BONUS: Reed, Write, and Create Podcast with Lori L. Tharps

[00:00:09] What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published, bringing you

[00:00:15] the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. And yes, Season

[00:00:21] 4 is over. But you know I couldn't leave you without a bonus episode, right? So while

[00:00:27] I'm on hiatus and preparing for Season 5 in 2025, I want you to check out a new podcast

[00:00:32] I'm loving called Reed, Write, Create hosted by Lori L. Tharps. The episode you're

[00:00:37] about to hear features author E.B. Zaboi. She and Lori have an honest conversation about

[00:00:42] what it takes to make it in the YA world. So without further ado, here's Lori L. Tharps

[00:00:48] and E.B. Zaboi on Reed, Write, and Create.

[00:01:03] This is the Reed, Write, and Create Podcast, the podcast where you get a bite-sized session

[00:01:08] of creative writing coaching from me, Lori L. Tharps. I'm an award-winning author

[00:01:13] of both fiction and nonfiction, a journalist and a former college professor. I've spent more

[00:01:18] than 20 years writing, teaching, and coaching creative writers. So I created this podcast

[00:01:23] because I want to help as many BIPOC writers as possible get their stories out of their

[00:01:29] heads and into the world. Are you ready? Let's go!

[00:01:37] On episode 22 of the podcast, my guest is E.B. Zaboi. E.B. is the New York Times

[00:01:43] bestselling author of the YA novel American Street, which among other distinctions was a

[00:01:49] National Book Award finalist. An incredibly multi-talented and diverse author, E.B. also penned

[00:01:54] the novel Pride, which is a contemporary remix of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice,

[00:01:58] and the middle grade novel My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich. She is the editor of

[00:02:03] the anthology Black Enough, Stories of Being Young and Black in America. She also coauthored

[00:02:08] the Walter Award and Ellie Times Book Prize-winning novel Inverse Punching the Air,

[00:02:13] written with exonerated five-member Yusuf Salam. She's written a picture book,

[00:02:17] The People Remember, which received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award. And her most recent

[00:02:22] books include Star Child, a biographical constellation of Octavia Stell Butler,

[00:02:28] Okoye to the People, which is a Black Panther novel for Marvel, and her latest novel,

[00:02:32] which I personally just finished reading, called Nigeria Jones. E.B. lives in New Jersey with her

[00:02:38] husband and their three teenage children. On this episode, E.B. shares her unique journey to

[00:02:44] publishing success as well as the sacrifices and compromises she's had to make in order

[00:02:50] to get her foot in the door of the mainstream publishing industry. She shares candidly the

[00:02:56] real origin story of her debut novel American Street and how the new movie American Fiction

[00:03:02] perfectly exemplifies the decisions she's had to make as a Black writer in America.

[00:03:08] Talking to E.B. felt like talking to an old friend, even though we've never officially met in person.

[00:03:14] But her honesty and enthusiasm for the craft of writing and storytelling was so wonderful to hear.

[00:03:20] And her practical approach to publishing should be noted for those of you listening who want

[00:03:26] to make a career as a fiction writer. Lots of gems and useful advice in this interview,

[00:03:31] so let's get to it. Welcome to the Read, Write and Create podcast, E.B. Zaboi.

[00:03:38] Thank you so much for having me, Lori. Well, it is an absolute pleasure. And before we get

[00:03:44] started, I just want to let everybody listening know that I really wanted to have you on the show.

[00:03:50] You're the last guest of the season because I am a huge fan of your work ever since reading

[00:03:55] American Street. I always tell people that American Street was the book that I read

[00:04:00] that made me realize that even as a woman of a certain age, I could still enjoy YA literature.

[00:04:06] I feel like everybody had gotten into YA. I don't even know what were the books at the time

[00:04:11] when American Street came out. But I was like, oh no, I've outgrown YA. Then I read American

[00:04:16] Street and was like, oh my gosh, this was such a good book. So I assumed that our conversation

[00:04:21] would really be just kind of about what's it like to be a YA author? You know, how do you

[00:04:25] find success in this genre? But then I started doing more research on your career. And I was like,

[00:04:32] wait a second, this woman has so much more to share than just what's it like to be

[00:04:37] a YA author? And I think that so many of your parts of your journey and becoming quote,

[00:04:44] unquote an author really would be inspirational to our audience because your path has been,

[00:04:51] I'll just say unique. Everybody's path is unique, but your path is unique in that I think with all

[00:04:56] of the other authors that I've brought on here, I don't think a lot of them have had a similar

[00:05:00] kind of entree into the publishing world like you had. So there was a quote that I heard you say

[00:05:06] on another podcast, you said, quote, my publishing journey is not my personal journey as a writer.

[00:05:13] And I thought that was so profound in some ways and also instructive for writers

[00:05:18] who are trying to make a living with their writing because there's not just one way to

[00:05:23] make it. So I want to spend this interview time together talking about your unique journey

[00:05:30] and why it is in fact different from your personal writing journey and how it can be

[00:05:36] instructive for writers to see what's possible when they say yes to different types of opportunities.

[00:05:41] So to set the stage, can you talk a little bit about your love for spoken word poetry and how

[00:05:51] that became your kind of entree into getting your writing out into the world? And let me tell you

[00:05:59] that I spent many nights at the New York Recon Poets Cafe in New York City. So whatever

[00:06:04] you're going to tell us, I'm already excited. Thank you so much for just getting to know me

[00:06:11] before asking questions. It kind of lays the groundwork for, you know, I personally want to

[00:06:16] do a deep dive with you because I do not often get to have these conversations with other Black

[00:06:21] women writers so we can get the basic 101 stuff out of the way. And thank you so much for starting

[00:06:28] with my spoken word journey because it is the foundation for me becoming a writer. I cannot say

[00:06:36] that I've read books and said I want to do that. I want to go into publishing. I want to get an

[00:06:43] agent and I want to get an editor. It started out with finding my voice literally and spoken word

[00:06:50] requires you to write the thing and then perform the thing. So it's a whole nother kind of experience

[00:06:59] because you get immediate feedback. And the first few times I stepped onto a stage

[00:07:07] and read my poetry. I didn't read it, I performed it because I was mimicking what I already saw.

[00:07:12] And I got a standing ovation. I got applause and that is so incredibly validating. I actually

[00:07:18] won a few open mic nights. There was one that I particularly remember because it let me

[00:07:25] know what kind of writer I was. There was one slam poetry. It was I believe the African

[00:07:31] poetry theater in Queens and they had one award that was literary and the other one was performance

[00:07:39] and I was like that's genius because we're all not going to be actors on the stage. We're not

[00:07:45] always going to be using our bodies and making facial expressions and some poets are really

[00:07:50] good at that. But I performed my poetry just standing still and I had wordplay, I had metaphors,

[00:07:59] I had beautiful language. It's kind of like if you've ever seen Jill Scott perform

[00:08:05] and she's an R&B singer and she stays in one spot and just her presence alone takes up

[00:08:11] the whole stage. I'm not saying I did that but I wanted my words to speak for itself. So

[00:08:19] that let me know then that I was a writer and I was a literary writer and I pursued that.

[00:08:24] That's so interesting because I actually just led a writing retreat and we were doing

[00:08:31] exercises to unleash our creativity and we used poetry to do that. I always tell my writers

[00:08:37] poetry is like a free write. You don't have to do anything but play with your words and

[00:08:43] I think that reading poetry, we're often told just read poetry to infuse your writing with more

[00:08:50] poetic language for example. But I've never heard somebody talk about spoken word poetry as this

[00:08:57] way to get immediate feedback for your writing. What an awesome validation that your words move

[00:09:04] people. I think nowadays people say oh go on social media for immediate validation of your work.

[00:09:11] You could get some response or write a blog post because you have that immediacy but it's not the

[00:09:16] same thing. They're not responding to your words, to your voice, to this message of your words.

[00:09:22] So I love that. So I know that what you fell in love with and the types of writing that you were

[00:09:30] doing trended into speculative fiction, fantasy, sci-fi. Can you talk a little bit about how

[00:09:37] that came out of spoken word poetry? Like how were those two things connected for you?

[00:09:42] I did spoken word in the late 90s and there was a certain kind of theme amongst all the poets

[00:09:49] and I want to credit Saul Williams for that theme where the poetry was sci-fi. It was sci-fi

[00:09:58] poetry as it was intergalactic. It was tall tales. It was the hero's journey

[00:10:05] and it was about space travel and time travel and those were the poems that moved me the most.

[00:10:13] So I tried my hand at it. Those were not the first poems. The first poem I remember just getting

[00:10:19] a lot of applause for was about my body and my ass in particular. I'm a curvy lady and I was

[00:10:25] curvy 20 years ago and the refrain was my ass, you know? And I would say it in a certain way

[00:10:32] was provocative but I flipped it and said my mind, right? And it was just me as a college kid just

[00:10:40] commenting on the male gaze and being admired for my intellect over my body. But the more I heard

[00:10:49] these other kinds of poems I can banded that sort of commentary and embraced this idea of wow,

[00:10:56] in my words and in my poetry, I can traverse the universe. I can contemplate the universe and I

[00:11:06] remember reading for the first time, Nikki Giovanni's ego tripping. And if you've seen it on the page

[00:11:14] or heard her read it, I remember a different world had the character's performance and it

[00:11:20] starts with I was born on the Congo and we did that as poets in the late 90s. We did that. We

[00:11:28] build on that tradition of the tall tale and this sort of boast poetry. And this is where sci-fi

[00:11:36] was born. This was where for me, I started to infuse Egyptology because I was learning about it.

[00:11:44] A lot of other poets were infusing African spirituality and mythology into their poetry

[00:11:52] and talking about oh shun and oh yeah, I am Shang-Goh. And it was so incredibly empowering

[00:12:00] to just immerse ourselves not only in the oral tradition but in the mythology.

[00:12:07] And this is the sort of thing that was is not documented. We didn't know that young people

[00:12:12] were creating this sort of dynamic in New York City in the late 90s and it was, you know, for I'd

[00:12:20] never got on the stage at New Year weekend but it was Brooklyn moon in Brooklyn. There was something

[00:12:26] called a tea party in downtown Manhattan. All these hole in the wall spaces. Nobody was coming to

[00:12:33] document us at the African poetry theater in Queens. It really was a moment and I believe

[00:12:40] there was one person by the name of Pierre Beignoux who had some footage but we didn't have our phones

[00:12:46] there and nobody was recording. So it's one of those things that you will never know unless you were

[00:12:53] there and there's so much of our story that is not documented. But yes, this is where I when I

[00:13:00] was introduced to Octavia Butler in order to write your best poems in order to perform your

[00:13:05] best self and use word play and just make connections to literature and life and art,

[00:13:12] you had to be a reader. And these poets were readers were avid readers. I remember I had one

[00:13:18] of my little boyfriends who would take me to Forbidden Planet in New York City which is a

[00:13:22] huge comic book store over there in Union Square and he was a comic book reader and, you know,

[00:13:29] that introduced me to Black Panther, the comic in the late 90s because these spoken word poets

[00:13:38] were nerds. It was just a whole bunch of well read artsy black nerds who wore their hair natural

[00:13:47] and wore an Egyptian mosque and carried around incense and, you know, and wore Afrocentricity

[00:13:55] with pride. But they were also well read and those people knew who Octavia Butler was and

[00:14:02] knew Wildseed and Kindred and at that time Parable of the Sower had just come out.

[00:14:09] So all of that introduced me to a world where alternative blackness was celebrated.

[00:14:16] And this is where I became a writer because these people were writers and artists and dancers

[00:14:22] and singers in an alternative space. So this is where my writing self was cultivated.

[00:14:29] That is so fascinating and I'm feeling you writing a new book about that time period because that's

[00:14:36] just like the connection between maybe black nerd culture, Afrofuturism and poetry. I don't feel

[00:14:43] like that time period like that's a whole movement that I learned by reading about you.

[00:14:48] You know what I mean? Like I'm hearing about it through you. So I think more people need to

[00:14:53] understand that there was a time period where these connections, maybe a lot of people do

[00:14:58] know about it, but I do think it would be an interesting story to tell document in some way.

[00:15:03] But you mentioned Octavia Butler. I know you have this incredible connection with

[00:15:09] Octavia Butler. Can you tell our listeners the story of how you met her? I think that's

[00:15:15] just brilliant and badass that you're like, I'm just going to call her up. Right?

[00:15:19] Tell us about how you actually met her and then the nature of your relationship moving forward,

[00:15:25] including Star Child. We're going to jump backwards and forwards a little bit,

[00:15:29] but I think that your relationship with Octavia Butler is so kind of fundamental to

[00:15:34] your writing journey, the beginning of it that I think we should hear about that from the beginning.

[00:15:39] I want to step back for a little bit. Do you mind if I bring you into this?

[00:15:42] No. Okay. Meaning I remember you had a book with someone, Iyana Bird.

[00:15:50] Yes. Hair Story or Hair? Yes, Hair Story. Was it the late 90s? It was the late 90s, right?

[00:15:56] It came out in 2001. Yes, exactly. I feel like you were part of, I remember that and I remember

[00:16:04] the photo of you and you both had locks and it looked like while you may or may not be in

[00:16:11] the spoken word scene, but there was an aesthetic during that time. Right? If it came out in 2001,

[00:16:16] you were probably working on it in 99, 2000 and what have you. Absolutely.

[00:16:21] And I felt like I saw like Honey Magazine was a thing too. You know? And it wasn't just

[00:16:28] like we were a tiny community in Brooklyn or New York City. It was an overall aesthetic

[00:16:34] that kind of filtered out to media and we started seeing ourselves reflected in the magazines and

[00:16:42] in the books being published. And I could name like my poet friends were getting published

[00:16:48] in Catch a Fire and all of that and Bumrush to Page were books that were out at that and in

[00:16:55] looking for them in the bookstores, I discovered other books too. We had our

[00:17:00] Afrocentric bookstores in Kuru books. When I was living with my parents in Queens, the mall had like

[00:17:07] the regular Walden books and then there was the Afrocentric bookstore and the other end

[00:17:12] and your books were there and there was like a literary, a tiny literary movement

[00:17:19] and Octavia Butler's books were there. Edward's Danty Cat's books were there and this is where

[00:17:25] my world collided. And yes, someone it was a boyfriend who introduced me to Octavia Butler

[00:17:30] gave me actually Parable of the Talents in 2000. It had just come out and I read it and I found

[00:17:39] out there was a prequel called Parable of Sower and this is like very, very early internet

[00:17:45] only but to look her up. But what does this author look like? Oh my goodness. I love the

[00:17:50] way they're thinking. This is amazing. I want to do that. So it wasn't any book, it was more like

[00:17:56] I want to do what Octavia Butler is doing and I remember thinking I want to do like Edward's

[00:18:02] Danty Cat and Octavia Butler represent me and what I want to do with my writing and I found out

[00:18:09] that Octavia Butler, I share a birthday with Octavia Butler. She's older who were exactly 30

[00:18:14] years apart and I felt like a kin spirit and I called her up. I looked her up. I don't remember,

[00:18:21] I think it was the yellow pages. It had to be the yellow pages or you know, I knew that

[00:18:25] she lived in I believe Sacramento or Pasadena at the time and she picked up and it was just

[00:18:33] a brief conversation. I said, Hey, I would like to be a writer. Well, you know, you got to

[00:18:37] read and do workshops. And I don't remember her telling me about Clarion, but I found out about

[00:18:44] Clarion through a woman named Cherie Renee Thomas who was teaching at the Frederick Luglass Creative

[00:18:51] Art Center in New York. There was a creative art center that was started by a man named

[00:18:57] Fred Hudson. By that time he was an older man and he started that center and he always

[00:19:03] told the story because in the 70s when Roots came out was about to be a movie because it was a book

[00:19:09] when Roots the movie was happening Hollywood was looking for black script writers and there were

[00:19:15] none. They wanted a room full of black writers to work on roots and there were none and Fred

[00:19:23] Hudson started the creative arts center to cultivate writers. They needed writers with

[00:19:30] experience. So in the late 90s at the very end of this hub I participated in writing workshops

[00:19:40] and in Frederick Douglass Courant they had short story workshop novel writing workshops,

[00:19:45] screenwriting workshops and it was in this building the top floor. They had enough room to

[00:19:52] hold these long dining tables that could hold about eight to ten people and they hired

[00:19:59] instructors to come and teach these workshops, instructors with some experience and we were

[00:20:05] there. I was there every Friday night and it was so so inspiring and this is when I learned more

[00:20:12] about other writers and at the same time I was taking classes at Hunter College and being in

[00:20:18] their writing department and it was I think a perfect storm of finding my voice, discovery,

[00:20:26] finding other writers, books being available and never never in that moment in that time

[00:20:35] that I looked to white writers. Right it was just a little tiny envelope of black writers and I knew

[00:20:43] that Marie Brown was the agent to go to and I worked for a year with the folks who put

[00:20:50] together the Harlem Book Fair around that time and I met writers. I felt like y'all were there

[00:20:58] so it was just this is my foundation. My literary foundation is black writers and they were

[00:21:05] accessible. Toni Morrison, I went to an event and Toni Morrison was right there you could touch her.

[00:21:11] I met Octavia Butler because she was right there at in crew books and she got into my car

[00:21:17] because I was like hey where are you going? You know and she was like going to the city. I was

[00:21:22] not going to the city. I was going the opposite direction to Queens and I was like that'll be on

[00:21:27] my way. I can take you and there was Octavia Butler in my and it sounds people I say the story

[00:21:34] now and recently they're like oh my goodness she's since passed away of course but at that

[00:21:40] time our writers were our writers. They were right there in the community. If you're a young

[00:21:46] person and you aspire to be a writer they were not inaccessible. You know they were not the rock

[00:21:52] stars that we tend to make them out to be. You know you wanted to see a certain particular writer

[00:21:59] you could reach out and touch them because they were accessible and they were part of the community

[00:22:06] and the way that capitalism worked back then maybe a little different from now where

[00:22:11] their publishers didn't remove them from the community and put them in this like

[00:22:15] superstar bubble you know what I mean? So I met Octavia Butler and I studied with her at Clarion

[00:22:22] because I applied Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop and I went because

[00:22:28] Cherie Renee Thomas who edited the first anthology for African American speculative fiction. It got

[00:22:35] published in 2001 I believe and she had gone to Clarion and she told me I should apply

[00:22:42] and I applied and it was the most diverse class they had with three black women one of which was

[00:22:49] Keeney Iborra Salam and that was like the most diverse class they've had and Butler had attended

[00:22:57] Clarion 30 years before I had attended. So that's a little bit of my origin story with

[00:23:04] Octavia Butler and years later I published a children's book about her it was published

[00:23:10] last year called Star Child a Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler and it is just a

[00:23:17] short biography for young people just to let them know that she was a 10-year-old writing science

[00:23:23] fiction stories in 1957 when we don't usually see black girls imagining the world in that way

[00:23:30] and she wasn't necessarily fighting the good fight in the civil rights movement she was

[00:23:34] imagining magical horses and Martians. I'm really thinking about what you're saying about

[00:23:41] writers being accessible I'm actually in the process of launching a community for BIPOC women

[00:23:46] writers a private membership community you know just so that you have that support you know think

[00:23:52] of it as like a support group community but my goal is really to have seasoned authors as well

[00:23:58] as emerging writers in there because I think that that is so critical and you just I'm just going to

[00:24:03] take that clip and maybe put it as the commercial for my community because that's how writers are

[00:24:09] born right and that's how we learn is by learning from our elders and I've been talking a lot

[00:24:14] about literary ancestors on this podcast but we don't need to wait for them to die to learn from

[00:24:19] them you know in fact it's probably better if we could ask our questions right away and I

[00:24:23] think there's also something really useful for people who are of a certain age like myself

[00:24:30] who know that we are passing the torch sharing lessons learned I mean it makes us feel good too

[00:24:36] like you know maybe our it was a long time since our last book came out but to know that we're

[00:24:41] nurturing the next generation of writers also gives us purpose right it brings another

[00:24:45] level of purpose to our work so I love that you were able to call Octavia Butler just

[00:24:51] cuz and give her a ride to where she needed to go it does sound amazing today when we are so

[00:24:58] separated and everybody has to be celebrity I think like celebrity culture has bled into

[00:25:03] just about every facet of life so thank you for sharing that now so it sounds like at this point

[00:25:10] in your career you are into speculative fiction afro-futurism fantasy but your first novel that

[00:25:18] comes out is American Street which I would not put in the category of fantasy or speculative fiction

[00:25:24] it's a beautiful story like I said it was amazing to me it drew me in as an older adult not as a

[00:25:32] young adult it was nominated for a national book award I would describe it as a coming of age

[00:25:37] story about a Haitian girl who comes to the United States as a teenager and grapples with that

[00:25:43] life-changing experience so can you tell the listeners how the book came to be how it came

[00:25:52] into your as an opportunity and just talk a little bit about the process of working with

[00:25:57] a book package or if that's what you consider alloy books I'm not sure if that's the proper

[00:26:02] term so in order for me to talk about that journey I'd also have to talk about motherhood

[00:26:10] and money which we all love to talk about on this package because it's real is very real

[00:26:18] so nine books in now I can honestly say we've had black women writers we've had women writers of course

[00:26:27] but when authorship and motherhood is its own unique experience and black motherhood

[00:26:36] and being an author I don't know how many of us have really really talked about that and the only

[00:26:43] thing that comes to mind is in search of our mother's gardens by Alice Walker a writer in spite of not

[00:26:51] despite of I think she said is a quote from one of her essays so I became a mother and I got

[00:26:58] married before I started Clarion in 2000 and I became a mother after I went to Clarion

[00:27:04] in 2002 and Clarion West is like a big deal if you're a speculative fiction writer it was a

[00:27:11] big deal back then and to study with Octavia Butler now of Hopkinson was another author back then

[00:27:18] is something that you put on your little you know little cover letter and when we used to send out

[00:27:24] short story proposals or your novel proposals so it was a big deal. Nadia Cora for attended

[00:27:31] Clarion there was a Clarion West in Seattle and Clarion in Michigan and she attended the same summer

[00:27:38] I did so you know that that program birthed some powerful writers and after that I became a mom

[00:27:48] and then I became a mom again and above mom again so it's about 10 years of full-time mothering

[00:27:56] and writing and getting some stuff in I ended up being in a Sherrie Renee Thomas' second anthology

[00:28:03] called Dark Matter reading the bones and a short story I had worked on with Butler

[00:28:09] at Clarion made it into that anthology and it's the you know it was a sequel to the first one

[00:28:15] dark matter a collection of African-American speculative fiction and it wasn't until 10

[00:28:21] years later 2011 that I decided to really get my feet back in the game and I attended Vona Voices of

[00:28:30] Our Nation's Arts Workshop which was started by Juno Diaz and it was just all for writers of color

[00:28:37] and again I'm immersed in this world where I'm around black and brown writers the only

[00:28:44] exception was Clarion but I had Octavia Butler and the two other women there with me

[00:28:50] and I had always been just looking for community in the writing space and Vona was just that and

[00:28:57] I studied my workshop instructor was Zizi Packer who has put out um drinking coffee elsewhere many

[00:29:05] years ago and I can honestly say after having done Clarion West 10 years prior I was not satisfied

[00:29:15] with the program and I needed more rigor it was just a good time we had a good time

[00:29:22] but I was just like I need rigor I need the depth of analyses and the the just I need people to

[00:29:31] just go in and just tear my story up the same way that we did in Clarion West but we were very

[00:29:38] nice to each other we were very kind and that's not what I was looking for and it was in that

[00:29:44] moment that I realized I need something that more rigorous and the following year I started my MFA

[00:29:50] program in writing for children and young adults I decided to go into writing for children and

[00:29:57] young adults because I had read some books that were fantasy and science fiction many a core

[00:30:03] fours first books were for children and I realized that there is more room for the

[00:30:08] imagination in children's books and they're shorter and I had been just reading to my children

[00:30:16] and looking for books for them at that time reading picture books and I love the world of

[00:30:22] children's literature and I wanted to explore that world from a speculative fiction space

[00:30:29] and I had submitted some of my stories back then I was like submitting to agents

[00:30:35] and I was not getting any leeway I got a lot of positive feedback but most of it was we don't know

[00:30:41] how to market this and all of them were speculative fiction I wrote a whole novel about some black

[00:30:49] fairies who live in the New York City subway system I was writing a fantasy book based on

[00:30:55] Haitian voodoo which is my culture and there was no space for that at all and I can't say

[00:31:02] for a fact that it was my writing by the time I got to my MFA program it wasn't about the writing

[00:31:10] it was about the concepts having to explain what was intrinsically my culture spent two years

[00:31:18] in the MFA program I don't regret it however it was a very white space and I made it work for me

[00:31:27] I did not have to do an MFA I could have just done workshops but I internalized this idea that my

[00:31:36] writing wasn't good enough when it wasn't necessarily about my writing it was about the concepts that

[00:31:42] I was writing about and I can honestly say that just going into the workshop and reading other

[00:31:48] people's work I'm like I can do this what is you know what's not working here and it was

[00:31:55] what I was writing about the topics that I was writing about no one knew what to do with the

[00:32:01] story of the Sukhya or the Lugahu shape-shifting women in Trinidad and Haiti but they're teenagers

[00:32:07] you know and it's how are we going to market this there was no diversity in children's books

[00:32:13] whatsoever but there were some people getting published so 2014 is when I got my first age in

[00:32:20] it was because there was a white editor who created a was it a go fund me or Kickstarter

[00:32:28] to start an imprint for speculative fiction science fiction and fantasy books of color

[00:32:35] and it was two books tu books very very small imprint but at that time with social media being a

[00:32:44] thing now when people doing live journal and all of that there were people calling out this

[00:32:49] lack of diversity in children's books and I knew some of them and the other layer to that was

[00:32:56] there's lack of diversity in science fiction and fantasy books for children of color and my first

[00:33:03] cover letter for my middle grade fantasy said and I quote how come black kids don't do magic

[00:33:11] and in books and I was referring to we have all these magical abilities right we can do magic

[00:33:18] too we have the history we have the culture but children's and black children's imaginations

[00:33:23] were not being seen on the page this was in 2006 2006 to 2011 I was trying to sell that manuscript

[00:33:32] I went to uh Vona with a speculative fiction manuscript all my entire MFA program were all

[00:33:40] speculative fiction stories my thesis was called brown girl in the ring and if you from really

[00:33:47] with the Caribbean it's a song in the Caribbean there's a brown girl in the ring that's a ring game

[00:33:54] but the idea of the ring would be magical space for black girls so I was writing about black girl

[00:34:00] magic before black girl magic was a thing and that was my thesis about how black girls need to be

[00:34:06] empowered through stories and they needed the most so I graduated in 2014 2015 is when we

[00:34:16] need diverse books started where there was a twitter call for we need diverse books the organization

[00:34:23] was formed at that time I had an agent there was uh an editor looking at my speculative fiction

[00:34:31] manuscript about shapeshifting teenage girls however one of my first bylines for the New

[00:34:39] York Times was reviewing a Haitian children's book called whole tight don't let go written by

[00:34:45] white woman who loves Haiti she lived in Haiti it was a fine book and that it was a book review for

[00:34:53] the New York Times and maybe a couple of weeks later my agent gets an email from alloy entertainment

[00:35:02] alloy entertainment is a book packaging entertainment company where they come up with ideas and get

[00:35:09] people to write it they're responsible for the sisterhood of traveling pants pretty little liars

[00:35:16] and at that time nicolay eun the author she was their author to with everything everything

[00:35:23] and nicolay eun's book was immensely popular that year so I get an email from my agent saying

[00:35:30] this is an idea that they have are you interested in working on this and it was about a Haitian

[00:35:37] girl who moves to Detroit and has three cousins and I'm like I don't know about this I don't trust

[00:35:43] these corporations you know and I have my own stuff and I'm when I saw the the pitch I rolled my

[00:35:51] eyes like you know whoa whoa whoa black pain black pain and I called a mentor of mine I called up

[00:35:59] edwards denti cat and I was like this is happening what do you think and she said well they will

[00:36:04] promote your book they will definitely promote your book and in hindsight I think even with edwards

[00:36:13] denti cat I believe that you can have a great book but you can still be published but the

[00:36:19] marketing won't be there and there was no doubt that their books were successful and I spoke to

[00:36:27] a couple of people and it was I've really really run my hands around this I wasn't listening to

[00:36:33] my agent really but I needed some black people to give me like what are your thoughts on this

[00:36:39] and they had published a black woman and she was doing well and at that time I was just like I need

[00:36:45] to you know get a bigger apartment we were renting two floors in a brown stove but I was like

[00:36:50] you know what I don't know this is my way in let me knock this out really quickly

[00:36:56] it's a let me knock this book out fine whatever you know it ended up being a too big deal I could

[00:37:03] have pushed for a higher percentage because we pushed for a higher percentage they said if we're

[00:37:09] going to give you that give us two books but I didn't know any better and neither did my agent

[00:37:14] because there you get a percentage of whatever and I was always of the mind of let me knock

[00:37:21] this out so I could get to my stories before that I had already sold a story to another editor

[00:37:30] that wasn't my first sale my first booksell was in 2015 to someone who was asking for a middle grade

[00:37:38] book featuring a quirky black girl and they didn't like what I came up with so I was ready to

[00:37:46] just put it aside I wasn't trying to write about an awkward black girl it would have been fun but the

[00:37:52] entire time I think the gist of what I'm saying is trying to find a way in into publishing and

[00:38:01] it's not as easy as write a book people love it and you get published that's not my story

[00:38:08] my story was like what you want you know like here I got this I got this I got this what

[00:38:14] you want you don't want speculative fiction you don't love voodoo and that thing you know so

[00:38:20] it was a matter of okay I got pigeonholed into writing an immigrant story because I am Haitian

[00:38:27] up until that point this is what editors wanted it's like well why are you writing about

[00:38:34] aliens you are Haitian you know where's that immigrant story and here I was with my Haitian

[00:38:42] book and I said I'm going to write this if I can infuse some mythology in there so in American

[00:38:46] Street it's Papa Legba which you get the magical realism I wrote that book in five months in five

[00:38:52] months because I'm ready to be out like let me knock this out and get something that I want

[00:38:57] so I cannot say I am proud of what I've written at the same time it is a matter of I have

[00:39:05] spent money on an MFA I have invested in this dream of mine how do I make it a career because it can

[00:39:14] be a career what of myself am I going to sell to get in through the door and at that time

[00:39:22] I did not know that I was entering into a space where it was about police brutality those were

[00:39:30] the books that came out the same year American Street came out The Hate You Give and Dear Martin

[00:39:36] however I truly believe that the people asking for this kind of book knew that's what was coming

[00:39:42] down the line you know what I mean they knew they knew that market was coming and they're

[00:39:48] like they want a piece of the pie and you know yes corporations are made up individuals but

[00:39:55] there is always a bottom line so it's one of those things where this was my personal journey

[00:40:01] and I made the decision because I have invested so much time and it was either I have this MFA and

[00:40:09] continue to work like I was working part-time or full-time or what have you or I make decisions

[00:40:17] to make this my full-time journey so American Street is about young people in Detroit and this

[00:40:24] hood and it's street and it's drugs and it's violence and it's guns and it's shooting

[00:40:28] them off and it's sex and it's drinking it's all that in a young adult fiction novel and I cannot

[00:40:36] say honestly it's been seven years if I had the complete control of my career I would not

[00:40:43] be writing about that I would not and I did it because you know what I grew up in New York City

[00:40:49] in the 90s you know I was hood adjacent but people ate it up you know what you laughing at lory hood

[00:41:02] adjacent you know that's a good thing you can't go outside you're in the hood you're in the house

[00:41:10] well now I feel bad for telling you I love that book but it is very interesting and I think that

[00:41:15] that's oh no no no no no I love it too because it's a really good book and the fact that you turned

[00:41:21] it out in five months also just makes me hate you a little bit because you could hate write the

[00:41:26] book like ah fine I'll just get it out and it turns out to be so beautiful and so wonderful

[00:41:31] and so moving it gets nominated for a national book award geez sucks to be you no but I guess

[00:41:39] that is not I did not have you on the show so I could curse you out but

[00:41:44] but I want to dig into that just a little bit more because I think it's so so important what

[00:41:48] you're saying and I think it's also so interesting because everything you write is so interesting

[00:41:53] and different you didn't say like okay I had success with American Street let me just keep

[00:41:57] on writing books like that because that's clearly what people want or what we'll sell because you've

[00:42:02] done a Black Panther book you've done a novel in verse you've done an anthology so talk to me like

[00:42:08] how you approach your career so that it is a career and not just if I can't be this one thing I'm I

[00:42:15] guess I can't write talk to me about how you've approached your career I do say I did write

[00:42:20] American Street with my heart because I created characters that I fell in love with and I

[00:42:24] respected them and told the story of Detroit and its history and its people so it wasn't

[00:42:32] haphazard because at that point I had already gained the skills to write something well so

[00:42:39] once I agreed to do it I did it it wasn't so like it wasn't someone hate writing it's like

[00:42:45] all right you want hood I'm gonna give you hood you know in terms of just making sure that I

[00:42:51] do make it the best that I could possibly make it and I wanted to add that the second book

[00:42:57] after American Street is pride and the story behind that is because American Street was so tragic

[00:43:04] I've said I'm writing a love story I'm writing a love story nobody dying let me write a happy

[00:43:10] family they're good however my editor they wanted a hook you know what's the hook you know and I

[00:43:18] wasn't coming up with the idea I'm like okay this is a packaging company you're not getting my

[00:43:22] ideas give me something but it has to be romance and they did come up with a pride and

[00:43:28] prejudice retelling so that's how that happened and in the process of looks like a bunch of books

[00:43:35] coming out I came up with the anthology so my approach to my career is you don't know what

[00:43:43] you're gonna get next because I'd like to explore I do not want to pigeonhole myself

[00:43:51] if I find something that does really well guess what it's not happening again thank you because my

[00:43:58] my motivation is not money or validation because I realized in this business you know yes

[00:44:06] people will love American Street but if I write a book about a very intelligent black girl who was

[00:44:12] self-determined and while there may be some problems in her family but at the end

[00:44:19] there is no family dysfunction there is no abuse there is reconciliation and healing that's not as

[00:44:25] popular as my shoot them up bang bang book and you know you saw that trailer for American friction

[00:44:32] it is spot on that is an old tale for black people in the entertainment industry the more

[00:44:39] stereotypical your content the more popular you're going to be and if you're right about

[00:44:46] niche blackness alternative blackness people don't know what to do with that because this is not what

[00:44:52] we're used to who are these people so in that case I can't be writing the same thing seeking that sort

[00:45:00] of validation when your validation is rooted in stereotypes and half troops about us so because

[00:45:08] of that I'm not going to seek that validation and make sure that I write the stories that

[00:45:14] I want to tell that young people need to hear but I am also smart in that if one book I know

[00:45:21] doesn't do well you're getting a slightly more commercial book the next time around so I do play

[00:45:29] that game a little bit where it's not going to be a trendy but I know that a literary slow

[00:45:36] book that requires deep dive and critical thinking I'm not going to keep writing those same

[00:45:43] books so my next book is faster pace and is a novel in verse and it's speckled to fiction I'm

[00:45:50] finally writing speckled to fiction so that I don't kill my career so that I still keep eating so it's

[00:45:56] a daily balance of validating my creative soul or feeding my creative soul and actually feeding

[00:46:03] my family and this is where motherhood and black womanhood and being financially savvy

[00:46:12] come into place without sacrificing your soul to be a peg in the real that's actually a perfect

[00:46:18] segue for my next question so these next questions that I have are a little bit more practical you

[00:46:24] did mention that you have three children but I did if I did not calculate incorrectly you have written

[00:46:32] nine books in six years I think it's something around I mean the ratio is more than one book

[00:46:37] a year so can you tell us a little bit about how you manage your time so that you could do these things

[00:46:44] you know I recently realized yes it's nine books in eight years it was about two years to get

[00:46:54] published so I sold my books in 2015 so I've been writing nonstop for eight years now while

[00:47:02] raising three children um high school search I bought a home the home buying process is its own

[00:47:08] kind of beast being a partner to my husband being a daughter being a sister being a friend

[00:47:15] those are all real roles that take up time and energy and I have to say this is getting real

[00:47:22] too and I believe there are women of color listening weight gain was a real thing because

[00:47:27] there is no time very little time for self-care I think in nine years I gained about 25 30 pounds

[00:47:38] from being a writer from being so sedentary Octavia Butler talks about that where her mother

[00:47:45] wanted to do sit down work instead of being on her feet because her mother was a domestic worker

[00:47:52] and I'm doing sit down work I'm sitting all the time and sitting and reading and sitting and writing

[00:48:01] takes a toll on your health and the other part of this is the social dynamics of my industry

[00:48:08] is with a steep learning curve for me an ad in social media it can be a real mind fuck

[00:48:16] and I've never really talked about all of this dealing with a mother-in-law with dementia

[00:48:22] my husband is a black man an art teacher so he's a high school teacher and he comes with stuff

[00:48:29] tries to hold it in and be supportive in that sense so all of this takes a toll on the body

[00:48:36] and mind and soul and you know you gotta deal with nonsense too with the book banning and

[00:48:43] people have to say something so all of this there's so many layers to being a black woman writer where

[00:48:52] I can't afford to have books spread out that way I have to constantly be working because I love it

[00:49:02] and too it's become my livelihood there is no time management is getting in where you can get in

[00:49:11] and there is very little room to breathe because I've designed my life in that way

[00:49:20] that's very real and I hope to continue that conversation within the read write and create

[00:49:23] community because if we don't talk about health care like taking care of our bodies particularly

[00:49:29] as black and brown women where we know that we have you know a higher sense of chronic illnesses

[00:49:36] then we're not doing ourselves any favors we can't write just because it's a sit-down activity

[00:49:41] doesn't mean we can write if we are in pain if we're suffering so thank you for that transparency

[00:49:47] so that's a good segue for this almost last question which is simply how do you deal with

[00:49:53] adversity in your writing career rejections bad reviews not having the time you know or having

[00:50:00] to snatch the time from other places and giving up you know other opportunities so that you can get

[00:50:06] the work done what's your mindset or approach for the hard part of a writer's life you know that's

[00:50:13] a daily struggle and I don't know if I could call it a struggle there are some things that

[00:50:18] are expected you expect to get bad reviews you do not know how well your book will perform

[00:50:25] but there are surprising things too and it's the surprising things that throw me for a loop

[00:50:31] and when you don't expect it when you don't it's coming out of left field that's what I consider

[00:50:38] adversity now in our industry it's not something where you start a job and everybody's making a base

[00:50:47] salary right we are independent contractors and when we sell something and we send it out to editors

[00:50:56] they're all going to put a different price tag to it and the price tag is your advance against

[00:51:02] royalties now everybody you know makes the same royalties maybe six percent or ten percent or

[00:51:08] what have you off the sticker price of the book but advances vary so you might get a

[00:51:16] ten thousand dollar advance and some people get a million dollar advance the difference is how

[00:51:23] much your publisher is willing to invest in promoting the book putting it out there whether

[00:51:29] they think it's going to be a big book whether they are investing in you as an author so that

[00:51:34] varies and everybody puts the same amount of love and attention into a book maybe you know

[00:51:41] relatively speaking the books that I feel was the hardest to write is not my best-selling book

[00:51:48] at the same time you know with authors you have an author putting in their heart and soul

[00:51:52] into a book and somebody who blinks you know and puts out a book their book does better

[00:51:58] so as a creative you can't help but notice those differences and people will say that I've heard

[00:52:07] the saying is that comparison is a thief of joy however in this business it is based on comparison

[00:52:15] because there's something called comp titles where you're saying you know this book is like

[00:52:20] this book that did well and this book that did well and it is a competition because people

[00:52:27] love their year-end lists or the best-seller lists and it's one of those things that you

[00:52:33] kind of turn your eye away from you want to say like oh don't compare yourself but this

[00:52:39] business is absolutely based on comparisons because we are celebrating our lists our best

[00:52:47] sellers you will celebrate yourself if you are a number one New York Times best-selling author

[00:52:53] and that goes on everything and if you are the best-selling author that means somebody else sold

[00:53:00] crap you know and how do you create community in the midst of all of that competition I don't

[00:53:08] know if you can and people try to and social media muddies the waters a lot so that is the

[00:53:16] adversity in my work my chosen career path and it's only because I come from a certain perspective

[00:53:25] when I described the spoken word community to you it was wholesome it was communal it was almost

[00:53:32] socialist because you got on that stage you're not getting paid there is a winner but that

[00:53:39] winner like you get audience applause you know you're like this is undeniable the audience loves

[00:53:46] this I love it too you win nobody's putting marketing dollars behind you to put you up there

[00:53:52] the people have spoken so I come from a very kind of kumbaya space socialist space I like to think

[00:54:02] that I am anti-capitalist while participating while being forced to participate in it so in my industry

[00:54:11] there absolutely needs to be a community of writers coming together at the same time you have

[00:54:18] to be able to talk about you get more money than I do how do we create an anti hierarchical

[00:54:26] community where we know we are not being compensated the same well we know that yes we are creating

[00:54:35] different types of work and the white gaze determines what is going to be successful how do you come

[00:54:43] together as black people when you know these are the elements dictating your career dictating your

[00:54:50] success in this business so all these questions I have and there are only maybe one or two people

[00:54:57] that I can really really have a deep dive with about all these questions because I believe a lot

[00:55:03] of us are lost in the sauce you know we want that validation we want that success and sometimes

[00:55:12] we really don't interrogate how success and validation are connected to white approval

[00:55:20] and white gaze I said a lot no that's really good and I mean and you're actually again I'm just

[00:55:29] going to take clips of this interview and use it as the commercial for my community because

[00:55:34] you're speaking really to the importance of community particularly for writers of color and

[00:55:40] particularly above that women writers of color because we do need each other to support one another

[00:55:47] and not look at that idea that there can only be one of us who's doing this or who's doing that

[00:55:52] and also to understand that if we are speaking transparently with one another we can make

[00:56:00] bigger noise and potentially create bigger change so that everybody is treated fairly if you

[00:56:06] will all right so my last question for you my last real question is simply what advice kind of craft

[00:56:14] advice would you give to somebody who wanted to write for young people many people think oh writing

[00:56:20] for young people would be easier somehow people have that assumption maybe the books can be shorter

[00:56:25] or I don't have to do as much work to write a story what do you think is the secret if you

[00:56:32] will for writing good YA fiction you know there is some truth to that where I can't imagine tackling

[00:56:42] adult fiction literary fiction and putting me out one book out a year I'm not saying that

[00:56:49] children's literature is easier but you are writing from the perspective of a young person

[00:56:55] and you know in writing about 16 year old they just worried about their little school things you

[00:57:02] know a little family and you don't bring a mortgage and tax season into the conversation

[00:57:06] not that you have to do that when writing for adults but it is singular in its attempt to

[00:57:14] just move the character along in their relatively simple lives right relatively

[00:57:22] relatively and not to say that they don't have hard lives my Nigeria Jones is my latest novel

[00:57:28] a character is dealing with her radical separatist family and her mother is gone and she finds out

[00:57:35] that her mother wanted her to attend a Quaker school so I make it more complex by adding those

[00:57:41] elements in there but if I were to tell the story of the mother it's a whole different novel

[00:57:46] that requires some more time and energy to talk about a 30 40 year old woman who married a black

[00:57:54] separatist leader compared to a 16 year old whose daughter you know different story and different

[00:58:00] headspace that would be a good book I actually just finished reading Nigeria Jones I had like a

[00:58:05] little bit left I just finished reading it this morning and I was as a 50 something year old

[00:58:10] woman I was like really intrigued by the mother's story so it's kind of funny you say that

[00:58:15] because it would be a really good story yeah and it requires a different headspace and different

[00:58:20] creative space so you know my advice to writers wanting to write for young people is that no

[00:58:28] it is not any easier at the same time you have to strip your story down to the bare bones of

[00:58:35] human emotion young people are all about the feels the feels the feels yes they can be

[00:58:42] shorter and they should be shorter because of Rita's attention spans right now but your skill

[00:58:49] at crafting a concise and clear sentence concise and clear story has to be top notch

[00:58:58] there's a young adult novel there's the middle grade and then there is the picture book not easy

[00:59:05] yes shorter yes maybe your story lines are a bit simpler but it's not easier at the sentence level

[00:59:14] or at the plot level because it's not easy for me to be my age and constantly have to refer back

[00:59:22] to being 16 and angsty and horny and just insecure I got to tap into all those emotions

[00:59:30] every time I step into the page yeah that's why I think it's always harder I mean I'm always in awe

[00:59:37] of people who write for young people because you do have to step into a time period where even though

[00:59:43] we've all been children with wisdom we forget how silly and foolish we were at you know 16

[00:59:50] at 15 at 13 oh my goodness so yeah so I think that disavowing yourself that it's somehow easier

[00:59:56] is probably the smartest thing to do so like I said I just finished reading Nigeria Jones and I want

[01:00:02] you to know that I bought Nigeria Jones in a bookstore in the Netherlands not even in Amsterdam

[01:00:08] but in The Hague so your words are traveling the world which is exciting I think oh that's

[01:00:14] wonderful so what's next are we already working on book number 10 I feel like you probably have

[01:00:21] book 10 11 and 12 already planned out but can you give us a hint what might be next for you that's

[01:00:27] true book 10 11 and 13 are happening at the same time and they're not all novels that's the thing

[01:00:35] to remember they're not all novels so my next book is a novel in verse and it is speculative

[01:00:42] fiction I am so excited to be entering the world of speculative fiction in my stories

[01:00:49] and it's a novel that was my grad thesis back in 2014 that I've revised and turned into a

[01:00:59] verse novel and I'm so excited about this one so it's fun it's different from Nigeria Jones

[01:01:08] audience maybe but I'm going to be tackling some heavy topics that young girls face

[01:01:15] through Caribbean folklore I am very excited for you because that sounds like all the different

[01:01:22] elements to E.B.'s a boy the speculative fiction the Caribbean the verse the poetry

[01:01:30] it's exciting to see that you can now pull together all of these different elements from

[01:01:34] your past into this new book so we will keep our eyes open for is there a pub date for it

[01:01:39] already or not yet it's been pushed to winter 2025 so you probably won't hear anything about it until

[01:01:48] you probably get a cover maybe around summer I'll say for your listeners only it's called skin

[01:01:56] real simple skin oh I love it already very exciting all right and you know depending on

[01:02:05] when people listen to this episode you know it could be right around the corner when they actually

[01:02:09] this could be the preview for that book awesome so where can people follow you on social media or

[01:02:17] is there a website that you like to send people to of course we'll leave all the links in the

[01:02:20] show notes but just let people know where they can follow your career and or your social media

[01:02:25] handles I'm only on Instagram and Facebook I have an author page on Facebook Instagram at

[01:02:32] ebzaboy my website is ebzaboy.com or ebzaboy.net and soon I am thinking of starting a sub-stack

[01:02:43] I feel like I need something a little more than what social media is offering right now

[01:02:48] so I am thinking I did used to write essays I'm thinking about it but I don't know if it should

[01:02:54] be on a platform or on my website so by the time the listeners hear this maybe I would have

[01:03:00] made my decision about that awesome well if you do make a decision let me know and I'll be

[01:03:06] certain to promote it throughout the read write and create community Eby thank you so much for

[01:03:10] being with me today on the read write and create podcast thank you so much Laurie thank you for

[01:03:16] having me I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Laurie L. Tharps and Eby Zaboy if so

[01:03:32] season four of the read write and create podcast launched yesterday on September 9th

[01:03:38] with all new episodes on the podcast Laurie offers bite-sized sessions of creative writing coaching

[01:03:44] based on the lives and times of our BIPOC literary ancestors and she interviews successful BIPOC

[01:03:51] authors who share their stories and strategies for a productive and prolific literary life listen

[01:03:58] now wherever you get your podcasts and stay tuned for news about black and published season five

[01:04:03] which will kick off in January 2025 peace