Giving Too Much with Walela Nehanda

[00:00:00] I did not want to talk about my father. I did not want to talk about certain things with my ex. And I felt, because I trusted, I was like, okay, sure. And then afterwards, I remember I felt so

[00:00:11] ran through. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published. Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Walela Nehanda, author of the Cancer Memoir, Bless the Blood, a book they have

[00:00:31] regrets about writing. I think every single artist in any industry has this moment where you basically prostrate yourself for this art form. You crucify yourself for this art form. You give your all. Like you just really completely, I wouldn't say holler yourself out, but you're like,

[00:00:48] I'm going to do everything so that whoever reads this just gets all of me. You really, really do it. And you see how much this industry does not love you. A slam poet and disability justice activist, Walela says even though their publishing journey

[00:01:03] may seem like a Cinderella story, they definitely put in their 10,000 hours. The moment they say they fell in love with poetry. Plus, why their therapist said their life was a documentary on physical torture and how they're caring for themselves now that this part of their story

[00:01:21] is told. That and more is next when Black and Published continues. Walela, when did you know that you were a writer? I would say in my heart and soul probably when I was younger, probably like seven or eight,

[00:01:44] I would go out to restaurants with my parents and they would not let me bring any sort of like technological device or anything like that. And so they would just let me bring a journal with me.

[00:01:56] And I would write these really intricate stories about killer whales because I was like killer whales have always been my special interest from a very young age, but these were like,

[00:02:04] it was like soap opera level drama with the killer whales. So I think in my heart and hearts I knew that I was onto something. You said that in your heart and soul, that's when you knew,

[00:02:17] what did you know in your mind and in life? Because I saw you pause. Like there's two answers here. So I also want the second answer of when you really knew.

[00:02:30] Good for you for catching duality. I would say I never saw myself as a writer and I say this pretty frequently in interviews like I was a performance poet is where I first started. And performance poetry is not accepted in literature. It's a different art form, it's a

[00:02:50] different craft. It's not considered, what's the word? High brow. And so I think I would call myself that. So before I would say I was a writer, I would say I'm a performance poet, spoken word

[00:03:02] poet, slam poet, I do music, I would say that. So really, I guess when I got with my literary agent I was like, I guess I do this. Like I guess this is like my thing that I try to be a bit,

[00:03:14] I'm a Pisces. So I just see a bit of the water flowing around. I've had a few performance poets slam poets on the show since the very first season. And I wonder, do you feel like in the performance poetry world in that circuit,

[00:03:33] that slam circuit where it's the performances and the competitions and everything, that you all are made to feel less than by the literati, so to speak? The literati. Very accurate. Oh my goodness. I would say yes, I think that's the intention.

[00:03:53] When I also think about like colonized peoples and like oral tradition and the ways in which we push against what is a dominant culture is very academia oriented, is very oriented towards

[00:04:05] that literati that let's keep a gate kept and who can enter. And so that's why we see in publishing how long it is taken for black people to enter it. So I would say that, yeah, and I think also spoken

[00:04:20] word plays with form, it plays with the way in which you can tell a story and how acceptable that may be, how confronting that may be in publishing likes to keep things pretty neat and tidy.

[00:04:31] And so I think there's that and I think also within spoken word, we would kind of cannibalize each other. So there's layers to it. And it would be really sad because we lose sight of

[00:04:44] why we're here and what we're doing this for. And I think that's somewhat the unfortunate byproduct of living under like a settler colonial dominant culture. So then you said it was when you got with your like your literary agent and I guess began the

[00:04:58] process of putting this memoir together through verse, what did they say to you that gave you or increased your confidence that this was something that you could do and work as strongly

[00:05:14] on the page as you work on the stage? I think it was how easy it was. There was a lot of it was just ease with Catherine as my agent with her. I had a friend connected us a mutual

[00:05:28] on Instagram and she just wanted to reach you just like to send me whatever you've been working on. I was like, I'm not working on anything really intentionally. Like here's 30 pages of these poems and short stories that I've written about having cancer. But these come straight out

[00:05:45] of my diary. These come straight out of this. And I would share it sometimes on medium. I would write these essays, but it really was for me this documentation is like archiving. That's

[00:05:55] really where I see myself. And so again, not really a writer. And it was her just being like, yeah, I think this is a book. I think you have something on your hands. Let's write a book

[00:06:04] proposal and let's get it going. And I know that just sounds like a very Cinderella thing for a lot of people who are listening or like, how did you get that? I mean, I did work really

[00:06:15] hard for 10 years, of course. Like I think I put it by 10,000 hours in just a very different way. So that part was there was just such ease and flow where I was like, Oh, wow, I think this is

[00:06:26] something I can call myself in this capacity and be like, I guess, recognized within that industry, not that's something I necessarily aim for or aspire towards. Yeah, we'll get to the Cinderella story in a moment. And you're not the first to have a somewhat of a Cinderella story,

[00:06:43] like an overnight success. But I do want to talk about those 10,000 hours. So like, when did you and why did you enter the slam poetry scene? And what was it for you when you got into

[00:06:54] it? I entered the slam poetry scene when I was 19, I'm 30 now. So it was a minute ago. But I was I had previously gone to NYU for a very short period of time. It was one semester.

[00:07:08] Then my parents snatched me back up and put me back at LA because I was acting a fool. Anyway, I was visiting a couple of my friends, three of my very close friends,

[00:07:20] and one of whom I'm still really close to this day. Their names are Ephraim Matt and Izel. And they were like, we want to go to this poetry slam up at Columbia Barnard. And I was like,

[00:07:31] I mean, like I because I'm thinking it's like beatnik poetry, white people like snapping like this. And my other experience with poetry was in high school reading like John Dunn the

[00:07:42] Flea and having to write a whole essay about that bullshit poem. I'm just like, what? I don't like poetry. Like that was my whole introduction to what poetry was as opposed to it being this

[00:07:52] really beautifully vast world. And I believe Mahogany Brown had performed at that. I think Tanya Ingram may have performed at that. I think NYU's slam team was there. But it was the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. And I just saw people who looked like me on stage.

[00:08:06] And I saw what poetry could be. And I always was this very like musical theater-esque kid, but I never wanted to perform other people's words. And so when I saw that, I was like,

[00:08:20] this is like everything. And I saw the therapeutic element of what it means to write something that's so true to you and also share that. And so I came back home and I had unfortunately had a

[00:08:32] experience with like sexual violence. I just googled Los Angeles Open Mic, found a poetry lounge and I showed up and I just kept showing up. And I just there was something about being

[00:08:43] able to say my words on a stage that was my own therapy. I think that really helped me survive my own self many a times. And I just kept coming back and then I wound up competing in

[00:08:55] nationals and all of that. And yeah. So it sounds to me like you have always been doing, not always, but since you found poetry in the form of spoken word and being able to tell your own stories, you've been very intentional about archiving your experiences, especially the more

[00:09:16] traumatic ones through your words, which seems like it was always destined for you to write this book. What is it like monetizing your pain even though the initial work is therapeutic? Writing on a contract was a very different experience. I had a lot of that book finished,

[00:09:36] but there was a lot more that still need to be written to and I had to put it in a order. And I also was it was very important for me to include my ancestors in the book and other things.

[00:09:47] And so when you're writing on a contract, it's a very different type of vulnerability because you're like, I need to pay my bills. And that is very different than going into it being therapeutic. You're writing towards an editor, you're writing towards an audience,

[00:10:02] you're right. So keeping that in check was really difficult for me. And then I think every single artist in any industry has this moment where you basically prostrate yourself for this art form, you crucify yourself for this art form, you give your all. Like you just really completely,

[00:10:20] I wouldn't say hollow yourself out, but you're like, I'm going to do everything so that whoever reads this just gets all of me. Then you see how much this industry does not love you.

[00:10:30] And so it's really hard to keep up then afterwards. So it's like, well, at what cost? I really, I'm still struggling to recover my creative practice after writing that book because I don't

[00:10:42] think it was I think in every single industry, there needs to be sort of doulas of sorts assigned to us medical professionals of sorts assigned to us like this is not these are not easy

[00:10:52] undertakings when we do acting when we make an album when we write a whole book, we write a memoir about trauma. And so I really saw how much an industry feeds on specifically Black

[00:11:03] people, colonized people like feeds on the blood sweat and tears of what we've gone through and just spits us back out. And it's like, oh, well, like in the lack of promotion, the lack of like

[00:11:14] funds towards marketing and touring and everything where they're like, and you do that on top of it, that's it's very dehumanizing. You realize that you're meant to you are seen as a cog in a system versus where maybe other, I guess, whites for instance, authors would get

[00:11:29] more support, like if I'm just going to name it as it is. And so I was just like, oh, this is what happens when and I'm not calling my publisher like the devil, but it's like I deal with the devil in

[00:11:39] the sense of like, you're in the industry. And so there's this deep disillusionment, I think we all experience. And so I had, I've been going through that and really trying to recover myself. So we're here to talk about the publishing journey. It said it started

[00:11:57] with a connection through a friend on Instagram you got with your agent. So you were journaling your experience going through cancer and trying to live when you sent this agent the work that

[00:12:10] you were working on, which was raw. Can you talk about what it was like and what the revision process was like in going through the publishing process to take that raw archive of what you

[00:12:23] were going through and turning it into something that could be consumed by the masses? That was really tough. It was really hard for me, I think, Suley, when we are working with editors, I think it's really important that we find really good matches. And that's something

[00:12:43] that I think we don't take time with as well. There's everything we don't, we're in a very rush-oriented society and we've done. Again, the world that I was in was not very cognizant of that,

[00:12:55] of surviving a very traumatic end to a very problematic relationship, to a very harmful relationship. There were a lot of things that were shifting. And I think when publishers want to take on in particular disabled authors, there is a level of we have

[00:13:12] to interrogate some ableism. We have to interrogate some ways in which maybe we need to accommodate or what it means when someone is writing something extremely traumatizing, how do we accommodate that? And so if we're trying to make a product.

[00:13:27] In the process, I will say I came to doubt myself a lot more. Interesting to hear other people's experiences through editing versus my own and I don't know how much of it was just

[00:13:37] like a case of bad timing. When you're writing a book right after you sign a deal two months outside of you getting out of a stem cell transplant, you're not going to be fully there. It was just

[00:13:52] hard for us to connect and I think that we tried our best through it and I think that it's amazing that this book came out of it. And I think that my editor has shown a lot of love towards,

[00:14:04] in particular my ancestors and in particular honoring my story and really trying her best to like juggle all of that because I think editors are not super supported. I think that it was very

[00:14:15] hard for me to reconcile that we were making a product out of me and she was I think trying to like prepare me for that in a way and I was just like, what do you mean? So there was a lot

[00:14:25] of just that tension of just like I'm not understanding what's actually going on and she does and it's hard to name the quiet part out loud and tell someone that. Yeah, because I feel like when you write a memoir you're making an object out of yourself

[00:14:42] and then that's going to be packaged as a commodity. What is it that you know now that you wish you knew then going into the process with your agent and with your editor about what

[00:14:52] that was going to be like for you as a disabled person of color queer in all of those intersections that you cross. I think something I wish I knew was that I needed to hold to my

[00:15:06] boundaries a bit more. There's something that there was this constant but what about this? Why don't we talk about that and there were things that were kind of off limits for me

[00:15:13] where I was like no, like I did not want to talk about my father. I did not want to talk about certain things with my ex. I still was like okay fine and I felt because I trusted I was like

[00:15:24] okay we're like sure and then afterwards I remember I felt so ran through. I was just sobbing like no words could come out because I felt so violated because I saw okay this book this is a double self

[00:15:40] and that was really hard because it's memoir. This is a packaged version of myself despite how true it is to me despite how much of like my soul is in here. This is still not something

[00:15:52] that people including like the publishing industry and people who pick this up they're not necessarily interacting with me. They're going to be interacting with their own projections. The publishing industry

[00:16:02] is packaging this to sell and so I just was like I remember I was talking to a friend of mine I was like it's actually a bit nutty to have anybody debut with a memoir until the age of 30 because

[00:16:14] the book came out when I was 29. That's wild to me because it's just like it's so close to home. When I was writing that memoir it was real time it was maybe three years back four years

[00:16:25] back so I'm traumatizing myself and give and turning this out and writing from this place and doing that and it's under Wallela like the name that was given to me and like I had to wind up

[00:16:36] having some of my close friends call me a different name because I was just like I have to detach from this. It really messed me up I'm not gonna lie it really fucked me up because

[00:16:46] I think I went in a bit starry-eyed because also I had received you know everyone was very excited about the book and then when I really finished and saw the end I was just like oh I'm a product

[00:17:01] and when you go with something I think with any other story maybe with me I would have maybe been able to handle it because I'm pretty resilient I'm pretty strong I like to think but this is

[00:17:10] like this is cancer. This is the death of like my grandparents the death of Los Angeles in many ways this is me showing the ways in which my city has changed in which my body feeling unloved

[00:17:21] really yearning for that navigating medical systems and they're trying to kill you medical systems that actively want to erase your identities such as like me being non-binary and my pronouns and my actual name and my relationship with my mother like there's just

[00:17:37] there's so much in it's like it's all of me and I don't think I will ever write a book like that again and so I was like oh this is not it's not going to be held with reference this is a

[00:17:46] product this is product it's not stories it's a product that's yeah it's such a heartbreak. Let's get to the reading of the book I definitely want you to read the opening because I think

[00:17:59] I read it like four times I was like what the fuck am I reading? What kind of warning introduction prologue is this because I have never I still don't think I quite get it to be

[00:18:14] perfectly honest with you. I can explain it if you want it. We'll get there but yeah I'd like you to definitely read the very beginning and then if you want to read a couple other pieces

[00:18:24] after that that's fine with me. Wellayla Nihonda's book Bless the Blood a cancer memoir opens with them entering the hospital for a range of symptoms they thought were easily treatable and finding out that they were really on death's door. In verse essays and short stories

[00:18:43] Wellayla describes how their diagnosis contorted every relationship around them from parents to partner leaving them to contend with their life and the possibility of death with themselves and their ancestors. Here's Wellayla. Okay yeah sure it's the writer's note right

[00:19:01] okay let me hear the other two real quick oh yeah I got the other two boom writers know this here ain't a John Green novel after Cynthia Parker Ohin. Look before we get started I'm gonna let

[00:19:12] y'all know this here ain't a John Green novel I do actually smoke down the cigarette Augustus Waters puts between his teeth I don't believe in corny tumbler metaphors about death I'll pick up that lighter and hail Marlboro Reds to the chime of funeral bells and an IV beeping

[00:19:29] this is not a romanticization of tragedy no there won't be a Nicholas Sparks Redemption Ark reserve for me I'm not an innocent porcelain angel like Jamie Sullivan from a walk to remember do not expect me to perform infinite kindness or gratitude noted black people do not exist in

[00:19:46] these worlds but cancer exists in mine and theirs again this here ain't a John Green novel you about to step into my world one of the misunderstood this here ain't for the hard

[00:19:57] headed ego or faint of heart I plan to fail any expectation you have of me there's no prophetic wisdom to sip in doses of stanzas like a prescription I am not an inspiration I am not the undesirable

[00:20:10] ugly ghoul that society portrays the sick and black and disabled to be welcome to my lecture on medical racism I'm not here to make survival comfortable I am indeed the bad cancer patient

[00:20:23] I talk back and think after I hold glorious pity parties I self-sabotage I am the catch off for assumptions I am not your token negro I will spit at the feet of those who spite me I am

[00:20:34] not part of white men's robust imagination where they thread plot lines about lives they've never lived I do not want to be imagined by them that's why you're here reading this there is no

[00:20:46] consent in the theatrics of cancer there is no soft underbelly of the beast America for black folks this book is a mess about time and cancer and time and love and time and hurt and time evading

[00:21:03] us all no happy endings it just is a witnessing next one you don't understand sacrifice or the weight of expectation until you are likely dying and everyone in the room knows it and

[00:21:17] everyone in the room thinks you don't know it hushed whispers on the other side of tissue paper curtains don't conceal the hospital being bleak and morose to create a diversion you crack dry jokes invent apparent trap handshake with the oncologist pep up and engage in small talk

[00:21:36] with nurses encourage your fiance to take selfies with you let everyone cry into your shoulder or hand or at your bedside your family will call you baby claim they are scared there will be even more

[00:21:48] family cousins who you have not seen or spoken to in years they will sing with jokes making everything seem less real open your phone to messages from people you once hated now apologizing to alleviate their own consciousness just in case you do die you want to know

[00:22:07] you need to make sure everyone knows you are okay no not just okay that you are at peace even if you are suffocating from within the plastic bag of your own fear you need those you

[00:22:18] love to be able to remember a truth you've concocted a remedy for their healing while leila was happy they felt little to no pain they died fighting fists up scowling prepared for whatever

[00:22:32] it meant arriving earth side enemy of the state dedicated and loving memory of dr matulu chikor 1950 to 2023 freedom fighter leukemia warrior and community health advocate black people are not people cancer is not for the human it too is an idea with diagnosis being called an ascension

[00:22:58] to enlightenment no the symptoms were never made into an inspiration cancer went from illness to metaphor writers too lazy to make any other parallels about invisible forces of evil round up cancer as tribute society writes diatribes weaponizing cancer to awaken the imagination

[00:23:17] political orientation does not matter cancer was and still is the all-encompassing vehicle for whatever is wicked immoral or corrupt cancer an unexplainable mean-spirited phenomenon ravishes anyone who will host it to host it as to host an enemy of the state to the people

[00:23:37] a barrier to freedom cancer is a trained sniper to not only its hosts but to everyone surrounding the host as a patient cancer is you versus it but also the world versus it the war on

[00:23:50] cancer is fine and what it the cancer lives inside you by default you are now an opposing force to the good of humanity a therapist at my cancer support center asks me to draw what my leukemia

[00:24:03] looks like and black cryola forges a web of tentacles riddle if a black person is an idea and cancer is an idea then will the illness ever be real if you have so many ideas and hardly any

[00:24:15] rooted in reality do the ideas have their own stories too to be black is to be a non thing barely animal it will accuse you of letting an angel draw its long fingernail against your neck

[00:24:29] to drain you of your mortality and morality bad ideas like black people and cancer are not meant to coexist must be cut out taken into the woods and put down removed as a smudge on the

[00:24:41] windows of humanity or experimented on as an idea that gives way to an idea that gives way to an idea and so on answer the black cancer patient is a mythical fascination a playground for the

[00:24:55] author and reader's perception only as real and tangible as our will allows them to be thank you so listening to you read the author's note and having read the book i get it now

[00:25:10] but i think you know what tell me let me tell you the audio book i always am like listen to the audio book for me hearing you read it and then having read the book you're prefacing everything

[00:25:20] that you're going to get into through poetry but because no one knows what you're gonna get into until you start turning the pages like what are we talking about was it the John Green bit

[00:25:32] probably that white man it's one of the really funny things when we pitched the book well when my agent was talking to me she's like how would you like describe this i was like well it's not a

[00:25:40] fucking John Green novel and so like that John Green wrote the fault in our stars that was like this phenomenon that just had it like in 2014 had everyone in a chokehold and it was about cancer

[00:25:52] and everyone it was these two white kids falling in love and it's who gets the love story who and he had no experience with cancer at that point so i was like oh that's how illness is supposed to go

[00:26:03] you're gonna be loved and you're gonna be cherished hearing you say that watching those films or reading those books and thinking that's how you're supposed to be loved through illness explains so much about where your mind was and the writing of what became this book

[00:26:21] and the relationships that you were going through and in my god and no one wants to admit when love isn't there but like when you're sick you especially don't because you're like damn like death like what happens then and so i really had to contend with

[00:26:36] like love and death being of the same coin and a lot of us avoid actually both and it's excruciating when both are there and so i had to really contend with what does love actually mean what does a

[00:26:47] dying process actually mean but thank you for saying that it just it explains so much and i guess i say that from having the perspective of being a few years older than you so hopefully that equates

[00:27:00] to wisdom but you know i won't say that out loud but also realizing when you start the book you're very candid about the fact that you walked into the hospital at the age of 23 with symptoms

[00:27:12] that would have most people already in the morgue and you walked in yeah yeah and were not expecting at all the diagnosis that you received and there begins the start of this journey and it was leukemia it's a blood cancer reflecting back now on what you thought that

[00:27:33] experiences was supposed to be and what it turned out to actually be for you living it how are you doing very sweet question thank you i really am the best that i've been but it took a minute to get

[00:27:46] here and i was just talking about this actually at skylight when i did my another kind of like book event there's a very specific love that's given to you when people think you're dying and then

[00:27:56] you keep living and then it's like oh wait a minute it changes and so then i'm like i must die be on the brink of death to experience just pure love and i think that was more so telling

[00:28:08] about the relationships i was in than anything else and so after writing the book my whole life blew up in a way where i had to really redefine what it means to be in relation with people

[00:28:23] and for them to be in relation with me and i give that give and take and that reciprocity and that just witnessing i really do finally get to experience in the piece seven layers of post

[00:28:35] traumatic stress disorder you have this line on page 281 that says my therapist chimes in calling my life a documentary on physical torture tied to a chair one does someone actually say that to you

[00:28:50] my therapist said the on the physical torture bit yeah but not being tied to a chair i read that i was like your therapist called your life a documentary on physical torture wtf like

[00:29:06] this the therapist and the psychiatrist i worked with at the time though they were like we've never seen anything like this they just were like this is such an immense amount of trauma for someone to be holding and so i remember my psychiatrist genuinely was like this feels

[00:29:23] like i'm watching like jove in the bible play out in real time like it's just must i go through another trial over and over again i was like damn that doesn't really make you feel better

[00:29:36] yeah my i remember a therapist had likened me to a combat veteran what stands out to me in the book and through the therapy sessions through the psychiatry sessions through you seeking healthcare with medicals at what is called california's medical service and then yeah yeah

[00:29:55] and then getting into a better hospital and clinic where they treated you like an actual person and you were trying to educate yourself on this entire system is that i feel like at so many

[00:30:07] turns you were failed repeatedly and you talk about the medical racism and the bias and the medical apartheid that you experience what is it that you needed from those systems

[00:30:20] and institutions that are built to basically kill you that you did not get i needed care when i got diagnosed i should have been immediately put on the stem cell transplant registry because it's very

[00:30:31] difficult for black people to find a donor their instances throughout the book where i'm talking about things that were completely avoidable and that were being ignored and perhaps like actually trusting a patient knows their body there's something with medicine and in

[00:30:46] particular with cancer there's this pumbling this very we've got to get this out and there's no dignity in cancer treatment there's no dignity in any treatment really in any way that we have to

[00:30:57] navigate the belly of the beast and so being asked what i want to do how do i want to do it and it may not look like how a doctor wants to go about it but i think if we're really about

[00:31:08] honoring someone's life and health then we really do need to sit with these things i'm in supportive medicine now which sometimes people will call palliative care which supportive medicine is really just another doctor who's there to ensure that you are comfortable throughout it does not

[00:31:25] mean that you are going into hospice or anything and a lot of people don't know to ask for that early on i think patient having a patient advocate i think on a wider scale care pods

[00:31:37] having ways in which we ensure that the patient is actually cared for when they leave the facility to i was doing everything myself and that burned someone out to where i felt like i could not

[00:31:48] enjoy my health once i quote unquote achieved it and realized that health is really a nonsensical societal thing that's been made of but i think those are the main things that i really needed

[00:32:01] and that were not given to me and just really treated with an ounce of decency an ounce of respect and when i got to my cancer center it was really i remember i was so on guard at first because

[00:32:12] everyone actually treated me like a person and i was like this campy this isn't that's not possible like i just was waiting for like the say psych moment yeah you say on page 349 when you've experienced so much trauma even the best things will just feel as doom inspiring

[00:32:30] and i can tell by the time that you got to the hospital in the center that treated you well by the time that you did have a donor from another country that you've never met that

[00:32:43] you were just like always tempering your criticism waiting for the other shooter drop were you ever able to release that way of living when i stepped into the hospital the transplant unit for

[00:32:58] my stem cell transplant i think that was the moment i was like okay i really stem cell transplant is a very it can go either way there are people who have died from it or just get really long-term

[00:33:09] complications and this was at the height of the start of the pandemic and i am doing something where i am literally depleting my immune system entirely and so i had to cross that threshold

[00:33:23] and really trust that city of hope was going to hold me through it but also trust that i may not make it out on the other side of this i've really had to just resolve that and just let that go

[00:33:33] i might not be able to see the sun again i might not be able to smell this city of hope is just around mountains it's just very crisp mountain air i may not be able to do things like how i

[00:33:44] did walking in i chose transplant and i was like and they're supporting me through this and i remember those 31 days granted it was like very isolating i think that was still

[00:33:54] it was a very spiritual experience for me i remember i brought one of the bibles of my ancestors and i was like it's just going to be us and we're going to do it going back a bit to the authors know

[00:34:03] where you talk about you know you're not the typical cancer patients you cuss and you smoke and you do all the things that you probably shouldn't it seems that i had the observation just reading the book that your spiritual practice and ancestor veneration despite your self-destruction is what

[00:34:20] truly kept you alive oh yeah they don't play with me they keep being like and you're staying because among the many topics in the book is also your struggle and your journey with self-harm and suicidal ideation and i think i'm assuming that is just from the kinds of

[00:34:41] relationships that you were in going through the struggle of cancer as your therapist and psychiatrist said all of the trauma compacted upon one another just makes it easier to be like you know

[00:34:51] what let's not live anymore and yet in all of that there was a part of you that held on to the love and the memories of your grandmothers and your grandfathers and your uncles and your aunt

[00:35:03] what about their care and protection of you when they were earth side and now that they are no longer earth side do you think really held you down when no one else did it's really sweet

[00:35:16] because i actually don't typically do interviews where i'm sitting i usually do it over towards my kitchen and i'm looking like directly at photos of them this three this is my kind of little holy

[00:35:26] trinity i call them which is my papa day flowers junior and then my grandma mary flowers and then my great aunt her sister jenny mackeys those were the first times i ever felt love

[00:35:38] and it did not need to be a trade-off of myself where i was very much witnessed as just me and it just was fine and it just is and something about older folks that just let you be and they

[00:35:50] really also encouraged a lot of who i am and how i act and i think that type of love never leaves even when someone dies and so that lived on in me despite my grandfather dying when i was

[00:36:06] four five years old my grandma died when i was 13 and my granny died when i was 16 i experienced a lot of death early on in my life and i think they left a lot behind inside me to hold on to and keep

[00:36:18] something to keep me tethered here and i think i reference in heaven is that my grandma's house i say she's seen revelations more times than i know her and what it means to keep having to

[00:36:30] just push through it when you get to the top amount ever is and there's and you get to the bottom it's like damn it there's another one there's an entry just kept going like that's just some

[00:36:40] level of i just have so much like reverence for them of just also contextually learning where what my ancestors were going through where a lot of them are fleeing the south and coming

[00:36:52] to los angeles a lot of them are going through these things that frankly i'm not going to diminish what i've gone through but frankly i think there's something really unique and special

[00:37:01] that we have as a generation to be able to sit down and look backwards a lot of our ancestors were like we need to push forward because we cannot afford to look backwards and i always felt that

[00:37:11] kept me tethered yeah that piece heaven is at grandma's house is one of my if not my favorite in the entire book now you're welcome now that the book is out and given all that we've discussed

[00:37:27] all that you've poured into these pages of your journey that you've now had to almost separate yourself from it do you have any regrets yeah i do i think that book shouldn't have been written

[00:37:40] when i was going through my stem cell transplant i had in two months out of the transplant ward and i signed a deal where i had deliverables and when you go through stem cell transplant

[00:37:50] you're given high doses of chemo and radiation to essentially get rid of all your blood cells and then you're given a stem cell stem cells from a donor and all of that is engrafting and it takes

[00:38:01] about a year to two to sometimes three years to heal from and to write through that and that fog and that haze was a very different experience but i think with the body trying to heal and then

[00:38:14] i'm putting myself in these traumatized right it's almost counter-intuitive to my healing process so there are things like now where i'm like i'm having a bit more issues even sometimes with

[00:38:24] my own health or just my body is keeping the score basically that ironically enough i think because it feels safe finally because it's like okay books out so then i'm having these moments and i think if

[00:38:36] anything that's like my body communicating to me like we need to rest so i think i would have waited some some more and i don't think i would have given as much i think that's one of the most

[00:38:46] beautiful things about this book is that people get a lot more than they will ever get again from me about me you've got that for sure in the archive but that is not happening again

[00:38:59] given that you've said that no one will probably ever get this much of you again especially not on the page what is it that you want readers who come to this text to take from it i wrote this book

[00:39:12] for black people this is a love letter to young black cancer patients it's a very confronting book i would say and so if anything would ever make someone uncomfortable i hope you can sit with that

[00:39:25] and feel like it's a mirror and an invitation to a new way of thinking and being a new way of relating to self but also i think it's a deep point of relatability for a lot of people where

[00:39:37] they can have that comfort and hold this book close to them i think in my dear reader note i say you know if you want to cry into this book you can't if you want to throw it up against

[00:39:47] a wall you're welcome to and if you want to never read this again please go for it so i want this to be whatever this book needs to be for someone and that's where i had to separate myself from like

[00:39:57] this is for you like this is for what i that's like my offering so yeah whatever it ultimately needs to be in shapeshift and two for people that's what i would like thank you so i want to move

[00:40:08] to a speed around in a game before i let you go for what is still your morning what is your favorite book whoa going i love it tony morson all right who is your favorite author

[00:40:23] at the moment morgan parker who was your favorite poet and morgan parker is the poet but i feel lilia name a poet that you think people don't know enough about immediately who comes to mind

[00:40:37] is kate linda barrett what is the difference if you think there is a difference between poetry and spoken word in my heart of hearts i do not believe there's a difference because it's just the capability

[00:40:48] to move somebody yeah all right who was your favorite artist ernie barnes all right if money were no object where would you go what would you do and where would you live oh everybody's

[00:41:00] eating everybody's eating that's one thing we got a lot of things that we got to fix um could have a communal farm live off the land it's a whole like that's a big one but we're going to

[00:41:13] be okay basically being able to actually live out the practices and values that come with like care and wanting to lead an anti-capitalist life and uh disability justice oriented life i think i

[00:41:26] would do that with my friends and then hopefully other people and then say this is not a cult right because that's always the scary part of like communes as they turn it to cults and shit so

[00:41:35] that's the welcome banner actually this is not a cult this is not a cult yeah it's really convincing that and i'm still not drinking the koolaid okay yeah boom uh name three things on your bucket list

[00:41:50] hmm come out with a poetry album that's been a big one fall in love again yeah and travel i've not left the country since i was eight so just travel just anywhere i'm cool with it yeah what

[00:42:04] brings you joy my mother's laughter yeah that's beautiful what brings you peace being content with myself and experiencing acceptance of my current circumstances because then i know there's possibility which is really hard to sink into at times but that's when i'm really at peace

[00:42:25] and what is your favorite sound ocean waves crashing all right so our game is called rewriting the classics classic is however you define it name one book you wish you would have written

[00:42:38] terrible the motherfucking sour octavia butler that's some different shit i would have loved to have done that name that was prophetic sorry no you're good i love it i love the enthusiasm name one book

[00:42:54] where you want to change the ending and how would you do it you know what if anything on the parable of the sour tip i think i would finish it because octavia had died before the third book

[00:43:05] came out and lauren allamina goes into space i believe so i think i would finish that out yeah there we go so cheat code to that question finish this trilogy all right and then name a book that

[00:43:18] you think is overrated or overtaught and why bao wolf shameless hei ni because none of that makes any fucking sense not one bit of it not one bit i think i had to read it twice in high school

[00:43:31] i still didn't understand it yeah never i to this date ask me what it's about i don't know same with heart of darkness all i know is that it's racist as hell all i know is i was like why would you

[00:43:43] start a darkness with a passion that is my answer for this question the heart of darkness hurts why are we on this boat why are we in this jungle what are we doing i don't understand

[00:43:54] oh if anybody ever wants to know what my answer was for this overrated question that is it heart of darkness hands down there's trauma there for me i still feel away as you can see now i'm witnessing i'm witnessing thank you final question for today

[00:44:14] why leila when you are dead and gone and among the ancestors what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you've left behind i would like people to say that i was

[00:44:26] perhaps a bit too confronting and honest and maybe would not think about what i was saying i'm giving myself a great eulogy i would love for people to say that like this was a someone who

[00:44:43] genuinely archived what it meant to be here without concern or care for an audience or for palpability or anything like that that's what i really hope is the takeaway and that people would

[00:44:57] say about me and there's clear intention and care in the work that i do as well big thank you to walla le nuhanda for being here today on black and published make sure you check out walla le's

[00:45:08] memoir bless the blood out now from coquila and if you're not following walla le check them out on the socials they're at it's walla le on instagram and walla le is spelled w a l e l a

[00:45:23] that's our show for the week if you like this episode and want more black and published head to our instagram page it's at black and published and that's b l k and published there

[00:45:37] i've posted a bonus clip for my interview with walla le about how they're prioritizing rest after their book release make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments

[00:45:48] i'll highlight y'all next week when our guests will be shiniqua golden author of the book a black girl in the middle essays on allegedly figuring it all out i went to lunch colleague of mommy went to

[00:45:59] go pick up our lunch and i asked him you know why did your parents name you with an angel he told me and he was like yeah you look like a shiniqua i do he was like yeah like you give me shiniqua

[00:46:09] vibes what are shiniqua vibes energy and i was fully prepared for him to just give me all the negative connotations because that's what i've always heard throughout my life that's next week on black and published i'll talk to you then peace