Its anby aamamezing event that brings office and all over the country to nashville each fall to be with the thousands of readers and writers and book levers from around the region. And writers and booklovers from around the region. For those of us who enjoy being here the second weekend of october every year we are lucky its a free event. Thank you to a lot of the community support. Remember that the festival does depend on individual donations among other sources to remain free. Please take the time to donate what you can to help keep it free and any amount helps. Whatever amount you can spare. You can donate via the website, the app, or in person at the headquarters, tenant, throughout the weekend. And any amount is appreciated. Let me introduce the authors, kendra allen, the author of when you learn the alphabet. And janine the author of my time among the whites. Those are the books they will be talking about today. Kendra, i think you said you wanted to go first. Yes. What we will do as each of the authors is going to read from their book a little bit and then we will have discussion back and forth. And talk about the books and about their writing and their lives if they want to. We will have an informal discussion. Kendra, let me introduce give you a little introduction. Kendra is the author of when you learn the alphabet. She was born and raised in dallas texas and currently an msa candidate at the university of alabama. Her work, which has been described as raw and witty, has been published in december magazine, the rumpus and revenue magazine where i read she says she wants her heart to tell the truth. Can you talk a little bit about the book before you read and then read . How yall doing today . Its basically an essay collection that discusses race and gender but also like family ties within intersections. And things like that. Im going to read from this book but as previously mentioned, and from dallas and if you know anybody from texas, they love to tell you how much they are from texas. So its like new yorkers, chicago and then like texas. So before i even get done youll probably hear him from dallas like 37 more times. Because im from dallas you probably heard about a [laughter] you probably heard about this botham jean case with amber guyger and i just wouldnt be from dallas invited talk about it. Im going to read a piece i wrote about that and then read a few smaller sections from when you learn alphabet. On september 6 2018 amber guyger and offduty Dallas Police officer was somehow so distracted by nothing that she killed a man. She was somehow so distracted by nothing that she couldnt tell the difference between her apartment floor let alone her apartment door. She was somehow so distracted by nothing that she didnt realize she was breaking and entering into botham jeans apartment. She was somehow so distracted by nothing that when she unlocked the door and pried open she couldnt even summon the common sense that none of the surroundings, the furniture, the design the layout belonged to her. She was somehow so distracted by nothing that her seeing a big black man in his own living room, eating a bowl of ice cream was the only catalyst needed in order for her to gain convenient laser focus. She pulled her weapon and before botham jeans ice creed could begin to melt shot him twice through the heart because she could. On october 1 2019 amber guyger said her distracted add in the courtroom and cried her white woman tears before, after enduring being found guilty of murder on october 2 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. As someone who wants to see prisons abolished, i dont really care what happens to amber guyger at all. Even though i want to see prisons abolished, i need her to suffer for all the time she should have but didnt. For all the times white women have killed and sanctioned the killings of black men and lovers for those tears i got to keep bringing up those tears i must keep bringing up the tears forced as a safety net. The sympathy she knows it brings and the mastic ways we been conditioned to save her no matter who takes the fall in her place. How we got black folk internalizing her tears. Being remorseful to their oppressors of users and better ways time and time again. Just imagine botham jean running up in a white woman spot going talk to the door, let alone having the audacity to shoot 50 random awould also be dead just because they look like the person who couldve done it. Yet somehow would amber guyger accomplish has been deemed a mistake, a moment where she feared for her life after breaking into another mans home. Three days later on october 4, 2019 joshua brown, another black man across the hall witness whose testimony is probably the only reason amber was found guilty in the first place was shot twice at close range in another apartment complex where he died at parkland hospital. The story thats been created in the case of joshua brown demise is three random black dudes drove from alexandria louisiana to dallas to buy weed from brown and that his murder is just a drug deal gone bad. Im from dallas texas and buttered up real good, and i think better for it. Born and raised in dallas texas and im pretty sure i can guarantee that a no adriving across state lines for some weed they confine at a fourth stone. No matter the amount. But the story would be true if they couldnt lie to us about it. We got a gang problem and it aint got nothing to do with what hood you are from or what colors you bank. A gang problem is white the privacy we see its mission executed through academia, god and every time a police force that covers up and protects their own more than they would ever protect anybody who looked like me. A gang problem is a white supremacist system that builds itself on free labor and capitalist goals and calls it law. That changes the law depending on your proximity to its bottom line. So what im reading is in memory of those known and unknown, murdered by cops, all the black women and men across intersections trans nonbinary we all know innocence is something black folks will never be guilty of. What im reading is in premature memory of those who used to go next but most prevalent, what im reading is in the morning in memory of botham jean and joshua brown and the three black men would be charged with browns murders so no one else in the dpd has to. The three black men who can afford and a half abthey will still be charged with capital murder. And who will inevitably be sentenced to longer than 10 years. Whatever i read is for them because we all knew that fate but before we knew their face and we all know what its like to be a moving target. Please stop asking us what we mean when we say dont trust the police. [applause] thank you, and actually get a read from my book now. Im from dallas. Im going to read a poem and then an essay poem as well. This poem is called boy is a white racist work. When i was small my mom used to have been watching good times black boy, blueblack boy, bullet in your back black boy. Bullet in your head black boy. Arm around your neck black boy. School to prison pipe mom black boy. Fist in your face black boy. athe police black boy. Hoodies in your closet black boy. Always the blame black boy. Do rag with no waves black boy. Yall all the same black boy. Nameless black boy. Fat lipped black boy. Faceless black boy. Artificial thickskinned black boy. Brainless black boy. aone chance only black boy. Dead black boy. Too many colors on your body over your body, lets pray for the black boy. Fathering a little boy, black bald and gay boy. aboy. Corporate boy. Unemployed and locked up boy. Boys dont cry but i saw you boy. Crying, noose wrapped around your lips scared boy. Lasch b first black boy. Too scared to look afraid boy. You black boy. Not bad boy. You black boy, not bounty but bruised but you still got a name and bruised like every other aand bruised but mostly man. [applause] the last thing im going to read from when you learn the alphabet is called citizens take out the trash and its after Claudia Rankins citizen. If you have it read, ab when i think of hurricane katrina, spike lees when the levees broke comes to mind with the one sad man of many sad people whose mom died while waiting on a bus that never showed up. How america left her there to expire in real time. Her son instructed to push her body to the back of the line and cover it with a blanket like she was a piece of trash that needed to be taken out. Fifth grade year we gained the transfer students with access that sounded like jazz music. With dialects that felt like the bayou and boudin come migrating into our texas schools before and after the flood. And we didnt care what they came through but we knew where they came from. And we begged them to say baby whenever they spoke. We still thought it okay to remix young gz soul survivor to fit their reality to remind them of why they were here instead of home. You lo if you are looking for me, ill be on the block, no shoes,s, trying to make it to the bus stop if you are a writer, are a katrina survivor. If i can never distinguish the water is worse than a bulletingh especially inos this motion min the breeze without making noise and learning to live without being seen come with that used to be blue skies that are full of blue black faces, no stars we are not in f the country with aa darkness is welcome. Nono we are in the way a world where youl cant say goodbye, we dont know the exact time you areneve leaving. Heart trayvon, tamir, sandra, eric, craun, orlando, michael, dante, tanisha, walter, jordan, freddie, too many names to name. Christian, dear christian, you are 19 you lived up the street from my mamas house. You are too close to home. I didnt know you but i know you and i feel you holding on to me. Christian, you twee kristin, he used tweeted that he didnt want to die is it too young and i know they work lyrics to a song but did you meet jordan later on, he was younger than you. They say they tried to warn you and that yourn know ready. Me, you are taking me home going 90 in a 70, a cop car sauce. Big black suburban and chargers in iran past the wrong one. The live started flashing from both sides, i say what the blank is this. When did city cops get to do this. [laughter] both cops around the car on both sides with hands on the guns and tell you to stop out of the car. You say excuse me. Last night we had just heard about sander plan and you fit the description. I know you know scared, black girl going is it too fast and i know nothing elsek matters. U. S. What you have to get out of the car for speeding. Weor had asked to been hand over our ids. She has a heavy foot. Classmates audio. Your question where we were going. We were asked how do we been they had you out on the side of the texas road or confederatee flag hung from coarser doors we took our phones because we wouldnt let you die even if we let you die you wouldnt let you die. They give you a warning like you didnt already have one. Were we get to where we going, we still firm rights talk about a messed up we are and how we dont know how to fix it. Citizen said if the doors to open and im is it too curious to say sorry for what you just went through so we just laughed at everything i am sorry in memory of you i am sorry for what is next to happen to either of us taking out the trash, just to bring you back in tomorrow. Thank you. [applause]in thank you im looking forward to hearing a little bit more about your work. Next we will talk with janine and her book of essays is my time among whites knows from an edge in gated finish. One is the author of two books and is the writer for the New York Times. Make your home among strangers was a choice, choice book, the winner of the 2016 International Book award and was cited is a book mess with the year by abc latino, the guardian and the miami herald. His been adopted is now campus read over 25 american universities. Her short stories have been o. Henry prize, and other words. And she was raised in miami florida, shes an associate professor in the department of english and the institute for ethnic studies at the university of nebraska. So welcome and you talk a little bit about your book. Maybe we should have a discussion about this to occur w miami, specifically i am from violated [laughter] so thank you for bringing us some tear today i am for miami, about how the area code with me not of the time is three to five. The city of homes. So this is my essay question. Feminine a jeep finish education. This will keep a very deep desire to have serious and Difficult Conversations about race for the concept of race the concept of citizenship especially because of the 2016 election. I had a lot of friends a lot of my friends there were very shocked by the Election Results or the reported Election Results and i think i went on record in the New York Times of may of that year of being like trumpets by doing this can you talk to your families about what could happen in ourou families sign a part of where this came from was that i wanted to have a conversation with friends and learning longer ways. In some of these are based on new yorkth times anytime there d i would write these 6000 word pieces and then they would say, right give us a thousand words or 800 words and i would see like 1500 and do this than my editor would say thats not what i asked. So we Work Together toer get tht sort of idea and that i was here for readers and is always happy to hear from readers. They would ask us questions about the other 5000 words that didnt make it. We traffic so much in soundbites and snakes cant t be communicad that way. Peoples lives are at stake may have been for a long time. Some battery from a essay. Nothing is impossible in america. The second essay thehe book. He liked to read from the beginning of it for a little bit and then im really excited togi talk about with this with you this is from nothing is impossible in america. When non americans we meet, i learned my family is from cuba they often asked me was her question if i never been to cuba and the question is the layered and prosper me that i learned respond by asking why would i ever been to cuba and the just to see what they would say. Eyi almost relished their offerd answers on the assumptions they reveal. At this question a lot when i lived in minnesota. A place for monday of myy students write about their scandinavian heritage. And it never once occurred to me to ask within seconds of meeting them have they ever been to sweden. The second question less common though still veryes frothed, is even actually question. Thats weird and interesting and funny. Janine isnt a very cuban name. You are correct i say, its not. I also want to feel the uncomfortable pause that fall is. With the story that of the and more agreement is like this. Justin cuba means a teenager in florida, their names given to them by cuban parents who mistakenly assumed that they lived in cuba forever. These l names in their new home country,ly impact everything abt their lives. Their education, and thehe premature ends of the medication. The job process, what areas of the city in the front home they marry young, start aan family o, because they are lightskinned, they reason that theres a chance their americanborn offspring could avoid at least some of the elements of the systemic prejudice that they encounter despite having her work hard to learn english and almost eradicating their access, this is after not a story about the American Dream right. It means monday snakes will need to be unjustly eradicated. In this version of the American Dream, i think that not can change your destiny in this country. Picking the right name for your child. Theyre not totally wrong. Is john oliver on the show last week tonight, pointed out in his preelection effortwh to make donald drunk again. People tell the story about that then candidates grandfather staying he change the last families less name from drunk to trump we need immigrated from germany. Oliver asked viewers specifically those thinking of voting for men, to quote stop and take those moment to imagine how you would feel if you just made it guy made donald drunk. Hes only pointing out in a reality for americans. Reality couple in the story of blood for through. Is an opportunity to alter what theyd helped for the better. Because of the experience of living with their own names, my parents thought that giving the american child a distinctly ethnic name, it was unfair and quantifiable front cuts with this. Based on long before Research Studies that qualified for a job, and having weathered those consequences themselves, they felt an understandable reluctance to have the inherent them. This is how i came to be named after the 1980 ms. Miss usa runnerup. [laughter] his affect and write. This culture. My parents had a fist plan to name after the winter. And theyan had settled in to wah the pageant with that intention and even though i wouldve been born up until july july of 1981, the boys been the type to plan ahead. I was the first kid but firstborn America American in our family. A suitable american name was need it to confirm right the sleep from cuban to american. I happen to bee born female, wht better place to find a name they thought, then american beauty pageant. Bob parker, post back then, they mustve liked the way the name. Amanda mayday living pushing a giant wheel. Help determine the proper noun that would identify me the rest of myou live. [laughter]re i mention that long skinny microphone on top of that perfect blackball. No harsh consonance to progress is to hit, thinking. His pointy white teeth catching that last syllable like touching a cap until. Off of my parents, were rooting for her and ms. Miss arizona, didnt win. The winner of the 1980 ms. Miss usa pageant, the first bill is supposed to be named after. Shaun weatherly. At years ms. South carolina. I can almost hear my parents deciding there name that shaun was a boy his name despite evidence that to the contrary setting right in front ofde them wearing a crown, r [laughter] it was my namegh janine. That spelling, they thought. The spanishlanguage origins, at the better of them and they agreed that this spelling was not wrong. Valves in her name making little sense in the early i write up the j in reading and sounding like ee to them this change that to an actual ee, the e like in english. Loretta, this keep customizing. For an extra and before that for balance [laughter] lucier and what its not a sound doing anyway. Lets keep that last eve because in english people always put a silent e on the end. Je in and i and e. Donner his name, they had no idea that altering the spelling that they were on doing this spelling it might not work out well. Th is a marker of my parents immigrant status that might be looking for it. T. Sorry, people seen in writing the spelling always played for certain people, people looking for it, is a marker of my parents immigrant status. Alterations betraying the reason they went with that name in the first place. The first real short story alvaro is the College Student in fictional workshop try to explore this moment. The negotiation up. And at a 19 yearold woman and her husband was of two years of discussing what to name the baby if it is a girl. The husband is confident it will be a boy. The woman decides to take the name on the televised beauty pageant when she is everything, and proceed to watch it together. The woman feeling at the sight of so monday skinny white women walking across the stage. Some. Husband bringsed her a sandwich and hes used two of the opposite. But she cant get on the couch. They very subtly bring up the racism they encounter because of their own markedly spanish name. One workshop critique for my allwhite college classmates was that they didnt think it was loud enough. They wanted the conversation between theco couple to be more expensive printer assumption being that people of color, regular sit around discussing their oppression outright is they watch tv at home. [laughter] they fit on their white skinop enough to eventualy decide to give her name. The winners in the story is page. Which either parent can correct late an ounce. So they go sandra. The name of the confessed the scored highest in the interview portions. Theew story ends with both t characters burping thus beginning my obsession is bodily functions is a funny gesture. [laughter] it wasnt a great story but your promise at least enough to garner my professor his attention and encouragement. Which is sometimes not a budding writer needs. Told him what a class with the story was based on how i got my name. Even when they discuss how improbable the scenario seemed to them. How pointedly symbolic it was and how totally unlikely it would be seemed like classmates to told me not to to honor their own heritage and the naming of the first child. Okay, [laughter] should be told part of me agreed with my classmates and i never fully believe this was how my parents chose my name until college. But when i looked at the pageant results from 9 11 horrified that my name was a real fact my live. For my parents aiming for in the naming me after beauty queen. What they are the trying to say about the conductor they wanted over the loosing me and wheeling me to be with the same. It was more about what they were trying to prove to the country that are taking them in is children. Perhaps her idea was more in line with names like those hobby and names cuban refugees give their newborn American Children is homage to the first words they saw upon arrival or rescue. U. S. Navy, u. S. Marine, our names of former gratitude or allegiance and in my case, the kind skin deep hope so set there. Spoiler alert, i never watch usa ms. Miss usa. So they go sort of deep there. Got back. If we can, just have some time to come talk back and forth about the various snakes a book and about how you came to come to talk about this. One of the snakes he did notice and both of us that you both have a lot about family connections. Can you both stick to that little bit. To act i feel like the snakes in my book are definitely family connections like thats where it always starts and when i think of family, i think of my mom his side of the families most times. Even though going to have a relationship with my dad i think about not the women on the wrong side. So whenever im writing anything, i am thinking of my mama and my granny and my cousins and snakes of that. And like the struggles that they probably never got to express in a way that i get the chance to. In the publishing and like a book, or just even people reading my work. They would never probably get the opportunity to do so kind of feel like i am speaking through them. Or for them in a sense. Even when i goo into race and gender, im always thinking of them is it too. Like thenk term that they never get the black women in general, like our looked at last for everything. Like our pain is with their last tsumed to be stronger than everybody else and were assumed, everybody decides that the black woman that when fords people say. Its like then, can i blink today. When im writing about race and gender, thats like the crime that i wish we can just release. Family for you. When think about family, its so inadvertently, and thinking side only andhis is aboutut me, its about family ofamics and how that sort stands out in history. I kept trying not to write about family. And i dont know why i kept sort of coming back to that and they realize a sort of embraced at some. In the process of writing the book. Like understanding for such a big part of your live, whatever you come toni see is your famil, is your universe. And that is tell your Nanny Culture a learning what are the norms of matthew and then, some of us get the opportunity to sort of leave home t and test those snakes in other environments and our definitions of family can morph and change in you also buy just family, upeople that you bring into your live and you think of them is family 30. Something i end up writing about family is an entry. Because its something that a point of connection. Toam just going to tell you this one little story about how my parents came up with my name and then by the end, im talking about like sons of oppression. I canna came into it making these two people are making this one choice. By the end of the essay you you understand how thisen endpoint s to not of these different accidents in history that goes back hundreds of years. That end with the family being in American Family for the First Time Ever in this history. Some happening over and over again, the essays. I think because i am mostly a fiction writer, im always like, im just going to tell story of not going to strike to save them just going toth tell story. Note you need to say something. You know what you arer doing he is okay to build to that and to come back to that story is a way to make you seem sort of resonate clearly. I dont know if thats how it happened for you. It would be really trash fire outpatients. [laughter] see my picture right columns. You have another genre that new sort of play offff of that. Is exactly what you say, the Bigger Picture that i go into the small, actual family live within. I use family is a way, to break my generational trauma and like pain and cycles and thats like the only, i have a hard time expressing myself in speech or like orally so i have to write it down and go through those essay stories i am able to figure out what is the actual trauma that then tie and not of the women in my women together. What is it like at that exact moment that this relationship, i can figure that out in the essay forum. Why cant figure it out when im sitting in my family for 24 years. S. Like a configured out and im sitting there writing it down. Zero okay, i get it. It sounds like we both use family is the question. We made it through it and then we address that and then what it means. Can you talk a little bit about we do knew that this was the book you need it to write right now. For me this is the beginning that i was writing it that went out it even wanting to. That i would be asked to comment onn something and i couldnt say in the limit, because it wasnt something that could be handled in that short of a conversation. Even though that was the forum at the time. Once i started to have several of these snakes and i saw that they kind of also at this umbrella and thinking about race and momentsts where i get to pas is white and moments in radio. That was outside of my own control. I started seeing that in think that range from growing up in miami, if your lights skinned cuban your sort of white. T you part of the dominant culture and you get that norm for your community. Set sort of how i came to find that element of whiteness. But when i got to be white. But then leaving miami and now being in places like nebraska. It just like this, you know definitely not a white woman. Not a white person. And you know that. But the context is what change. I didnt change. My actual skin color did not change but not of a sudden what was was told to me both of me expressing it. In this made it through, the roots were big snakes and this actually connected to my family and the wares expression in disney world we went to disney world alone time. Other kind of questions would spill out from that. Other times we went through this dude ranch in nebraska, women there because i found out that so monday of my students were about 25 percent of the university of nebraska, firstyear College Students. But these were from rural backgrounds and i come from miami. I didnt, we had a beach but that was my nature. A lot of it would be like paved right up close to the water. So sort of different. [laughter] not my nature was disney world. Im on jumbo. And im in nature. [laughter] in a request this experience for me is a miami kid. So you see see that this sort of started to offer this connected ways. I realized it was a book and not just something im doing on the computer. I didnt really know if this was a book until it was about. I was pushing back against it a lot first of not your title janine is like one of the best titles of the book ive ever read. Mine isnt how i got this book. A lot of folks. Blood folks told me living in nebraska, they would tell me use not my memoir titled title. I was an undergrad and i was changing my baby like three or four times, i eventually and landed on creative writing. And i just found myself among the whites towards it for the first time. Im from dallas. In not my live i only went to school with black people in mexican people that was my literally entire whole live. E, so when i to college, i was emerged and evenn though it was our school that was liberal which made it even more racist then, in the south. Even though its a liberal arts school, i was like emerge into this class with where i was the only black person. I found myself like, and the representative of black people. [laughter] cited found myself in everything out right for like anger and Everything Else i would write for it in my workshops to be very angry and snakes to like white people and despite that i wentt to college, and mike brown happened and m is the Ripple Effect so i would go with my three white roommates and then i really get this. I would get mad. They are merely walking with me. Yall just here, the gravity of this situation. And so i would write these essays for class and i was see how they would be with, your person of color. In these big white bathrooms especially workshops, the only feedback i could get this is so great, this is so good. You are not really talking to me. But okay. [laughter]. People are afraid they might offend you maybe. I took a little bit about this. There like help that moreik ethnic. I think when her lot to, one be moved. Mo more dancing or more music. Ive heard from folks this are to be like, it sounds like from white folks that either way were doing it wrong. By giving feedback, that might offend you. If i dont or i just praise it, then im just giving you something. My sense is sort of like, one of those allows for conversations to happen in one of those is the kind of patronizing reaction. That doesnt help make the work go better at not. I think it is better to take ndat i feel like is the risk and then to see what the pushback is against that. In the listen to it. But if you like that i wasnt trying to do that. Sort of like we know that. We sort of understand that might come from a place of like a genuine effort. But that intent isnt necessarily enough. And we can work through it is longlo is the person listening s perceptivem to what you told thm about what you really see. Like in thinking about the roommates, i can hear them kind of this just like were kind of like whites and will they were there, thats important to and and what they can understand. Like i could say thank you for caring about somebody getting gunned down. So i wasnt getting that. I was just writing about the snakes savings for three years and i would think zero my goodness i would only writing about a few snakes. In this outworking and then at the end, it was just like 13 essays and i thought oh this could be, i think. And maybe i just kept writing about the same thing for this moment. Lets go and talk about the title of your book we do learned the alphabet. I acknowledged to you right before you were talking with the essay of that name, is each part of that essay starts with the letter of the alphabet. It didnt carry me thats what you are doing until the very end but talk about the process. How did you start doing that. I wanted to be settled by people, getting to see and then they realize it. I wanted to be subtle like that, but that was the most intentional thing ive ever written. Like my m whole entire live writing live. I remember leaving out of poetry workshop and i sat down on the ground and waited until my next class. I was a thinking of a game thate and my dad used to play like he would drive me fromda dallas to houston, you. Out snakes that start with a in then be i was thinking how can i tell a story through this. At first i didntn want any of them to connect and then i always enjoy writing something thats not so longwinded. Sometimes when people write 500 fepages, we only need it 25 pag. [laughter] i wanted something very straight to the point and like the alphabet portion of it just came from that game. It was just because i like the game. I dont think thats basic. I think thats sweet. Some of her child with you sort of like showing how this evolved and that was the suit sweetly. To be i would like to ask you to the subtitle on here is no one from unfinished education. Notes from an unfinished education. What you mean by that. Let the moment i am not dead. [laughter] like i think is long is i a live in america in a momt american, that will be and it will not be finished into that condition is no longer true. For whatever reason. More like the snarky or not it comes to be i live in nebraska right now. Just Something Big beautiful if it at this number university of nebraska. Standing room only. No sort of like only these whitt folks. I do find it in lincoln nurses real eagerness to have a conversation where people who are trying to do this work the way we are. You are staying like these 500 pages of manifestoes, is noticing that books are like relatively, not 500 pages right. I think part of it is there is a real intensity to these conversations and a real difficulty that we sort of intuitive. The need to read monday books of the size from notfe sorts of different voices and we sort of know that. Because the writers are going around the issue, thats a problem with america. Like we go around issues and we talk around them and we can just go right to it. And get past it. We can spend 400 years talking about the same thing. It was mindhe. This is simple. Its not hard. [laughter] address the issue and keep on going. Other books just go right to the issue in the different ways. This is something that we talk a little bit about it im going to throw something at you that i havent talked about. Do you have someone that you have read before the has some influence on any of that. I just had to made it through immediately for that question because with this book, i was reading very closely alexander cheese is a collection how to write an autobiographical novel. Hes also a fiction writer who is now writing his first book of essays. I mentally mayday chart about his book and how did his first and last instances is structurally going back to your question and trying to tell the. Truth. Also how does one sort of how you put yourself sort of turned the mirror not just outward but on yourself and leave these are the places where ive had these moments of perpetrating a bigotry or racism and let it out. Do not let yourself off of the hook in these ways but when i think readers can see you do that, theyre more likely to listen because they understand youh know wheeling to go there with them. And admit we not perpetrate at the very these unintentional acts of bigotry not of the time. An intentional and purposely, from a class to teach, no matter what, if its a creative course or writing course, i love the unintentional acts of bigotry in a classroom because i in the classroom thats when i get speech when they make the writer has mentioned about the race, i can throw stuff out. Never the first day we talked about unintentional acts of this, you didnt know you are doing this. Then we can show you how it happened and talk about how it needs to y feel it with the applications are but hard. And then you choose. Anything continue in make it eight intentional bigot or make myself not do that again. Not a very long waiting list because im a professor. [laughter] go read not of this stuff and then come back and we talk about it. H we write your paper a graduate with honors the right above and then you sit on a panel with writers and then you can see how beautiful it could not be. [laughter]. This is the Straight Line right. On sundays, i really feel that way. For me, one of the first collection of essays i ever read,. Conversation] that was like the first thing i ever read so i can be my country self, i can talk in my slaying, i dont have to have great grammar, i can be who i am on the page and feel like it is heavy and hard like this. One of my first books that i really like twice aea year, easy read, that book is like my favorite book. Also a bill the bone black, is e memoir but the way it was written is very much like every chapter is no more than two pages and the way that she talks about black girls but also feminism and woman is and not of these isms and sexism not of those isms, the way she did it that was like one of the first snakes i read and i wanted to write Something Like this or i can do Something Like this so i can see myself in this butso evn nrowing up i i would always sayi would go into business, [laughter] sling going up, i would read like these urban fiction novels the people dont take seriously what they should. I would bee reading sister soldier, eight years old, its like and violence. [laughter] but its Little Pockets of systemic oppression and Little Pockets of racism and like i l was suddenly learning those snakes very young. I would read playgirl by or more tyree, interesting like that is my thing. I cant write one. Im like reading them i would read this bigger snakes and like their family thanks. When we do. Literally, by god, really the biggest for me is music. I read music lyrics more than anything. The time, inot of find myself lost in that. When i read it, i can see pain or i can see intention in those words and i want to mimic that in my own words where i have like a sunny feeling but also the literary to limit. There is nothing in the book in the religion called you know the second person. I cant remember what magazine it was published and i believe it is an online magazine and you could google it. I just remember thinking ive got to buy that book immediately. I was completely floored by t te power. The compassion that these it also made me thinknk within the book the final edit of this book in advance copy and its at now, its a great book. For the National Book award right now for essays. Thats another go read that book. We are not writers somewhere are writing for the scenes and collectively you start have some thoughts. None off us its a one story. For that danger of, i read this and i understand what americans not think about this. No, dont do that. I think we are conditioned to do this. Go to college because we are predominately white spaces we are invited to represent the whole group. Thats a danger that can happen. The minute we have any sort of to do so, lets try to break that down. And take the power out of it. Stick to the facts with it. You do both right about that in each of your memoirs. Collections about the problem and the issue of being the person within a white environment so that you can represent your race. I know that a lot of people have issues with those kinds of snakesso. When i got to that party, each one of these novels, i know. I know whatng theyre talking about. But each and the m memoirs to my new what you were talking about. My first exposure to that was sort of like a forum of micro aggression towards spotlighting. Those actually my capacity when i was in los angeles and working with the College Students. From different races and classes and d hearing they would talk about these snakes happening is the forum of micro aggression. I didnt know it had a name until i heard that term. And ive seen it sunny times. I didnt know it micro aggression was. I didnt know nothing what would college when i think about it. I just remember thinking about the first time was like my freshmann year and i had a roommate, its in the book. I was putting a motion. Ive got to be right. Lotion and my roommate asked me, with a term i skin brown. Will that turn my skin brown. It didnt click in the moment but it should collect later on. I and another roommate who asked why i would do that. I was sitting there and i kept putting my lotion on. It took me like weeks to really realize what happened. I dont want to have to hit this girl. Is a whole other thing. I already know how its going to be received if i even say anything so i needd to shut down on that. That is the power of micro aggression is it. [silence] you. And then having a breakthrough of that fear of how you will be perceived. Dont go around it. Go through it. That takes a lot of like column and it sound so easy to be like just staying ill hate you if you say that again. Its not that easy when you are in the moment. Sooner we are running out of time but i did want to give you a chance that if you have anything you want to add about your books or anything else. Im pushing for you. New york and chicago in shape dallas. I am from miami. I live in nebraska now. I lived there in about a house in that state. Like i am a resident and i had to change my license. It was a painful moment. Even with that, where are you from i say i live in nebraska but i am from miami. Ive never been to miami. We have a field trip coming up. [laughter] i believe you. Will thank you both. [applause] we are habited over to the signing tent and you could buy copies of your books at the books tent so i hope to see their thank you so much. Otb continues now on cspan two television for serious readers. Good evening if i can ask our last of our guest to take their seats. I want to welcome everyone. Director of programming and engagement. A living memorial for the hollowness. The bed about this institution before we go into the program, this is the Third LargestHolocaust Museum in the world offering a range of vigorous engaging exhibitions programs and resources. In a world of rising