Women Will Resist with Tracey Rose Peyton

[00:00:00] I feel like when I published a book there was a lot of like kind of coming out as a writer

[00:00:03] in a way where it's like there had been this part of my life that had been a huge part

[00:00:08] of my life for a long time that a lot of people just didn't know about.

[00:00:11] What's good?

[00:00:12] I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black and Published, bringing you the journeys

[00:00:17] of writers, poets, playwrights and storytellers of all kinds.

[00:00:22] Today's guest is Tracy Rose Payton, author of the novel, Night Wherever We Go.

[00:00:29] A novel focused on the interior lives and relationships of enslaved Black women who refused

[00:00:35] to allow their bodies to be bound.

[00:00:39] Writing about this particular period posed the whole question of quote-unquote slavery

[00:00:43] fatigue.

[00:00:44] I felt like I had to justify why this book needed to exist.

[00:00:47] So I think I felt this pressure to tell a bunch of stories that I felt were underscored or

[00:00:51] I felt like we hadn't heard.

[00:00:53] In telling new stories about an old history, Tracy spent years researching the novel as

[00:00:59] well as developing her skill as a storyteller.

[00:01:02] The personal fear she had to face to break the book open and write honestly about the

[00:01:08] experiences of her characters, plus how slavery formed and informs the folklore of Texas, the

[00:01:15] setting for the novel.

[00:01:17] And the reason Tracy felt she had to hide her identity as a writer so much that colleagues

[00:01:24] thought she was in rehab.

[00:01:26] That and more is next when Black and Published continues.

[00:01:33] Alright, so let's jump in.

[00:01:42] Tracy, when did you know that you were a writer?

[00:01:45] I think early on, I think I was always kind of interested in books, fascinated by books,

[00:01:49] like an early reader, all that.

[00:01:50] And I think most kids were early reader.

[00:01:52] You're like, oh cool, I wanted to figure out how to do this.

[00:01:55] And then you say to your parents, oh I want to be a writer.

[00:01:57] And they're like, writer star, pick something else.

[00:01:59] I think especially Black books with Chicago are like, that's cute.

[00:02:06] But South Side all day, yes.

[00:02:09] Right, yeah.

[00:02:10] Do something else.

[00:02:11] So I think, I feel like that was the comic experience where a lot of us were like, oh

[00:02:16] yeah, I want to do this thing.

[00:02:17] It can't be a real thing, but it can be a thing that I love while I figure out

[00:02:21] how to do something else.

[00:02:23] So when did you decide, you know, even though I may have to go get this real job,

[00:02:27] I still want to try to write this book.

[00:02:29] I feel like that was a long journey.

[00:02:34] And I don't know why for some reason, I thought again, because I needed to do,

[00:02:39] have real skill when I went to college, I studied film.

[00:02:42] And my parents were like, that's not real either.

[00:02:45] And I was like, well, there are a lot of jobs.

[00:02:47] Like, you know, when you look at the credits at the end of a movie,

[00:02:49] there are like 100 jobs.

[00:02:50] A lot of jobs.

[00:02:51] That's a lot of jobs.

[00:02:52] A lot of jobs.

[00:02:53] You know, I don't know.

[00:02:54] I got a bit that way.

[00:02:55] But yeah, I think like, I think I was for a long time trying to figure out other

[00:03:00] ways to figure out how to sell stories like photography, film, like here are all

[00:03:03] these other ways that you can do some version of this thing that you want

[00:03:06] to do that people say is a safer way to do it or in more economically

[00:03:10] feasible way to do it.

[00:03:13] But I think for a long time, I was trying to figure out that while still

[00:03:17] kind of writing on the side or writing in bits and pieces.

[00:03:20] And I would probably say maybe one of the fundamental, I guess, I say,

[00:03:23] maybe pieces of my journey, I would say, probably when I was a kid.

[00:03:27] Like, I probably like everyone I did does that thing.

[00:03:28] I think where you're like 11 and 12, you're like, I'm going to write a novel.

[00:03:31] And I remember a friend and I who were both readers decided we were

[00:03:36] going to write this novel together.

[00:03:38] And it was interesting because of all the books that we read at the time,

[00:03:41] we didn't see any books that, you know, girls that looked like us,

[00:03:44] which was just like, OK, Black girl with pressed hair again.

[00:03:47] And the things I'm reading, of course, are like things to

[00:03:49] describe and the Wakefield twins and they're like all these fluffy

[00:03:53] books about school rivalries and disappointing your parents in really

[00:03:56] PG ways.

[00:04:00] And I think all the books that I feel like of the few books that existed at

[00:04:03] the time about young Black girls were always like tragedies.

[00:04:07] They were always like abject poverty, violent sexual abuse, just

[00:04:11] like super, super, super dark tragic stories.

[00:04:15] And so I think I think it's interesting that when we first

[00:04:18] started to write these stories and try to write about people that look like us,

[00:04:21] we didn't know how to do that.

[00:04:22] We felt like there was no way forward.

[00:04:23] So we wrote about blonde girls who were in Love with Boys named Blake and who

[00:04:31] who were on the cheerleading team, you know, just whatever, because it's like

[00:04:33] those were the things we were reading.

[00:04:35] And so I think a large part of my journey has been trying to figure out

[00:04:38] like how to write our stories and like how do we write our stories?

[00:04:40] How to write about people that look like us in the communities that we

[00:04:42] come from? How do we write about Black institution building?

[00:04:45] How do we write about all these things that matter that are all the

[00:04:47] different pieces of who we are, even if we don't necessarily see them out

[00:04:50] there represented in the way that we think they should be?

[00:04:53] I wonder, did you ever feel like you were hiding your writing or

[00:04:59] you want to be a writer by doing it on the side in this like secretive

[00:05:04] way where you're trying to tell these stories of Black women and girls,

[00:05:07] but no one believes that you could make it.

[00:05:10] So then you like just keep it to yourself and not share.

[00:05:13] Even when I published the book, I feel like I was coming out of the closet

[00:05:16] in a way, if that makes any sense.

[00:05:19] Whereas like because I worked in advertising for a long time and I remember

[00:05:22] I had first started to do like writing residencies and do the whole thing.

[00:05:25] And I had taken a break and I had a really like a couple of kind bosses

[00:05:28] who really let me like take a month off and go do your writing residency.

[00:05:31] And of course, I didn't tell my co-workers where I was going

[00:05:34] because that doesn't make any sense to people.

[00:05:36] And so I just said, oh, I'm just taking, you know, taking time off, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:39] And a co-worker of mine who said that when I came back, everyone thought

[00:05:44] I was in rehab because of course, like if you are a regular person with a job again

[00:05:49] and there's no and you're not saying that there's like some tragic thing

[00:05:52] where it's like someone's sick or someone's ill or you having a baby.

[00:05:54] Like people don't have any kind of context for it.

[00:05:57] I'm going to take some time off and like work on a book.

[00:06:01] What are you doing?

[00:06:02] So I feel like when I published the book, there was a lot of like

[00:06:05] kind of coming out as a writer in a way where it's like there had been

[00:06:08] this part of my life that had been a huge part of my life for a long time

[00:06:11] that a lot of people just didn't know about.

[00:06:14] Were you always as you were taking the time to hone your skill in your craft

[00:06:19] by doing residencies?

[00:06:20] Was it always working on what became night wherever we go?

[00:06:25] At the time, yeah, for sure.

[00:06:26] Because I've been this book has been with me for about a decade, I would say.

[00:06:29] Maybe a little longer because I think when I first came across

[00:06:32] the anecdote that to me that is kind of the cornerstone of the book,

[00:06:36] I didn't know how to write a novel yet.

[00:06:38] I hadn't really written a lot of short stories yet.

[00:06:40] I didn't have my craft level wasn't there.

[00:06:42] So it took a long time to get to the point where I could tell the story

[00:06:45] in the way that I wanted to and do it, the justice that I felt like it deserved.

[00:06:48] And I think part of that also when you're doing it on the side

[00:06:51] and you're like working full time and going through all the different

[00:06:53] iterations of what that looks like in corporate America

[00:06:58] and in different, like, particularly tough cities like I love

[00:07:01] when you work for like a decade, which is, you know, can be a tough city

[00:07:03] to like make a living in.

[00:07:04] And that has a big effect on like, you know, your projects,

[00:07:07] your productivity at different points.

[00:07:08] You said what was the cornerstone of the novel that you cut out of it?

[00:07:11] Yeah, to me, the cornerstone of the novel is there's an anecdote

[00:07:15] and in polygitting social history when and where I enter,

[00:07:18] which is basically a social history about black women in America.

[00:07:21] And she has one chapter on slavery and resistance.

[00:07:25] And in that chapter is where she talks about this one story

[00:07:29] of this group of women on a plantation, most likely in Tennessee

[00:07:33] who controlled the birthrate on their farm for like 20 years.

[00:07:35] So even when their master would swap out one of the women

[00:07:39] and try to create more fertility, the pregnancy has never lasted

[00:07:42] more than like four or five months.

[00:07:44] I think only one or two children were born with them

[00:07:46] like a 20 year period.

[00:07:47] And they found out at the end that there was an old woman

[00:07:50] who was giving them a quote unquote remedy, an herbal remedy.

[00:07:53] And we know this story because it was before it was at a

[00:07:55] medical journal, a medical conference where a lot of doctors

[00:07:57] were meeting to talk about this problem of like

[00:08:00] enslaved women's fertility and how they, you know, things

[00:08:02] that they need to be aware of.

[00:08:03] Women are wily and blah, blah, blah.

[00:08:05] So I first read that anecdote in her book and I was like,

[00:08:08] that's a fucking novel.

[00:08:10] Like I'm not ready to write it.

[00:08:11] I don't have the skill to write that yet, but that's a novel.

[00:08:14] And I would say it was and is.

[00:08:20] And I probably think some of that comes from a study film

[00:08:23] that Howard and was reared by black filmmakers

[00:08:28] who were very focused on black resistance and not just how

[00:08:31] we tell our stories, but like what are the.

[00:08:34] And a lot of times like we're thinking about like overt

[00:08:36] resistance, but I think that was the thing I was really

[00:08:38] interested in this story because it's not the resistance

[00:08:40] that we normally think about.

[00:08:41] It's covert resistance is quiet.

[00:08:43] It's not necessarily Gabriel Crosser and that Turner,

[00:08:46] but it is the ways that women were employing the tools

[00:08:51] that they had to resist in the ways that were most important

[00:08:53] to them. And that's the thing I think that's really

[00:08:55] inspiring to me about like that anecdote, but also just

[00:08:58] reading around it and reading the other stories of women

[00:09:00] who were just like, yeah, I'm not having children until

[00:09:02] I'm in this patient. Like I'm just I'm not doing it.

[00:09:04] And I'm not bringing children into this.

[00:09:06] And yeah, so that just was like

[00:09:08] mind blowing when I first read it.

[00:09:10] And I still was just like, I still haven't seen

[00:09:11] that story anywhere.

[00:09:12] I have to figure out how to do it.

[00:09:15] The only place I had seen it before your book

[00:09:18] was in a Twitter thread.

[00:09:20] And I don't even remember who posted it because it was

[00:09:23] this whole deep dive about cotton root.

[00:09:26] And I went down the entire rabbit hole.

[00:09:28] I was like, what?

[00:09:31] And so then when I read your book, I was like, oh,

[00:09:34] Cisps was deep into the knowledge.

[00:09:37] Like all of the conjure in the hoodoo and the plants

[00:09:41] and the herbs and then the one character talking to trees.

[00:09:45] I told you when I emailed you back to schedule this interview,

[00:09:48] I was like, my God, the research.

[00:09:50] What was the research process like?

[00:09:51] Because I was like, I could never.

[00:09:54] It's definitely a long process of research, but I will say,

[00:09:57] like in some ways to me, it's almost two halves, right?

[00:09:59] Because I had written a draft of this novel while I was kind of

[00:10:02] working and advertising in New York and reading what I could

[00:10:05] get my hands on and like what I could get through.

[00:10:08] I don't want to say traditional channels, but, you know,

[00:10:10] that's part of the reason I went back to grad school,

[00:10:11] because I was just like, one, any more time.

[00:10:14] But B, I need another level of research.

[00:10:18] And but I currently have access to.

[00:10:20] I'm very fortunate to have written this book at a time

[00:10:22] when scholars are doing such amazing work.

[00:10:25] I feel like one of the other books that I often

[00:10:26] mention at the foundation is Stephanie Camp's book,

[00:10:29] Closer to Freedom, Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance

[00:10:32] in the Plantation Style.

[00:10:34] She's the person who writes a lot about the frolics and like

[00:10:38] the parties that enslaved folks would have and like what type

[00:10:41] of things would happen there.

[00:10:43] And like in that thing was like, I've never seen that before.

[00:10:46] That's a novel.

[00:10:47] What are the things that we do when we're together?

[00:10:49] And I think to me, that foundation comes from again,

[00:10:52] the question that Boris is often talking about or often,

[00:10:54] I think, kind of advising those of us who want to do this work

[00:10:57] is that the story is not.

[00:10:59] I feel like sometimes people get lost where the story is often

[00:11:02] like about our particular quote unquote battle with oppression

[00:11:05] or our battle with white people.

[00:11:06] And it's like, yeah, that's one portion of the story.

[00:11:08] The story really is how we deal with each other

[00:11:10] and how we communicate with each other

[00:11:12] and what the stresses of these systems do

[00:11:17] to our relationships with each other.

[00:11:19] And I feel like looking at those spaces,

[00:11:21] I think it's the city of harm sets right.

[00:11:22] Looking at those spaces allows us to explore that

[00:11:25] and not be always concerned with like, you know,

[00:11:28] telling the particular story of like us versus white people

[00:11:31] or whatever that is.

[00:11:32] Once you had all of those different jumping off points

[00:11:37] together in the research, what was it like when you finished

[00:11:41] like your first draft and felt like you were ready

[00:11:44] to go forward or more than a first draft?

[00:11:49] A third or fourth draft perhaps.

[00:11:51] Yeah, I mean, I've been working on it for a couple of years.

[00:11:55] We're under-ending.

[00:11:57] Was revising it.

[00:11:58] Thought I was about ready.

[00:11:59] I went to 10 house and did like a whatever the week long

[00:12:04] workshop is.

[00:12:04] And it's like, even in that workshop,

[00:12:05] you're only reading the first two chapters maybe

[00:12:08] of the book.

[00:12:09] But I had an instructor there who read the first two

[00:12:12] chapters and then like he had a conference.

[00:12:14] And he said, tell me what you're all about.

[00:12:17] And so I told him and he was like, that's amazing.

[00:12:19] Basically, these two chapters, that's not

[00:12:20] what I thought your novel was about.

[00:12:21] And when I digested what he had to say,

[00:12:23] what I realized was that that draft of the novel, all

[00:12:27] the scary stuff, was in the background of the novel.

[00:12:30] None of that was in the front.

[00:12:31] So like all this stuff where it's like,

[00:12:33] I was still scared to write about rape.

[00:12:34] I was still scared to write about like what actual forced

[00:12:36] reproduction look like.

[00:12:37] So I think there was a lot of stuff in the front around

[00:12:39] like maybe the forced marriages and whatever.

[00:12:40] But there was a lot of stuff that was like not there.

[00:12:44] And so that taught me, I was like, OK,

[00:12:46] you need to break it and start over.

[00:12:50] And so in grad school, that's when I kind of like basically

[00:12:52] started the novel over.

[00:12:53] And from that point, I would say it was probably during a pandemic

[00:12:56] that I had kind of hit the point where I was like, OK,

[00:12:58] I think this is here.

[00:13:01] We're pretty darn close to like the thing I wanted to be

[00:13:04] and the thing I imagined it to be.

[00:13:05] And that was terrifying.

[00:13:09] Then what has the publication process and journey

[00:13:11] been like before this unsettling experience of it's out?

[00:13:15] And so now what?

[00:13:17] It's tricky because I have to say, like, I would say

[00:13:18] I went out during the pandemic, I think, to.

[00:13:21] And this is the benefit again, also the benefits of grad school

[00:13:24] is that your professors know people and people come to the program.

[00:13:28] So I met the person who became my agent.

[00:13:30] I met him at the program.

[00:13:31] And so when I was ready, I think I said him the novel.

[00:13:35] And he was interested.

[00:13:37] And I think I went with him.

[00:13:39] And then I think he asked for, I think I did one round

[00:13:41] of revisions with him.

[00:13:42] And then we went out September.

[00:13:45] And then I think we sold, I think, within a few weeks.

[00:13:48] So Echo made a preempt and then

[00:13:50] worked with my editor that two rounds and came out this January.

[00:13:54] What is the reception been given the climate

[00:13:58] that we're now in around books, around reproductive freedom

[00:14:05] and all these things that you touch on in this book

[00:14:09] that are supposed to be relics of history

[00:14:12] but are still living with us in the very present day?

[00:14:16] It's been interesting because I think right around the time

[00:14:18] I came out, there would be initial questions around

[00:14:21] like the question of like Roe and the relevance of that.

[00:14:23] And the thing I typically say, it's funny, though,

[00:14:25] I feel like I haven't heard a lot of conversations about that

[00:14:27] since to be honest, but probably because there's been so much going on.

[00:14:31] But I think the thing I say about it in terms of like,

[00:14:34] is that I think the thing to me it reminds me.

[00:14:37] And I hope it reminds readers is that women have been fighting

[00:14:40] for a long time and that some of the tools that our ancestors

[00:14:45] would use our tools that are still of use to us.

[00:14:47] Right. So the question of going to your community,

[00:14:51] Dula or going to your community birth worker and having a birth worker.

[00:14:56] It's that thing about how like these vital practices sustained us

[00:15:00] and they were there for a reason.

[00:15:01] And I think we've seen the effect of like not having them.

[00:15:05] What it means when our quote unquote,

[00:15:07] Granny Midwest or not part whatever were forced out of the system

[00:15:10] and like what that has looked like for a maternal mortality race

[00:15:12] in black communities.

[00:15:13] And now looking at this other new kind of aspect of what's happening

[00:15:17] with reproductive rights.

[00:15:17] So all of it's a long, long terrible through line.

[00:15:22] But it's that that thing about understanding the past

[00:15:25] so we're not forced to repeat it.

[00:15:27] So with that said, let's get into your book that deals with the past.

[00:15:31] If you could read a little bit from it

[00:15:32] and then we can dive all the way in because I too have a thought

[00:15:36] about the first chapter and then when we ended at the very end.

[00:15:39] And I was like, that's the same book.

[00:15:47] Tracy Rose Payton's debut novel Night Wherever We Go

[00:15:51] follows the lives of six enslaved women

[00:15:53] on a struggling plantation in Texas.

[00:15:56] When their owners, the Lucy's nicknamed after Lucifer himself

[00:16:01] come up with a plan to increase their prosperity through reproduction.

[00:16:04] The women refuse choosing to honor their own lives.

[00:16:09] Loves marriages, bodies and other children,

[00:16:13] despite the consequences of such open rebellion.

[00:16:18] Here's Tracy.

[00:16:19] All right, I'm just going to read a paragraph from the first chapter.

[00:16:24] When we became we, Texas country was still new.

[00:16:27] Only a few years older than the Union.

[00:16:29] Navarro County was known as a land of wheat with dreams of cotton.

[00:16:33] Corn was a share of business, but men like Mr.

[00:16:35] Lucy came to Texas with cotton on the brain

[00:16:37] and dragged us along to make sure the land would yield.

[00:16:40] He had been unlucky before we knew from Junie

[00:16:42] because she had been with the Lucy's the longest.

[00:16:45] She had worked for Mrs. Lucy before she was a Mrs.

[00:16:47] then was carried off to Wilkes County, Georgia,

[00:16:50] where she worked field after word on field as a couple of debt grew and grew.

[00:16:54] And she told us how they packed up and left in the dead of night

[00:16:56] to outwit angry creditors that run to seize what little he had left.

[00:17:01] By then, almost all Lucy had between him and Shorruin

[00:17:05] was 30 work through acres and three slaves.

[00:17:09] They took to the road and two wagons stuffed to the gills

[00:17:12] with furniture, clothes, crockery and seeds.

[00:17:14] The Lucy's fighting all the while.

[00:17:16] They're two small children screaming and fits.

[00:17:19] Harlow drawn on about a vision from God about a land of plenty

[00:17:23] while his wife called him a fool with foolish ways

[00:17:26] for pitch increasing with every mud hole, every windstorm,

[00:17:28] every feverish river of dirty water.

[00:17:31] God's favor was surely shined upon them.

[00:17:33] Harlow assured her when their two male slaves were seized

[00:17:36] and held at the Trader's Office in New Orleans for outstanding debts.

[00:17:39] Judy wondered if Lizzie was right all along.

[00:17:42] She knew she had only been spared a place in the trader's pen

[00:17:45] because of paper, Judy belonged to Lizzie, a dourer slave held in trust for Lizzie's children.

[00:17:51] But like I remember reading the flap copy

[00:17:55] and I was like, OK, I think I know what this is about.

[00:17:58] And then you introduce the women

[00:18:01] and then you introduce the stockman from the flap copy.

[00:18:04] But then about a quarter into the book, all that goes away.

[00:18:11] And it becomes something else entirely.

[00:18:14] And I was like, I thought we was just going to deal with this part

[00:18:19] and not all of this.

[00:18:22] And by all of this, I mean, it's it's not just forced rape from a breeder.

[00:18:27] It's not just slavery.

[00:18:31] It's the interior lives of these women

[00:18:38] who are enslaved and are forced to reckon like today

[00:18:43] with the patriarchy and the white supremacy

[00:18:46] while also trying to maintain their own

[00:18:49] not only bodily autonomy, but just personal autonomy.

[00:18:54] And I was just like, I wasn't expecting all of that.

[00:18:57] So you talked earlier about having to break the book

[00:19:01] after you got that first note in the published version that we have

[00:19:06] was an intentional to kind of like ease into everything

[00:19:10] that you wanted to say once you knew that you had to go deeper

[00:19:13] than what you originally had.

[00:19:16] Oh, maybe.

[00:19:17] I mean, I think and more so does go to this where it's like, I think of like

[00:19:20] a novel allows us to tell many, many stories.

[00:19:23] And even in early drafts, I think like one of the things

[00:19:26] I was scared of was dealing with motherhood in the book because I'm not a mother.

[00:19:29] And then I was like, you can't talk about this without talking about motherhood.

[00:19:32] You can't talk about this without talking about the grief and the loss

[00:19:35] of having children that you're not able that you are not allowed

[00:19:38] to raise a mother in the way that you want to.

[00:19:40] The particular tragedy of losing children under enslavement.

[00:19:45] Like there were just so many layers that I was just like,

[00:19:47] there are all these things that are part of this

[00:19:48] that you have to be willing to kind of like walk into the fire with

[00:19:52] in order to just do justice to the subject.

[00:19:55] I think also too, it's writing about this particular period

[00:19:58] post the whole question of quote unquote slavery fatigue.

[00:20:01] I felt like I had to justify why this book needed to exist.

[00:20:04] So I felt I think I felt this pressure

[00:20:07] to tell a bunch of stories that I felt were undersplored or I felt like we hadn't heard.

[00:20:11] So not just talk about reproduction, but also talk about Texas,

[00:20:13] which is something we don't necessarily think of as part of the story

[00:20:16] of American slavery to talk about what the historian of terror had to cause

[00:20:20] mixed status marriages where if you are married to someone

[00:20:24] with a different level of freedom than you have,

[00:20:26] it's to your marriage someone who is quote unquote free and you're not.

[00:20:28] Like what does that look like and how does that affect your marriage?

[00:20:31] Which I think we deal with with the patients in the book

[00:20:32] where her husband is called a quote a free man sort of.

[00:20:35] And so a couple of ways in the book, all of those different levels

[00:20:39] of freedom enslavement trying to navigate

[00:20:44] that even with where you live in the south.

[00:20:49] And I don't think I've ever read a novel about slavery

[00:20:54] where it's no not let's run north.

[00:20:57] Let's go south to the border and hit Mexico right fast.

[00:21:01] And I was like, oh, that is also an option.

[00:21:04] Never even considered it.

[00:21:06] And I guess from learning that and learning that that was also a route.

[00:21:11] How did that open your mind to the ways

[00:21:14] that black people, no matter where they were

[00:21:18] or what station they had continued to resist and rebel?

[00:21:21] I went to Texas for grad school.

[00:21:24] And then I just got inspired by Texas because it's such a strange.

[00:21:28] I should say strange. It's such an interesting place.

[00:21:30] You can say strange.

[00:21:31] I live in Texas for a little bit. It's strange.

[00:21:33] Yeah, I mean, Texas has a very interesting,

[00:21:36] I would say as an outsider, Texas to me was strange

[00:21:38] just because it's interesting to live in a place.

[00:21:39] But they're very enamored with the lower of Texas.

[00:21:42] They're very enamored with their history.

[00:21:43] That's seven years of independence really list for them.

[00:21:45] That's seven years of the existence of their own state of the country

[00:21:48] really list for them.

[00:21:49] And I got really interested in why why Texas, why slavery

[00:21:53] is a big part of the Texas story.

[00:21:54] And we never think of it as that.

[00:21:55] And that as the more I was researching, slavery is foundational.

[00:21:59] It's a core part of why Texas is Texas.

[00:22:02] It's a core part of the beginning of the Austin Colony

[00:22:05] and why they moved there and they moved there

[00:22:07] to create more of an empire for space for plantations.

[00:22:11] And they had got permission from the Mexican government

[00:22:13] to live there and start a colony.

[00:22:15] And the Mexican government said, cool, you can do that, but no slavery.

[00:22:18] And they said, well, what about indigenous slaves?

[00:22:20] People who were indigenous for 99 years, they were like, no.

[00:22:22] And the whole battle of what happened in terms of like

[00:22:25] Austin Colony from Austin Colony becoming that to Texas

[00:22:28] and becoming part of the union is all about slavery.

[00:22:31] And that I read that and I was just like, that is amazing.

[00:22:33] And why did I never know that before?

[00:22:35] And that feels like a foundational part of understanding

[00:22:39] a, a story that I want to tell, but also thinking about that.

[00:22:41] If there's a whole question with scholars about how, quote unquote,

[00:22:45] common slave breeding was, but if it was common,

[00:22:49] it makes sense that it would be more common in Texas.

[00:22:52] Mainly because of just where Texas was evolving at the latter half

[00:22:55] of when the Atlantic slave trade closed, like in 1808.

[00:22:58] So like this part of Texas is like, you know, 1830s, 1840s.

[00:23:01] At that point, the trade is closed.

[00:23:03] Now all of it is domestic movement of enslaved people

[00:23:06] from the upper south to the lower south.

[00:23:08] Also, because we had this whole particular weird history, too,

[00:23:10] of like smuggled Africans who were smuggled into Texas

[00:23:13] again, post-the-trade.

[00:23:14] So like they had a whole population of African born

[00:23:18] enslaved people in a way that where there wasn't happening

[00:23:21] in the rest of the, the rest of the country at that point anymore.

[00:23:24] So you had all this interesting things happening in Texas,

[00:23:27] plus just the nexus of like what was happening with Mexicans and Tajanos

[00:23:30] and like what was happening with Native Americans.

[00:23:32] And, and so you just have like the history of it.

[00:23:35] It's wild. It's super interesting.

[00:23:37] And I just, I found Texas super inspiring.

[00:23:40] And Texas super interesting as a place and just trying to think

[00:23:44] about the stories of black folks in it.

[00:23:45] And I was just like, why don't I'm telling you stories

[00:23:47] about black people here?

[00:23:49] In elucidating all of these different ways of resistance

[00:23:53] and rebellion from running south for freedom to chewing cotton,

[00:23:58] rooting herbs to stave off reproduction.

[00:24:02] There's also a heavy emphasis on religion and spirituality.

[00:24:07] And you incorporate various modes of religion.

[00:24:10] So there's one woman who is Catholic.

[00:24:14] There's another that was Muslim, another who practices

[00:24:19] ifa, another that's just, you know, doing hoodoo.

[00:24:23] And all of them respect those practices

[00:24:27] and then incorporate them in one way or another.

[00:24:30] Well, if this one's not working, let's try this one.

[00:24:32] If this one's not working, we're going to try this one.

[00:24:34] We don't keep calling on somebody. OK.

[00:24:38] Why was it important to show how important spirituality was,

[00:24:44] especially in times of resistance?

[00:24:47] Hmm. I love that question.

[00:24:49] I think I was super interested in the diversity of spiritual practices.

[00:24:53] Right. I think Timmy, part of the larger project, right?

[00:24:55] It's a part of the stories of its life folks are often very often very flat.

[00:24:58] And so I was super interested in this idea

[00:25:01] of the diversity of spirit ways that people were practicing,

[00:25:05] whether that's you know, hoodoo or or some type of herbalism

[00:25:08] or even more kind of, you know, Christianity or not.

[00:25:11] But like and then also just the ways that people

[00:25:14] were practicing them in different ways.

[00:25:15] Like I think all of us know, I think I've always been interested

[00:25:18] in that kind of texture in between where like all of us, I think,

[00:25:22] especially those of us who have relatives down South

[00:25:24] who will be all day Christian, but also practice a little hoodoo.

[00:25:28] I got you right.

[00:25:30] And so, so yeah, I think I've always

[00:25:33] interested in like, hey, that tension that we are not just one thing.

[00:25:37] I think maybe two or three books to come to mind about

[00:25:40] like a slight religion or the evolution of that.

[00:25:43] And one of the things they talked about was that for people,

[00:25:45] hoodoo was very practical for them.

[00:25:47] Hoodoo was practical magic and like there's some things you go to Jesus with.

[00:25:50] And the other thing you need right now today, you need.

[00:25:55] Yeah, you know that meter you might pray on it and I'm a prayer on it.

[00:26:00] And I'm going to get this here potion right fast.

[00:26:03] I'm going we don't we don't like this candle.

[00:26:05] We don't you know, wrap this thing up right whatever.

[00:26:08] Like and I thought that was and I just appreciated that.

[00:26:11] I just thought like, OK, it makes sense that like there are all these ways

[00:26:14] in which you were trying to fight the thing better.

[00:26:16] A lot of things that you're trying to deal with.

[00:26:18] And to me, it doesn't it makes sense to me that you would like try

[00:26:21] to access all the sources that feel available to you.

[00:26:25] Somebody's gonna listen maybe.

[00:26:27] Yeah.

[00:26:30] In having all of these different layers and these different not quite.

[00:26:36] It's not a send off, but like these different pockets of knowledge

[00:26:39] that are embedded within the novel.

[00:26:42] Did any of it scare you as you were writing and trying to weave it all together?

[00:26:49] Yeah, in some ways, I think because like it can get overwhelming.

[00:26:53] And I think you're always trying to do that thing where the book filled

[00:26:56] with it and you're not trying to necessarily I'm not a historian.

[00:27:00] I'm not trying to like this is not, you know, history, you know, history 103

[00:27:04] or whatever.

[00:27:06] And though I still want people to enjoy the experience of reading it,

[00:27:10] I still want people I want people to take nuggets from it.

[00:27:12] And if there's things that they're like, oh, I didn't know that I want

[00:27:14] to learn more about that.

[00:27:16] But mostly I want people just to feel that the experience that the

[00:27:18] experience was lived in that they get to walk into that space and feel

[00:27:23] it from an interior space and feel it from a and most of it to me,

[00:27:27] I think also too with some of the religion stuff, a lot of it.

[00:27:29] I feel like that I'm interested in a way of seeing right like that.

[00:27:33] If we come from a people who believe that the environment was alive,

[00:27:38] right? And that the trees are alive and that the plants can talk to me

[00:27:40] and that the plants can offer me help.

[00:27:43] That affects everything in terms of how you look at the world

[00:27:46] and how the bird outside your window is a sign or not a sign

[00:27:51] or any of those things.

[00:27:52] And so part of it to me, it was trying to embody that embody

[00:27:57] a way of seeing that in some ways, I think we've lost a little bit.

[00:28:00] At least I know I feel separate from that in a way that I think part of this book

[00:28:03] is a way of trying to get back to you.

[00:28:05] I want to talk about the ending with this hymn because I was reading

[00:28:10] the hymn and I'm reading the last line of the book.

[00:28:13] And then, you know, I'm the kind of reader that reads from the dedication

[00:28:16] to the acknowledgement so I get all in everybody's business.

[00:28:19] And in the acknowledgments you talk about the hymn is untitled.

[00:28:25] Why did you want to send the women off singing

[00:28:30] and chorus in harmony where and that the one that wasn't with them could join it?

[00:28:41] That's how I felt exactly right there.

[00:28:43] I love it.

[00:28:44] That's what you did.

[00:28:47] It's funny because like I never had another ending, right?

[00:28:50] Like I knew there would be some tragedy in ending.

[00:28:53] I knew that that in some ways was inevitable.

[00:28:55] But also the bond between them to me was so important.

[00:28:59] And even through all their little stuff with each other,

[00:29:03] that bond and that still being connected in the here and in the hereafter

[00:29:07] was the thing that kind of carried me through that.

[00:29:09] And like I just felt like, yeah, we're still here, whether it's, you know,

[00:29:13] whichever side of the earth or whichever side of the land of the dead

[00:29:17] or the land of the living, that cosmology that kind of comes back and forth in the book.

[00:29:21] I want to ask about the role of both grief and greed,

[00:29:26] because I think they serve a similar function, especially for Junie.

[00:29:34] I think is how we have the ending that we have and the climax that we have.

[00:29:38] And it's just like, no.

[00:29:41] But those are such base emotions

[00:29:46] that they can color your judgment and your discernment

[00:29:50] and make you do or go after something that should be out of reach.

[00:29:55] But you think it's just within your grasp

[00:29:59] and having that feeling of longing and yearning be so palpable in the Lucy's

[00:30:07] as well as in their enslaved property.

[00:30:11] What was it like for you to play with that emotion

[00:30:14] and what it would make people do as a motivation?

[00:30:18] Yeah, I mean, I think I was really interested in desire a lot.

[00:30:23] And I think part of the ways,

[00:30:25] part of that I felt like early on, I felt like the challenge in writing

[00:30:29] like a group of women was making them distinct on the page.

[00:30:33] And I could make people very distinct based on their desire and what they wanted.

[00:30:38] And even from Junie's deep hunger to be reunited with her children

[00:30:43] for even Sarah is like kind of foolish, kind of teenage,

[00:30:46] kind of hungry to be with her love.

[00:30:49] And so desire just became super important to me in that way,

[00:30:54] where I became this way to like illuminate everyone's kind of like

[00:30:58] not just personality, but just off of the thing that's like

[00:31:01] that's moving them, driving them is the thing that like

[00:31:03] is a thing that that they kind of hold dear is the thing that

[00:31:08] that just gives us just a whole another picture in terms of like

[00:31:12] beyond the labor and all the other other kind of normal things

[00:31:15] that kind of color their day.

[00:31:17] So I think I was really interested in and the same with the Lucy's.

[00:31:19] I was really interested in this desire between the couple, too,

[00:31:23] where it's like part of I'm interested in puncturing this idea

[00:31:26] of like my mastery, right?

[00:31:28] Like this idea of and I feel like the country is very good

[00:31:32] or the US or whatever.

[00:31:34] And we're just Western literature is very good at telling me stories

[00:31:36] about white men as like masters of the universe.

[00:31:38] And it's deeply untrue.

[00:31:40] Well, no, like you say that.

[00:31:42] And I think in like any your novel, Harlow could not have mastered

[00:31:44] the land nor could he master the people that he enslaved.

[00:31:48] He couldn't master his wife.

[00:31:49] He just was he was not the master of anything.

[00:31:53] I think that and I think also part of the thing is like to read about

[00:31:57] and also to to read about the the vision between working class

[00:32:03] white farmers or any other or any other and by white farmers

[00:32:07] who either quote unquote own slave and those who couldn't afford slaves

[00:32:09] with any own land and could run slaves.

[00:32:13] You know, the distinction between them and the one percent was always this

[00:32:17] this desire a for more and this desire that they could be more

[00:32:21] they could have more they could be like the one percent.

[00:32:23] And I think and I always think that one of the biggest

[00:32:26] you know, cons ever told was how and we continue to see this right

[00:32:30] with Trump is how the one percent kind of got white working class farmers

[00:32:34] aboard instead of them being populist and kind of dealing

[00:32:36] with like the clash it was like, but no.

[00:32:39] You're white.

[00:32:40] You're white.

[00:32:41] You're supposed to be with us.

[00:32:42] You're supposed to have all of the whatever like, you know, all of this

[00:32:45] is supposed to be yours.

[00:32:46] All of this, you know, should be yours.

[00:32:48] And if only if you just kind of stay with us, we'll just help you.

[00:32:52] We'll help you get there or whatever.

[00:32:53] And it's, you know, it's always a full there and and it was important

[00:32:56] to me to not make the white people cartoons to understand because I

[00:32:58] because I think it's a psychology of being a person who believes

[00:33:01] you can own other people is interesting is deeply interesting to me.

[00:33:03] And so understanding his own greed and his own tension with his wife

[00:33:08] and I'll say some of that some of that thinking comes from Stephanie

[00:33:11] Joan Rogers book.

[00:33:13] They were her property where she writes a lot about white women's

[00:33:15] role in particular, where it's like a lot of times we're like, oh,

[00:33:18] they just maybe just managed to house and it's like, no, no, they own property.

[00:33:22] They, you know, ran breastfeeding markets and they, you know,

[00:33:26] like they had a lot of hands and a lot of different things.

[00:33:28] And so it's a hard book kind of really illuminates that.

[00:33:31] But one of the things her book also illuminates is like the tension

[00:33:34] that you would have sometimes between couples who had different levels

[00:33:36] of property, whether if you have a woman who through dower,

[00:33:39] maybe she owns more than her husband and the tensions of what that looked like.

[00:33:44] And so I thought that was really interesting, which we often don't think about that.

[00:33:47] We often don't think about what the tensions between these couples

[00:33:51] and that, you know, sometimes the ways in which white women had power

[00:33:55] that they that we often don't acknowledge and that they often don't acknowledge.

[00:33:59] So all I have to say, I think I was really interested in the desires

[00:34:02] of everyone in the book.

[00:34:04] Given all that you hover in this book, just at a human level,

[00:34:10] what do you want readers to take from it?

[00:34:12] I think understanding probably I would say

[00:34:13] would be the long tail of some of these battles that we're looking at right now,

[00:34:17] which I guess with the band books is just even battles to tell these stories

[00:34:20] and talk about these stories.

[00:34:21] But some of them I think it was about race and reproduction

[00:34:24] and autonomy over one's body and oneself.

[00:34:28] And I think those things in particular

[00:34:32] and I think a lot sometimes about how we're very quick to

[00:34:39] displace the role of history in our current battles and our current fights.

[00:34:43] Again, I think just understanding the understanding the tail,

[00:34:46] understanding how we got here, I think it's key to understanding

[00:34:49] kind of what we're dealing with as far as like row, as far as maternal mortality.

[00:34:53] Just so many things I think that are going on that I think understanding

[00:34:56] the past helps us to better equip ourselves and square up.

[00:35:02] For the current situations that we face.

[00:35:04] I don't know why when you said that it just makes me think about the Montgomery brawl.

[00:35:11] First thing that just popped in my mind, that's all I thought about.

[00:35:15] I'm not square up.

[00:35:16] We're up, man.

[00:35:17] I feel like we at the point.

[00:35:19] Stop.

[00:35:21] All right, I want to switch to this

[00:35:23] feet round of the game for I let you go for the afternoon.

[00:35:26] I know the answer is going to be many, but try if you can.

[00:35:29] What is your favorite book?

[00:35:32] I just finished reading Louise Erdish, The Night Watchman and She the Beast,

[00:35:37] regardless. But like, again, talk about someone who's like trying to like,

[00:35:40] how do we tell the stories about the long-tell history?

[00:35:44] How do we tell stories of our people?

[00:35:45] How do we tell stories about our language?

[00:35:46] Like she's one, she's always doing that.

[00:35:48] But like, you know, she's a beast.

[00:35:51] Who is your favorite author?

[00:35:53] I mean, I have to go with the goat.

[00:35:57] Morrison all day.

[00:35:59] I mean, there's so many, honestly.

[00:36:00] But I feel like she's she's the person who I feel like we're always writing in

[00:36:03] the wake of her legacy that wake up like Tony K. Van Bara, like the wake of those women.

[00:36:08] What do you think is the best book to movie or TV show adaptation?

[00:36:12] Even though I'm not sure it's true, but I'm going to say the color purple

[00:36:16] and I'm going to stick with the original.

[00:36:17] I don't know what they're doing with a new one.

[00:36:19] Maybe it's great. I don't know.

[00:36:20] But.

[00:36:23] But I think I'm going to I'm going to say that because I think

[00:36:26] that the two things remain distinct, though, for me in a way that like one is not

[00:36:31] feel like a carbon copy of the other.

[00:36:33] Like the book is a singular masterpiece.

[00:36:36] And then there's something else I really appreciate about that movie.

[00:36:39] And even though I'll be honest, I feel like because I've seen that movie

[00:36:42] so long ago and have seen it so many times, I cannot look at it as a like

[00:36:46] objective piece of art anymore.

[00:36:47] But there's something else I think something I appreciate about

[00:36:51] the two things feel distinct, like a distinct piece of art,

[00:36:53] distinct contributions to the culture, the song, Sequencey Jones,

[00:36:57] you know, arranged and all of that stuff like that do joint scene.

[00:37:00] Like there's just so many things that I feel like distinct things

[00:37:03] that the movie does distinct from the book and then the way in which that

[00:37:06] book is just like a fucking incantation.

[00:37:08] Like you just like read it, it follows you whole and spits you out.

[00:37:10] You're like, what the hell is that? How?

[00:37:13] If money were no object, where would you go?

[00:37:16] What would you do? And where would you live?

[00:37:18] In some ways, I'd be doing what I'm doing now,

[00:37:20] which is trying to figure out how to write the next work.

[00:37:24] Except without the question of like, oh,

[00:37:27] Chyce, you need to figure out a job.

[00:37:30] Without that question hanging over my head.

[00:37:32] Where would I live?

[00:37:33] I'd probably travel more, of course.

[00:37:35] I feel like that's always the thing.

[00:37:36] And even though I want to be one of those people who's like,

[00:37:38] I'm going to leave the US for good.

[00:37:40] I want to be one of those people who say that I'm probably not.

[00:37:43] Like my family's here. Our blood is here.

[00:37:44] Like I'm not there's something I believe in that.

[00:37:47] There's something I still believe in that whatever that little

[00:37:49] piece of land that my grandfather owns and, you know,

[00:37:51] who's now passed but owns and like Thomas and Jordan,

[00:37:55] there's something I still believe about that space

[00:37:58] of that land and our connection to that land

[00:38:00] that I don't necessarily think Black people should see

[00:38:02] as fast as we seem to be willing to do so.

[00:38:06] That's another conversation, I guess.

[00:38:07] So probably, yeah, those things.

[00:38:09] Yeah.

[00:38:11] Name three things on your bucket list.

[00:38:13] Oh, OK.

[00:38:15] Write us a script that gets made.

[00:38:18] Go to Ghana because I just still have never been.

[00:38:21] Yeah. Yeah. So I just probably like I spend some time

[00:38:23] on the continent, go to Ghana, go to Senegal,

[00:38:25] like go to South Africa, like spend some time

[00:38:26] on the continent, deep time on the continent.

[00:38:28] And third, probably have this.

[00:38:31] I don't know what to call it because I think it's like

[00:38:33] it may not be a very traditional thing.

[00:38:35] But like I think because I've moved

[00:38:36] to much places that have been in the family who are all

[00:38:38] over kind of scattered who've never been in one place

[00:38:40] because I've not got not have not gotten married.

[00:38:43] So I feel like the traditional ways you have things

[00:38:46] that bring all those people together are like weddings.

[00:38:49] And I think in lieu of that, like how do you have these?

[00:38:51] How do you have some type of celebratory thing

[00:38:53] that brings all the people you love in one room?

[00:38:56] A birthday.

[00:38:57] You know, I feel like birthdays are I don't know.

[00:38:59] I've never been a big birthday person.

[00:39:01] Maybe I should be boy.

[00:39:04] So maybe a birthday or something.

[00:39:06] But like just some type of celebratory thing

[00:39:08] where I can pull people together from all

[00:39:11] different aspects of my life and like have them be

[00:39:13] have them share space.

[00:39:14] But it just seems like it would be a beautiful thing

[00:39:16] to happen at some point in my life.

[00:39:18] All right. What brings you joy?

[00:39:20] Books, friends, too much wine.

[00:39:26] Good liquor on occasion.

[00:39:28] I bought three bottles today.

[00:39:33] What brings you peace?

[00:39:35] Books probably bring me peace.

[00:39:36] I think I'm one of those people who I forget this all

[00:39:38] the time, which sounds really silly, but I think

[00:39:41] I lose a sense of myself when I'm not reading

[00:39:45] and I'm a little bit more and more

[00:39:47] if I'm not reading.

[00:39:48] And then I'm like, oh, why are you weird now?

[00:39:50] Like, why are you scatterbrained?

[00:39:53] Oh, you probably should be reading.

[00:39:54] You probably are not nourishing yourself

[00:39:57] in the way that it's important to you.

[00:40:00] Yeah. All right.

[00:40:01] So our game is called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:40:03] Classic is however you define it.

[00:40:06] Name one book where you wish you would have been the author.

[00:40:10] Juliozuka's Food and the Attic,

[00:40:11] which is a super short book.

[00:40:14] It's like the whole book is written in a wee.

[00:40:16] It's the story of Japanese picture brides coming to America

[00:40:19] in the 1940s, and it's fucking brilliant.

[00:40:24] It's one of those things where it's so fucking brilliant.

[00:40:26] You're just like, hey, how it be?

[00:40:29] If only I could do that.

[00:40:32] And the other brilliant thing I say about that book

[00:40:33] is that the thing that she does from a craft perspective,

[00:40:36] that's amazing is that the wee is the consistent Japanese

[00:40:40] picture brides who are kind of over in the scoreless way.

[00:40:43] But the they is constantly changing.

[00:40:45] So the they is the children, the they is the husband,

[00:40:49] the they is the white people that they work for.

[00:40:52] Brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

[00:40:53] Name one book where you want to change the ending

[00:40:56] and how would you do it?

[00:40:57] I'm going to say The English Fasciate.

[00:41:01] But I can't think of anything else right now.

[00:41:04] You didn't have to kill the guy again.

[00:41:05] I'm like, that was unnecessary.

[00:41:07] That was just unnecessary.

[00:41:09] And then my messy question.

[00:41:12] Name one book you think is overrated or overtaught and why?

[00:41:16] I don't get the catcher in the right thing, Sam.

[00:41:18] I don't I don't I don't get it.

[00:41:20] I swear I've done.

[00:41:22] You might be like my 14th interview for this season.

[00:41:25] And I feel like 12 of y'all have all said

[00:41:26] the catcher in the ride like this is shade the catcher

[00:41:30] in the right season.

[00:41:31] If that's the only thing you get from black

[00:41:33] and published for season four, it's we're shading

[00:41:35] the catcher in the right.

[00:41:36] And it should come out of the cannon.

[00:41:38] It should come out of the cannon.

[00:41:39] Because I don't even think any of y'all know each other.

[00:41:43] Yeah, I didn't know that.

[00:41:44] I just thought I thought that was just a private opinion

[00:41:46] that I had. It is not.

[00:41:49] It is absolutely not.

[00:41:50] I think I have one guy saying in season two, but it's been

[00:41:54] I swear it's been about 12 of y'all so far.

[00:41:57] And I'm saying, you know what, catcher in the ride.

[00:42:00] I could have done without it.

[00:42:02] And no, it couldn't have done without it.

[00:42:04] Yeah, couldn't have done without it.

[00:42:05] And I have never read it.

[00:42:07] Yeah, though.

[00:42:08] And we always do that.

[00:42:09] There are too many great books to read.

[00:42:11] You're not reading that.

[00:42:12] It's no.

[00:42:13] No, it's done without it.

[00:42:15] My final question for you today.

[00:42:18] When you are dead and gone and among the ancestors,

[00:42:20] what would you like someone to write about the legacy

[00:42:23] of words and work that you've left behind?

[00:42:26] Woosh-ya.

[00:42:28] Woosh-ya.

[00:42:31] I feel like I want to figure out what the writer equivalent of

[00:42:34] was the thing that we used to say in church.

[00:42:35] Well done.

[00:42:37] Well done, good and faithful servant.

[00:42:39] Yeah.

[00:42:41] I feel like I want to write an equivalent of that, which is like

[00:42:44] our own books that were in the service of black people

[00:42:47] that black people felt not only to saw themselves

[00:42:50] and felt like they were written for them.

[00:42:51] They didn't feel like I was translated.

[00:42:53] They didn't feel like I was writing for white people first.

[00:42:54] And it was like they were an aqua thought.

[00:42:56] But that like these books are about us.

[00:42:58] These books center our communities.

[00:42:59] They center our institutions.

[00:43:01] And they center the things that we grapple with

[00:43:03] with each other, which I think is the important thing.

[00:43:06] I think that's that.

[00:43:07] So like I've written in that tradition, like there was a whole

[00:43:10] moment where I think people have moved away from this,

[00:43:12] where there were certain black writers who did not want to be

[00:43:14] black writers, right?

[00:43:15] Or didn't want to be deemed black writers.

[00:43:17] They didn't felt like limiting and they didn't want to be

[00:43:19] limited by such a thing and have their books on African American

[00:43:22] literature and blah, blah, blah.

[00:43:23] And I'm just like, yes, I am now the opposite, please.

[00:43:26] Like, yes, put my books next to Morrison, put my books

[00:43:28] next to Nikki Finney, like, please, like to me, that is the goal.

[00:43:32] Like, for someone to think that my book or my work can stand on

[00:43:36] the shelf near just near like, like in the vicinity.

[00:43:40] Yeah, like it ain't got like a good like, like, bad, those up there.

[00:43:45] But like just in the vicinity, like in the same wall.

[00:43:50] I feel like of those of those authors to me is like the highest

[00:43:55] that is the highest highest that I could aspire to the highest

[00:43:58] the highest possible.

[00:43:59] Yeah, I think it's just that reference and wrote this

[00:44:02] to the next episode of us.

[00:44:05] Big thank you to Tracy Rose Payton for being here today on Black

[00:44:08] and Published. Make sure you check out Tracy's debut novel

[00:44:12] Night Wherever We Go out now from Echo Books.

[00:44:16] And if you're not following Tracy, check her out on the

[00:44:19] socials. She's at T Rose Payton on Twitter and

[00:44:24] Tracy Rose Payton on Instagram.

[00:44:28] That's our show for the week. If you liked this episode and

[00:44:31] want more Black and Published, head to our Instagram page.

[00:44:36] It's at Black and Published and that's BLK and Published.

[00:44:42] There I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Tracy

[00:44:46] about the flexibility of spirit way she found in her own

[00:44:50] family. Make sure you check it out and let me know what

[00:44:53] you think in the comments.

[00:44:55] I'll holler at y'all next week when our guest will be

[00:44:58] Roberto Carlos Garcia, author of the poetry anthology.

[00:45:02] What can I tell you?

[00:45:04] And so the way that Latino or Latinx anti-blackness

[00:45:09] manifests in those environments is wild, right?

[00:45:14] Because it comes with them from Latin America.

[00:45:17] It's not that they are incognito here in the U.S.

[00:45:20] It's that they're bringing that anti-blackness with

[00:45:23] them to the U.S.

[00:45:24] And you know the U.S. is always willing to accept the

[00:45:27] willing participant in racism.

[00:45:29] That's next week on Black and Published.

[00:45:31] I'll talk to you then. Peace.