(1).jpg)
Black Writers Read
Black Writers Read
The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work Featuring Jodi-Ann Burey
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode features our conversation with Jodi-Ann Burey, which was live-streamed on November 18, 2025.
Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) is a writer and critic who works at the intersections of race, culture, and health equity. She is the author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work (Flatiron Books, 2025), which we discussed during this episode.
Beyond the written word, Jodi-Ann stands out as a catalytic orator, having conducted over 100 keynotes, panels, and interviews - including TEDx. Inspired by her personal journey and professional experience in public health, Jodi-Ann is also the creator and host of Black Cancer, a podcast about the lives of people of color through their cancer journeys. Jodi-Ann is the co-creator and host of Lit Lounge, a curated book collection and author interview series, and the creator and host of Lit Lounge: The People’s Art, a monthly prose and poetry salon.
An alum of Boston College and the University of Michigan, Jodi-Ann has over 15 years of entrepreneurial, corporate, non-profit and start-up professional experience. Her writing has been supported by Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA), The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences, The Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) and the Vermont Studio Center.
She enjoys snowboarding, oil painting and prides herself on being a cool auntie and a reluctant dog owner.
Jodi-Ann was born in Jamaica, lives in Seattle, Washington and will always call New York City home.
Jodi-Ann’s Authentic delves into the dangers of disclosure in environments that aren’t built for our well-being. With insights from pop culture, academic research, and interviews with other professionals of color, Burey argues that we deserve better than shallow ploys for representation.
To learn more about Jodi-Ann, please visit https://jodiannburey.com/.
Find Jodi-Ann on Instagram: @jodiannburey
Find Black Writers Read on Instagram: @blackwritersread
Find Black Writers Read online: https://blackwritersread.com/
Support Black Writers Read on Patreon
For some reason, I got really obsessed with first sentences, like the first sentence that begins a book. And my philosophy at the time, I don't know if it's still my philosophy. It probably is, but who knows? I haven't interrogated it since. But at the time, I had this philosophy that the first sentence of a book should teach readers how to read the book. And that the first sentence itself should yeah, teach readers it has it should be able to sum up the book in some type of way. Not a summary, but the sensibility of the first sentence informs the rest of the book in some type of way. And so I believed that the very first sentence of the book should be black people do not need to be any more authentic. That had to be the first sentence because I felt that it accomplished all those things. This is not the book that's gonna tell you, should you do more of this or you should do um less of that. Like, no, black people, whatever y'all are doing right now, great job. Yes, you don't need to be doing anything more, different, better, less. Like it doesn't matter. You do not need to be any more authentic at work.
SPEAKER_04Hello, and welcome to Black Writers Read. My name is Nicole Young Martin, and I'm the founder, producer, and host of this podcast. Thank you for tuning in for episode 11 of season six of the series. Launched on Juneteenth, 2020, Black Writers Read was created as a platform to showcase, celebrate, and honor the words, work and traditions of Black writers from across the country, across genres, across experiences, and across the African diaspora. Black Writers Read is a behind-the-scenes conversation into the craft and what it means to create as a black author in today's society. So, starting the series during the summer of 2020, we've hosted almost 100 authors, representing 15 plus genres from six countries and 26 states. This episode features our conversation with Jodi Ann Bury, which was live streamed on November 18, 2025. Jodi Ann Bury is a writer and critic who works at the intersections of race, culture, and health equity. She is the author of Authentic The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, which we discussed during this episode. Beyond the written word, Jodi Ann stands out as a catalytic orator, having conducted over 100 keynotes, panels, and interviews, including TEDx, inspired by her personal journey and professional experience in public health. Jodi Ann is also the creator and host of Black Cancer, a podcast about the lives of people of color through their cancer journeys. Jodi Ann is the co-creator and host of Lit Lounge, a curated book collection and author interview series, and the creator and host of Lit Lounge, the People's Art, a monthly prose and poetry salon. An alum of Boston College and the University of Michigan, Jodi Ann has over 15 years of entrepreneurial, corporate, nonprofit, and startup professional experience. Her writing has been supported by Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, known as VONA, the Hambridge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. She enjoys snowboarding, oil painting, and prides herself on being a cool auntie and a reluctant dog owner. Jodi Ann was born in Jamaica, lives in Seattle, Washington, and will always call New York City home. Published in September of 2025 by Flatiron Books, Jodi Ann's authentic delves into the dangers of disclosure and environments that aren't built for our well-being. With insights from pop culture, academic research, and interviews with other professionals of color, Beury argues that we deserve better than shallow ploys for representation. To learn more about Jodi Ann, please visit her website at jodiannbeury.com. That is J O D I A N N B-U-R-E-Y dot com. Jodi Ann and I met through a workshop hosted by Menda Honey, who has been on Black Writers Read. And she is someone that I admire so much. If you ever have an opportunity to take a workshop with Menda Honey, please do so. You will love the experience. So I'm so glad that I had an opportunity to really, really talk to Jodi Ann specifically about craft and the process behind writing authentic. Authentic is one of those books, especially for folks of marginalized communities, that you will dog ear, you will highlight, you will tap, you will take notes, you'll write in pencil, pen, all those things. So when you do go to purchase your copy, which you can purchase a copy of this book from the link in the show notes, please buy a copy and share it with someone else because you're not gonna want to give away your copy just like I did not, as we talked about during the interview. Also, too, I love that we had a moment to talk about her dog. Because during the workshop that we were in together, I believe it was a couple of weeks long, her dog, and we met on Zoom, always made an appearance. And given that we're both lovely dog parents, I'm so glad that we had a chance to talk about it during the live broadcast. Jodi Ann is someone who I so I admire her so so much. I admire her authentic self. I also just admire how much she shows up for herself and for other writers. More importantly, I really admire her bravery, and there is so much that I continue to learn from her, and I hope that you'll learn from her through this interview and through reading her work. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I hope that you'll enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
SPEAKER_01Hello. Hi, as you talk about my dog, he just he's just right there. He's just looking there. Yeah, pose it like wait, let's get ready for the camera. He knows that I'm doing this right now. He knows, and so he always stands right there so everyone can see him, even though he cannot hear you talking about him, he knows what's happening. What uh I live in a surveillance state, I'm being surveilled by my dog constant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_04Oh, there's so much to talk about.
SPEAKER_02So good to be here with you, Nicole.
SPEAKER_04Yes, thank you. I'm so like, I'm so excited and just like I'm also grateful that I had an opportunity to share such an intimate space with you through the workshop series. And also I wanted to say like your feedback on my writing was extremely like I am honored to be.
SPEAKER_01I'm a little fangirly right now. It's so funny. I remember an exchange that we had that sometimes I'm just walking my dog and I just laugh out loud about it when you said something about how somebody smells bad. And I'm like, that is such a black insult. Like, remember not to be someone who cracks up at their little jokes, but I was like, I remember reading that in your work.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, I'm so black.
SPEAKER_01Like, you smell bad. Like that's so black to me.
SPEAKER_02Like that is just so black. It's so black. I love it.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for that affirmation. Because living out here in these New England streets, I quite make you forget yourself. Yes. And I'm married to a white guy. My daughter is half Puerto Rican, but she looks super white. And I'm like, and I see white people all the time, and I'm like, what where am I? And then I have those validation moments, and I'm like, thank you.
SPEAKER_01That's how I feel when someone's talking to me and they're like, Are you from New York? And I'm like, Oh, thank you so much. Because sometimes I'm afraid that I don't have an act. I'm from Queens, so we just have a lighter accent. But sometimes I get nervous that my New Yorkness isn't legible and it makes me unhappy.
SPEAKER_04All I have to say is in that workshop and your comments and your feedback and just how you move through life, you are such a New Yorker. Thank you so much for real.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Y'all, y'all might be joining a conversation as opposed to an interview.
SPEAKER_03This is great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I'm excited to hear you read. So I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to you. Next, I will be back to chat. Happy reading.
SPEAKER_01All right. So I will be reading from chapter 11, Spectacle of Disclosure. For those in the class, it will be uh page 117 for the hardback edition. And so what's I love this chapter, just a little context. I love this chapter. It's the large, it's the longest chapter in the book. I think it's about 30 pages. And when we think about what does it mean to be authentic, what does it mean to be authentic within institutions, when we hear this idea of come just as you are, a lot of that has to that involves disclosure, whether an overt disclosure or something that's a little more covert. And so the subtitle of this chapter is or at least six more interesting questions to ask before or instead of should I disclose? Which, as someone who has a uh invisible disability, a lot of folks who have disabilities often reach out to me and ask me that question. And so it's just structured in a way of like, here are some more interesting questions, I think. So the first, I'll just start reading because it starts with the first question. One, do I have to be visible to be authentic? I don't tell anyone I'm black. My skin speaks without words. It's russet hue and golden undertones, adorned by my kinky coiled hair and full-body features, may not reveal to whom or from where I belong with ancestral precision. But in this time and place means I am part of an expansive political collective, a legion of people of color. Even when our features escape porous divides between racial and ethnic caucuses, evidenced by unwanted inquiries into what we are or where we are really from, our belongingness to each other stands uncontested at their own peril. Others conjure mythical tales about our magic, resilience, strength, anger, struggle, and when shit hits the fan, our labor and sacrifice. And still, despite the fantastical meaning encoded onto our skin, I would not switch for another. I wonder whether I love being black, because the fact that I am black is so obvious. Have I embodied such unapologetic selfhood about the parts of myself others cannot or refuse to see? In the days following my hospital discharge, I asked my brother-in-law to spray paint my cane black, a deep matte black, a black to blend with my black pants, black shirts, black sweaters, black jackets, black shoes, a New Yorker's uniform. Months later, I returned from disability leave to work at the same desk with the same colleagues on the same projects I had before my diagnosis. All that sameness unnerved me in every sense of the word. My body, both healed and harmed by surgery, suffered from thermal dysregulation and tactile defensiveness or light touch sensitivity. Everywhere outside my home became an uncontrolled hazard zone of neuropathy triggers. Walking was unpleasant, as was sitting, both worsened by cold office temperatures. Normal work clothes chafed my skin like sandpaper. The soft fabrics on my fancy ergonomic chair pierced like pins and needles. Noise cancellation headphones muffled the office, the open office chatter, but amplified the chaos in my mind. What does an email matter when I thought I was going to die? Moments of hard-won focus were interrupted by well-meaning colleagues with questions and offers to help. I felt overexposed, working alongside people who seemed to be waiting for the return of a person who did not exist anymore. I needed to blend in to what exactly I did not know. Perhaps as someone who was not traumatized, not in transition, to be someone who just was. I had to escape. Job interviews remind us of the parts of ourselves others hate, and at the very least, are trained to pick apart to infer senseless meaning about our capabilities. I am black and a woman, and now visibly, physically disabled, all lovingly held identities that undermine any benefit of the doubt. A typo on your resume pays little attention to detail, a pile-up on the freeway that makes you five minutes late instead of 15 minutes early, a poor planner who is not hungry enough for the job, asks too many questions about the number of interview rounds, unwilling to do whatever it takes. What should I wear? At baseline, black women are overly scrutinized for our appearance. I gained about 20 pounds since surgery, and my fatigue, texture sensitivity, and compromised motor skills made zippers, snaps, and buttons hell. I learned my lesson after it took more than 20 minutes to put on a pair of jeans. I only wore drawstring sweatpants and sneakers, even to work. Nothing else fit, and everything else hurt. Should I bring my cane? Although I walked like a child wearing their mother's heels, I managed short distances okay without it. A sleeker shoe, however uncomfortable, would make the best impression. But I did not own any professional footwear supported enough, supportive enough to walk unassisted. Beyond its aesthetic implications, walking with my cane was a visible, nonverbal disability disclosure. I never disclosed a disability before my clash with HR about my acute depression the year prior. And because of that clash, I worried this recruiter could take one look at me and another at my cane, stirring silent, violent whispers. Too much, too difficult, too complicated, not ready, not smart, too lazy, can't keep up an unnecessary liability. I was interviewing for a DI role, but the insatiable capitalistic drive for productivity can make the best of us purveyors of anti-slow bias. They decide I wasn't the right fit the moment I exited the elevator. For the chance to start fresh and double my salary, I spent the entire day before the interview shopping for shoes. Store after store, I stuttered my stride up and down narrow aisles until I reached an estimated number of steps equal to the distance from my car to the office building, to the elevator, to the company suite, to the conference room. I found a full-length mirror to help alter my gait, to mask my limp. I rehearsed a few polite excuses to decline an office tour in case they offered. What space is there to openly discuss incontinence at work? I push my body beyond its capacity and my actions beyond my values to my own physical and emotional detriment. To be clear, I did not hide my disability in any other part of my life. I have a spinal cord injury looped in conversations like a broken record. Being disabled was not some temporary post-operative status. I clung to disability as an identity because disability is how I knew what I survived, a reminder that what happened happened. It kept me close to how my life had changed. My mother hates, hates when I call myself disabled because life and death are in the power of the tongue. She fears claiming disability will only make things worse for things like discriminatory treatment at work. She is right. I held on to my disabled identity anyway, to tend to these buds of selfhood I discovered after diagnosis. I did not want to abandon myself for a job. I wanted to wear sneakers, an ugly pair, sneakers one size too big and a half size too wide to fit my thick, battery-powered, heated socks. I wanted schedule breaks so I wouldn't have to ask. I wanted to tell the hiring team about how the empathy others showed me during my diagnosis and recovery journey transformed my management approach that institutional policies, systems, and spaces disabled people, no matter the speed their minds or bodies moved. I wanted my cane in my hand and not in the car. But none of that happened. I sat on a backless stool for five back breaking hours.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for reading that particular section. So the first thing I'm gonna point out before I begin interview questions for people who are joining and um people who may be new, here we talk about craft. And if personal informs craft, then I will ask those questions. But I typically like to stick to producing the writing and the book itself and not necessarily the stories that were that are within that. I do have a question though, about how your personal journey, and this is for later, shows up in the book because of an interview where you talked about how certain facets of your life informed, like filling in the space of the book. So the first question that I have for you is which by the way, while you were reading, your dog made an appearance.
SPEAKER_03He's like that. I love him, he's great. And I love how he just poses and just looks at the computer. I'm like, oh my god, he's a creeper. He's a surveillance state. Yes.
SPEAKER_04So I love the title of this book, Authentic The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, because it tells you exactly what it's about. You do not have to context lose it, and it also is very clear who your desired reader is when you see authentic and big bo letters and you blackity black. But I do want to hear a little bit more about the title, the origin story of authentic, and why this title, and what not why this title, why the story right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The book comes from a TED Talk. Uh, I delivered a TED Talk in late 2020 called The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work. And that TED Talk came from a bunch of like lectures that I had been giving around Seattle and just kind of pushing back on this authenticity myth. And so I was doing that for about a year before I applied for TED. And you know, for Ted, they're like, What's your great idea worth sharing? And so I would have been talking about it so much, and so that's why I applied with. And then in 2019, when I was kind of kicking around this idea on the speaking circuit, um. The year before that, I was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor. And so that experience, and when you're hospitalized, and especially when you're being treated in a cancer center, you know, you just hear a lot of platitudes all the time. You know, you're a warrior, you got this, take it one day at a time. And that experience made me incredibly sensitive to cliches and platitudes because there's something about this generalized language that I would have to adopt it in some way, but it was not reflecting my experience. So you're trying to comfort me saying, you know, take it a day at a time, but I'm in, I cannot get out of the bed without assistance. I'm in an incredible amount of pain. So the unit of a day is very long to me. Um, so that mismatch of the narrative and my actual experience, kind of the that's why like disability is not just a condition or an illness. It is scholarship, it's a way of knowing. And so that informed me when I went back into the workplace. I just became more sensitive to the narratives that were expected to kind of perpetuate in some type of way or adopt in some type of way. But the language of come just as you are or bring your full authentic self just was so outside of my own experience. And the more people that I talked to, especially folks of color, that was also outside of their lived experience. And I wanted to kind of write write those ideas down.
SPEAKER_04And speaking of the TED Talk, how has your thoughts on the topics that kind of evolve within that talk? How have your vantage point on those topics, like for example, um disability, crypt theory, and all those things, evolved since the Seminole TED Talk? And then how did it inform the book?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so at the time of the talk, it was really just me. Um, I was in this era of buying, I guess you could say, like healing from my professional experience, where I said to myself, what if everything a manager has ever said about me, all the negative things they said about me, what if it was true? What if it was true, but just inconvenient for them? And so this idea of being opinionated and contrarian, um, yeah, that could be a problem for a lot of people, but I think it's really great in terms of wanting to drive research and to be a writer. If you have a lot of opinions and if you want to push back on kind of dominant or normative ways of thinking, then being contrarian is great. Um, and so it was really nice to like be punished for being opinionated. And then when I started uh speaking full time, I'm like, well, now people actually pay me for my opinion. So um, so but what was cool about the TED talk was just me being like, I don't like this, and I don't like that, and here are all the reasons why, um, which was informed by research, but it wasn't um necessarily rooted in that type of way. Um, but the book is such a great opportunity to show your work, right? And so between the time of doing the talk and starting to write the book, I'd written, I'd read so much about crypt theory, um, learn learning more about myself, a disabled person, disability as knowledge, and disability as scholarship beyond just like an individual identity. I talk to more people. So, by the nature of it being a TED talk, is you presenting an idea. And there's not really a lot of space, not just for the work, but for other people's voices. And so when it came to writing the book, I wanted to make sure that, you know, one of the primary approaches of the craft of writing the book is through collective narration. And so it's be very intentional about who is the you, who am I talking to when I say we or us, how does that shift shape across the book? Um, and then also how can I bring in other people's voices at length to ensure that I'm telling my story, but there are folks in my life who they're also telling their story alongside mine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and with Crypt Theory, and I'm so glad that it's evolving because one of the things I talk with my students about, so I teach an array of things. And one of the things I teach, I teach arts management, and I'm currently teaching cultural equity. And so not only with cultural equity, we do we look at anti-racism, we look at all of the isms that have been either like completely invisible or just don't want to engage. And one of them in the arts is disability. Like I remember having conversations with my students where they found it hard to believe that the first actor who was in a wheelchair did not appear on Broadway until like in the 2000s, 2010s. Um then also the conversation around particular accommodations in theater, like the AFL. I have stories of when I've worked in theater production and how people are like, Well, do we really have to pay for this service? And why is it so expensive? And I'm just like, our audience has requested this. How about let's figure it out? Oh, rather than you know, or even like I have students in the current class who I asked them when they went to see like some live production to just be weary, like look around your space. And students were like, oh wow, we didn't realize how far the restrooms were from particular things, or this step getting to seats, or you know, and I'm like, I'm so glad because also what I don't like in terms of disability is disability is looked at as an inconvenience rather than people in our community. And lastly, before I get on to this next question, I'll never forget when I did a training on ADA accommodations years ago when I in my other life in venue management, and the woman who ran the training, she said, out of all of the marginalized identities, disability is one that does not discriminate. Everyone at some point can be disabled. And I was like, never thought of it that way. And so it really, it really makes me mindful of how environments and spaces were, I'm just gonna be blunt. It feels like created to not be inclusive.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I mean, there's there's some books that I got and I didn't get all the way through, so the research didn't show up in the book, but about like ugly laws. We just have a history in this country where if you're disfigured or if you and disfigured can mean a lot of different things, but if you were unsightly in any type of way, you needed to be at the house. Um, and there's a lot of ways that that's still a part of our culture. Um, I remember when I first got my uh handicap pass, I saw some forum somewhere that someone said that all the handicapped spaces should be released after 5 p.m. And it should be open parking because like doctors' offices and stuff are closed. And I'm like, all right, so you know what? Disabled people, we don't be at the club, we don't be at the restaurants, like we don't go out, we don't go visit, like we're not supposed to leave the house, right? You know, and so I do understand the like the kind of big tent sentiment around everyone will become disabled at some point if you're lucky to live long enough by the process of our bodies degrading and aging, like disability um should is the horizon, right? Right, that's like where everyone is. So it's not even like you're disabled or not disabled, you're either disabled or not yet disabled, is a different orientation. But the reality is that we live in an unequal society. And so our access to healthcare or healthy systems, you know, there are people who are disproportionately black and brown communities are being poisoned right now with data centers. And so every time you go and you ask Chat GPT something stupid, you're poisoning people, black people. Um, and so what are our ways to have access to healthy food, access to um good healthcare, um, access to a whole bunch of systems that um allow some communities to be healthier than others, regardless of our individual choices. And even something as nuanced as, and this is something that I learned over the course of you know, the last couple of years doing my work, is there's this kind of um, I forget what it's called. Um, but if you're an incredibly wealthy person, you can put it in your will that X portion of your um money will go to cancer research. We'll say that. And so a lot of these donors, they can allocate which cancers they want their money to go to. And so that already creates bias within funding, right? Because if you're a wealthy person, you're probably disproportionately white. If you also want that money after you pass to go to an institution instead of like your familial member, like members of your family, then you'll target it towards illnesses that you know about. And so I don't know how much funding, you know, triple negative breast cancer is getting, or sickle cell disease, or you know, things that disproportionately impact black and brown people. I don't know if we're getting that kind of money or that money is going to ail us. Like, so there's so many different ways that you know, black and brown people and poor people are disproportionately disabled because we live in a disabling society.
SPEAKER_04Yes. And thank you for that filler, because I think this will like really, really make the next couple of questions extremely rich. So your public health background is especially helpful when it, I bet, when it came to writing this book, one in terms of mode of inquiry for the interviews, and then also for the like secondary source material that you looked up. So, this question is regarding the interviews. Authentic includes stories and perspectives from other women of color. How did you go about this interview process? This is a multi-prong question. How did you choose the people and stories that you would include? And given the interview and story sharing process, how did you build trust with those you would interview?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I really, this is a very qualitative research methods question. Um, I think for the social science people out there, um, I found my interviewees of what people would call like a convenience sampling, right? And so I talked to people that were conveniently accessible to me. And so most of the people that I interviewed are in my personal and professional networks. Some people I've known for years, if not decades, some people I met just a couple of months ago, but there are folks that I'm already familiar with. There are a lot of women of color in there, but there I made a point um just because I wanted to accurately reflect my social world, right? So in the author's note, I say I want to have a conversation about authenticity that I recognize. And so in order to do that, I had to bring in voices for the people who inform my everyday life. And so um, there are a lot of women of color. They're most of the women of color are black, but not all. They're indigenous folks, Asian folks, Latino folks. Um, I've interviewed men, and they've also interviewed non-binary people across race and ethnicity, and then often they have intersecting identities, right? They're queer, they're disabled, um, different gender identities. Um, I interviewed a friend of mine who's deaf. Um, and we had an interpreter who helped that conversation. And so I just wanted to reach out to people that I already knew. And then because I was talking about the book so much, I ended up meeting people just through the course of my own work. And I'm like, oh, I really liked this conversation. Let me ask this person, you know, if they want to talk to me for the book. And so that was really cool. I think because there was an existing relationship, there is some level of trust, but I think it's important to me, especially coming from the nonprofit world where we often extract um vulnerable communities' stories. And that kind of ends. Um, now it's like I own your story in some type of way. And so even with my podcast, Black Cancer, and I had the practice of doing, I think my friend called it like a radical consent. And so if I reach out to you, hey, you know, can I interview you about your cancer story? I just want to let you know the story belongs to you. Yes, I'm editing it. Yes, I'm putting it on a platform. If at any point you decide that you do not want this story out there, I will pull it off the platform because it doesn't belong to me, it belongs to you. And so, in the same way with the book, I tried to mirror that one, there was the existing relationship, but two, sending them the questions ahead of time, regardless, you know, if I I did, of course, couldn't use every single part of the interview, but they had some sense of where we would go. And sometimes we went in unpredictable places. And then even though the attorney, um, so every publisher has to have a has an attorney, and then every book has a legal review. And so my book had already reached the threshold of like you're good to go from a legal standpoint, but that is the protection for the publisher. And so if I damage my relationships, that doesn't really have any implication on a publisher, but it has implications, one for that relationship and two, my integrity. And so, even though the attorney told me that I did not have to do it, I went back to every single person and I gave them their quotes and gave them the opportunity to talk me through it, you know, remove any identifying information they got to choose, whether they wanted their names in the back of the book, like their full government names. They also got to choose whether they wanted to um change their names or change any identifying details about their story. And in doing that process, I had a really extended um feature of someone that I talked to who is trans and undocumented. And at the time that I was doing these checks, um, that's when there was like this huge and continued attack on uh trans people as well as folks who are undocumented, which it also doesn't matter because people who are US citizens are also being abducted um by ICE. But so she pulled everything. She said, I'm pulling the whole thing. I don't want it at all. And it was pretty late in the process. And so we I asked if I could just include a note. And what I did instead was say, here I was going to talk about this story, but because of everything that's happening, this story is no longer included. And I wanted to evidence um both, I think is also a commentary on disclosure. Like it, it me not being able to share that story is also the commentary and the thing that I'm talking about. And so I think through that like radical consent process, it was important for me to make sure that people felt protected. I'm also talking about their professional lives. So I think it would be disingenuous to the goals of the book to compromise any black or brown person's professional standing.
SPEAKER_04Right. This is gonna be an uh I hope this isn't a stupid question. This is an like an aside. I'm only thinking about this because of my um recent dissertation process. Did you have the IRB?
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, no, no, no. This is just like just interviews, yeah. Okay, yeah. But maybe you have a different threshold for academic text than I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for that. Yeah, no worries. Prior to having our guests on Black Writers Read, we ask each of them why they write. Here's what you offered. Mina Simone said that an artist's duty is to reflect the times. I believe we do that work for ourselves as much as we do for others. Before I asked this question, ironically, I had someone on episode two, Dr. Sean W. Buchanan, that I want to shout out to, who wrote a poetry collection called The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, where she talked about her personal connection to like Nina Simone's biographical journey and the struggle that Nina Simone had in terms of existing and being embraced as the like a multi-talented, amazing black woman that she is. And I love how in that book, and then also in like in our her interview, we talked a lot, and actually I'm starting to insert this as a question. Um, we talk a lot about how other writers and authors kind of inform our work and how, and how like how it like how we come to it. So given that you cite Nina Simone, I would love to know are if there are any particular black authors or activists that inform your work. And then especially and also I'm thinking of this too, not only activists, but like scholars and like interviewers, because I and I'm so glad that you really talked about the interview process, because that is something now that I'm in this weird like academic public discourse space when it comes to like when you interview folks and you publish it who owns words and all these other things. And I know because I'm looking at the book right now, but I can't see the full title. It is a particular like research approach to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I talk about this in the book. Actually, I quote pretty heavily from Tony Morrison and Belle Hooks and Audrey Lord. And those three women and their scholarship has been a big part of my intellectual and personal development. And so I would love to think that, you know, every time I'm writing, I'm like, oh man, I wonder if Belle would like this. You know, just kind of writing, you know, alongside them and alongside their work. And I as much as I love their work too, I think it's also important to have um kind of contemporary folks that I'm always looking to. So I'm anytime Tanahasikosh drops something, um, on it, like Tressan McMillan Cotton obsessed with her work, Silchio Gonzalez, um, Kiese Lehman, of course, Desha Filia, um, Monty Perry. And so there, and Minjin Lee, who, oh my God, love her so much. I could cry just thinking about Minjin Lee. Anyway, so there are folks who are alive in writing today that, you know, if I were to situate myself and my book and my work within their work, I just I aspire to be the favorite niece of their work, you know? So it's just like, and maybe it's because I have a very strong um identity as an aunt. I've been an aunt since I was 13. Authentic is dedicated to my nine nieces and nephews. And I think as much as I'm writing within the tradition of folks who came before me, I just think it is so cool to kind of write alongside folks who are just like writing at a completely different level as me. And I just like, please just let me be the favorite niece.
SPEAKER_02I just don't want that so bad.
SPEAKER_01Yes, which I need to read Jesse Lehman's um quote for your book because I was like, You can read it out loud because when I read it, when I got that email from him, I blurted, I almost spit water out of my mouth. It was so funny.
SPEAKER_04Yes, Jodi Ann reads, well, yes, let me start over because it's great. Jody Ann reads most of us so-called free laborers in this nation for filled, and it is the most necessary and narratively precise reading of my life. No, nothing about us or the places we give our labor to can be the same after this dynamic book. Yo, I was gagged.
SPEAKER_01I literally almost spit water out, and I'm I was so excited to receive a blurb from him, and that he's so busy and would just take the time to read my book was just like I mean, every single blurb that I got was just 10 out of 10. Um, what makes KSA's special to me is because I read How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, the second edition, and there's A lot of what he did with that informed me on a craft level for authentic. And so I remember, I don't remember the name of the essay, but there was this one essay where him and other black male writers are writing to each other. And so for the greater majority of that essay, it's not Kies actual words. And so this idea, and like just on like a very silly level, of like, how would you quote that? Right? Do you say, like, oh, um, Michael didn't tell in uh Kiesa's that it like, so I don't know. So I I think this like orientation towards collective narration and needing to kind of get rid of the author's ego helped me make the decision to quote other people at length and also to recognize that sometimes someone that I interviewed said something better than I did. They articulated that in a way that was better than what I could do. And so that gave me the permission and confidence. There are two chapters in the book that don't actually end on my own words, they end on someone else's words, and I felt that I was writing within the lessons that I learned from that essay collection to be able to make those types of craft decisions.
SPEAKER_03Oh my God, that was awe.
SPEAKER_04And I and I'm gonna say this because I'm writing my own book right now, my first memoir. There's reading this to what's the word I'm looking for to validate the experiences that I had in a workplace. There's reading this to offer light and support to others, and then next there's reading this for craft. I want to reread this for craft.
SPEAKER_01Please do, because I put my foot in the craft, yo.
SPEAKER_02I put my foot in it. I think that's like my biggest gripe of this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01It's just like I want people to understand this ain't your mama's book about work. Like, this is literary. This is a this is art to me, right? This is the art of letters, and so it is deeply literary. It's so I cared so much about like how sentences sound and you know, the rhythms of things. And it was important for me to blend in poetry and art and pop culture and you know, conversations with my parents and text messages from my niece. Like, there's so much that the I've made a decision that most of the actual scenes in the book do not actually take place at work. Yeah. Right. Because we're not really talking about work, we're talking about the person, we're talking about authenticity, and those are the ideas that we bring to work, but most of the scenes in the book are not actually like in a workplace. So if you do another read for craft, like let's geek out about it. Cause I work so hard.
SPEAKER_04Yes, we could actually geek out about it right now. Dr. Young Martin is about to do a close reading of the of the intro. So one of the, and then I'll go into the next couple of questions. One of the things, and I'm so glad that I'm able to put this on air, the prologue, all the black people I know knew better. Yeah. Yo, you can teach just the entire prologue and an MBA program and a women's leadership, and so much. And the reason why I say that is it, and also American studies and cultural studies. I love how you timeline everything that you were going through, we were going through, and the messiness of the black lives who were assassinated. Yes, I use that word, um, during that year, and then the pandemic lockdown. And we had this moment of reckoning, and then how fast it was taken away. So we had, and why I mentioned like why this particular section could be taught in like MBA programs, women's leadership, and all that stuff, like I want to share this specifically with my cultural equity and the arts students because we talk a lot about all of the policies and nonprofit arts organizations specifically, because that's my area. Yeah, and I left it for a lot of reasons. But the policies that were all created around the murder of Joyce Floyd, and like less than two or three years later, they wanting to dismantle all that. So the performance, so I love how the timestamps are so prof at performative because it literally puts a spotlight and critiques how we how we performed fixing like organizational culture, fix like making a place for us. Like I like that whole like pulling a seat at the table and all this other bullshit. Sorry, I'm gonna put an expletive now on the because I've been trying not to cuss, but I'm like, I can't not cuss right now. And I hate that, you know, 2020 people like built, like they had a seat for us at the this is how messed up these policies are. So, and I talk about this with my students where it's just like they like invite they invited us, we got like the same invitation that Becky and Karen and them got, and we get to the thing, and our seat is a barrel of hay, and everybody else has like thrones, and I'm just like, okay, and they're like, but we made space for you, okay? We're sitting on the barrel of hay, and the barrel of hay sits lowered to the ground, so my entire body is not even at level with everyone else, so I can go on and on and on and on and on about the announcement.
SPEAKER_01I think the the prologue definitely does, I don't want to say trigger, but I think people have had a lot of emotional reactions to the prologue um because it does recount 2020, um, which had just like so much going on. Um, I actually wrestled um went back and forth of what whether I wanted to adopt like this convention in poetry where if you write a poem that's like some way deeply connected to another poem, you would put like after June Jordan or something like that, or after Sayyid Jones. And so I almost wanted I debated whether I was gonna put like after KC Layman because the beginning of the second edition of How to Solely Kill Yourself in Others America, um, he has an essay that goes through 14 days of COVID. And so almost when I was done with the book, for some reason, I got really obsessed with first sentences, like the first sentence that begins a book. And my philosophy at the time, I don't know if it's still my philosophy, it probably is, but who knows? I haven't interrogated it since. But at the time, I had this philosophy that the first sentence of a book should teach readers how to read the book, and that the first sentence itself should yeah, teach readers it has it should be able to sum up the book in some type of way. Not a summary, but the sensibility of the first sentence informs the rest of the book in some type of way. And so I I believed that the very first sentence of the book should be black people do not need to be any more authentic. That had to be the first sentence because I I felt that it accomplished all those things. This is not the book that's gonna tell you, should you do more of this or you should do um less of that. Like, no, black people, whatever y'all are doing right now, great job. Yes, you don't need to be doing anything more, different, better, less. Like it doesn't matter. You do not need to be any more authentic at work. And so, in order for that to be the first sentence, the whole entire prologue needed to exist because that sentence is also pulled from the TED Talk. And I felt that a prologue could help orient the book by giving it some back history of like, okay, yes, I know this book comes from this TED Talk, but I did TED in 2020. And so now I gotta talk about how TED came to be, but I can't talk about TED Talk if I don't talk about the pandemic, can't talk about the pandemic, if I don't talk about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, and I can't talk about any of that if I don't if I also don't talk about the fact that, you know, I was laid off as soon as the pandemic hit, and now everybody and their mama was looking for me after George Floyd was murdered. And so there's this sense of this cyclical interest in our identities and the work that we do, the work that diversity, equity, and inclusion does. That is our identities are traded on when it is convenient and profitable for institutions. And so that whole year, like we didn't have to wait years to see this. Within those 12 months, we already saw that kind of cycle closing. And during the revision process, um, which is when we got into 2025, I mean, this is kind of you know, inside baseball, but the book was already more or less typeset. Like, and I was kind of going in to add some Trump stuff in there to let the readers know that I knew that these things had happened and a lot of these things were changing. But the reality is that the direction of the book was always kind of speaking to this Trump moment, it was speaking to the end of the cycle. And so the prologue goes from January 2020 to December 2020, and then it jumps for one paragraph for January 2025, which is kind of this four-year cycle completed. But like I worked so hard on the prologue of like went through each month because I'm also navigating my own disability during that time and saying to myself, here were the like five things that were going on across these months what mattered more to me, like what was most salient, and like built the prologue. Like, I think that chapter was built more with an intentional structure than any other chapter in the whole book because it had to contain like seven different threads, um, but to not make that work feel so obvious to the reader.
SPEAKER_02I worked my ass off on the prologue, and I'm so proud of it. Like, I'm so proud of it.
SPEAKER_04Yes, because there are just so many lines I just highlighted. And I originally I was going because typically I purchase the books, I read them, and then I donate them to the Black Writers Read bookshelves at the different community colleges, and I was like trying so hard not to highlight this book. No, you gotta keep it. It was meant to be highlighted, yes, and I was like, nope, we bought the color because there's just and also, too, just like in terms of craft, like I hope it's okay that I'm reading to you your work, but just the writing is just so slick. And this is why I'm so happy that so the the inner one of the interviews that I watched to prep for today, I watched I my apologies for not remembering the name of the morning show back in Seattle. It was the interview the day before the launch, yeah. Yeah, and I remember you posted on social media about the interview and being really excited. And one of the things I remember you mentioning was how you've always wanted to write a book since you were younger. And when I first met you and heard about your book, and you were right, and I was like, She's writing nonfiction, and next I hear this, and I'm like, why is her first book nonfiction? But then when you read it, you're like, okay, like because you're eight, you you interject so much in terms of craft and creativity and artistry. Like, there's where there are just so many, ooh, like so many quotables. Where was one of my there were so many of my favorite lines. Um let's see, on page 14, all the hope I had laid in the parts of my body I cannot feel anymore. The tops of my legs, the backs of my arms, the bottoms of my feet, but I cannot be numb like this forever. Institutions cannot protect us. That transition is like it's extremely powerful because in the and of course we use lived experiences to do close readings on things, but and I just had this conversation with my students earlier today about how we use lived experience um as one of our first like critical thinking tools. Institutions cannot protect us. Institutions, in terms of my personal experience, all of the like medical and mental issues that I have going on that like kept me away from pursuing certain types of jobs, that harm was caused literally by the same institutions that are questioning like how I show up. And so I like that that transition is and then the safety, security, and belonging, they confer are conditional at best. Just a close reading of just that section is just so powerful. Yeah, give you a little insight on that, yes.
SPEAKER_01So anytime I write something, I try to bring in something that is happening outside of the book. I like put these little moments for myself because it kind of makes me feel good. I don't know. So a friend of mine wrote in open contempt, and I wrote a review of his book for Kahulu Journal. And at the time that I was writing the review, Kendrick Lamar had done the Super Bowl. And so there's like a Kendrick line in there. And so even long after, like years and years from now, when I go back, I'll read, I'm like, oh man, I remember Super Bowl and Chris Serena Williams was doing a great walk. Like, like I always put these little things that are meaningful to me in ways that they just like wouldn't be meaningful to other people. And so um that section of like um community protects community workers, protect workers, and yeah, all that institutions cannot protect us. So these are these are all lines that come from I did a commencement address um in May 2024 for the University of Michigan School of Public Health. And so actually, this is a complete aside, and I won't get too much into it, but I had my first panic attack that I've ever had in my whole entire life to the point where I texted my friend and I was like, hey, I'm not gonna hurt myself, there's nothing crazy going on, but I do think I'm gonna die in my sleep. Here's the number for my building manager, here's the number for my neighbors because I don't want my dog like just being in here with a dead body. Like he'll go. Like, I it was just like purely logistical because I legit thought I was gonna have a heart attack in my sleep. The week that I was gonna go to Michigan to deliver the address, I watched MIPD break into Columbia and with guns, you know, drawn on students, and there was just like all this like just thinking about it just giving me goosebumps, but just like the amount of violence that were happening all across campuses where students who were standing in solidarity with the with Gaza with the Palestinian people of Gaza in the encampments were being attacked by students, by um Zionists, by police departments, and and and and graduations have been canceled all over the country. And so I'm having to write the speech knowing that I would not be doing my work as an artist if I did not mention anything about this, much less to public health students, when the genocide is a massive public health crisis, right? Everything that these public health students care about is at a point of crisis in Gaza. And so I knew I had to say all of that. And towards the end, there's this kind of refrain of like when I was thinking about just the campus protest, and I was like, students protect students, workers protect workers, and then like community protects community, and it is in community. So I had this whole thing, and so when I wrote the prologue, I was kind of almost, I was just finished doing the speech, and I'm like, I'm putting that in there. And so I think it's important for writers, like, yes, we write for craft, we write for other people, but for me, I am my first audience, and anytime I read this section, I'm also reading the speech. Like I'm also now on stage, like delivering this address, and it's it becomes more emotional, even though it has nothing directly to do with like this specific time in the book, but it's something that is incredibly meaningful to me.
SPEAKER_04Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so I hope that this is an okay, I think it's a really good transition to the next question. I just have like like maybe like two or three more questions left. So I love that you did the audiobook to this, and I feel like this entire interview answered that question. It's hurts, and it was so nice watching on social media the process of you like recording.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, yeah. I love that. Shout out to Ashley and Oliver, my director and engineer. We had a blast.
SPEAKER_04Yes. So I don't want to make the assumption in terms of why it was important, but why was it important to you to be the narrator of the audiobook? And how does this specific act further carry your message and mission?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's a little insider baseball um for the writers out there. So you don't always get to decide whether you read your own book. That's a contractual thing. Um, I cannot speak to how it works on the fiction side. To my understanding, what I've just like seen on social media is that when you're in a fictional world, there's a bunch of characters and a bunch of stuff. So they might hire a whole cast to narrate the audiobook. I I don't, again, I don't know, but for nonfiction, for me, like when you have your publishing contract, you know, there's like two pages or X number of pages of things where it says who gets to make the decision on it. So, like between the cover design and the title and audiobook, like all of these very, very small details of bookmaking, it'll say author, publisher, or like there's some in between, which is like consultative, right? And so the job of your agent is to get you as much decision-making power as you can for the bookmaking process. I don't know what happened, but um, I was consultative on, I believe I was consultative on the book narration. So it was not guaranteed that I would be able to read the book. Now I wanted to read it because one, it's called authentic. So I think it's a little ridiculous if I didn't narrate it. And two, I love talking. So I just I wanted the professional development of like going into an audio booth and like it took four and a half days to record the whole book. And it was just such an amazing learning experience. Like I had a really good time, and I know that there are also like nonfiction writers who have no emotional, physical, or mental interest in reading their own books, it doesn't, they just don't want to do it. Um, I wanted to do it, and so even my desire to do it, if because they had to like listen to me read things for them to decide whether I could do it or not. So there was still a possibility that as much as it was important to me and important for the book, that the audio book overlords would be like, tried it. No, talent ain't there, you know. So luckily everything worked out and I was able to do it. But I think there's a lot of parts of the bookmaking process that is less artful and more commerce, and whether someone reads their book isn't always up to them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yes, thank you. Cause most of my audience and the purpose of this podcast is um authors talking to aspiring writers and emerging authors.
SPEAKER_01And they also pay you. I mean. Don't I as someone who speaks professionally, they didn't they don't pay me enough, right? Because they I think I just like a couple thousand dollars to read, but like I could make two, three times that doing a speaking engagement, and I recorded this audiobook for five days, so I did not realize it was that little. Okay, yeah, it's just like yeah, it's just a couple thousand dollars, and so it's it's nice, you know, but um yeah, no one's like buying a house off of audiobook narration, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But also, too, it's nice to like download the audiobook and hear your voice as opposed to um this audiobook. I know it's narrate and be and you'll be like, harpa who this woman.
SPEAKER_01Like, I know, and I'm I'm getting my book out now because like I wrote this book, you know, I I do a lot of speech writing, right? And also was raised in the church. So I care a lot about oration. Like I really do care about what sentences sound like, and I just know that even though this seems ridiculous to other people, um it's really important to me, like the way that sentence is feel in your mouth. And so I'll read this one sentence. Um I'll I'll if you if we have a I know we're a little bit over, but I just want to read this one section because the way that you run out of breath in trying to read it is the point. And I wouldn't want someone to not do a line delivery that didn't have that texture. You know, so this part comes right after I talk about being um diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor. And so I say something about a surgery consultation with a doctor so-and-so in the morning brought me back to my body. Dr. Sang's presumption about my availability irked me. I wanted to tell him about all my project meetings in the morning, my business trips to Malawi and Belgium the following week. I wanted to brag that I had already booked a getaway to snowboard and shamani and how cool it was that I could do all this when my Jamaican mother grew up walking barefooted to school, allegedly. You know? So there's like that exact, like that that kind of like rushing of information and layers of time that can happen when you're faced with an intense diagnosis. That unless you actually went through that, I don't know if I could trust someone to give that like specific line delivery.
SPEAKER_04Especially the allegedly and the placement of that allegedly. Exactly. Important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yes. So I'm gonna trim this question a little bit. Um, as a black woman with multiple multiple intersecting identities, including disability and being an immigrant, why do you think it is important for more writers of marginalized identities to be writing nonfiction? And I asked this question as when I was putting together this particular question, I have not had on that many nonfiction authors. I've had on a lot of memoir. Memoir is very different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Very different. So why do you think it's a well, do you think it's more important than then why for more writers of marginalized identities to be writing nonfiction?
SPEAKER_01I don't know if I do think that. You know, I want I want black and brown folks and trans folks and queer folks and disabled folks to be like writing about fairies and shit, you know? Yes. Like I would love to write fiction, but I'm just not oriented that way. I get a real kick out of like describing something that is exactly like the way that it happened, just in all the like physical, practical, and emotional truths of something. It is very difficult for me to conjure things that um are not real, right? Yeah, at the same time, you know, I've learned from Deisha Filia and Kissy Layman had a conversation about the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction, and Deisha saying that she's had nonfiction things and she's passed it off as fiction. And and so I don't think that the line between fiction and nonfiction are um that rigid. Maybe that's just like more of a marketing thing. But for me, um, I'm just like not oriented around fiction. It's also difficult for me to read fiction. Um, and that's something that I've been actively working on for the past couple of years because I think our fictional lives and fictional stories can reveal more truths to us um than even nonfiction can. I'm just like, you know, I'm still a baby writer. I'm still very much like, I want to write essays and like that's like that's all I just want to write some essays. I just want to put in some quotes and research and interviews. Like, that's where I'm oriented. But I would love for marginalized folks to like write some made up shit. Like, I just because I think there's a lot of pressure, and why I appreciate your show so much. Um, and other shows that focus more on craft and like the actual text of the book, is that I'm like like not trying to I feel like there's too much pressure for marginalized people to make commentary and try to solve world problems. Um, I remembered I interviewed like on a massive stage a um Latino author and who wrote about like World War II. Shout out to Luis Alberto Rea and his book Um Good Night, Arlene. And like I I love that book so much, and I'm sitting there with the iPad of like all the audience questions, and everyone's asking him some dumb shit about like Trump and immigration. It's just like so I'm not asking him that. We're gonna talk about craft, we're gonna talk about the work, we're gonna talk about all these other things, but why do you think he wants to talk about immigration right now? Just because he's a Latino author, please stop.
SPEAKER_04Yes, because actually, when I'm asked to, yeah, I'm gonna definitely wrap this up soon because we are way over. Um when I am asked to facilitate post-show discussions after plays, I do not open, I try not to open it up to the audience because I don't not only I don't have the patience for those questions, but also I'm tired of the dumb ass questions that put actors in weird positions. Like people forget that actors are working, and so when they dig deep in terms of personal questions, and uh, and I'm like, no, like I'm an artist, like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01Like, you're a weirdo, and you know what's crazy? A couple years ago, I went to the Port and Portland Book Festival, and there was like a hole in my schedule of like the thing, the people that I really wanted to see. And so I just like stayed in the room for the next talk, just to be like, uh, whatever. And so it was Matt Johnson, Love Him Down, and then like these two white guys were talking about their books, and I was sitting there gagged because I'm like, oh, no one had to like solve world problems today. Like, they really just like talked about the book and craft, and like, even though their books do wrestle with contemporary issues, or I mean, obviously, I think if you're gonna write a good book, it should be able to connect to our real world in some type of way, but there was just like no pressure to represent, you know, it was just like, oh shit, it could be like that. And so when I interview people, I try to mirror that in some type of way, not to say that we don't care about it, but to respect the artist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then um lastly, like in terms of genre. So I at first I was like, can I really do fiction? And now I'm like, there's a part of me that now I guess my first medium in terms of writing is plays, and I first now I'm like, do I want to explore musicals? But the problem with the genre with the genre mainly, I like why I hate a lot of musicals is I'm just like, I don't understand how we got into this damn song. Somebody needs to point out to me how we leaped from this dude is about to jump off the balcony to us tap dancing in the middle of the street. Like, I need somebody to get me there. But at the same time, I understand why a lot of musicals exist because some people need that escape. Like, I know musical, so yes, I'm here for I'm here for the song and dance, baby. Yes, and I'm I'm trying I'm trying like I'm trying really hard to get there. Like today, like I I also teach theater and I've been teaching rent as like a musical for students to kind of minutes. Yes, and and while watching it, I was like, dang, this this musical is really slick because and I and now I'm understanding why musicals has been a difficult genre for me, and this is similar to how because I used to didn't like reading fiction. Once I've had a chance to really like sit with it and teach someone else, because with Rent, the lyrics are just so brilliantly written, and I love how brilliant the lyrics are in terms of doing the work. Like, we learn a lot about characters, we learn a lot about the relationships. We also see how the con, and I'm like, this is why this is such a brilliant musical. I don't need dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, and then like song and dance taking up most of the space. And I'm just like, what is the song and dance doing?
SPEAKER_01Like, yeah, you have to be at a point of tension in the story that the next sentence or the next conversation could only be expressed in song, yeah. So, like when Adina Menzel and Tracy Toms, I'm just thinking about the movie, I can't even remember the real characters' names, but like when they're having their fight and then they're like chasing each other, and Adina turns around, she's like, every single day, I'll walk down the street. Someone say baby, like it's just like, yes, of course, she's so pissed in this argument, even though she was wrong, girl. You was wrong. Yes, like it can only be expressed in song, and I was like, man, love me or leave me, bitch. Like, yes, like I am problematic. Love me or leave me.
SPEAKER_04Yes, see, this is one of the reasons why I love sharing space with you, is you help me to really look at things differently as opposed to I'm not going to like engage with it at all. Yes. Because I get this since you and I are like like polar opposites is how it's like, but we're meeting, we're so simpatico, like there are all these intersections. That is very true. So many. And to wrap, I hate wrapping up our time, but we are so over. So thank you for being on for this long. Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_01My my dog is like, so I guess we're not walking. Um you know, I just ate, but that's cool.
SPEAKER_04And my family is like, are we not eating dinner tonight? We are soon, trust me. What is next for you, and how can a Black Writers read community support you on this journey?
SPEAKER_01Here's what I want. Here's what I've been saying, and I feel this. I've been saying it recently. Do you don't have don't follow me? You don't have to follow me. You can follow me if you want, but don't find me there because I'm about six months away from deleting all my social media. Who knows? Um you can get the book at the library, you can buy the book, you can listen to audiobook, whatever. But whatever your relationship is with the work, I want you to bring another person in that, right? Make a little book club, make it a little book pairing. But if my book could be a conduit for you to be in a relationship with somebody else, that is what I want the next steps to be. And I feel like that cosmically and energetically would be supporting me. I've heard from a couple of friends who read the book or even readers that I didn't know who said, like, oh my gosh, it's taken me so long to read your book because I'll read a couple of pages and then I have to call somebody. Like that would mean way more to me than you just like following me on Instagram or something like that. Um, and I think what's next for me, the kind of metaphor that I've been working with is if authentic is the album, then I'm just trying to drop some singles right now. So I'm in my essay bag right now, just trying to create a discipline of turning out essays within an appropriate amount of time. I think your sense of time and writing can get warped in book development. Like I wrote this book over three years, and so I want to be able to build a discipline and practice over writing long form, but of course shorter form than a book. So, you know, just look out for some singles when it drops, you know, read it, share it, and all of that. But that's that's really where I'm putting my energy, my creative energy right now.
SPEAKER_04Yes, which our mutual acquaintance, Menda Honey, posted today about her recent bizarre article. Yes, Harper's Bizarro.
SPEAKER_02I'm thinking Halloween, and um, I said Halloween. Thanksgiving. Yay! Thanksgiving. I think I said Halloween too. It is scary though. It is the holiday season is gonna be scary.
SPEAKER_04And the question that I have for her, hopefully, I know yeah, I can email her. Is the interviews because it's such rich voices in that article? I had a chance to read it today.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I have to get to it's on my list.
SPEAKER_04Yes, proud of her though.
SPEAKER_01Love you, Minda.
SPEAKER_04We love you so much, Minda. Which I I hope to do another workshop with her soon, which I ended up doing on Gateway to Memoir 3 with her. Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, trying to get her out here for Lit Lounge, the People's Art next year. So hopefully she'll bless us uh on the Lit Lounge stage.
SPEAKER_04Yes. So, Jody Ann, thank you so much for being here. And where your dog at so I can thank him. He's laying down there.
SPEAKER_01Look at him. He said, Let's go.
SPEAKER_02You got to have this dark, this dark walk. Yes, you get it. Anyway, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Blackwriters Read. Black Writers Read is available on all platforms. Please be sure to subscribe to Blackwriters Read wherever you listen to your podcast to receive each new episode once they are released. And after you've listened to this episode of subscribe to the podcast, I would appreciate so very much if you could also leave a review as your feedback helps me to curate the series and it helps others to find us. I hope that you are so moved and encouraged to take your support of Blackwriters Read one step further and join us on Patreon. Thank you for championing this work and helping us to sustain this award-winning virtual platform. To learn more, please visit BlackRidersreat.com. Thanks again for your support and for ensuring that Black Writers continue to matter.
.jpg)