from Edenton.
[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: My mom is from Edenton.
[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_02]: My mother taught Alice Walker.
[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love that book.
[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I will tell the story and I don't tell it often,
[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_03]: but my very first freelance article for journalism
[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_03]: was a couple of years ago.
[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_03]: It was to interview Alice Walker.
[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And she almost hung up on me.
[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh wow, well you know shit.
[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_03]: She had, I think I had woken her up
[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03]: and I was nervous and so she was tired
[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: so it just wasn't a good.
[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_03]: It just wasn't a good, but y'all worked it out.
[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, we worked it out.
[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, good, good.
[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I worked it out.
[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_03]: What's one book where you want to change the ending
[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and how would you do it?
[00:43:37] Ooh.
[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to change their eyes while watching God
[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_02]: so that T-Cake don't die.
[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that hurt me.
[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Although when I first saw that he slapped Janie,
[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I was like this ain't gonna end well.
[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I ain't know he was gonna die,
[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_02]: but I was like this ain't gonna end well.
[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But I would have liked for him to have lived.
[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It sorta hurt me that he did.
[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And then name a book that you think is overrated and why?
[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's me.
[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_02]: That's me.
[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I ain't gonna be mean to no black literature,
[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_02]: but I would tell you everything by William Faulkner
[00:44:26] [SPEAKER_02]: is overrated in my opinion.
[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But you know,
[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Professor Morrison loved him
[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and I really tried with him because of her.
[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But I just, you know, he's racist.
[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He's classist towards working class white people.
[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_02]: He's just mean, mean spirited.
[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just think everything that he's written is overrated.
[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But do I think that he had a genius?
[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I do, but I just, I don't get it.
[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, that happens a lot
[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_02]: where everybody else is reading something
[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_02]: and they're like, ooh, this is just real good.
[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_02]: This real good.
[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And you just like, are y'all high?
[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Am I high?
[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?
[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not feeling it, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's my meme right there.
[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And now my final question for you today
[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_03]: is when you are no longer here
[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_03]: and you are among the ancestors,
[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_03]: what would you like someone to write about you
[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_03]: and the legacy of words and work that you left behind?
[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_03]: She loved us.
[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope you enjoyed this week's Black and Publish Rewind
[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_03]: with Honoré Fanon Jeffers.
[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_03]: If you haven't read the love songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_03]: and want to, you can get it from Ahogany Books
[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_03]: where you can find a wide range of titles by Black authors
[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_03]: and support a Black-owned business.
[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Plus listeners of this podcast can save 10%
[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_03]: on regular prize books and merchandise
[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_03]: when you use the coupon code Blackpub.
[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_03]: That's B-L-K-P-U-B at checkout.
[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Head over to mahoganybooks.com
[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_03]: and grab your next great read today.
[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll holla at y'all next week
[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_03]: for another Black and Publish Blast from the past.
[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Peace.
[00:46:16] I hope you enjoyed this week's Black and Publish Rewind.
[00:46:20] I hope you enjoyed this week's Black and Publish Blast