The Doors of History are Open with Dolen Perkins-Valdez

[00:00:00] I think we also have had a reckoning in the publishing world where, I mean, I think when I came along, right, it was really white women writers who were writing about black historical subjects, right? What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published.

[00:00:16] Bring you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of the historical fiction novel Take My Hand. It's a story based on the real-life wealth sisters of Montgomery, Alabama who were forcibly

[00:00:34] sterilized by the workers of a federal family planning clinic. I had gone to college. I majored in Afro-American studies in college. I had gotten a master's. I had gotten a PhD in African American literature and at no point in my education had anyone

[00:00:50] mentioned this case and I needed to correct that. Being the hard truths of history in a way that is easy for readers to stomach is Dolen's gift, one she believes she received from the ancestors.

[00:01:05] How she says her love for deep research and library archives lays the foundation for her work as a historical fiction novelist. Plus, the reason she says her 2010 debut novel, Winch, opened the doors for a renaissance of historical black writing.

[00:01:22] And why Dolen believes in the power of kitchen table conversations to galvanize today's movement of reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. That and more is next when Black and Published continues. Let's jump in. All right, so Dolen, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:57] Well, that's a trick question for me because I didn't grow up knowing any writers. In my world, all the writers were dead. They typically were white. And even the black writers were dead in my world. And so I knew I was a reader very early on.

[00:02:14] I had lots of books. I was the kid when kids came over to visit me, they would ask me, have you read all those books? And I would be kind of embarrassed to say yes.

[00:02:25] But writing as a kid, I might have written a story or two, but writing as a vocation was nothing that I even knew the first thing about. When I was in college, I published my first short story, but I still thought I wanted to be a lawyer.

[00:02:41] I was going to go to law school. So that was back then. If you were a good reader and writer, that's what you did. You went to law school.

[00:02:50] So I still didn't know, but I I had my first taste of a byline when I published that first story. And I probably it was like after I graduated college and I was writing a novel

[00:03:04] on there was in the office where I worked, there was one work computer. I'm dating myself here that we all shared. And I was on the work computer, like in the lunch break and stuff like that,

[00:03:14] working on a novel and I would like save it on my floppy disk and put my floppy disk in my bag. And I didn't even know what I was doing. It was a terrible novel, but the urge to be on the page probably was around 22 years old.

[00:03:28] That was when I would say I was born as a writer. Oh, can you describe what that urge felt like? Because I get a lot of people who say like they knew from the youngest of ages or they were always writing stories, so it was always there.

[00:03:43] But I'm curious, what did it feel like as even as a young adult to be like, you know what, there's something I want to say. At that time, I didn't know what I had to say. I didn't even know who I was.

[00:03:55] I just knew I had the urge to be telling a story. But it was like nothing for me to sit for hours and write, right? Like it's kind of like I have a daughter who's nine, who I think is an illustrator and some kind of artist.

[00:04:11] And you give her a pencil and paper. Like if I take her to a friend's house, I took her to Terry McMillan's house and she sat down at Terry McMillan's desk and just drew the whole time

[00:04:21] I was there talking to Terry and she can do that for hours. Like some kids, they call it doodling, but that's how I felt. I felt like I could do it for hours and look up and like the whole day had passed.

[00:04:32] So it was less at that time about having something to say and more about just the urge to put down words on paper, doodling in the literary form. I get that. So then when did the desire come for you to do more than just doodle on the page

[00:04:52] for you to actually like put down a story, the one that became Lynch perhaps? I was still doodling for years and I finished my PhD. And I will say, like I always tell people like going to graduate school

[00:05:05] if you want to be a writer is a good thing and not necessarily doing an MFA but doing like a literature degree because by then I had read so deeply and I was having a better sense of where I wanted to insert myself in the conversation.

[00:05:20] I also knew that like I really loved archival research. I loved being in the library. That was my happy place. So I would say like after I graduated my PhD, I began to begin Winch

[00:05:35] and it was natural for me because my dissertation had been set in the 19th century. I read extensively like 19th century history, 19th century slave narratives. I knew a lot about like slave narratives by women and how few there were and how valuable they were in the archive.

[00:05:53] And I knew some of the concerns of women at that time. So my PhD were really informed that first book. That was when I started to find who I was as a writer. I still didn't quite claim it because I used to think like,

[00:06:09] oh, I'm not going to write all historical one day. I'll write contemporary and I don't want to be put in a box. And sometimes I'll write like paranormal romance and stuff like that. But but I couldn't deny that I love being in and not.

[00:06:22] I'm not talking about the library. I'm talking about the archive. Like I love being in there in the white gloves with the box in front of me. Oh, I've done that once and it was daunting not being able.

[00:06:34] You got to have the white gloves and be very gentle and can't photocopy everything. You can just take notes, maybe snap a picture, no flash. That's right. So then what is it about those types of settings, those historical settings that just drives you to insert yourself,

[00:06:53] as you said before, in the conversation then? I am just intrigued. I'm intrigued. And I think I have a different fortitude when it comes to history, particularly Black history, right? I think there are some of us who don't really have the stomach for it. I didn't know that.

[00:07:13] I thought like I was like everybody else and that I could read a lot of this stuff. Like right now I'm going through the KKK trials of 1872 in South Carolina, and it's some horrific stuff and I can read it. I can get through it.

[00:07:28] I think there are some people who couldn't. So I learned early on that I had the fortitude to go into the archive to read really tragic, horrific things. And then the other thing I will say is like I was I was very close to my grandmother.

[00:07:46] And I still like I have very dear friends who are in their 80s and we hang out and we go to film festivals together. I mean, like I like being around older people and I see them as like my sister friends rather than like just as like

[00:07:59] mother figures and elders. And so I was the kid that like asked a lot of questions that wanted to know what it was like that was just fascinated by the old stories that people shared when I was growing up down south. And yeah, is that answering the question?

[00:08:16] It does. Where do you think that strength comes from to stomach? That type of horrific and gruesome history that you then translate so beautifully for an audience that doesn't have to grapple with the horror because you did? Yeah, I didn't even know.

[00:08:35] I I didn't even know at first when I would do it in graduate school. I didn't know that I had something different than other people. I thought anybody could go in there and read that stuff.

[00:08:44] And so it wasn't until I started talking really was like after Wynch came out and people would read the book and say, oh, my God, I had to put the book down. And I thought, really, I've never had to put the book down, you know?

[00:08:55] And then I'm like, have you read Tony Morrison? You know, like that's some dark stuff. You know? But then I realized like a lot of people hadn't read Tony Morrison or didn't have even the stomach for it. So I didn't know that I even had that.

[00:09:08] I will say that, like, if I really think about it, it probably is like a gift. You know? And when I say a gift, I mean, like a gift from the ancestors, right, because somebody has to tell their story.

[00:09:18] So then having that experience with people saying they had to put the book down and yet this is like this is your lane with three books in how was your publishing journey knowing that you were taking these

[00:09:32] sometimes hard but sacred stories and putting them out for the mainstream? Well, I feel sometimes that I don't get enough credit for some of the doors that I opened. Talk about it. You know, and I say that with all due respect to the people who open the

[00:09:51] doors for me, right? And so, of course, for me, that would be Tony Morrison. That would be Alice Walker. That would be Tony Kay Bambara. You know, so many I always think of the 80s as the decade of black women's literature that birthed me. Mm hmm.

[00:10:09] And when my book came out, Wench came out in 2010, it was at a time where we were sort of in a different moment. People said that they had slavery fatigue. They didn't want to talk about those old stories anymore. They wanted to move on.

[00:10:22] They wanted to read contemporary work. When I remember specifically like some people, you know, well-known writers refusing to blur my book. It was my first book. Nobody knew who I was, but they just refused to blur it because they thought

[00:10:35] it was, you know, they didn't want to read more about this topic. And then, you know, the book was published and we learned there was an appetite for it. You know, even I got pushed back about the title of the book, you know,

[00:10:50] not only from my mom who said, why are you naming the book Wench? Don't you know that's a curse word, you know? You know, because that was something in, you know, for her generation, they would call it, they might call each other as a term of endearment,

[00:11:04] but it was a bad word. Right. I remember an editor at Essence magazine writing me and saying, you know, you're going to have a problem with this title. Luckily, I had a fantastic editor who believed in what I was doing

[00:11:14] and kept the title and we kept on pushing. And we, I think, reopened the door to some of these topics that people had lost their appetite for and pushed people to recognize that there

[00:11:26] were still stories in that period that we needed to hear, that we hadn't heard yet. And that there was a good reason to revisit that period and not try to forget it. And then, of course, you've had a slew of black historical novels since 2010.

[00:11:44] But I really wish that some of your listeners would look at the trajectory of black historical novels pre-2010 and post-2010. You will see a proliferation of them after 2010. And I really believe Wench, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies, helped to move that needle. It helped.

[00:12:06] I remember two books I read in 2010, one being yours and then the other being Marlon James's The Book of Nightwomen. And their side-by-side, I read them back to back. I think they were out around the same time.

[00:12:19] And another book that came out the year of a couple of other books that came out that year in 2010. And I think this was all part of how the conversation was changing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot came out in 2010.

[00:12:32] And that was opening more of the door to some of these excavated black stories. And also what I consider to be a controversial novel, The Help by Catherine Stockett, that was all 2010. And the market responded to those books. I mean, I think The Immortal Life sold 20 million copies

[00:12:51] and I think The Help sold 20 million copies at that time. Of course, black writers weren't selling 20 million copies. But what the publishing world was realizing was that people wanted to read these stories. And I feel like even as publishing at times takes the lead

[00:13:06] in pushing forward those stories. I think in the black community, specifically, there's always a pushback. Who wants to read that? Who wants to read about slavery, whether it's a novel or even if it's a film? Like do we need another slave movie and things like that?

[00:13:23] And yet those stories, especially in this day and age where we've got bookbans and people using critical race theory as a catch-all for anything and refusing to talk about the harms of racism and white supremacy today, not just then, but today.

[00:13:41] Where do you see your work in helping to kind of reopen those conversations? Well, thank goodness now we've got a lot of writers in the lane, right? Folks like Caitlin Greenage, Dalma Janos Figueroa writing about the black

[00:13:56] women of Puerto Rico, Victoria Christopher Murray writing about Mary McLeod Bethune. So the historical fiction to me right now, particularly that deals with black topics, it's on fire. And so I don't see myself as like opening doors at this point.

[00:14:13] I feel like I'm kind of actually benefiting from the shift that has occurred among readers and in the publishing industry. And every time another writer gets into historical fiction, that benefits all of us. So at this point, I don't see myself as opening doors.

[00:14:29] I see myself more as continuing to add to the conversation. Like there's lots of different conversations going on. I think we also have had a reckoning in the publishing world where when I came along, right, it was really white women writers who were writing about black historical

[00:14:46] subjects, right? And and so now we've had more black writers who are entering this publishing topic and this lane. And so what I keep trying to do is like, fine, what are the stories that really only I can tell? Right?

[00:15:01] What are the stories that are calling to me? What are the strengths that I bring that can help? And I think for me, you know, I think of my strength as being like that archival

[00:15:10] research, you know, I'm very good at like getting in my car or getting on a plane and then getting in a rental car and driving places where a lot of people don't go and talking to people that a lot of people don't talk to and going

[00:15:22] in archives that a lot of people don't go into. Like I'm very willing to do that and figure things out. So what I try to do at this point is like say to myself, OK, what can I do to add to this beautiful conversation that's already going on?

[00:15:35] And that's something that you have done with your latest novel, Take My Hand, talking about getting in the car and going places and driving around. What was this process like? I know it's based on the Rolf sisters in real life.

[00:15:48] Had you known their story before you started working on this and knew you wanted to adapt it? Like where did this all begin? No, I wish I could say I had known this story my whole life and I and I'd be lying if I said I did.

[00:16:02] I knew a little bit about it, but not very much. Right? Like I had seen documentaries and the sisters would appear in for a moment on the screen in this archival footage. And I'm like, I thought, oh, you know, these little girls

[00:16:14] at the middle of this controversy over sterilization. I had read about what happened in North Carolina, probably a little bit more closely where they had had their fight for reparations. So I didn't know that much. I was thinking about it.

[00:16:28] And I said, I wonder whatever happened with those girls in Alabama. And I call my dad, who went to Tuskegee, who had graduated from Tuskegee in the late 1960s. And he knew a lot about, you know, Alabama history. And I asked him, what did he know about it?

[00:16:42] And he didn't know anything about it. And that kind of thought, oh, that's interesting. And then the first thing I looked up was there was a documentary that had been done by a guy from Memphis, who's sort of a legend,

[00:16:53] the Army Bailey, and he was talking about the case. And I thought, oh, wow, let me do some more digging. So this all was in 2016. And I just started digging and digging.

[00:17:02] And the first big thing that stuck out to me was that it was major news at the time. You know, it was a big deal. So I knew pretty early on that this was sort of like a Henrietta Lack story, right?

[00:17:18] Like this was a story that had been swept under the rug of history that was hugely important and continues to be. I mean, we still are using the inform for sterilization consent form, which we hadn't learned about in school. I had gone to college.

[00:17:35] I majored in Afro-American studies in college. I had gotten a master's. I had gotten a PhD in African American literature and at no point in my education had anyone mentioned this case. And I needed I needed to correct that. Oh, all right. So let's talk about the book.

[00:17:54] Like, we're here. Oh, I'm not going to even hold. Do you happen to read something from it before we jump into the story? Well, you did mention that I was going to have to read, didn't you? And take my hand.

[00:18:07] Dolan Perkins Valdez fictionalizes the story of the real life wealth sisters through her characters, India and Erica and their nurse civil who blew the whistle on government health workers who mistreated took advantage of and abused their power over young poor black women

[00:18:25] and girls forever taking away their right to choose. Here's Dolan. So this is a scene where civil takes India, who is nonverbal to meet a nun for a school that she wants to enroll her in.

[00:18:46] And in real life, when I talked to the social worker who had the family about the nuns at this hospital, she said all of the nuns were white. And I was intrigued at the idea of making my nun black.

[00:19:01] And so I did that and I'll just read a little bit. When we arrived, the nun met us in the front lobby and introduced herself as sister LaTosha. I could not believe my eyes. The sister was a sister.

[00:19:15] Her hair was hidden beneath her habit, but her clothes were unfussy. Elastic waisted jeans and a simple pink top, clean skin covered in a veneer of sweat. Don't look so happy to see me, Miss Townsend. I'm sorry, I just thought you aren't the first.

[00:19:32] Black nuns do exist. Come on, I'll show you around. The school was located in the basement of St. Jude Hospital, four classrooms and offices for the staff. There was no gym, though they did have an outdoor play yard.

[00:19:45] She explained there was no cafeteria, the children ate in their classrooms. There are 55 students here with various needs, sister LaTosha told me as we stepped inside one of the classrooms. The students hadn't arrived yet. I noticed there were no individual desks, only tables.

[00:20:02] A round rug featured an image of a rainbow, a wall with low bookshelves contained baskets of toys, a reading area with cardboard books. We don't separate our students in the same way as standard schools. We separate them according to a range of factors, temperament, ability, developmental goals.

[00:20:20] Our aim, she said, is to train them well enough to be functional adults. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means different things for different children. Some need help with fine motor skills. Others need speech therapy.

[00:20:34] It might even be something straightforward like learning how to share a toy or brush their teeth or hold a fork. That's really something I was liking her already. She appeared older than I was, but younger than my mother. Her face was placid and she smiled with her eyes.

[00:20:51] Sister LaTosha turned to India and said in a soft tone, we're excited to hear India. She pointed to the chairs around the table. Please have a seat. She picked up a wooden puzzle, contained three round pegs in different colors.

[00:21:07] She asked India to place the pegs in the correctly colored holes. India placed the pegs in the holes, but the colors were all wrong. Sister LaTosha praised her for inserting the pegs without any trouble. India clapped her hands.

[00:21:22] Then Sister LaTosha explained that each peg needed to match the space on the board. She did it for India, matching red with red, blue with blue and yellow with yellow. India watched intently the second time she still mismatched the pegs. Let's try again, said the sister.

[00:21:41] They must have gone through the exercise six or seven times. Finally, India got it. Excellent, India. I was unable to contain myself. Sister LaTosha put the puzzle away. She took India's hand and walked her over to an area where large phone building blocks lay scattered on the floor.

[00:21:59] The sisters stacked them. See, you build whatever you want with these blocks. India balanced the blocks as high as she could and knocked them over. She lined them up and tried to walk on them, losing her balance.

[00:22:12] It crossed my mind that she had never had good toys like these to play with. Thank you. So this novel has two timelines. And while I guess the A story is what happens with the sisters, the B story is their social worker, civil,

[00:22:34] and all that she's going through and reflecting on. What was it about that character and censoring her story that intrigued you instead of just censoring it on what happened with the sisters? Well, the nurses who worked at the clinic,

[00:22:51] that was the one group of people I was never able to find when I went down to Montgomery. And I was just intrigued by like what it was like to work at that clinic. How did you live yourself? Knowing that this happened under your watch?

[00:23:08] You know how I said earlier, like what I focused on now is like figuring out what I have to say in the conversation rather than I mean, I'm not opening any doors anymore. The doors are open. But I knew that for this story, I said to myself,

[00:23:23] the lawyer, the real life lawyer, Joe Levin, he's still alive. He can tell his story. The Ralph sisters are still alive. They can tell their story. But the nurses I couldn't find and I wanted to tell the story

[00:23:35] from the nurses perspective also like my mother was a nurse. My mother's sister was a nurse for over 40 years. You know, I come from a family of Black women nurses. And I wanted to center it around the moral quandary that a nurse would have found herself in.

[00:23:54] Can you talk more about that? Because I know the characters wrestle with it and you render it really beautifully on the page, how some come to the decisions that they do to support or turn a blind eye to look after themselves and just do the job despite whatever

[00:24:12] misgivings they may have or to just remain completely ignorant about it completely. What was that process like and digging into all of those different outcomes of how people might react to wrongdoing in their face?

[00:24:28] You know, what I was really trying to suggest is that it is a fine line between helping and harming. And when the book opens, civil really believes in the mission of the clinic. She really believes she's helping. She's looking at statistics that are real.

[00:24:49] I mean, I looked at the real statistics for Montgomery in 1973 for teenage pregnancy and they were not good among Black girls. And she thinks like I'm going to give these girls more reproductive control over their lives, these families, these women. We're going to give them reproductive health care.

[00:25:06] We're going to give them, you know, exams. We're going to tell them what their options are. And some of what they're doing is good. But when you cross the line into thinking like who's fit to be a mother

[00:25:19] and who's not and you are standing on the shoulders of the US government. You know, these were federal clinics, government clinics. These were government nurses, you know, you've really crossed the line. And I try to show that aspect of it and also remind people that like

[00:25:37] how powerful the government was for poor people. I mean, they control your food stamps if you were in subsidized housing. You know, the agency that ran the clinic was the same agency that ran other kinds of government help in the community.

[00:25:52] And so part of what I was trying to reveal was like the imbalance of power that the nurses would have had and also just how they had to be mindful of that and how a young woman might not have been.

[00:26:06] My hope was that like in reading the book, readers would also understand that for their own lives and choices. You open the doors, I'm going to walk through it. You mentioned you started this book in 2016. It's now 2023. By the time this interview comes out, it'll be 2024.

[00:26:30] We are living in a world post-route where reproductive choices are now decided on a state by state basis by people who are supposed to be elected to represent the will of the people but have often been gerrymandered to maintaining their power and control.

[00:26:50] And so and we have this reemergence of reproductive justice in just what that looks like. And so I feel like your book looks at all of that because it's not just the forced sterilization without consent. Civil is also still dealing with her demons from the past

[00:27:10] that she doesn't want to talk about and she doesn't really want to discuss. And yet we're at this moment in history, well, in the present where it seems like history is repeating itself, even with what's happening on the border with migrant women who are coming into the country

[00:27:28] to get health care and then are being sterilized so that they don't have any children who would become American citizens. Like that's the power and the weight of the US government. Where in all of this do you see take my hand either galvanizing

[00:27:43] or reminding people that we've been here before? In terms of women's bodily autonomy, we are living at one of the most important crossroads of history. And it's vital that we are having conversations among ourselves. There's nothing more alarming to me than turning on the television

[00:28:08] and seeing a panel of all men, whether it be journalists or politicians or lawyers or whoever discussing this issue without a single woman in sight. And I've seen that several times. We all have. Yeah, it's unbelievable, unbelievable. And speaking with conviction and authority, you know, and I'm like,

[00:28:28] really, we can't even have a seat at the table of the conversation. So it is important for us to be having conversations, but it's also important that our conversations be expansive, right? That they not only be about the right to terminate a pregnancy,

[00:28:42] but they also be about the right to have a baby if you want one. Having the right to reproductive health care, the right to raise our children in a safe and healthy environment. This is what the reproductive justice movement is about,

[00:28:56] which can be traced to black feminism and a conference in Illinois in the 1990s. I often say like I started writing this book three Supreme Court justices ago. I didn't anticipate at all having this conversation that we're having right now. But here we are.

[00:29:16] And so my hope, you never know, but my hope is that this has a kitchen table effect, right? Because if we can't be on the news, I mean, don't underestimate the power of kitchen table conversations among women.

[00:29:31] So if we can't be on the news and if we can't occupy a significant number of seats in the Congress or in the White House or on the judiciary, then what we've got to do is mobilize the power of our kitchen table conversations.

[00:29:49] And I think that's where this book can play a role. We've all got some sort of introspection to do, some conversations that we need to have with our loved ones. We need to be listening to each other.

[00:30:02] And we also just need to be learning because the right to terminate a pregnancy is connected to these other issues. And so like, OK, maybe you don't think abortion rights should be a federal issue. But do you think bodily autonomy is a federal issue?

[00:30:19] Right? Like, you know, do you think that if a woman wants to have a child, she should be able to? Do you think that IVF should be available to women? Do you think that women have a right to birth control?

[00:30:31] You know, like all of these questions, do you think that like pregnant, laboring women deserve to have all options on the table when they enter the hospital? If their health is at risk or their life? Like, you know, these are all the conversations we need to be having.

[00:30:45] And I think knowing the history of what the US government has done, whether it be to the real sisters, whether it be to Henrietta Lacks, whether it be to, you know, women, tens of thousands of women in across history. It's going to really help inform those conversations.

[00:31:04] I think the one question that's always on my mind is because I've done a lot of work and writing on the Black maternal health crisis. Do you think that? Women birthing people, black women, especially have the right to live after, you know, giving birth?

[00:31:21] And then that goes to be being treated with dignity and respect in a health care system that was built on slavery. And so I feel like a lot of the issues at the center of take my hand outside

[00:31:37] of, you know, the big the case and the health care and the clinic and all of that work. It's about looking at black people, poor people, indigenous migrants, people who are not white with dignity and respect as deserving of that

[00:31:53] from government services, but also from other people because there's a you also dig into class with how civil was raised and it's from a family of doctors. And then she's going out and meeting these girls and this family

[00:32:05] and she's looking down her nose until she gets to know them. And I think it's even the grandmother who says like nobody would want to take pride in this shack that we lived in or act like we know how

[00:32:17] to do better than what we are, because look at how we're being treated. Look at look at our conditions. So looking at that from like a race class narrative perspective, what is it that you want readers to take away from the humanity

[00:32:31] of the characters that you created? Oh, wow. You know, I just hope they see themselves here. I hope they see themselves as civil. I hope they see themselves as India and Erica. The real life wealth sisters,

[00:32:50] Minni Lee and Mary Alice, I've gotten to know them and they are wonderful women. You know, they're funny. They are really positive. Like we have really good conversations. Many went on to to marry and have another boyfriend and you know,

[00:33:11] live and, you know, they have made they have a beautiful family. They have an older brother, Walter, who sees about them and I've gotten to know him and his wife, Ethel. I want people to know that like these are real people.

[00:33:25] You know, and I hope that you just see yourselves in them. This isn't some statistic. This isn't some, you know, story in your history book. It is a story in your history book, but it's someone who's still alive.

[00:33:38] Their family is still alive and they survived and they live through it. If they can live through this and and build their lives, surely we can take a moment to listen to the story. Surely we can take a moment to examine our own biases and complicity.

[00:34:00] Surely we can take a moment to ask ourselves what we are going to do to make this better for vulnerable members of our population, right? For those of us with resources or for those of us with limited resources, we all have a role that we can play.

[00:34:15] And so that's my hope is just like, no, that like these these are real people, you know, and they're lovely people and they were innocent people. No, the world's never did nothing to nobody. You know, nicest family you ever met.

[00:34:33] And they asked for this, you know, they were just trying to live their lives. So I just hope people know that. And in this moment of great polarization, and I know by the time this airs, it'll probably be even more polarized.

[00:34:50] Great polarization that we can find our common humanity and figure out how to do better. Amen. Amen. So I'm going to switch to a speed around in the game before I let you go for the afternoon. What is your favorite book?

[00:35:09] Oh, well, I will say, of course, the book that had the most influence on me was Beloved by Toni Morrison. I mean, that's always like an easy answer for me. Clearly I am a morisonian. OK, maybe redundant. But who was your favorite author?

[00:35:22] Even though Tony had the most influence on me stylistically and topically, Gail Jones, it would be one who I think is one of the most underrated writers of American history and also just there's nobody that makes me that makes my skin tangle the way her work does.

[00:35:41] Because of the lyricism in your work, who is your favorite poet? For the last couple of years, I've really been into Tracy K. Smith. I like trying to figure out her mind. She's got a really interesting mind. I mean, the poetry is hard and I like that.

[00:35:55] Oh, name three things on your bucket list. Well, I think in this sort of post-COVID moment, I'd like to travel again and I'd really like to go to Ghana. That's a country on my bucket list, and that's my hope is to make that happen.

[00:36:14] Another thing on my bucket list is to learn how to play the banjo. That's something that I am working on. That was my pandemic hobby. And while I'm on it, yeah, so I'm going to really work on getting my banjo skills going. And then let's see.

[00:36:31] A third thing is to recommit myself to my yoga practice. I think one of the things I learned in the pandemic and also like reading about like health inequities with this book is that racism and being a black woman

[00:36:47] in America takes more of a toll on my body than I have admitted to myself. And I really have been trying to put my health front and center. And one thing that really helps me is yoga.

[00:37:01] Just get on my mat every morning and do some sun salutations to start my day. That's something that I want to recommit to. I love that for you. What brings you joy? My kids bring me joy.

[00:37:14] I have like two amazing daughters and I know I'm biased, but even if I weren't bias, they're neat kids. One of them is, you know, I think going to be a graphic novelist. Like I said earlier, she's a doodler and an illustrator.

[00:37:29] And the other one wants to go into the health care field to help disadvantaged population. She wants to work at a public clinic. And so I just I'm really fortunate to be their mom. What brings you peace?

[00:37:44] What brings me peace is a day with nothing on the agenda but reading a book. And if you were a color, what color would you be? My color has changed. I will say this, like as I get older, I think I'm a little mellower.

[00:38:03] I would like to believe. And so these days I'm a pink because I just want peace. I really have learned how to walk away from things and how to protect my piece a lot better. OK, so our game is called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:38:21] And classic is however you define it. Name one book you wished you would have written. Oh, one book I wish I had written. I will tell you last last year's hit The Personal Librarian that came out. Someone told you, Christopher Murray, Marie Berenbry, then it somebody

[00:38:44] had sent me. I have a girlfriend that, you know, like when you become historical novelist, people start sending you historical stories. This is your next novel this year. That's happened so much. And one of my friends who does that all the time sent me that story.

[00:38:55] And I said, now you might have something with that, but I was in the middle of take my hand and that ended up being The Personal Librarian. So the good news is it was in the hands of two amazing writers and they did a fantastic job with it.

[00:39:09] The bad news is I didn't write it. Like, yeah, so that makes me happy. Yeah, Miss Victoria was on our show, was on the show last season. Yes, she's amazing. And I love her and I'm glad it was in her hands.

[00:39:26] All right. Name one book where you want to change the ending. And how would you do it? I would say one of my books, I'd like to go back and change the ending. Can I say? Well, like I would like to go back and change the ending.

[00:39:40] But like with my first book, which a lot of my real readers really wanted to see my main character, Lizzie Free. She wasn't free at the end. She went back and I pushed back on that a lot because I said, well, you know,

[00:39:58] in real life, she wouldn't have done that and this would have happened. And I really was trying to stay true to the story. But maybe if I had it over to do over again, I might free her. OK. And final question for the game.

[00:40:12] Name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught? And why? I think that we need to have a reckoning about Hemingway. And, you know, I know that we have been having a reckoning with Faulkner. But I think Faulkner was a far better writer than Hemingway.

[00:40:37] And, you know, I see a lot of aesthetic reasons for us to stay with Faulkner, who was problematic as well. But Hemingway was so problematic. And I'm not sure that the aesthetic qualities of his work warrant the kind of lionization that we have given him.

[00:40:59] And, you know, we have some tough choices to make, right? But at some point, we all decided, I would hope, that we would no longer listen to R. Kelly. Like at some point, we we just collectively made that decision that we didn't want to do that anymore.

[00:41:13] And I feel like we need to just really think carefully about Hemingway, not just in terms of the way that he lived his life, but also like, let's just look at the work again. I think let's look at the work again. It's some work doesn't hold up.

[00:41:29] And I don't know that his is held up in the way that one might think considering the hold he's had on the American imagination. All right. And so my final question for you today. When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors,

[00:41:44] what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you've left behind? Well, I already bought my I bought a bench. My sister passed away in twenty twenty one. And she was my only sister and we were very close.

[00:42:02] And in the middle of my grief, I bought a bench and had it placed next to her grave. And it is a bench that is where I'll be put into the legs of the bench. I'll be cremated.

[00:42:16] And I have asked on the bench that the very last line of wench be inscribed on the bench. And it's something like and I'm paraphrasing it. She was more than eyes, legs, lips and thighs. She was a heart. She was a mind. Hmm.

[00:42:32] And my hope is that I am remembered for my mind, for my ideas, for what I brought to the conversation. I'm hopeful that I have inspired. So I say like, I know people don't always give me credit,

[00:42:49] but I hope that I have inspired some writers to enter this space. And I hope that I have inspired some readers to read these books by me and my peers. And I and I hope like when I look back on the peer,

[00:43:04] like I look at the 80s Black women's literary renaissance and the women who were a part of that. And then when I look at the chapter of Tara McMillan, who was so instrumental in Black girl stories, Black women stories and who to me is a walking legend.

[00:43:20] And I look at the period of the 90s. When I look at what T.R.A. Jones did opening up the urban south for Black writers and published her first book in the early 2000s. I think of those moments that were really pivotal in the narrative.

[00:43:36] And I hope that like when I came in in 2010 that I helped to open that space. So I'm hopeful that people will just see that I had something to say. I added to the discussion. I was one of many of a line of Black women storytellers

[00:43:55] and that I did my part. Big thank you to Dolan Perkins Valdez for being here today on Black and Published. Make sure you check out Dolan's latest novel, Take My Hand Out Now from Berkeley. And if you're not following Dolan, check her out on the socials.

[00:44:13] She's at Dolan Perkins Valdez on Instagram and Twitter, also known as X. 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.

[00:44:35] There I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Dolan about her next book focusing on the South Carolina KKK trials of the late 19th century. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:44:49] I'll highlight y'all next week when our guests will be Tira Shulton Harris, author of the novel One Summer in Savannah. I said, I'm never writing another book again. Nope. I'm just going to continue to work at the library and I'm going to continue

[00:45:03] to freelance and that's all I'm going to do. And I'm never going to do this again because it was so it was it was very hard, very disheartening like Oprah did not call me and tell me like my book was

[00:45:12] going to be a book club pick, you know, like what I didn't overcall. As a new writer, you start thinking all those great and wonderful things. It didn't happen. Didn't work out. And I didn't know how to process it.

[00:45:21] So I did not took years off as you can see. I took years off. That's next week on Black and Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.