The Future is Now with Maura Cheeks

[00:00:00] It's a give and take between what you don't want to give up in your work and then also

[00:00:06] how you're going to fit within this framework of an industry that exists,

[00:00:09] that you want to be a part of because you want the final product of your book on the shelf.

[00:00:14] What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published, bringing you the

[00:00:20] journeys of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest

[00:00:26] is Maura Cheeks, author of the novel Acts of Forgiveness. The book is an outgrowth of her 2019

[00:00:34] non-fiction article for The Atlantic, American Wealth Is Broken, which explores the necessity

[00:00:39] of reparations for Black families. A lot of the conversation about reparations is always

[00:00:44] statistics and politics and here's why it can't work and the humanity behind it gets lost

[00:00:51] and so I tried to sort of center a family to be like no it's actually just about people

[00:00:58] and about what Black people have been through and what we feel were owed as human beings.

[00:01:05] Be it money or formal apology, Maura's novel explores exactly what reparations would look

[00:01:11] like in America today. Why she used fiction as the framework to address the very real

[00:01:17] critics of the long-stalled federal reparations program. Plus why she's not ready to take the

[00:01:23] journey of her character and dig into her own family history and why she believes when it comes

[00:01:30] to writing and publishing a book, authors are both the client and the customer. That and Maura's

[00:01:36] next, When Black and Published, continues. Maura, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:53] I would say I knew I was a writer in fourth grade. I wrote a play for a contest that my teacher

[00:02:00] wanted me to enter for the Young Playwrights Association and I wrote a play called Mr.

[00:02:06] T.P.'s Deal about a man who made a deal to sell his soul to the devil in order to live forever

[00:02:16] and ended up winning the Young Playwrights Festival and I was pretty much hooked from

[00:02:22] that on. Having written this play in the fourth grade and won the contest, did you always then

[00:02:29] pursue writing after that? That was the only thing that you wanted to do? I didn't pursue it

[00:02:33] professionally because I just I didn't think it was a realistic career path when I was younger.

[00:02:39] So I would say I started pursuing writing professionally seriously in 2018 but I was

[00:02:46] always writing on the side but I wasn't really pursuing it as a career path until 2018.

[00:02:52] What were you doing when you were writing on the side? I worked in marketing. I ran social

[00:02:58] media for the New York Knicks and for the Olympic Committee. Yeah, I was always sort of

[00:03:02] writing as Jason but in a more corporate background. So then what made you decide to

[00:03:10] take yourself seriously and really pursue it? So I was getting my MBA because I thought that

[00:03:16] that's what I should do, that it was like the next best career move and I had a moment while I was

[00:03:22] getting the MBA where I just realized it was not for me. Like I didn't want to stay in the corporate

[00:03:28] career path. Yeah then I started pitching essays more seriously to different outlets

[00:03:35] and started getting published that way and left my job and started freelancing

[00:03:41] and then started writing more seriously and I applied for and won a fellowship with the Atlantic

[00:03:48] which is the article that inspired this book. Can you talk more about that article because I'm

[00:03:54] assuming your background is in journalism having worked in marketing which is all in that communications

[00:04:00] sphere so the move to freelancing isn't too surprising but what can you talk more about

[00:04:05] against the fellowship and what inspired you to write the article on reparations that eventually

[00:04:11] led to what we now have is acts of forgiveness? Yeah I was getting my MBA and sort of like

[00:04:19] consistently sort of examining the differences between like being in these sort of predominantly

[00:04:26] white spaces and understanding how you know white people had an association with money and wealth

[00:04:33] and then sort of like comparing that to my own family's relationship with money and

[00:04:40] that was sort of like the basis for the Atlantic article that I pitched in my application to the

[00:04:47] fellowship in terms of wanting to write about and research the racial wealth gap and at the time

[00:04:55] it was sort of in the context of a presidential election that was happening and the Atlantic

[00:05:02] piece didn't start out specifically being about reparations but I think the more I researched

[00:05:08] about just the sort of systemic reasons why black people and black families have less wealth

[00:05:15] and interviewing people about the different remedies that they've proposed to sort of close

[00:05:20] this wealth gap and reparations has never actually been seriously considered on a federal level

[00:05:26] and I was I guess frustrated with that after finishing the article and so

[00:05:34] then turn to fiction as a way to examine it a little bit more.

[00:05:39] All right so then in that turn to fiction and I don't want to jump too far into the book but

[00:05:47] in turning to fiction it's intentionally unclear that the world that this novel is set in

[00:05:54] is not necessarily near future or the past or exactly the present but we know there's a woman

[00:06:01] president who is signing or going to sign this reparations bill that will give black families

[00:06:09] who can prove that they are descendants of enslaved people a certain amount of money right.

[00:06:15] Why was that particular frame of reparations the one that you decided to explore instead

[00:06:22] of others. I think I was trying to imagine what would have to be true for a federal law to pass

[00:06:30] and I think some of the criticism you hear in pushback we get when you're advocating for

[00:06:36] federal reparations is well how would people prove that they are eligible or how would that be

[00:06:44] implemented on such a grand scale and so I guess my drive for the book part of it was to

[00:06:51] sort of like pick apart that criticism to say it's difficult but it could be done part of what would

[00:06:57] make it possible to have a federal operations program is for the government to make it easier

[00:07:02] for people to prove their eligibility and hopefully what the book shares is that it's not

[00:07:10] just about slavery it's sort of taking into account the harms from slavery but also through

[00:07:17] Jim Crow through redlining and then through the present day even though it doesn't explicitly say

[00:07:24] yes this program should account for all of those but yeah I think I think I wanted to just sort

[00:07:31] of pick apart one of the greater criticisms that people put forth when they say well a federal

[00:07:37] program is impossible like how would people prove it and so the book is sort of to say

[00:07:42] well here's how they would prove it yeah okay so I'm gonna stop that line of questioning before

[00:07:49] I go all the way into the work because I feel it going there I'm like no let's at least talk about

[00:07:56] like the journey so those are the ideas that were rumbling around in your mind after you finished

[00:08:02] the Atlantic peace in 2019 and we're still kind of frustrated even with I guess your own lack

[00:08:07] of answers yes yeah okay and so then you turn to fiction to like explore them more deeply did you

[00:08:16] already have the connections to a publisher to like write the book or were you writing the novel

[00:08:22] freelancing and still trying to go through that publishing process of agent query submission

[00:08:27] all the things so I had an agent but not an editor um yeah so I had an agent at the time

[00:08:33] that I started writing it and I started writing it in 2019 and obviously the world was very different

[00:08:39] then right then and so um you know I remember I ended up switching agents actually in the course

[00:08:46] of writing the book and selling it so when I started writing it I had one agent but that's

[00:08:51] not the agent who actually sold my book um yeah can I ask why you switched um it just wasn't

[00:08:58] a right fit the agent I had first I had gotten through my non-fiction work um and I think you know

[00:09:06] there's some agents who want something that is turnkey and like they get it and then they sell it

[00:09:13] and I wanted more of a collaboration with my agent to say like here's where I am with the

[00:09:18] process here's what I have can you help me get it a little bit closer to what I envisioned

[00:09:23] the final product being so that was the main reason I switched and then my current agent focuses

[00:09:28] mainly on fiction so it was more of a genre thing but all that to say I remember talking to my first

[00:09:36] agent at the time in 2019 and sharing the idea for the book and it was like oh wow that's

[00:09:42] different you know it was like very it was still very like speculative because I think you know

[00:09:48] the the murders of George Floyd, Amal and Aubrey all of that hadn't happened when I first started

[00:09:54] writing the book and so the concept of reparations was still very abstract I think to to certain

[00:10:02] people and so when I was writing the book Dorne 2020 um it was easier to have a conversation

[00:10:11] about reparation because it was front and center and people were paying attention to

[00:10:18] how black people were being treated in a different way than they were in 2019

[00:10:25] and so yeah I think technically my book was sold as speculative fiction because it has to be sold

[00:10:31] in some genre like literary fiction is a genre that a book can be sold in so it had to fall

[00:10:37] somewhere and so it still fell in speculative fiction technically but I think if you if you

[00:10:44] know speculative fiction it's not really Octavia Butler is is speculative fiction mine really isn't

[00:10:51] only it is in the sense that I don't specifically name a year and a federal program hasn't happened

[00:10:57] so in that sense it's not you know it's speculative in the sense that the federal policy

[00:11:05] is still very much fiction yeah I think they're still in the the research and discovery phase

[00:11:13] for the federal policy um

[00:11:24] 250-some odd years it's the end of slavery we're still in research and discovery for reparations

[00:11:29] I just want to let that sink in right it's kind of a moment

[00:11:33] um well I think you know the book it's fictionalized as something that is real which is HR 40

[00:11:39] which is the bill that how's you have to pass which would be the first step in getting a federal

[00:11:45] program but it sort of yeah takes it imagines that that has already passed that first step yeah

[00:11:54] uh so you talk about the climate being different from when you started writing in 2019

[00:11:59] to when you obviously sold sometime 2020 or after what was the reception by editors and I am

[00:12:06] curious about why they stuck with speculative fiction because it's really given historical to me

[00:12:11] I was like it's historical it's literary I mean yes there are future elements but it's

[00:12:18] not yeah the future like it could be now um let me think of how to politely say

[00:12:27] don't be polite no I think there were a couple of reasons I think two editors it's harder to

[00:12:35] maybe sell this book as historical fiction like to market it um so I had three editors who were

[00:12:40] interested who bit on the book which was great and I was excited and I think part of the reason

[00:12:46] for that was like the the current moment of people um I think there was a desire for this

[00:12:53] book to fit in that current moment even though that's not how I had originally written right

[00:12:57] like I had started writing before all of this happened and so I think from a marketing

[00:13:02] standpoint it's easier to say like here's a book that like speaks to the moment that we were in in 2020

[00:13:09] which was like being more open to the conversation of reparation sometimes the nuance in

[00:13:17] publishing or like trusting the reader is a little bit difficult to navigate because for me

[00:13:25] you know I wrote this book primarily for two audiences like black people who are like

[00:13:31] frustrated with the inability to trace their lineage past a certain point but then it's also for

[00:13:39] people who question the validity of reparation and so um I think yeah I don't know I think it's

[00:13:50] easier from a marketing or publishing standpoint to say here's a book about reparations that only

[00:13:56] looks like to the future to what a federal program could be instead of here's why we haven't had one

[00:14:04] yet if that makes sense it makes sense but I also wonder since you worked in marketing do you justify

[00:14:11] that to yourself because you used to work in marketing I see where they're coming from and I

[00:14:16] think as an author you're in a weird position because you are both the client and the customer

[00:14:25] in some respects um and so I think especially as debut authors you're struggling with the fact that

[00:14:32] like you really want your book out there and the industry is really hard to navigate and if you

[00:14:40] aren't from a publishing background which I wasn't and you know you don't have an MFA

[00:14:44] you're sort of playing catch up constantly trying to figure out how the industry is actually working

[00:14:51] can you say more about what it's like to be both the client and the customer I've never heard

[00:14:55] an author put it that way you're getting paid for something that you produced um

[00:15:03] but you're also able to put this thing out there in the world because of your publisher

[00:15:10] and so you have control over your work but they also have control over certain aspects of

[00:15:15] like what the final product looks like and so I think it's a give and take between what you don't

[00:15:21] want to give up in your work and then also how you're going to fit within this framework of an

[00:15:26] industry that exists that you want to be a part of because you want the final product of your

[00:15:31] book on the shelf if that makes sense yeah that that does make sense and I I'm jumping um

[00:15:39] sorry but I like you were talking about you know having to pitch the book expect because it had to

[00:15:45] fit somewhere and it was addressing the moment of when it was sold but because publishing is so slow

[00:15:54] and to think of the moment that we're in now where it seems all the things that happen in 2020

[00:16:00] in regards to race and the uprisings and the calls for reparations or at least dei programs you know

[00:16:09] all of that is like all a distant memory and yet your book published in february as this memory

[00:16:16] has been fading what do you make of that landscape now that the book is out and is on the shelves

[00:16:24] and you are still both client and customer yeah I mean I'm proud of the book and I'm proud of what

[00:16:31] it says and the message that I wanted to convey and for me that is going to be it's something

[00:16:39] that I wanted to write regardless of the current moment because I started writing it before the

[00:16:45] events of 2020 happened so for me I'm just hopeful that it finds readers who resonate with what

[00:16:53] I'm trying to say and I think um from a from a personal standpoint of course I'm frustrated with

[00:17:02] the sort of like spikes in conversation and people care and then it sort of goes away and I think

[00:17:09] all I can hope is that the book will continue to exist and maybe there will be a time when the

[00:17:15] conversation of reparations is back in the public sphere and then the people say oh wow there's

[00:17:21] actually this novel that is speaking to that but for me I'm sort of of the mind that the book exists

[00:17:28] and will hopefully find readers who resonate with this message regardless of what is happening

[00:17:33] publicly and it's tough especially with the current election about to happen let's jump

[00:17:39] into the book and you can read something from it and then we can dig deeper into

[00:17:45] the politics of both your novel and the current climate that it was released in

[00:17:48] Acts of Forgiveness by Mora Cheeks is a novel that examines what would happen in America if a

[00:17:55] federal reparations program passed congress and was signed into law. Anchored on the Philadelphia

[00:18:01] based rebel family who has roots in Mississippi, the book illustrates how money, one form of repair,

[00:18:08] may still not be enough to heal the harms done to black people or make them whole

[00:18:13] and the present. Here's Mora. Okay I'm gonna read a little bit from chapter one.

[00:18:20] The diner was full of people who wanted to be around others the day the Forgiveness Act passed

[00:18:24] the House. The proximity to precedent felt good. There was no danger, no history yet per se,

[00:18:31] no need to stop routine completely so it was enough to sit in the old diner at the blue

[00:18:36] speckled tables with scrambled eggs and large steaming mugs of coffee enough to ask the person

[00:18:41] next to you to pass the ketchup and also whether they thought this would go anywhere. Not in my day

[00:18:46] was often the answer. Enough monotony rubbed off of a dreary fall day for neighbors to linger

[00:18:50] and comment that forgiveness would never pass the Senate as the anchor announced the House's

[00:18:55] intention to vote on it in the evening. The country, the city, the diner connected by

[00:19:01] the same wavering thread of expectation. As Willie hurried in she took up her usual

[00:19:06] stool beneath the television and tried to look optimistic but she had imagined when

[00:19:10] a moment like this one came she would be sharing the news not watching it. Writing about

[00:19:15] representatives wrangling last-minute votes, would families needed to do to prepare for its passage?

[00:19:20] Not sitting as she was now 34 years old in the same town where she was raised.

[00:19:25] Most days she successfully calmed the disquiet but today she couldn't help it and picked

[00:19:29] silently at her life choices like they were scabs. Race president at her father's construction

[00:19:34] company. Mother to a precocious daughter from a one-night stand. Loving parents whom she lives with.

[00:19:42] The second half of those ellipses ruined the mirage. For a long time she was buoyed by the belief

[00:19:47] that change was around the corner and now that it was here she realized she should have been

[00:19:50] more specific in her faith. The forgiveness act for many reasons threw this into sharp belief.

[00:19:57] A waitress arched her back against the counter and pointed the remote at the television

[00:20:00] inching the president's voice up several decibels. Everyone in the diner talked over one another

[00:20:05] and it was possible to hear both the din of the restaurant as one throbbing sound

[00:20:09] and the individual pieces of conversation. The men next to Willie threw through their

[00:20:14] voices at the screen as though President Johnson stood ready to take their orders from behind

[00:20:18] the bar. Fifty bucks she's on here tomorrow saying the house delayed the vote. It doesn't

[00:20:22] work like that. How do you know how it works? At least she's not using war as an excuse.

[00:20:28] Amanda Willie's right whose bald head glistened under the harsh fluorescent lights

[00:20:31] jabbed his knife at the screen. She's all right I let her forgive me.

[00:20:35] What are you even talking about? I'm talking about her priorities and how they're on straight.

[00:20:40] They keep killing us and while everyone else wants to pause and look abroad she's trying

[00:20:43] to start fixing what's broken. Thank you. So you read from chapter one but I think the

[00:20:51] line that sets the tone for me is in the prologue and it's the last line of the prologue

[00:20:56] where it says you can beg for what you want but once you get it you could still be left empty-handed

[00:21:04] and I wrote in the margin well damn.

[00:21:11] That's a hell of a statement. You can get the things that you absolutely want and

[00:21:15] in context of the novel reparations is something that for lack of a better word

[00:21:20] black people have been begging for and then there's always a conversation about

[00:21:26] even if you get it what would you do with it the conversation that devolves to oh it would be

[00:21:31] squandered or they buy like Jordans and cars and houses and the big shappals. Right all the

[00:21:37] materialistic things without really recognizing that those material signs are a sign of comfort

[00:21:43] that you do have enough money to splurge but that's a whole other kind of conversation.

[00:21:49] Beyond just the possibility of reparations being paid that the novel starts off within that section

[00:21:57] that you read and then actually happening throughout the course of the book the heart of the novel to

[00:22:03] me is the story about the family and the main character will amena who goes by willy her

[00:22:09] life path is just like thrown off course because of her family or she allows it. It was it was

[00:22:15] a lot and I was like I don't know how I feel about all of this and so like for me the politics was in

[00:22:23] the background because I was like what is wrong with these peeps. So I felt there were so many

[00:22:34] things happening why was that the dynamic that you chose to center this book that is largely

[00:22:42] about what could happen if reparations were paid around this one trying to be middle class

[00:22:51] family that's kind of problematic. Yeah I mean I guess I wanted to imagine like if there was

[00:22:59] a federal bill it's not like everything would just stop and everyone would only be focusing on

[00:23:06] the reparations bill. The family's still messy and they're still trying to live day to day

[00:23:11] and so I wanted to capture the sort of messiness of that while something that black people have

[00:23:20] advocated for so long is happening and so there's different viewpoints in the family about whether

[00:23:26] it's even a good thing about whether it's worth the time and energy to even pursue the funds

[00:23:33] and so I wanted to just sort of explore the messiness of like life still happening

[00:23:39] while this large bill is passing and for me I think a lot of the conversation about reparations

[00:23:45] is always statistics and politics and here's why it can't work and the humanity behind it gets lost

[00:23:52] and so I tried to sort of center a family to be like no it's actually it's actually just

[00:23:59] about people and about what black people have been through and what we feel were owed

[00:24:06] as human being not like statistics or it's not about politics really at the end of the day

[00:24:13] even though it has to go through the mechanisms to be passed. You succeeded with the messy family

[00:24:21] absolutely. I was like these people and I think it was her mother that like worked my nerves

[00:24:28] the most. I was like are you kidding me? It was too much but in it being about people it's funny

[00:24:39] like I read your novel and then I read an essay collection right after it by Julian Randall

[00:24:44] The Dead Don't Need Reminding which is about his own search for his ancestors in Mississippi

[00:24:50] and so then I started to conflate the stories of like wait no this was part of fiction

[00:24:55] this part is nonfiction but what he says at the beginning of his essay collection

[00:25:01] is he calls Mississippi zero country and he says it's the place of all beginnings and so

[00:25:07] in your novel you have your character Wilhelmina go back with her mom to Mississippi to dig in

[00:25:14] the archives and find the records that she needs and as we talked about a little earlier

[00:25:20] not everybody is going to be able to find those records can you talk about did you take that journey

[00:25:26] yourself to find your own history and like what where you're finding to help you inspire

[00:25:30] that part of the novel. So I went to Mississippi and did Willy's journey like I met with the

[00:25:37] employees at the archives department historic matches foundation and explained my character

[00:25:43] and where she was and what information she had and they sort of like walked me through

[00:25:47] the process I have loosely started to trace my own family but it's really hard because we just don't

[00:25:55] have the records my grandmother I have you know some stories from her but she passed away and so

[00:26:01] it's a daunting task I think I have I definitely want to do it at some point but there's also

[00:26:07] sort of like the emotional hurdle of like being ready to do that journey and I think

[00:26:14] I'm not really there yet if I'm being honest but I think I put some of that into Willy and sort of

[00:26:23] her drive to do it is driven obviously in part by the law but in part because she actually does want

[00:26:29] to know but I've always been frustrated about my family's like lack of history part of that is just

[00:26:36] personal like no one has really done the work to preserve it or trace it and then part of

[00:26:41] it is we just don't have the knowledge or the records so in addition to having the ancestry

[00:26:49] piece the messy family and the policy in the background you also have the protests was it

[00:26:57] difficult or hard for you to imagine and then write out those scenes where you have

[00:27:05] active protesters and then even violent protesters of groups of mobs of mostly white people

[00:27:11] protesting the fact that in this fictional world that you've created black people are going to get

[00:27:16] what they see as a free handout it was difficult to write because I was writing it during 2020 so

[00:27:26] I was just like so emotional with everything that was happening like reading about Maude Auberge

[00:27:31] Breonna Taylor I was just like I remember writing it and just like crying and like trying you know

[00:27:36] just having a lot of emotions while I was writing those scenes and so for me it was like

[00:27:44] a little bit cathartic because I was just kind of like putting some of the anger I think into it

[00:27:51] but then yeah I don't know I mean it's I feel like writing about reparations is always so

[00:28:00] draining because it just seems so obvious to me that it's something that should be passed

[00:28:06] and so it's a little bit of getting to a point where like you stop trying to convince people

[00:28:11] I think for me the book stopped being about like this is why reparations is valid and more just

[00:28:17] about like let me write about these characters and let me like go into this world and imagine

[00:28:22] what would be happening in America if something like this passed and again that goes back to

[00:28:28] the messy family like for me yes I recognize the policy of it and the argument that you're

[00:28:34] making but you're not arguing to me or arguing in in four of you're like this is what it will look

[00:28:40] like and you know some people might be in the midst of losing their houses or some people

[00:28:43] might be doing all right they might have an extra little boost or some people may be able

[00:28:46] to use it to send their children to college but all of the stuff that people are going through

[00:28:51] in life is not going away so if your family's trash your family's still going to be trash

[00:28:58] with a little bit of money right with a little bit of money

[00:29:04] so in what I'll say is accomplishing I think the goal that you set out to write even if it was

[00:29:10] a way to escape what was happening at the time that you were writing now that it's out again

[00:29:15] here we are 2024 the book is here it's on the shows what do you want readers to take from it

[00:29:23] I mean I've gotten a lot of great messages from people who say they're like now I'm

[00:29:32] if more black people are inspired to talk to their grandparents or great grandparents or maybe start

[00:29:39] like saving some of those records so that's been cool to hear from readers just say like oh it's

[00:29:45] inspired me to actually like talk to my family members and get some of those questions answered

[00:29:51] and then on the other side of that I think changing the conversation about reparations so

[00:29:58] people see that it is you know it's not some far-fetched idea that couldn't be implemented

[00:30:05] to sort of critically start to think about like here's how policy could actually work

[00:30:10] but against all of that again your novel starts in an election year and we are in

[00:30:16] a very scary election year yeah and yet your president has ties all the way back

[00:30:24] to Andrew Johnson so I know that moment of making it full circle is intentional can you just talk about

[00:30:31] why yeah I thought about what would have to be true or a federal policy to pass and I

[00:30:39] thought that part of that would be a person in power who feels an actual personal responsibility

[00:30:46] for what has happened and so I sort of took the stance that maybe it's not enough or

[00:30:54] the bill to get to the house or get to the senate there has to be somebody in power who is like

[00:30:59] feels personal responsibility to get it through to make sure it actually passes

[00:31:04] and then it's sort of like a play on the concept of white guilt like can something like good come

[00:31:11] from that so then do you think that there does have to be that guilt or that kind of empathy

[00:31:18] or feeling a personal responsibility for forgiveness to be possible well with forgiveness

[00:31:26] part of the reason why I named it the forgiveness act was sort of to play on the irony of like

[00:31:30] when someone has to give forgiveness they're still the one that's been harmed so you can't

[00:31:37] really like take that harm away even if the person is willing to forgive and then in the book

[00:31:43] the irony is like you know black people have to prove they're worthy of forgiveness which is

[00:31:48] an absurd concept but I think we've seen time and time again of like how

[00:31:57] you know the government or groups claim to be in support of black people

[00:32:01] but then the harm and the burden still falls on black people to make it possible

[00:32:05] and I think we saw that in 2020 with like all these DEI initiatives but the black

[00:32:10] employees had to be the one sort of carrying the burden to say well this is how I've been harmed

[00:32:16] or this is how you can help me from the perspective of the white people in the company it was sort of

[00:32:22] still the burden was still on black people and so I don't know in terms of like a

[00:32:28] from a political standpoint I would hope that it doesn't have to mean that there has to be

[00:32:34] personal responsibility I think if you just look at the facts and if you look at the facts and like

[00:32:42] look at the current racial wealth gap that I think it's six times now the average white family is

[00:32:47] six times more wealth than the average black family it shouldn't have to be about personal

[00:32:51] responsibility so my hope is that that's not true for the book and I think for me like imagining

[00:32:58] the world of the book because of federal policy hasn't passed for me to get there in the book I

[00:33:04] have to imagine someone with enough power but also like moral responsibility to push it through

[00:33:11] now that you've written this novel which was an outgrowth of an article do you think you've said

[00:33:18] everything you wanted to say on the issue of reparations or is there more and what's next

[00:33:25] um I think from a book perspective I'm done

[00:33:32] I mean in terms of reparation not from I will write more books hopefully but I think in terms of

[00:33:39] um like writing fictionally about reparations I think I'm sort of emotionally tapped out but

[00:33:46] yeah I mean I don't know hopefully the conversation continued and I think if you know I was

[00:33:53] sort of like called upon to testify and like the Tommy easy coats fashion I would go

[00:33:59] but um you know I think from from a fiction standpoint I'm done

[00:34:05] I want to move to a speed run in a game before I let you go for the morning

[00:34:09] what is your favorite book? Long of Solomon. Who was your favorite author? Tony Martin.

[00:34:15] I knew so I was like I'm just gonna do these vets but no stopping

[00:34:25] who was your favorite artist? Can I say Tony Morrison again?

[00:34:31] um yeah I guess that's a hard one. Tony Morrison it is uh what do you think is the best book to

[00:34:41] movie or television show adaptation? Well erasure is top of mind erasure in American fiction

[00:34:47] oh pretty good. If money were no object where would you go what would you do and where would you

[00:34:53] live? Well I'd probably be doing what I'm doing now so I'd probably still be writing um I would

[00:35:00] probably do it overlooking the Pacific Ocean maybe or the Mediterranean Sea or something.

[00:35:07] Name three things on your bucket list? I would like to visit Nigeria um three things in my

[00:35:13] bucket list. I haven't thought about my bucket list in a long time. Do you have one? Not really

[00:35:19] that's just like my next goal like I usually do it like goal I'm pretty like goal oriented so

[00:35:25] that's my next one it's to go to Lagos. Okay um what brings you joy? Reading next to my dog

[00:35:34] and what brings you peace? Meditating. So our game is called rewriting the classics classic

[00:35:39] is however you define it name one book you wished you would have written. I love the age of innocence

[00:35:46] by you before me. Name a book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it?

[00:35:52] Okay these you're coming in hot with these questions.

[00:35:58] Brace yourself for the next one. Oh my god well I'm looking at the Nickel Boys

[00:36:07] by Colson Whitehead and I actually loved that ending but I was I was sad that he died. I think um

[00:36:17] like they switch well now I'm ruining it for anyone who hasn't run it but one character gets shot

[00:36:23] and then they switch places at the end of the book like you find out that someone you're

[00:36:27] reading about is actually the other character because he assumed his identity and so I'm sad that

[00:36:33] that character died so I might have them both with um even though I do love the ending of that book.

[00:36:39] Final question for the day when you are dead and gone and among the ancestors

[00:36:45] what would you want someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind?

[00:36:50] I cannot with these questions.

[00:37:00] I'm like 11 a.m. on a Monday. I'm talking about legacy. Yep. I guess I would want

[00:37:12] someone to say that my words like change the way they thought or something.

[00:37:18] For 11 a.m. on a Monday that's a great answer. Thank you.

[00:37:25] Big thank you to Mora Cheeks for being here today on Black and Published.

[00:37:28] Make sure you check out Mora's debut novel Acts of Forgiveness out now from Valentine Books

[00:37:35] and if you're not following Mora check her out on the socials she's at Mora Cheeks on Instagram

[00:37:41] and Twitter. That's our show for the week. If you like this episode and want more Black and

[00:37:48] Published head to our Instagram page it's at Black and Published and that's B-L-K and published.

[00:37:57] There I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Mora about whether money is enough

[00:38:02] for reparations to address the harms done to Black people in the United States.

[00:38:07] Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:38:11] I'll highlight you all next week when our guest will be Julian Randall,

[00:38:15] author of the essay collection The Dead Don't Need Reminding.

[00:38:19] Since 2012 already my mental state had been praying like I felt like I was dying

[00:38:27] all the time and then suddenly I can't look at a screen. I can't overhear a conversation.

[00:38:33] I can't go 28 hours without hearing about another person who looks like me or is like me

[00:38:41] or is shaped or looks like my sister or my nephew or my cousin or whoever or all of my friends.

[00:38:48] Each and every one of us is here in this suburb where if we knock on a door we don't know what's

[00:38:52] going to answer us and it can create this feeling like the walls are closing in.

[00:38:58] That's next week on Black and Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.