Veer Off Script with Deesha Philyaw

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast, and the author of the novel The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations, and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree was published January 27th, 2026, and is available everywhere books are sold.

[00:00:28] So if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. Everything I'm writing is present tense. Every critique is present tense. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, and this is Black & Published, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:00:57] Today is the kickoff for season seven, and we have none other than Deesha Philyaw joining us to discuss her debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman. It's a satirical romp through a Black megachurch from the perspective of its esteemed First Lady, Sharice Freeman, who wants nothing more than to be accepted, even though that validation might come at the cost of her soul.

[00:01:21] The thing that's killing us as Black women is flourishing in the dark, and so bringing it into the light, getting free of that, and not protecting other people. And so in the novel, you know, Sharice is really contending with secrets and shame that don't belong to her. Mm-hmm. It belongs to these men. Deesha started this novel 20 years ago, fresh off the heels of her own divorce and at the beginning stages of deconstructing her faith.

[00:01:51] What she was doing on the page then that held her back from unlocking the story she really wanted to tell. Plus, why she believes it's okay if your ambition doesn't match your skill set when you first begin a project. And, when it comes to writing, the techniques and forms she deploys to keep herself, her editor, and now us the readers, entertained from beginning to end. That and more is next, when Black & Published continues.

[00:02:20] I know you've been working on this for what, like almost 20 years? How do you feel that it's like here? Huh, it's like a deep sigh of relief, but also it is like the machine has started moving. The marketing, the promo, all of that.

[00:02:48] And so it's just, I'm in awe. It was a different book 20 years ago. I was a different person 20 years ago. And now, like here I am and here Sharice is and people are excited about her and laughing at and with her and her foolishness. And it just blows my mind.

[00:03:08] I'm so glad that she became who she is, because I didn't like her like early in the, like, I like, I like Petra, his strange best friend. I like Aunt Marie, but I did not love this character in the beginning. And so I'm so glad for who she is now, because I can rock with her now. I'm enjoying this ride with her now. How has she changed to make you love her? So it sounds crazy to be like, she's not me.

[00:03:36] And it doesn't mean I don't love myself, but I am not the stuff of fiction. Like I don't make good fiction, right? And so, initially, her life paralleled my life. Initially, she was divorced from the pastor. And she was 35. I was 35 and newly divorced and not co-parenting with a pastor, but co-parenting with someone who is more religious and more conservative than I am. And at the time, she was trying to date again. I was trying to date again.

[00:04:06] But the problem with that storyline was there was really no story. It was just more like a situation that she found herself in. And she didn't really want anything. It was more like, you know, this is sort of after everything has happened. And now she's trying to build a new life. And she has a column writing about sex. I was like the ooh, you know. And I have always been fortunate to have friends that are honest with me.

[00:04:33] And so one of them read the early chapters of that incarnation of her. And they were like, yeah, this is kind of boring. This is kind of boring. I want to see that marriage. And my reluctance, I believe, subconsciously was like, I just left an unhappy marriage myself. I don't even want to go back into a fictional one. But I knew that this person was right about the snooze factor of these pages. Like there was nothing happening.

[00:05:02] And so I put her back in like the marriage, like made it like five years earlier or something like that. But she was still me. The way I would be if I was married to a pastor, I too would have a secret sexy anonymous blog where I talk shit about him and the people at church. And so she had this blog and, you know, it was funny and irreverent and all of that. And that's sort of where she could, it was like a nice distraction for her.

[00:05:31] And it's where she could really, even though she was anonymous, like be her true self and speak freely. And it was a really popular blog. And so the scandal that breaks is that she gets doxxed and exposed as the person behind the blog. And like, oh, is her husband going to divorce her? She's embarrassed him. She's embarrassed the church. Or is she going to walk away because she's finally going to admit that, you know, she's not happy.

[00:05:56] And so when she wasn't in her blog, just day to day, she was very like, you remember that Cosby show with Sandra? The flowers are dying and there's no morning dew. Remember that little, like, just walking around feeling sorry for herself. Jesus. Very, very navel gazing. And that's why I didn't like her. That's why I didn't like her. And that's why it took me 20 years to write this book, because that's how I started. And so I was like, this is the beginning. And then the end was, you know, we got to figure out who doxxed her and why.

[00:06:27] And, you know, how did she decide whether or not she's going to stay in the marriage or not? But I couldn't nail the middle. And it's because there was really no story there. It wasn't really compelling. And so I'm a grand procrastinator. So I just ignored it and just started writing some short stories. Which we thank you for. Exactly. Like Church Ladies was a complete detour from this novel. And so my agent helped me kind of get past the hurdle of that boring middle. And she sort of broke the novel down to its parts.

[00:06:56] Charisse's job was to be a first lady. She hated her job. If a character is about to lose a job they hate, we do not care. Because they'll just get another job. And so there's nothing at stake for her. She doesn't want anything. The whole idea was she got everything she wanted. She wanted this man. She wanted this respectability and this comfortable life. And now she's unhappy. Sounded very familiar. That was my life.

[00:07:26] Again, not the stuff of fiction. And so I'm listening to my agent, you know, lay it out like that. And I'm like, oh shit, she got to like this job? She doesn't like being a first lady? I would hate that. So hit, Deesha. She's not you. Let her be someone who loves being a first lady, loves everything about it, craves all of the trappings of it, and then snatch it away from her. Now we have a story.

[00:07:53] And so as I was writing the stories in Church Ladies, Danielle, my agent helped me come to that epiphany. I finished Church Ladies, turned it in in 2019, came back to the novel like, now I know what I'm doing. Now I know what a story is. Now I know how to write. Now I actually have, you know, my skill set matches my ambition here. Though I will say that I still learned a lot about how to write a novel as I was writing the novel.

[00:08:22] There was a lot of learning that happened between 2019 and 2025 when the novel, you know, went into production, working with the inimitable Rekia Clark. Why does your skill set have to match your ambition? To pull it off. I don't think it has to match when you start. And I think we should start, and it's okay for our reach to exceed our grasp.

[00:08:48] I don't think we have to wait, or you know, or let me go take some more classes or read some more craft books. I think we should do those things and still be writing. Still be writing. Because there's never a point where like, I have arrived, you know, like we're still learning. In 2020, I would be in like, on the Zoom workshops and people are like, what are you doing here? I'm like, same thing you're doing here. I'm learning some shit that I don't know. You know, I'm gonna have Rion teach me about satire writing, which helped me with this novel.

[00:09:17] That was the other decision I made, which was Charisse's earnestness and the navel gazing stuff. It was cringe to me. And so I was like, I want to have some fun with this. And that's where the pageant idea came from. So I took the satirical workshop with Rion and, you know, Rion Almeca Scott, for those who don't know. Yes. The World Doesn't Require You is one of his many fantastic books.

[00:09:43] But yeah, Rion does satire so well, so well. So I was there to learn. And one of the people he quoted was George Saunders talking about how if you don't love what you're satirizing, you're just sneering at it. Like the thing you're mocking, you got to have some love for it. And so, you know, I will critique the church in my work, but I'm not sneering at the church because I still care about people who embrace the church.

[00:10:11] The church was part of my life for the first 35 years. There's no way I could just sneer at it, but we are going to critique it, you know? And so much of satire is sort of leaning in and making things, you know, almost to the point of absurdity. And so I thought about the pomp and the pageantry and the performance of church, specifically of being a first lady and black church women.

[00:10:35] And I was like, what if there was an actual pageant for megachurch pastors' wives, middle-aged megachurch pastors' wives? And boom. And the novel is built around that. And then it started being fun. At that point, it started being fun. So to answer your question, at some point your skill set has to catch up in order for you to do the things that you want to do. But I think that's an ongoing process.

[00:11:02] And I think that once your skills catch up with a certain thing, I think you should stretch again and try something else. You know, Damon Young, we were talking years ago about how corporate publishing pits black writers against each other. Like there can only be one. And so we eschew this idea that we're in competition. And I like to say, you know, we see each other through the lens of care and not competition. But Damon's point is, you know, competition isn't all bad.

[00:11:28] Because we can look around and be like, I see what Nikesha did with Seven Daughters. I want to do this, but with whatever. Or I like how so and so, you know, plays with humor or plays with, you know, sex or whatever. And I want to try that. And so I hope that we are inspiring each other. And we're competing to be our personal best. We're competing with ourselves. But looking at each other and saying, I want to do that.

[00:11:57] Not you're what's standing between me and no. Because somebody was saying, like, we got to remember that, like, whatever we feel like we want in publishing, another writer is not keeping you from that, you know? And instead, like, looking and sort of sampling the best. I mean, we are a sampling people. We have a sampling tradition. Like, what can we learn? And so when I see you doing something in Seven Daughters that I don't know how to do, now I'm building my skill set towards how do we do that?

[00:12:26] Well, I think I need to take Rion's workshop because reading your book and it was satire. And I was like, I don't, I don't know how to do this. So I'm gonna need to run that workshop back and take it for myself. Just because you talk about, you know, being ingratiated into the church for 35 years of your life. And even with you having distance from it now, it's still very much. Yes. Why is the church in need of critique from people who have been in it and can now see it from the outside?

[00:12:55] If no other reason than to help the people who are still in it, who are being harmed by it. You know, there was, what was it just yesterday or day before on threads, there was this post about a woman, you know, how these church wives are getting on these podcast episodes to just sit there and talk about how their husband cheated on them and they took him back. Or the woman used to pack her husband's bag before he went to go see the side chick. Like everything I'm writing is present tense.

[00:13:23] Every critique it's present tense. Yes. And the way that these women are exploited and abused and disrespected and disregarded, and then it's being valorized for them being long suffering or patient or whatever, or forgiving and all of these things. And it's just dressed up. And it's just patriarchy dressed up in church clothes. It's misogyny and anti-blackness dressed up in church clothes.

[00:13:50] And so I'm endlessly curious and interested in unpacking that and condemning that. And based on the response that I've gotten from church ladies, knowing that there are church women that have not left or have left or trying to leave. And they see in my stories, possibility models.

[00:14:12] They see that, you know, the world isn't going to suck you into the earth if you talk about these things, you know, because Christianity at its worst is the biggest con because it demonizes questions, doubts, disagreement. And it just keeps people sort of trapped. Like if something doesn't make sense or doesn't feel right, you're taught not to trust your instincts and your judgment. You're taught not to listen to people in the world.

[00:14:37] And those are the people who are trying to say, save yourself, you know, or this isn't wrong, but you know, they're going to hell so don't listen to them and they're going to try and take you with. So it's like, it's perfect. They've got an answer for everything to keep people trapped, particularly women, particularly queer people, keep them trapped in being subjugated and participating. Voluntarily in their own subjugation. In their own oppression.

[00:15:00] You speak specifically about first ladies because your character is a first lady, but that harm has also been perpetuated onto the members of the congregation. Mm hmm. Or then yes, supporting these pastors, philandering pastors or having to choose between, you know, the pastor or the first lady in the church splits up or whatever the case may be. Right. And there's harm and abuse there. And we don't see a lot of the congregation in true confession, but we do see a few members, one of whom being my favorite, Sheila, who's like. Sheila battle.

[00:15:30] Sheila battle. Who is Sharice's. Nemesis. That's okay. Nemesis is correct. Cause I was like, you, you love a good nemesis. I do. She's Sharice's nemesis, but like, come to find out. She had a relationship with the pastor first. So there's like also this competition there and talking about how the harm that these institutions perpetuate. It's also the women who often keep them propped up. Mm hmm. Do you have a critique there?

[00:16:00] Women can be the biggest handmaidens of the patriarchy because let's just take it out of the church. Like who's taking care of the children most often, who are the children learning from and how to be. And that's, this is not to blame women. This is just to say that we have a big influence. And if part of our influence is to simply, you know, support again, our own subjugation. And we're teaching that not only to our daughters.

[00:16:28] So we're replicating this repression, but we're also teaching our sons that this is how you treat women. If we don't teach our sons and our daughters and our non-binary kids to reject this, to challenge this, that we're trying to dismantle this. Like when we have to be intentional, because if we teach nothing, it's what's in the air is the oppression. That's going to be the default. And so, you know, how many of us learned, you know, respectability from our mothers, you know?

[00:16:58] And so basically women are being complicit in their own oppression when they do that. That is how we're being socialized. And what we're seeing now, you and I talk about like the whole dating stuff all the time, but I think it's that despite what we've been taught, Gen X, I will say half of Gen X, because some of us are still in the gendered sunken place.

[00:17:19] But half of Gen X and then the, you know, the folks in the generations after us are starting to challenge these things, rejecting respectability. We're not wearing slips under our skirts anymore. I love that debate. Exactly. Bare leg, you know, thongs or the, you know, whatever the case may be.

[00:17:46] I'm talking about that stuff symbolically that we just the things that we were taught were the most important things. Some of us don't believe that anymore. Some of us are not teaching that to our children. This idea that we as women, particularly black women, exist to serve other people, take care of other people. We've seen how that killed our mothers and our grandmothers or diminished the quality of their lives. And we want something more and different and better for ourselves and for our daughters and for their daughters.

[00:18:16] And so I hope that my stories are part of that song of, you know, we're trying to move differently. We're trying to move more freely and more justly. This is about justice also in terms of how we all deserve to be treated. And because for a lot of us, church started as when we were children. So this is all we've ever known. And so this process of unlearning is not easy.

[00:18:45] It's not, but I find it interesting that I feel like your unlearning began on the heels of a failed marriage. Because there's something about getting divorced when you are steeped in church culture that is very radical and rebellious. And so if you're going to do it, you're like, fuck it, I might as well do it all. Just ripping the bandaid right on off. Like, I remember when I was going through my divorce.

[00:19:10] And I guess I'm still a church lady to some degrees, but I come at it from like a very much black liberation feminist perspective. So they can't stand me. Right. I remember going through my divorce and reading, like flipping through my Bible, looking for one verse. And I stopped somewhere in Malachi. I think it's three, one, whatever. I don't know. But the line is God hates divorce. And I waited and I sat there and I waited for the conviction. And I was like, this don't apply to me. Right. Right.

[00:19:36] And I, and I kept flipping the pages, but I remember someone in church saying to me, you know, well, there are only three reasons for divorce. It's addiction, abuse, or adultery. And I was like, and it was a white lady that said that to me. That's a, there's a fourth reason, whatever the fucking reason is that I want to get divorced. Right. That too. But I was just like, but even in. But biblically, the biblical, biblical.

[00:20:00] In her earnestness in saying that to me, it was very much like, well, if you do this and you don't have those grounds, I'm like, you're going to hell. And I was like, I'll be there in gasoline draws for it. Exactly. I don't know. Okay. I'm not staying here. Yeah. Um, and so I do find it interesting that you were writing this novel, at least beginning stages of it at that point in time. Yeah. Because was that the beginning of your unlearning of all that you had been taught?

[00:20:27] You know, I always had questions and doubts, but that was the marker where when I stopped going to church was the same year my mother, my father, and my grandmother all died was the same year I got separated from my then husband. So yes, all of those things happened at once. But the questions and the doubts were always there. I just didn't have the capacity, the courage, the wherewithal to be open about it.

[00:20:54] And so I felt like I was performing. I was going through the motions. And I've never successfully kept a journal, but like I would journal in spurts. And I just remember writing out these like really impassioned prayers in this journal, just like begging God to help me feel and experience the things that I was pretending to feel and experience as a Christian. Because I was at church.

[00:21:20] I was working in different, you know, volunteer capacities and all of that. I had my little denim jumper, you know, I was definitely all in. Listen to that horrible contemporary Christian music, that mediocre, corny shit, all of it. But there was always something in the back of my mind.

[00:21:39] And so prior to my divorce, when I started really, you know, publishing things and making new friends that were not at church, women who in Pittsburgh who were artists of all disciplines, including writers, none of them were Christians. And so for the first time, I was just like, you can have a whole fruitful life and not be a Christian.

[00:22:01] And so I'm looking at them the way I looked at church ladies growing up as possibility models, you know, and I remembered my then husband cautioning me in a very evangelical way because everything's a binary. If you aren't influencing other people, they're influencing you. So if I was not convincing these women to come to church and become Christians, then they were influencing me away from Christianity, even though none of them ever said a word about religion to me. And so there was that kind of thinking.

[00:22:29] So the seeds were planted and they sprouted in 2005 when I stopped going to church. And I stopped going and it wasn't like all of these theological thoughts about it. It was very practical. I was co-parenting. My kids were in activities. So Saturdays, we were also doing things Monday through Friday. Sunday was my one day to sleep in. And I remember waking up one Sunday to get everybody ready for church and thinking to myself, why am I doing this?

[00:22:57] My one day to sleep in to go somewhere where I really don't even believe that anymore, that this is necessary. And because my mom and my dad and my grandmother had died and I stopped going to church, people like, oh, so you're mad at God. And I'm like, no, in fact, I feel nothing, which I think is even more telling than if I were angry. Like I was expecting to feel some sort of comfort or some sort of, you know, something from on high as a Christian who has experienced all of this loss.

[00:23:27] But I didn't feel anything. And so if I didn't feel anything and I had all these questions, why was I still showing up every Sunday just to check a box? And I was like, I'm sleeping in. So it was no deeper than that. You've been sleeping in ever since. I've been sleeping. Bedside Baptist, baby. Bedside Baptist, baby. And beginning that deconstruction on your own and then it's showing itself in the secret lives of church ladies, what people are still talking about.

[00:23:54] What pushes you to like then take all the issues of the world? Because while True Confessions is a satire and is hilarious with this like these middle aged women doing this pageant, they are very real issues that you're talking about. Health disparities, family secrets. You bring all of this up through this perspective that is over the top, but then it's also very tender.

[00:24:18] Was that always the intention with True Confessions to bring out the secrets that we don't talk about beyond the church critique of theology? Yeah. I mean, because I think that's a continuation of what I was trying to do in church ladies. You know, what are the things that some of us don't even dare to speak out loud to ourselves, you know, much less share with everyone else. And this idea that secrecy is different from privacy.

[00:24:44] I want to be clear about that because I think in the age of social media, to quote Alexander Chee, have a secret. I would like to know less about most people. That's different. The secrecy, the kind that corrodes, the kind that is rooted in shame, the kind that protects abusers. That's the kind of secrecy that just like mold and bad things, bacteria flourish in the dark. It's the same thing.

[00:25:13] The thing that's killing us as black women, it's flourishing in the dark. And so bringing it into the light, getting free of that and not protecting other people. And so in the novel, you know, Charisse is really contending with secrets and shame that don't belong to her. Mm hmm. It belongs to these men. And, you know, one of my favorite moments is when there's a character who was like, do not keep these men secrets. You know, do not.

[00:25:43] They're going to tell you they want you to do what's best, but it's never what's best for you. You know, it's always what's best for them, what's best for the church, what's best for everybody except the woman who's being called upon to bear these burdens. And so that secrecy, secrecy in this context is a burden and it's disproportionately burdening black women because we're shouldering the secrets for the church, for our families, for the community, for everybody at our expense.

[00:26:12] And it's never reciprocated. And so that's what I have hoped, you know, from church ladies into this novel as well, that we decide what is ours to carry, like stop carrying other people's shame. The wrong people are shameless. That's the wrong people are shameless. That and it's like she's carrying shame for her family, shame for the church is not reciprocated. And then it's also not appreciated. No, it's so taken for granted.

[00:26:41] There are several twists that you have, but the big one that comes out where this is big scandal, it has nothing to do with her. It's about another cheap ass man that she just happens to know. And I think we see that again, a lot within not just in the church. We see that a lot in, I think in the culture where some philandering man has embarrassed some woman.

[00:27:06] And now the woman who has been done wrong has this need to get revenge or to stake a claim and be like my man, my man, my man, even though your name is trash. And nobody wants them. Say it. Say that. Say that. And we find Cherise caught up in the middle of this and her husband manipulating and scheming behind her back to do his bidding. And she's not wrong.

[00:27:34] Like, I was just like, why won't he defend her? Because his first allegiance is to other men and the church. These men are loyal. Only to each other. Each other's fuck shit. Not the best of each other. That's the thing. It would be one thing if men were loyal to other men in service of their best selves, but it's usually in service to some fuck shit.

[00:27:59] And this could go into a conversation about how homoerotic patriarchy is, but they're not ready for that. Okay, the fact that that was literally the word in my head. I was like, no, that's a whole other side conversation. But yeah, we're sharing a brain. It could definitely go that way, but I'm going to keep it cute today. The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Filial follows First Lady Cherise Freeman over a year as she competes in the First Lady USA pageant for middle-aged megachurch pastors' wives.

[00:28:29] A social pariah amongst the other contestants, Cherise is on a mission to win each of the other First Ladies over and be back in their inner circle. But when scandal breaks between Cherise and a pastor known to cheat on his wife, First Lady Freeman has to decide whether she will suffer in silence or finally tell the truth and shame the devil, even if it costs her everything she's worked for. Here's Deesha.

[00:28:54] Okay, I'm going to read the note that is at the beginning of the novel and then I'll read a few paragraphs from chapter one. First of all, a note. Some folks who care more about tradition than the truth tried to get me to sign an NDA, but to hell with them and that. None of the names have been changed. The people, institutions and events that follow are as real as my regrets.

[00:29:23] Forget the gossip and lies you heard about my alleged failures as a wife and what I did behind closed doors. This is my story. The story of Cherise Carmen, nay Baxter Freeman. And I'm telling it just like it happened. Protecting no one, least of all my damn self. Chapter one, pageant night. A Proverbs 31 woman is the Beyonce of evangelicals.

[00:29:50] She rocks t-shirts and drinks from coffee mugs that declare, I'm a Proverbs 31 woman. Her babies wear bibs with, my mommy is a Proverbs 31 woman printed on them. Her husband drives a car with a keep calm and marry a Proverbs 31 woman bumper sticker. In an unlikely twist of fate in the early 1990s, I became a Proverbs 31 woman. But not just any Proverbs 31 woman.

[00:30:16] I became the ultimate Proverbs 31 woman by marrying Reverend David Freeman, pastor of one of the largest black mega churches in America. I wasn't yet 23 and my prefrontal cortex hadn't fully developed. So of course I thought I'd won the lottery. Fast forward 18 years and here I am backstage at the First Lady USA pageant, poised to take home the crown. I've spent most of these 18 years unabashedly coveting the title.

[00:30:45] Both the New and Old Testaments list covetousness as a sin. I'm guilty as charged. But the saints would say I'm washed in the blood, so it all balances out. Now, finally, I get my chance to compete in the by invitation only pageant, which features 12 contestants, like Jesus' 12 disciples. All of us are pastors' wives, a.k.a. First Ladies. The way I pictured it, becoming First Lady USA would be my life's piece de resistance.

[00:31:16] The great equalizer between me and the other women who, as daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters of pastors, deacons, assistant deacons, Sunday school teachers, and other proper church folk, were born with respectable but not quite silver spoons in their mouths. I have no such lineage. The pageant had snubbed me for my first five years of eligibility,

[00:31:40] in part because I couldn't trace my family's church membership back to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and in part because the space on my birth certificate marked father's name is blank. Yet, you best believe, I've got the audacity, the pure, unmitigated gall to parade around in this life and on this stage tonight like I belong here, like I fucking own it. What is a Proverbs 31 woman?

[00:32:11] Oh! She is a tool, just a tool in the toolbox of ongoing gendered oppression and patriarchy, dressed up as the epitome of Christian womanhood, and she don't sleep. So she wake up before everybody. Right, wake up before everybody, go to bed after everybody. She down at the gates, my man, my man, like big up in her man. She got multiple side businesses.

[00:32:41] All the side hustles. She's an entrepreneur. She's the epitome of selflessness. And I really want to be about the gospel of women being, we don't like the word selfish. So can we say, is there, is self-ful or I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, selfish. And so she's the opposite of that, where there's no regard for self.

[00:33:06] And so that's why she's a tool of patriarchy, because what patriarchy wants most is for women to be in service of everyone except themselves, to protect everyone except themselves. And so for that reason, I think that she's a dangerous archetype. And like so many of the things that I'm critiquing about the church, they are sadly timeless. You know, so we've been talking about the Proverbs 31 woman forever.

[00:33:35] I mean, we know the scripture is old, but culturally, you know, within the, you know, cultural Christianity, I call it, she's being held up, or this is the highest praise for a woman when she's being recognized, when she dies. People, you know, say she was a Proverbs 31 woman, and that's a shorthand for how much she gave during her life. And there's nothing wrong with being generous, but when it's not reciprocated and when it's

[00:34:02] at your expense of your wellbeing, that's the problem. And like our first clue is that there's no equivalent in the Bible for men. Just like in how we socialize boys and girls, it's not mirrored in terms of like what we teach girls in terms of caretaking. We don't teach that to boys by and large. I think at a time where people are looking for inclusivity in community, they're finding

[00:34:32] it in the weirdest of spaces without ever interrogating internally. And what I love about the novel is that I don't know that Char ever really believes in it. She likes her job. Like she wants to keep her job as first lady in all the trappings of the lifestyle. But I don't know that she has ever really like fully fallen and drank the Kool-Aid of the church because she has a distance from being an outsider for so long. Yeah. She's like a biblical savant.

[00:35:02] So like how many Bible bowls did you win at the church house? That that's where we part company. So I still have a lot of Bible in my head, but I am not a savant like Char with the memorization, even though we used to have to memorize verses in Sunday school. And one time we had to memorize all 66 books of the Bible in order. There was a time when I could recite them all. I could not do that right now. If you held a gun to my head.

[00:35:29] I know Joshua judges Ruth because that's an interesting little thing. You know, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, numbers, numbers, numbers is first numbers. Deuteronomy, Joshua, Joshua judges, Ruth. And I'm, I don't, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, right? Is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans. Okay. Okay. It gets a little murky after that. When we get to the Ephesians, Galatians, and I don't know.

[00:35:59] Thessalonians, Babylonians. There's no Babylonians. I do know that that's not a book of the Bible. Strike it, strike it. And we know that the final book is Revelation and not Revelations that much. I do remember. So the book of Revelation. I'm gonna still put the S on it. Cause, cause we black. Cause I'm gonna still put the S on it. But yeah. So I used to be able to do all 66. Did you ever get an Easter speech? I grew up Catholic. So no. Oh, okay. I always had an Easter speech.

[00:36:29] I don't remember any of mine, but I remember this other kid. I thought he had the coldest line. He said something, something, something. Calvary's cruel cross. And nerd me was like, I didn't know the word. I didn't even know the word for alliteration, but I was like, I like that. Calvary's cruel cross. I love it. We had this conversation before that. We could tell that people don't do Easter speeches anymore. Cause they're not reading and they're not. Yeah. No, no, no.

[00:36:57] You don't, you don't go to church with your grandma and sit on a third row and give an Easter speech and press starch clothes that you can't get. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Cause I was reading the book and I was like, what kind of biblical savant do we have here? Because Char's favorite verse. Okay. Another little spoiler is behold. I come quickly from the book of revelations. And I was like, well, where is that? Right? We've been missing out on the good stuff. Right?

[00:37:26] I was like, I don't remember that part. Although revelations is my least favorite book of the Bible. Right. Right. Horrible. All that fire and brimstone. For nothing. Yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm. What do you want readers to take from this novel that you have here? Oh, so many things. I want them to laugh. I want them to laugh. If people laugh at this book, I will have done my job because my God today, we are not laughing. There's so much to cry about.

[00:37:56] Weep, gnash and grinding of the teeth and the pulling out of the hair and the sackcloth and the ashes. That is the moment that we are living in. So if I can get people to laugh during that moment and then in the next breath be like, this motherfucker right here. Because everybody got somebody in their life that's been trying to play them and have them carry the burden, whether it's of their secrets or their whatever it is.

[00:38:23] But just looking around and thinking, am I carrying something that does not belong to me? Am I free? Can I get freer? What do I need to do to make that happen? I also want people to think about that whole idea of the script. Because I think right now, you know, it's so easy to follow a script of other people's expectations or even just what's familiar to us because we are tired and we are scared. We are living under terror.

[00:38:50] And so if nothing else, the script is familiar. But what are we afraid of happening if we veer off the script and the freedom that that can bring us at what cost? And I hope that people conclude that as Char does, that whatever it costs you to get free, you're worth it. You're absolutely worth it. So I really want people to laugh and have fun. And then I want them to be like, damn, and just sort of like stare into space for a minute

[00:39:19] and rethink their whole lives. Like you apparently did. Yes. Yes. And you did say earlier that you have turned in another collection. Yes. So this is Girl Look, right? Girl Look. Yes. What can we expect from Girl Look? I know the novel just got here, but you know, we're greedy. Yes. Yes. So it's not Church Ladies 2.

[00:39:45] There are some churchy things in there, but it's not themed around a church. I've been describing it as a collection of stories about black women and girls and their quirks and beautiful contradictions. So we got some weird black girl shit in there. We've got some supernatural stuff happening. Once again, we got mothers and daughters all up and through the collection. Initially, it was going to be a collection of just mother and daughter stories because

[00:40:12] after I turned in Church Ladies, I was like, this is a book about mothers and daughters. Like I didn't even plan that. What if I got really intentional about having a collection? And so I started it like that. And so some of the stories that ended up in it are about mothers and daughters. But then I wrote a story called Fuckboy Museum. And while there is a mother daughter duo in there, that story's on some other shit. So then I was like, you know, then I was like, this could be a little more expansive.

[00:40:40] And so there's a novella in it that has some speculative elements. The novella is part of three interconnected stories, but you don't know they're interconnected until you get to the third story. Of course. Of course you would do something like that. And then a third of the stories have been previously published, but two thirds are brand new and have not been, will not have been published anywhere. So yeah, there's more of a range, I think, than in Church Ladies, which was very tight around

[00:41:09] the theme of black women's sex in the black church, even though you could do a lot within that, you know, with a theme that broad. But this is even broader. This is even broader. So I'm gonna bring us back full circle because I forgot to ask this earlier. And it's a craft question. Because you do something in True Confessions where you play with form. So you have the front matter, but then you have footnotes, which I've seen you do before. You have a three act play in there. And I want to say there's like a commercial or something else in there. Oh, there's headlines.

[00:41:39] There's a transcript from a talk show. All types of different written media in the book that adds to the texture and the fabric of the novel. What inspired that? Like, where did you learn to do that? Or is that just you like wiling out on the page? That's me wiling out on the page. It's just very organic. Like, oh, there's gotta be some emails. Let me put these emails in here. You know, headlines and news articles. I think that's kind of fun.

[00:42:05] They also serve the purpose in some instances of helping establish where we are entirely in the past. So the book starts in 2010 and moves forward to like 2012. And so, you know, that's what the first Obama era. And so I listened to a lot of music from that time period and just did a lot of research around like what was still kind of hot in the streets. So for example, some of the articles are from EUR web, right? Like that's a blast from the past, you know?

[00:42:33] So setting things up that way. And mainly I think I get bored. Like I get bored very easily. And so traditional narrative, especially something for the length of a novel, I had to break it up. I really had to break it up. And also it was like, this is how my mind organizes things. So for example, the pageant launch event takes place over, I think like a week in Honolulu. So of course I needed an itinerary for myself in my head as a writer to what are they going to be doing?

[00:43:03] You know, and making sure that things align. And I was like, I should just put the itinerary in the book. And then I, when I had the idea for Char to be like, I am on a mission to win over these women who don't fuck with me. And like, what if it was like, she really approached it like a mission to win them each over. She would have a dossier like the CIA. So she has a dossier on each of these women, but it's stuff that Char cares about.

[00:43:32] Like how they look, how they wear their hair, how they dress. She rates them. Their favorite brands. Yes. On a scale of zero to Daphne, how big of a challenge are they going to be to win over? Because Daphne's are other nemesis. Yes. Daphne's are other nemesis. And something I discovered about myself, I really like writing these women who I would never be friends with. Right. But on the page, I enjoy spending time with them.

[00:44:01] I like using them to trip Char up and, and just really fuck with her. I had a lot of fun writing the scenes between Char and Daphne. Like when Char comes downstairs and Daphne's in her kitchen. She had a lot of audacity. I think that's a lot of audacity to be in somebody else's house. And you know, they don't fuck with you like that. And she glistening. The bitch is listening. How you glistening in my kitchen? The bitch is listening to Char. And you smell good.

[00:44:33] Flirting with people that I like. With my cousin brother. Right. That I'm not supposed to. Get out. That's the thing. At least if you gonna roll up in here, look like a troll. Right? Look like what you've been through. So that I had so much fun. And that's the thing. If I'm gonna be precious about anything and editors tend to like me because I'm not precious and I don't really fight with them, but I've also been very fortunate to have good editors.

[00:45:03] Um, that's the kind of stuff I'll go to Matt. I will go to Matt for some foolishness. I will like some absolute foolishness. So there were lots of things Rekia had me cut. Um, but if she had tried to get me to cut. It was like, you gonna pry that scene from of Daphne in the kitchen out of my cold dead hands. I'm not letting it go. But there's a scene that I wrote that I just knew Rekia was going to cut because it's true

[00:45:30] foolishness where Char is masturbating and she needs some material. And so she reimagines a sex scene for herself and her husband in the spirit of Jane Eyre. And I just, I was, I was like, you know what? This don't make no sense. She is cutting this. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time writing it other than just cutting up. And she let me keep it. She did. That is not even my favorite foolishness. My favorite foolishness has to do with Oxtail. So when you finish the book and you're, and you get to that scene, just say, you're

[00:46:00] welcome to Disha and Rekia. And that's the thing, like, you know, people ask about what makes a good editor or whatever. For me, making Rekia laugh or making her feel like, oof, you know, like that, like something hit Tinder spot. I live for that. I live for that. And so that was always the thing. I write something and it's like, how's she going to react? Cause even if she's lukewarm, I'm like, damn, you know, I don't want her to be lukewarm. I want her to like be excited.

[00:46:30] I want her to text me or call me and be like, you're a fool. Like I did. And so, and, and, but that's, and it's all thanks to Rekia because one of the things she's kept her foot on my neck about is these characters, the villains can't be two dimensional. They can't be stock characters. So, you know, Jedha has some other angles, like where Char even says to him, like, you know, this hurts you too.

[00:47:00] Like the original problem is not your fault. You know, this was done to you as well. Now, everything he did after that was on him, but like helping him to see that, like, even this, this, the way you've embraced masculinity won't even let you grieve properly. And so to see for Char to be able to see that other dimension of Jedha was important so that the reader could see this other dimension of Jedha and it doesn't excuse him.

[00:47:25] It doesn't make him redeemable because he's not in my opinion, but it does keep him from being a cartoon character. And so that scene with Sheila came in part because we wanted her to have an arc too, other than just being a foil for Char. And then when I was open to what else is going on with Sheila, I didn't know the big reveal that comes from when Sheila is in her cups. I didn't know that until I wrote it.

[00:47:54] And then I was like, oh, fuck. Now we got, you know, and then same with David. Like he was all the great things that Char believed him to be. He did. And I believe still does love her very much, but I think he loves the church more. And I think multiple things can be true. Thank you. If this was not an incentive for you to go get the true confession of the first lady Freeman, then I don't know what to tell you, but thank you, Disha. This is a delight. Thank you, Nikesha.

[00:48:23] I've been looking forward to this conversation. Big thank you to Disha Philyaw for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Disha on the socials at Disha Philyaw on Instagram and threads. And make sure you check out The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman. It is out right now, today from Mariner Books. You can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLACKPUB at checkout.

[00:48:51] That's B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you liked this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram or YouTube page. They're at Black & Published and that's B-L-K & Published. There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Disha about how she became an accidental Christian. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

[00:49:22] And if you want to meet me and Disha and see us cut up the way we did on this podcast, but in person, get a ticket for Disha's book tour stop in New Orleans. We'll be in conversation together at Baldwin & Company on October 20th. Meanwhile, I'll holler at y'all next week when our guest will be Tricia R. Thomas, author of the novel Napoli Ever After, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary.

[00:49:46] What I knew, that pain, that necessary needing to be welcomed, good or bad, our hair was just like this leading force of how we're presented. And if we're already being beat down by our peers, you know, it hurts. So that was my inspiration to start researching the history of why our hair holds so much power and so much pain. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then.

[00:50:17] Peace. Aaaaaaaahhh. What's going on family? This is Derrick 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. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on.

[00:50:46] 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.