Into the Underground with Jacqueline Crooks

[00:00:00] I'm not an author. I write books, but I don't want to be identified as an author. There's much more to me than an author. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Jacqueline Crooks, author of the novel Fire Rush. It's a book that took her 16 years to bring into the world.

[00:00:30] I wrote a short story and it was shortlisted in the BBC National Short Story Award. That's when agents came to me. Not because of Fire Rush. Without an agent, I think Fire Rush would still be languishing somewhere in my drawer somewhere, waiting for a publisher to take it on. Jacqueline says she got a late start in writing, even though it was something she knew she always wanted to do.

[00:00:53] Why she considers her upbringing as an outsider because of her identity as a Caribbean immigrant in the UK, a privilege on the page. Plus, how she brought to life the two battles women are always fighting against racial oppression and for gender equality in her story about an underground subculture. And in taking control of a male-dominated world, why Jacqueline says women, just like her character, need to be aware of the charismatic man.

[00:01:23] Jacqueline drops some gems as she chats her wisdom next, when Black & Published continues.

[00:01:51] Jacqueline, when did you know that you were a writer? Jacqueline, I think I knew when I was little. Going to Sunday school, going to church, I loved hearing the stories in the Bible. I thought, I want to write stories like this. I found them to be, yeah, full of wonderful characters. So yeah, I think I was maybe about six, seven. I loved reading. So I went to the library a lot and read lots of books and I thought, I want to do this myself.

[00:02:17] I love that you mentioned that the Bible was one of your early influences. What was one of your favorite Bible stories that contributed to you wanting to be a writer? Oh, definitely David and Goliath. I love that story so much. You know, the underdog winning somehow, you know. So from knowing at such an early age that you wanted to be a writer, you say six, seven years old,

[00:02:41] how did that inherent knowing what you wanted to do with your life carry you as you started to get older and try to develop the craft? Well, I knew that I had the desire, but I didn't think someone like me would be able to write for a living. So I was like, I'm going to park this, just get out there, work, do the work, get myself a home. So that's what I focused on for the next 30 years. I actually started writing in my 40s, much, much later in life.

[00:03:11] I went and did an MA in creative writing, invested in myself, did lots of workshops. So it took me more to get to the point where I felt someone like me would write a book and get published. What do you mean someone like you? Can you tell me more about what that insecurity was or why you felt like it wouldn't or could not happen for you? Yeah. So I was born in Jamaica and I came to London with my family in the 1960s.

[00:03:35] So we were poor migrant, black Caribbean family. We were socially excluded and living in a deprived estate and being excluded from the mainstream society. We were voiceless. I didn't think that I would ever have a voice and be able to write and contribute to the culture of this country. So then what was it about who you were in your 40s or who even you are now that said, you know what, I'm going to give it a try.

[00:04:03] I'm going to give it a go and give into this compulsion that I feel. Yeah, I educated myself. I went to university in my late 40s, got a degree. I thought, actually, I have a voice. I can use this voice. And that's when I started to write. And that's when I started to believe that I could pursue this and that I had to invest in learning how to write, learning how to develop my craft and my own voice and trust in my own voice and style and tell stories in the way that I wanted to tell them.

[00:04:32] In educating yourself, were you able to see new possibilities in new worlds that you wanted to explore in your work? At university, I was exposed to world literature. So I was exposed to books from African-American literature, Latin-American literature, literature from all around the world. I thought, hey, there's more to literature than just one style, one type of voice or one type of story.

[00:05:01] And I could draw on that lived experience. Your novel, Fire Rush, is very much from the perspective of a migrant culture, ethnic enclave of Jamaicans just outside of London in the 60s, the 70s and maybe the early 80s with the timeline.

[00:05:18] And so what was it about your own lived experiences that you wanted to put down on paper and contribute to literature as another perspective that had not yet been seen? I realized that the underground world of the Black Sound Revolution of the UK, which encompassed Dub Reggae, which came from Jamaica,

[00:05:43] that underground world, that subculture had not been represented in literature. I had lived in that world for many years and there are some academic books. I think all of the books written about that period, that musical subculture, are written by men. I thought there's no telling of this world from a woman's perspective.

[00:06:05] And I thought, I've lived in that world. I really want to put forward what it was like for women to live in that male-dominated underworld at that time and bring different dimensions to the work to really connect it to not just connect to our ancestral past. That's what I really wanted to do with the work, to locate it there and play with time and space.

[00:06:31] Was the novel that became Fire Rush what you started in grad school in your MA program in creative writing? Was this always a story that you were dying to tell? Well, I was actually dying to tell another story, which was a collection of short stories called The Ice Migration. And it was while I was working on that short story collection that the word Dub Reggae just came pounding back into my head and I started to remember my time in this world. And I started to write it concurrently with the short story collection.

[00:06:59] But within a year or two, I finished a short story collection and focused for the next 16 years just on Fire Rush. It took you 16 years to write Fire Rush? 16 years, yeah. It felt like a big responsibility. I was writing about a world that hadn't been written about extensively before, certainly not from a woman's perspective.

[00:07:22] I felt this huge responsibility to do justice to that culture, to represent us and to get the detail, the sound, the technology of the music correct. And yeah, go back in time and do a bit of research to make sure the clothes and all the things I remembered to get them finessed within the novel. Wow. It all comes through in the novel, the language, especially the description of the time. But wow.

[00:07:50] In doing that research, did you ever feel overwhelmed or maybe it was too much or discouraged from pursuing this big of a novel? No, I really enjoyed the research. I think it took me 16 years because it wasn't just about the research. I wanted to get the language right. I wanted to write this story in Jamaican vernacular and dub reggae vernacular.

[00:08:13] So I was fusing two different languages into one, as well as my own language that comes from my rural Jamaican family. So I think it took me a good four years to get the language right. And then the research, that was another maybe four or five years. I think I labored unnecessarily. I don't think it should have taken me 16 years, but it was my first novel. I was doing a lot of going to lots of workshops. I wanted to get the craft right as well. Hmm.

[00:08:42] And so then over the time that you are researching, working on the language, working on your craft, how are you making a living? What are you doing in life? Yeah. Well, that's the other reason it took me 16 years. I was running a charity, a community group, and working full time, often seven days a week. So writing was like getting up at four o'clock in the morning, writing for three hours, sometimes writing on the train or the work going to and coming from work.

[00:09:09] So 16 years because I was working full time and in quite a demanding role. What has that experience of going back to school in your 40s, pursuing your passion later in life, working full time, taking nearly two decades to write your debut novel, taught you about your own ambition and relentlessness?

[00:09:34] Not only toward like your professional role as a writer, but also about where you see your creative place in the world after admitting that you didn't think this could happen for you because you didn't see stories like yours. I feel I'm in a privileged position being an outsider. You know, it's made me hungry not having all the things I wanted in life.

[00:09:59] It's made me hungry and ready to fight for them and to have a plan and to stick with that plan no matter how long it takes. And it's made me realize that if you want something badly enough, you will stay with it for the duration and build resilience until you get to where you want to get. And I think writing a book, you have to have a story that's going to carry you through that length of time, carry you through all the difficulties of day to day life.

[00:10:25] So I think it's just taught me that I do have a voice. I can write and the next book is going to be easier. And so then having learned that and taking that throughout the experience of writing Fire Rush, you know, writing the novel might be a solitary experience, but publishing it is not.

[00:10:48] What were the steps you took after you felt that you had a solid drive to begin trying to get the novel out and into the world? Well, it took me a long time to get the novel out. I was sending it out to agents and publishers throughout that 16 years, you know, five years in 10 years in no one, not many people were interested. So it was actually when I wrote a short story and it was shortlisted in the BBC national short story award.

[00:11:15] That's when agents came to me, not because of Fire Rush. And then when they saw Fire Rush, then they helped me to edit it and get it ready and then sent it out to publishers. Without an agent, I think Fire Rush would still be languishing somewhere in my drawer somewhere, waiting for publisher to take it on. And it's a really, it's a tough business. You know, I think there are many, many fantastic writers out there who just can't get the work out there.

[00:11:44] So I know that experience. And yeah, I was just lucky with that short story that came shortlist in that competition. What was the short story about? So it's called Silverfish in the Midnight Sea. And it's again, it's actually talking about my childhood in that impoverished Caribbean migrant community. Yeah, it's just talking about the difficulties of a lone mother and trying to care for her children in the summer holidays, where there's, you know, they have no, there's nowhere for them to go. They can't afford to go anywhere.

[00:12:13] So they make them, the garden becomes this magical place. I like the idea of playing with magic realism. I think it's very Caribbean, playing liminal spaces. I like to do that in my work. And so then after that short story, you said that, you know, the agents and the publishers came to you. Were the people who came to you and asked you, what were you working on? What did you have in the drawer? Some of the same people that you had been pitching to five, 10 years prior? No. So my agent was a fairly new agent.

[00:12:41] Several big agencies wanted to take me on at that point because of the short story, but I went with a small agent. I felt she was a woman from a minoritized community. I felt that she understood my work and she was just brilliant in helping me to shape up the novel over the next six months. And then she sent it out and then it actually, it went to auction. There were like 10 large publishers from around the world who wanted it.

[00:13:07] And so from going to 16 years, nobody really been interested to suddenly everyone wanting to buy it and having to go to an auction was a real, was a real moment for me. All right. So we've talked about the 16 years. Can you give the exact dates of like when you started working on it and trying to send it out to when the auction happened? Because, you know, a lot can change in the world and especially in the world of publishing in 16 years.

[00:13:34] Yeah. I mean, I started writing in 2005, started sending it out five years later. The short story was shortlisted in 2019. And then my agent took me on in that year. And then for the next year, we worked on developing Fire Rush to the way that she felt she could sell it. And then it was auctioned a year later and then published two years later. So it was auctioned in 2021.

[00:14:03] So you were working on it in the midst of the global pandemic in 2020, in which London was hit very hard. What was that experience like? Yeah. It was strange to be having all these amazing things happen, you know, having people bid for my book online during the pandemic. But it also happened during the George Floyd murder.

[00:14:23] And I think that something in publishers changed in their idea about inclusion, diversity and other voices and the importance of our stories. I felt that was significant. The timing. I think every book has a time and a place to be published. And I think that was a big part of it. The pandemic and then George Floyd.

[00:14:42] There's even a scene in Fire Rush, which again is set decades before George Floyd, that is so very current and reminiscent of his murder. Was that scene always in the book? That was in it from 16 years ago. And that really pulled me up because I was just writing about what I knew, the facts and things that were happening back then in the 1970s and 80s. It really pulled me up when the George Floyd murder happened.

[00:15:12] I was like, oh my God, it still goes on to this very day. That was shocking to me. Yeah. In addition to there being an appetite for diverse books and diverse voices and diverse stories in the aftermath of not only George Floyd's murder, but the many murders and attacks by police and vigilantes in the United States in 2020, years before and years continuing.

[00:15:42] We are now in a moment in the United States, especially in, for better or worse, the US and New York is considered the center of publishing. But we are in a moment of extreme backlash against not only diverse stories and Black writers, but also minorities and migrants.

[00:16:02] And some of that backlash even started in Europe, especially in terms of immigration and migrants and where people will go who are trying to migrate not only from the Caribbean, but also out of Africa for whatever reason. And your novel centers that experience from decades prior.

[00:16:27] Do you think that your publication and all the circumstances surrounding it in the alignment of time was a flash in the pan? Or do you think you will continue to have success telling stories from these backgrounds and points of view that are not mainstream? And I know that's a very heavy question. It's an important question. I think it's an important question because I ask myself this all the time.

[00:16:56] And I think there's no way of knowing I will always write what I want to write. I never ever felt that Fire Rush was going to be published by a large publisher. I thought maybe a tiny publisher would have it and publish it and nothing would happen, but I was never going to change what I wanted to write. I'm never going to write for the marketplace. I will always write about the things that drive me. I work in the social, in the charity sector, in the community sector.

[00:17:24] I work for causes and those are the things that I write about through fiction. So I will always write about these important themes. Whether or not a big publisher publishes the stories or not, then I will always find a way. Now I'm confident that I can find a way to get my story out. If a big publisher didn't want to publish it, I'd go for small. I would self-publish it. It's just working collaboratively with others to get these important stories out.

[00:17:53] I love the confidence and the fortitude that you have in your voice as you talk about continuing on and publishing. Some of the stories that I've heard is that, you know, there was such an investment in these DEI programs. And I hate that acronym at this moment.

[00:18:15] But again, after the murder of George Floyd, there was such a backlash and a recognition that industries across the board needed to do more to share the spotlight rather. And so all of these books were acquired, I would assume, globally. And yet the concern has been now that they've started to come out 2023, 2024, even continuing on to this year.

[00:18:43] Will they have success? Will they be pushed? Will they be marketed properly by the publisher or left to languish? What has your experience been with your big publisher after your 10-way auction support in continuing to push and celebrate Fire Rush, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2023? So my experience with my publisher has been really good.

[00:19:09] My editor and the rest of the team, they've really, really worked with me to create campaigns to get the book out there. Really working with me to see the communities that I want to reach through my book and making sure we're going to those marginalized communities, communities on the extreme margins. So I've been consulted at every step. I've had a voice in this process, which has been really wonderful. And I fully believe that that will continue with my publisher.

[00:19:38] I can't speak for other publishers. I don't know. But I do think of the publishing industry as a large superstructure, like any superstructure. I'm powerless within it. And I have no expectations of it, that it's not going to change and it's not going to suck me up and eat me up. You know, I just know that I've got to hold my own within my own small space and know when to get out.

[00:20:03] What does that look like holding your own in your own small space when you are in this superstructure, as you describe it, or as I think we would say it in the United States, this system? It's holding on to who I am as a person, not an author, because I'm not an author. I write books, but I don't want to be identified as an author. There's much more to me than an author. I see myself as someone who works in the community sector and writes about issues and causes.

[00:20:29] I never want to believe what's being written about me and how people might imagine an author is or whatever. I need to be me. And so that means sometimes having to say no to certain events, not being overexposed, just getting the balance right to get my book out there, not saying yes to everything just because I'm invited. It's got to be meaningful. It's a meaningful engagement only for me.

[00:20:56] Well, with that said, I say thank you for you saying yes to me because you had no idea who I was. I emailed you out of the blue because I found your book when I was in London last year in a bookshop. It was actually recommended to me by a friend. I was like, why don't you buy this? And I was like, it looks good. I'll get it. And I read it. And I was like, I want to interview her. You say yes. This is who I want to reach out to.

[00:21:20] You know, I've had so many requests for podcasts like yours and interviews from the Black community. I say yes every time because I want my books to reach everybody, you know, but I'm a Black author and I want my community to read my book and engage with it. I want to have conversations like this. Well, thank you. And let's talk about the book. And before we do, can you read something from Fire Rush so that we can dive all the way into this story?

[00:21:49] Fire Rush, a novel by Jacqueline Crooks, is one part love story, one part grief therapy and one part reawakening. It centers on Yamaya, who in the late 70s and early 80s on the outskirts of London is a young woman immersed in the dub reggae music scene. She's longing for love while she's simultaneously haunted by her mother's singing voice.

[00:22:13] The loss of one sends her on a search for the other to find out who she really is, what she really wants and the place where she can have it all. Here's Jacqueline. Okay. One o'clock in the morning. Hot foot, all three of us. Stepping where we had no business. Tombstone estate gals. Caribbean Irish. No one expects better.

[00:22:40] We ain't it, but we sure ain't shit. All we need is a little bit of rhythm. So, we go in at it, deep into the dance hall. Come now, the sassy calls, pushing her way down the stairs. High priestess glow, red anchor of cloth wound round her head like a towering inferno. We squeeze past chirpsing men, stand in front of the arch-wooden door, sucking the last of the O2.

[00:23:10] I follow a sassy inside. My gal, she follows the smoke. Beneath barrel-vaulted arches, dance hall darkness, ganja clouds. We lean against the flesh-eating limestone walls near two coffin-side speaker boxes that vibrate us into the underworld. Thank you. So, your main character, your protagonist, is Yamaya.

[00:23:35] And, of course, that automatically makes me think of the Orisha goddess that I pronounce as Yamaya, although I've heard it pronounced other ways as well. So, what was the connection between your character's name and the sea that you wanted to carry throughout the text of this novel that you call Fire Rush? Actually, Yamaya actually is a Jamaican word from the indigenous people. It means of wooden water.

[00:23:59] So, I wanted Fire Rush to contain the elements of our ancestral lands. Fire Rush because it's the fire of the Caribbean, of Africa, the energy of Dabradi, and the energy of women's rage as they campaign for their rights over their bodies, rights for their community. So, the names were really important. Yamaya's name and Astasi's name.

[00:24:24] So, Astasi is a name that's an African spiritual leader, and Yamaya is linked to Jamaica, the indigenous people. I love that because wood plays a critical role in the novel and in Yamaya's evolution, as does water, as well as the fire and the soundscape of the novel.

[00:24:45] The section that you just read from is from the opening of the novel in chapter one, where the three women, Yamaya, Astasi, and Rumor, are going to the club, basically. But it's a club that is in a literal crypt. You spoke earlier about being in that scene yourself and being in these underground worlds.

[00:25:06] Were the clubs really in, like, the crypts, or was that something of your imagination so that you would bring us down into this place where we are so close to communing with the dead and getting high through not only marijuana but also the music? So, the Caribbean migrants of that time, we were excluded from mainstream spaces for dances and social activities.

[00:25:33] And so, what the Caribbean community did, they created these dances and they needed venues. And the churches were the only places, not the only, but one of the few places that would hire their spaces to them so they could socialize. And so, the crypts were where a lot of the dubwagging dances happened. They were beautiful places, if you can think of it, you know, all the iconography and things in them.

[00:25:57] But I really wanted to write about that scene in Dancing Underground in the crypt because we weren't living. That community, in Dancing Underground in the darkness in the late hours of night, it was a kind of unliving. We were dancing in the dead, but we weren't living in mainstream society. So, that exclusion for me was like a kind of non-living. And that's why I wanted to center the dance scenes in those crypts.

[00:26:24] I've traveled around the UK with the book and so many people said, I didn't know that you had a crypt as well in London for dances. And so, I realized through the book that there were crypts everywhere around the country. Can you talk about the music for a moment? What exactly is dub reggae? And what is its specificity in the wider, I guess, context or understanding of reggae music from Jamaica specifically?

[00:26:51] So, dub reggae has come out of reggae music. Lots of music producers created instruments that they would process the reggae track and create unusual sounds. So, dub reggae is the extraction of sound from reggae. It's about voids, unearthly, ghostly voids with sound effects that they create using mixer boards and very unusual experimental production techniques.

[00:27:20] Dub reggae is a very, like I said, it's a very strange, otherworldly sound. The dub, the bass is like super watt. So, you feel it. It's an embodied sound. It's not just about the sound you listen to, but you feel the sound. But it is dub and bass, hardcore, and chasms of sound, echo, reverb, really unusual sound effects. But it's African in its source. It's about power. It's about revolution.

[00:27:46] So, it's about firing yourself up for revolution, I would say. Did you create like a Spotify playlist to go on with the book? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's in the back. There's a link that will take you to the Spotify playlist. All right. I'm going to link that in the show notes for everyone who just heard that description of dub reggae and wants to listen to some authentic music that was curated by the author. So, we're going to do that first. All right. So, now for my next question.

[00:28:13] Yamaya, over the course of the novel, she's working, doing like factory work with like medical supplies. But she's really into not only the dance hall scene with dub reggae, but she's into the creation of the music herself. She wants to be an emcee, basically. And you talked earlier about exploring that subculture of dub reggae and the crips and everything around it through the eyes of a woman.

[00:28:39] Were there women who were controlling the mic at that time? Or was that completely an invention for you to see what it would be like to navigate those gender dynamics within the novel that you created? So, in all the years that I was raving in these spaces, I never once thought a woman emceed. These were male-dominated spaces. The men created the dances. They emceed. They were at the door. They got the money. They collected the money. They decided if you're going to dance with them or not. And so, I wanted to turn the tables.

[00:29:09] And often when I was at the dance, I wanted to get on the mic and chat lyrics and spin some tunes. I wanted to get control. I'm sure there were many other women who wanted to do the same. And so, as a writer, you get to do this, right? You get to be omnipotent and play God and put yourself in that position of power that you didn't have back then. It's kind of leveling the power later on. I have a few friends now, women of my generation in their 60s, who have been DJing now for the last 10, 20 years.

[00:29:39] So, they eventually got to the mic, you know, 30 or 40 years later. And I collaborate a lot with them when I'm reading the book to an audience and they get on the mic and they play and they toast, which is chatting lyrics or rapping, you might call it, in the States.

[00:29:53] I love that. But even in Yamaye's quest and desire to get on the mic, which she eventually does do and turns it into a full-time gig, there is also still the heavy presence of misogyny in the way that the men treat the women. And Yamaye Asase, who you described in the reading as, you know, a high priestess and a goddess, they still experience the grabby hand men and the men who think they can do anything.

[00:30:21] And all this of the way, they have to be very careful about their bodies and their space and their surroundings. So, even in turning the tables, you shined a light on the real threat that men can sometimes be to women. Why was that important to illustrate beyond the fact that it still happens now?

[00:30:42] I really felt it was important to show the ways in women who are fighting in a revolution with men and be both victims to the oppressor and the men they're fighting alongside. It's where women are always fighting two battles. We're never just ever fighting one battle. So, the men are fighting one battle against the oppressors, but the women, they're fighting the oppressor and some of the men.

[00:31:07] And that's a hard battle to fight. And I just wanted to flag that up, that women, we do have to fight on so many different levels. And it's important to not shy away from that. It's like people might say, okay, you're bad-mouthing, you know, your brothers, you know, the men in the black community. But this is a real issue. And it's not just black communities. I think every revolution, women from all communities are fighting that same battle.

[00:31:33] So, the book starts off with a love story that turns tragic. And then there's more tragedy between the friends. And there were several times they had to put it down for a week or two and then come back to it. And then put it down for a week or two and then come back to it. I know we spoke earlier about, you know, there's a scene that mirrors the murder of George Floyd.

[00:31:56] So, we don't have to belabor that point. But after that murder in the novel, Yamaya doesn't only go underground into the crypt where she found solace in the dub reggae scene.

[00:32:10] She literally goes underground to live and is with this group of, like, infidels who are basically, like, modern-day Robin Hoods, where they're going to go and take everything that was denied them and use it for themselves. And she has many devastating experiences there.

[00:32:32] Why was that section of the book where she literally is now living underground with this group of infidels part of the grief process that you wanted to show her going through in her life? I felt it was important to show that in certain points of your life, if you lose important people that are holding you up at your foundation, you can fall to pieces.

[00:32:58] And in trying to find another piece of solid ground, you can actually fall into sinking sand. You know, how easy it is when you're grieving to see what you want to see and not what's actually in front of you. How easy it is to be groomed and to fall for men that are charismatic. I'm trying to write about the danger of charisma as well here.

[00:33:23] How attractive, how compelling it is, but how dangerous, actually, that is. I think we can see that happening around the world, danger of charisma. Yeah. Wow. I have to take a moment for my own self and thinking about my own relationships, like the danger of the charismatic man. My God. Oh, my.

[00:33:47] Anyway, eventually, Yamaya is able to extricate herself from the charismatic man, thanks in no small part to the oppressor. And continue on this journey of discovery that she was exploring with her love interests, but also that was initially triggered by her mother, who she never knew and only heard stories about.

[00:34:17] And that is what brings her to the island of Jamaica, is this search to connect with the people and the heritage that she experienced through her first loves, one of them being a partner who she lost and the mother who she grew up without. Why was exploring heritage through ancestry the way that you wanted to bring her home? A lot of those experiences in the book, I've experienced them.

[00:34:46] And I think as a black woman, I draw on my ancestors as a survival strategy. I feel that having that connection is so important. And I believe that there's energy that exists through sound, through the music, through their music, our music that we make. There's a kind of communication that continues and will always continue. It connects us to our ancestors.

[00:35:09] So it is showing the importance of ancestral connection for people who are marginalized, excluded, disadvantaged in some way that we need to hold on to those connections. One character that has stayed with me and concerned me and I've wondered about is Asase. She's a very, I don't want to say troubled, but complicated woman.

[00:35:35] Like she's with this group of girls that are her friends, but then she's quick to cuss them out. She'll take their man. And then in the end, she ends up in this rampage of jealousy that lands her in prison. Where did her story, where did she come from? She is an amalgamation of two women that I knew. So a lot of it's factual.

[00:35:59] And I'm intrigued by that woman because black women, we're taught to be hard and tough and rough and we can do anything. But I believe from looking back at those women that I knew that those were expressions of actually vulnerability and expressions of trauma and suffering. And what I've come to know of those women now and much later down the line and finding out what their backgrounds were, there was a lot of trauma there.

[00:36:28] And I wanted to try and convey that and to really create a nuanced character that although she was tough and hard, there's more to it than that. And we need to look beyond what we see on the surface level of people like that, of women like that. All the women in the book have complexities to them, even Rumor, who I know kind of disappears after like the first third of the book.

[00:36:51] But they all have layers to them in their quest to not only discover their identity and who they are, but also then assert that identity and who they are in the world. And, you know, you talk about being inspired to write for the voiceless, for the invisibilized, for the minoritized communities that you grew up in and that you know so very well. What do you want all readers to take away from the book?

[00:37:19] Yes, but also mainstream readers. And I don't know if I like that phrasing, but I'll go with it. Yeah, I think I would like everyone to try and look beyond the behavior and try and understand the person. We can all bring a certain types of behaviors, you know, to situations, but that behavior is a language, isn't it?

[00:37:45] It's telling us something that not many people stop and try and work out and listen to. And I think it's about, I would like us all to listen to the language of behavior. And to try and understand people and be more, more compassionate, I think. And so what are you working on next? So I've just finished book number two and my publisher has taken it on. And I can't say much about it because it's not, I haven't signed contracts or anything like that.

[00:38:13] But I would say it's Afro-futuristic. It's partly set in the UK and America and a kind of unique area of America. Pretty much like in Fry Rush, I was in cockpit country in Jamaica. I love unusual landscapes. They just excite me. I want them in my stories. So yeah, hopefully it'll be coming out in 2027. So I'll be spending this year editing it, working with my publisher, and then I'll be able to talk a bit more about it. But I'm excited to bring it out into the world.

[00:38:43] Congratulations. Congratulations. So now I want to go to a speed round and a little game before I let you go for your evening. What is your favorite book? Oh my God. I have so many, but I'm going to say Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, Walter Mose, because it's the first thing that came to my head right now. All right. Who is your favorite author? I think Toni Morrison.

[00:39:06] Because your book relies so heavily on the dub reggae culture, I'm going to ask you this question where we often have debates about it in the States. And I don't know how it is over in the UK or in Europe. But what is the difference, if you think there is a difference, between poetry, spoken word, and I'm going to add rap? Oh, it's difficult. I mean, they're all intersecting. It's like the difference between prose and poetry. I don't think there is a difference.

[00:39:36] They're all coming from the same source. I think it's just down to the artist, you know, how they perform the work. Yeah, I don't know if I can answer that. To me, they're all the same. Words are words. That's the answer. Words are words. They're all the same. Who was your favorite artist? Music came to my mind straight away. I'm going to say Lee Scratch Perry. A really pioneering double-edged artist. He's just off the width of scale in creativity and eccentricity. All right.

[00:40:05] If money were no object, where would you go? What would you do? And where would you live? I would go and live in the blue mountains of Jamaica in a shack. I don't like fancy houses. I like shacks in nature, wooden shack with some land. That's where I'd go. All right. Name three things on your bucket list. I want to go to Hawaii and Tahiti. I want to go to those places. I don't know why, but I want to go to them.

[00:40:35] I'm afraid of water, but I'd love to take up sailing and sail somewhere very far away. And I would like to do an exhibition to the North Pole somewhere like that with a group of black women to show that we can do expeditions too. Wow. What is your favorite sound? I would say it's the saxophone. There's a pro on a saxophone at that. What brings you joy? Dancing.

[00:41:04] And what brings you peace? Meditating. All right. So our game is called Rewriting the Classics. Classic is however you define it. Name one book that you wish you would have written. David Copperfield. All right. All right. What's one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? Maybe The Old Man and the Sea. I think The Old Man dies in that Hemingway book.

[00:41:33] But he's such a beautiful, beautiful character. I would have him live on a bit longer. All right. And name a book that you think is overrated and why? Or overtalked. Overtalked. Oh, my God. That's going to be tricky and very simple. Let me try and think. I think there's so many books that are overtalked. I just can't think of one in particular. I'm going to struggle. All right.

[00:41:58] Well, my final question for you today is when you're dead and gone, what would you like someone to write about you and the legacy of words and work that you've left behind? I would like someone to say that my writing is changing the way communities, marginalized communities are treated. And it's helping to improve inclusion in some way and to give voice to people who are unheard or feel themselves be unheard or unseen.

[00:42:28] Big thank you to Jacqueline Crooks for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Jacqueline on the socials at JacquelineCrooks1 on Instagram. And make sure you check out Fire Rush, out now from Vintage Books. You can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout. That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week.

[00:42:55] If you like this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram page. It's at Black & Published, and that's B-L-K-and Published. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Jacqueline about writing the energy of revenge on the page. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll holler at y'all next week when our guest will be Esme Addison, author of the novel

[00:43:25] An Intrigue of Witches. My book is not specifically about AI. It's actually about virtual reality. It's about the government trying to get everybody hooked up to this virtual reality so they can basically enslave them. And I see what's happening in our society, and it's like, that could happen. I'm a writer, and maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but if we stay on the trajectory that we're on, that could be a potential outcome. And I just think that's concerning. That's next week on Black & Published.

[00:43:54] I'll talk to you then. Peace. What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode.

[00:44:22] And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books Matter.