Joining us via cspan across the country. I am pleased to introduce this event behind the scenes with black writers. Featuring Jericho Brown and two authors. Jericho was last at the festival in tonight 2019 to talk about his third and most recent book of poems which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize of poetry. [applause] he is the Charles Howard professor and creative writer at Emory University. Today, he is here to lead a discussion on the anthology edited titled how we do it, black writers, how we craft, practice, and skill, which he describes as a book of answers to questions do writers ask everyday about how to produce writers books that show their character every day. We are delighted to have two authors on stage. Camille is the author of four portrait collections and two poetry collections and two book collections. She is a University Distinguished professor at Colorado State university. Tiffany unique is the author of two novels, a book of short stories and a poetry collection. Her book poetry for children, i am the Virgin Islands, was featured on the great books great list and a 2021. Her novels monster in the middle was distinguished. Join me in rectum welcoming Jericho Brown, kamil, and tiffany unique. Jericho thank you so much for that introduction. Can everyone hear me in the back . It is wonderful. I like when people give me the thumbs up. That means go ahead. I am doing something different. I have been starting whatever i do, even my mornings, with a poem. I am going to recite a poem by a poet who gets mentioned a few times called Lucille Clifton. Cruelty, do not talk to me about cruelty or what i am capable of. When i wanted the roaches dead, i wanted them dead and killed them. I took a broom to their country and slashed and sliced without warning, without stopping. I smiled to the entire time i was doing it. It was a holocaust of roaches, parts of bodies, read all over the ground. They did not ask my name, i did not ask their name. They had no name worth knowing. Now i watch myself whenever i enter a room. I never know what i might do. I like that poem. [applause] i am really happy to be here but i am particularly happy to share this stage with writers i admire so much who have no you i have known for a long time and to make me feel like a real person because i get to sit here with these people. Tiffany is my colleague at Emory University and camille is one of the first ever poets i have seen in my life. Their work means so much to me. I want to give them a hand. Also, i want to say thank you to Dana Williams and darlene taylor, who are in the audience. They are my coeditors who came to me from hurston writing and Howard University with the idea to put the anthology together. When they came with this idea, they told me i could be the editor in name only if i wanted to be. [laughter] but i wasnt going to do that because i didnt know what they would do with the book. [laughter] when people ask you to do stuff, no matter what happens, you are going to be too busy to do it. The reason i decided to do this book, i wish i could say had anything to do with my love of black people. That is not why i decided to do this book. I decided because when they asked me, a unders i understood if i said no, i would not be able to control what cant who they asked after me. I did not want to see this book with the name grant harlow on it. [laughter] i put my hands very deep into the work that is this book and i am proud of it. Does anybody in the audience have a copy . If you do, can you hold it up . You see this . I am very pretty used with the work this book has been to being in the world. I will read a short fuse from the introduction that will give some idea of how i mean for this to work. Then we will hear from our guest panelist geniuses on stage. How we do it is not a conventional anthology of craft essays. Our request of the writers in the pages was how they go about making what they make, what happens to move things from a blank page to a beautiful book. This is a book of answers, answers to questions do writers ask about how to produce writing that proves their identity as a practitioner. In other words, this is a book for anyone who is a student of the craft. It is a book for younger and newer black writers and undergraduate work writers at workshops and workshops. We hope teachers find these works helpful for their students and that students who have yet to find teachers learn from these 62 pieces born out of generosity and hope for the future of black writing. My dream was to create this classroom where you can have teachers who always wanted to have without having to pay tuition. [laughter] we have arranged this volume in a way we hope to find suppose a foundering subset by genre. I am certain there is news for the poet and essay on vernacular by daniel black. I believe the poet Evie Shockley is in talks with barry jenkins, the filmmaker who made moonlight. If you do not like moonlight, i dont like you. [laughter] this is a book i wish existed 20 years ago. I would have led an easier life if it had. How we do this is divided into eight sections with a range of essays. Each, who are your people, what you got, where you act, what you look like, how to read, going back, and more. They are intended to communicate the fact the sections cannot be narrowed down the jargon with which writers are accustom. You are not going to name them voice, tone, setting, character there, or good advice because every essay gives more than any single topic this is the intro. How we do it is a kind of selfish gift. I want you to have what i always wanted. Here is an anthology that gives us the ability to try on the way you write and close. It proves nothing ever beats a failure but a try. This is something my grandmother used to say. Just remember anything you ever did well, you only did it well because you try to do it. If you do not try, you do not get anything. Do you understand that . I want to ask by panelists with questions because there is a man with the time on a sign in front of. Because i will just start talking. Camille dungy and tiphanie yanique, why do you think it is important for emerging black writers to read essays like these included in the book . Tiphanie yanique. There just staring at each other. [laughter] tiphanie camilla so pretty, i could stare at her forever. I want to thank our asl interpreter who is providing so well is vibing so well. He beheld with what we are saying but also the vernacular. Do yall see this . [laughter] that is good. Which is important to what we are talking about. The importance of language and possess that might be particular to black for not killer. This book is so important because growing up in the Virgin Islands, which is where i am from, we have a rich history and legacy of literature in the region. The Virgin Islands is part i will be politically correct. I might say other things on a different stage. We are part of the United States so i did not grow up reading caribbean literature. Jericho you should say those things. Tiphanie we are colonized by the United States. We are a part of them but we are technically of the United States. You often do not read literature from the place you are from or experience cultural things from the place you are from. A lot of the learning comes from the place that owns you. I wrote i read incredible literature written predominantly by White American writers and White British writers. I did not see caribbean writers or black writers or black caribbean writers or africanamerican writers. I did not have them as my availability. I thought when i became a writer that i would be the first one. That is how ignorant i was. [laughter] i know, right . But that is colonialism. I felt a lot the whole time like i was constantly looking for who i would belong to and what literary tradition i might belong to. I stumbled four years. I feel like this book would have kept a younger me from stumbling so much. The things i had to learn about what it meant to uphold the Virgin Islands language as literary and beautiful and not just as the bud of the joke of the fiction but to be elevated to the poetic. I did not learn that until late in my writing journey and if i had the look, i would have learned that earlier. Tiphanie one of the things that happens to writers of color in particular the upper writers who have are not necessarily incorporating the marginalized communities voices in their work as much of what tiffany has been saying about looking for models looking for pathways and guides that are available. Another thing that happens with the conversations about those work, once food we figured out how to do this and establish once the conversation comes back, and we are being interviewed, the questions have everything to do with our identity, plot, theme, and little to do with craft. With how we built it. When i conduct an interview, i make a point of asking specific questions about craft. What i see from authors is always, thank you very much. The plot of the piece. Not often how i built it. That limiting nature of understanding myself as a maker of a craft, an object that used to be crafted with particular types of decision is everything only gets put to the top of reality. It means we miss the most crucial thing about how writing is done. So having access to work on a craft by identifying people, black identifying people of all the aspects of different ways this craft is made and built. It is just an exciting thing to be part of and have out there. Jericho i went to graduate school at the university of houston for my phd which is where i met tiffany. I have gone to get anmsa entail university of portland where there was barely and msa at the university of new orleans where there was barely a reading program. I also distinctly remember to your point, camille dungy, reading that was given by kevin young and yusuf. During the day, they came to answer questions and people only ask them about jazz and blues. It was very strange. One of them had mentioned an artist in a poem and because of that, the entire conversation was about jazz and blues. I dont mind but we never talked about poems which happens often to black writers. Therefore you are a person in the audience trying to get answers to your actions and you do not get them unless you want to play the trumpet. [laughter] as seasoned writers who teach others how to embrace their creativity, is there an essay that taught you something you had not considered or made you stop and pause as you reflected on your own writing practice . Camille that is interesting. I answer to that question is an essay by Evie Shockley who is a genius of our time. Nothing new. A poetic experiment. Because there is nothing new, the idea that we are out there. See language and thus we are out there seeing that we are out there seeing fresh language. I was grateful to some of the ways that Evie Shockley articulates the specific necessity of doing a kind of reframing and rethinking as a black writer. In some ways she talks about the history of violence and marginalization and erasure built in and language we are using as a structure and forms we use to create literature we are writing and how black writers reimagine and shift and change an act of resistance. There are ways that Evie Shockley particulars that that is exciting to have that capture. There is something specific about the poems and there is a cogent and clear articulation in her mind throughout the book to see that kind of action. Tiphanie i love this question because it allows us to hold up geniuses on the stage. It thus those of us on this stage have awardwinning books and our writers and professors so you we have all i of it together. We are all in the process of continuing to learn and work hard on our craft. Especially talking with jericho about the ways in which our content of our work gets held up and not the making of our work. Two highlights that we continue to trouble through how to make literature to highlight that we continue to get through how to make literature. I am reading an essay by maria golden that is called how to write a memoir or take me to the river. I am currently writing essays about how the blackbody stays safe in the world. It is not only in danger of also staying safe. The individual essays are very cerebral and maybe even academic. I have been resisting getting personal in the essays. After reading marias passage, i am rethinking with more bravery. If it is ok, i want to read what she has written. Father is the first man i ever loved. That is the first sentence of my book. It is a invitation that equates the love i felt as a child with my womanhood. Writing a memoir forces you to take ownership of the story of your own life. Ownership means claiming your life in false starts and final recognition. There are no past measures and no second guessing in memorable memoir. This is who i was, this is who i am, these are the emotions i felt. This is my mother, this is my father, this is me. Writing a memoir means being prepared to uncover your life and its terror and pain. To discover this and shape its story. Memoirs allowed me to understand how much i loved my parents, how much they love me, my strength and resilience and the ways my life is a reflection of the lives we all live. Marias essays inspired me to think about this memoir of keeping the black people safe, to also the blackbody safe, who also thinking about my own body and the way it has been kept safe but also put in danger. And to think about the ways my mother was the first person to put my body into danger. That her own instability made me, a person who was in danger as an infant, but she was also the person who first put me into safety because she passed me to my grandmother, who was a source of great stability and love for all of us, but in particular for me and my body. That would not be something i would be able to put into the memoir or on the stage if it was not for marias essay. [applause] jericho thank you. I should say that maria golden is the founder of. Is she here . No . Good. I get embarrassed when i see her because i was a student in the workshop and every time i see her, i start turning red. She is like this person among us that i want to bow down to every time i see her. Is there anyone else here who has ever taken a hurston right workshop or taught for it . Is it just me . Went over here. Jericho lets give maria a hand clap. [applause] tiphanie one of the things also about this anthology and the person is giving the flowers. It is like naming a foundation for black writers after zora nea le hurston which was creating a space where we honor the legacies. That is one of the awards. The legacy awards. Here is the next incoming of this community of writers and the fifth anthology because you collect through the generations. You create this space for us to see this long tradition that goes backward and forward forever. Jericho and not only goes backward and forward but also extends very wide left and right. In the title of this organization is hurston right. Very different writers. It is letting you know there is diversity in black voices and will be in the black voices who have anything to do with the organization which i have always been really proud to be a part of. We are in a moment of book bands and other kinds of censorship. Some black writers i know have even joked one way to know you wrote something useful is some state legislature legislator has tried to outlaw it. [laughter] [applause] how much are you thinking or responding to this as you are writing . What is the value of an anthology like this one in such an era . Camille i am not the type of writer that responds to what is happening much outside my own heart and mind. I want to write what feels like it will last forever in the importance. I try not to write in response to what is popular or normative. I want to write what is inside and feels important. But the current political moment and the urgency with which it is important for us to hold up intellectual freedom has made me want to write faster, to get the books out there urgently. It makes me realize that what i am doing, although private and personal, it is also important for everyone. It makes me less precious about my writing. That is something that has public import. It makes me want to finish the books quickly and focus on them. My motherhood is important to me, i friendships, the role i have in my emily and at my university. But it has made me remember how important it is to put pen to paper. It has put a fire under me. One of the things i find most puzzling and unsurprising, [laughter] jericho thank you for that phrase. The fact that the books are being banned because they represent lives that certain people do not want referenced in the world. They do not want them to have the power of language, and the power of being in a book which gives it a kind of authority. And somehow there is an idea that if these worlds are given the power of language, its magic. That people will be recruited and made a certain way because they have read it. As a pose to as opposed to, recognition. You read something, and you see also, i am also seeing myself there. I am seeing someone who i love, or could love. My essay in how we do it is about writing a deep engagement with awareness, awareness of the senses. It is frequently what is important in good writing. Astute attention. To the world and a world that wants to distract us all the time. It wants to not have us Pay Attention, not have people stop and feel how everything is happening, who other people, what the era is. That is the world, it is easier to hoodwink people into thinking we should think alike and act alike. A world that demands and artistic attention that wellwritten books offer and demand of us. It is antiauthoritative. And an expensive world. For some people, that is scary. But for those of us who are it is just the facts of how the world works. We are paying attention. I agree with that persons quote. It feels like when i see a friend of mines will, its like, go you. You touched a nerve, which means you are touching hearts elsewhere. That is what is important. Jericho camilles essay is about how to Pay Attention. Thank you for it. I will ask you to read to read some of it. Often we think about form as it relates to fiction. If you could read a little bit of your essay, i would appreciate it. Camille this kind of practice alters how you process your surroundings, needs your daily life. And how you write about that life that is part of the power of heightened perception, he will be able to feel and say more in less time. Consider how we react in a moment of crisis. People will Say Something like, felt like it lasted forever. That car crash lasted forever. It could only have been a matter of seconds. When you are in a moment of crisis you start to pay animal attention to the things around you. Most of our lives, out a lot. Your underarm deodorant is centered, but after the application, can you smell it on yourself . The new laundry detergent, the odors that linger in your kitchen. Look around the room you are in right now, all of these smells, but your brain has likely tuned most of these smells out, we do not Pay Attention. That is to be expected. We would be overwhelmed if we processed every sensory experience. Unless something present itself in a new or surprising manner, i learned what not to Pay Attention to around me. And then i go on when you are in a moment of crisis, to Pay Attention to a lot more. You smell, hear and see angst you would have otherwise tuned out. What this means is you might take in what seems like 30 minutes worth of material in 30 seconds. You Pay Attention differently, more precisely. If you can start to practice this, you can begin to Pay Attention, all the time. By training herself to grab five minutes worth of data in one minute. Jericho thank you. [applause] jericho one second. You held up a 15, but we are done at 4 38. 4 30. Ok. [laughter] its ok. Its 4 07. Tiphanie as our gentlemen figures it out. Jericho i had it wrong . We are not done at 4 30. You did not hold up a 15. You are taking up my time. [laughter] tiphanie come on, you are cutting into my time now. I am teaching and environmental literature creative writing class this fall. You are cutting into my time. Jericho im sorry. I have a thing with time. [laughter] [laughter] tiphanie my essay is on fiction forms and the importance on fiction writers to interrogate forms in the way poets have been trained. One of the most hot and familiar forms and the heros journey. I have been in more than one classroom where the teacher has argued that the heros journey is the only fiction form. That the heros journey is a form that is in all cultures and can be applied to all stories. Some writers and teachers have simplified this to say that all stories are a stranger comes to town or a hero goes on a journey. I disagree with the idea there is one mono form for narrative. As i began teaching and writing within this form, it is racist and sexist, it became clear to me. But racism and sexism aside, claiming there is only one form is another way to tell fiction writers not to worry about other in winces and possible other interventions. A way to leave profundity to the poets, novelists and short story writers. Why should we do that . Here is one version of the heroes for heroes journey formula. Traversing through the threshold, belly of the whale, meeting with the goddess, the ordeal, resurrection, master of two worlds. This is one example of the form. This is a useful way to craft a story. This form, the heroes journey the hero go somewhere and returns. There is character development, though it is often stereotypical. The journey is focused on plot, which is why it works for plot heavy genres like fantasy. All you have to do is follow these steps. So many movies use this formula that many of us can predict how most blockbuster movies are going to go. It is actually a very western and male form. A form to express the adventure and risk that has defined white masculinity. That white masculinity goes forth, it conquers, it brings the bacon, the sword, whatever, back home. Further examination shows it is about white masculine coming of age. The hero is not generally married with children. This is not to say the form is bad. The form has inherent limitations. This is the pleasure of working within and against foreign. What if we push the heroes journey, what happens if we make our hero a woman, what happens if we take her femaleness into consideration . Keep her journey looking the same as with the boys. Does she need a goddess, or does she encounter her own self . What if the hero is not young, does he lose because he does not have the strength and naivete . In my novel i work each chapter through a different form of fiction. I thought first about what the form is meant to do, and if it is diverted. What would happen if i put a young black man into this white male structural form of the heroes journey. I also asked what might this form have to say about black male coming of age. One of the things i figured out is that the loan black man does not often get to be a hero in our culture. In fact he is often for demised by prerelease police who tell a t. Police brutality. When we are a team, a collective, we are able to get to hero wisdom. I am pushing against the form. [applause] jericho we have time for questions, if anyone has one. I think i am supposed to ask rob to come up, and not take questions. I do want to Say Something based on something both of you said in response to the questions i asked. Writing is a solitary act. And so it can get lonely. It is nice to have friends. It is good to have friends, to beat part of a community. When you come away from your computer screen or your pen and paper, something and somebody is there. You know this, if you are writing, when you come away from your writing. This is my house . Do you understand what i mean . Which is important to me about this book, about kirsten right hurston wright, the they create for us, books do this, because they did this for me as a kid. Books create community. It makes somebody who has and through what we are going through available to us. And it makes available to us somebody who is going through something we will never go through, such that we know what is available to the world. Part of what i love about this book is that it is a book that gives you a community. I am happy that i was able to be a part of that. It will take questions, thank you so much. [applause] we have microphones on both sides. The point of me having to ask questions, and me doing this is so you can ask him questions too. He has talked about working on this anthology. And not about his own work. Goahead. I wanted to ask about the nonfiction side and how you incorporated that in the book. Talked about fiction, i was interested in nonfiction. Especially my writing is more centered around my professional work. And my journey and my career. Jericho thats a great question. This book is interested in memoir, nonfiction, screenplays, fiction and poetry. Part of the reason why i am excited to have tiffany and camille here is because they are writers without boundaries, writers without genres, plays, fiction and poetry. She is working on a Nonfiction Book now. Camille writes essays, poems, she is an anthology. Tiphanie is working on editing things. The book does get into nonfiction. There is an essay by Ralph Eubanks. It is ultimately an essay about places and mississippi, which speaks to meet an important place in the black mind. If you have never been in mississippi, it seems to be part of your mind escape. What happens when i say the word mississippi to black people. It doesnt happen to everybody else. [laughter] i do think that is there in the book. The other thing it does, eight makes use of a poem by natasha troth away, to talk about how Ralph Eubanks goes about making his work. Natosha is from mississippi, she has an essay where she is talking about place. Much of the work i was doing in any genre, became easy for me because many of the writers in the book are talking to one another without knowing they were. Everybody mentions somebody else in the book. It makes me so happy. I hope that helps to answer your question. Goahead. Good afternoon. Thank you to the library of congress for holding this event, and you all for being here. [applause] thank you. A twopart question. Tiphanie, you indicated your mother was the first person to put your endanger, and the first person that delivered you to safety. Did you resent your mother for that experience, how do you personalize that experience in your writing . Miss camille, you spoke about construction and craft, how much time do you spent writing, or do you start with an outline or just start writing . Jericho yall got questions. [laughter] i felt vulnerable, you are making me say more. [laughter] the question is a writerly question. The way i am processing is through my writing. I have been asked, what are my themes . My answer has always been my themes are around belonging. I have said it is about the anxiety of belonging that comes from being from the Virgin Islands, are we americans, or caribbean people . We feel like we are locks lost and abandoned. What i recognized that i have been doing all along is talking about my mother. Thinking about what it meant to have been abandoned by her when i was a baby and what that has meant for me. Both of those things were vital elements of my life. I did not experience resentment conscience lead towards my mother, my grandmother also held my mother up with empathy. I understood my mother had brought me into safety by allowing my grandmother to take me. But as an adult and to mother, i recognize there are times where i was in danger, by her inability to take care of me put me in danger. Part of my work has been working through that anxiety that i will always have access to. It is in me. The writing has been a way to think through intellectually and emotionally. The thing i want to say before i headed off to camille my mother was a writer, and so is my grandmother. They gave me their love of literature, poetry and fiction. They gave me both of those things. Even holding me in danger and in safety is an important reality of being a writer. Being able to hold those two things is where i meet my writing and make my way through the writing. [applause] camille if i recall, your question is how long do i write . Hours. [laughter] jericho hours . Camille it depends on what moment of my life you are asking me. When i was single and not a mother, i could have been 1215 hours a day. I have a person that does not put up with that, it is her job. Sometimes i get 20 minutes per day. My new nonfiction narrative started in the middle of covid when i thought i was going to be home. I wasnt going to have to teach. And then, no i am schooling a fourthgrader. That is what this year is going to be. I had 20 minutes a day that i could be by myself and the exercise i write about that saved me to be able to sit and to breathe and Pay Attention to what was happening and recording everything that was going on for 20 minutes so that when i did have time, i have these records, as opposed to being, i remember that. I wont. Or being so caught up in the words or ideas as opposed to having them rooted. Wherever i am in my life, i will find a way to think like a writer and move through the world like a writer. I have had periods where it was two minutes a day. I was so traumatized, it was hard, and for two minutes i would write down whatever was worthy in a tiny notebook that i kept in my purse. That was all i had. Eventually that adds up. When i do have time, i can create the poem or essay from it. That idea that writers have hours a day, that also is racialized and classbased. In the 1950s, the Major Writers would literally leave their house in a suit and tie with a case and go to the office to write their novels. Because the value this culture puts on our and order to have value, you have to treat it like an office job. But Lucille Clifton when people would ask her why her poems were so short, she said that is how long my children nap. [laughter] [applause] jericho thank you. I do write every day, but i know louise does not. [laughter] i want to thank you for the blessings that you are, you have lived many souls and encouraged many lives. My grandmother taught me to if people roses while they are living. I want to make sure i gave you your roses. I am here for a practical reason. I want to learn and get as many as i can. I have written my first manuscript. As i went on this journey, a foray into the literary world, you find out it is not diverse. Many might say racist. 70 billion industry. One book can change your life. As i developed the manuscript, i expanded into a series. 60 minutes to read for a lifetime of what you need. It is a series of book that incorporates hip hop, covering a range of wealth. I want to know, help plug be into literary agents so we can bring this to the public. [laughter] [applause] that is left is less of a craft question. Tiphanie i will say that it is not easy to get an agent. It took me years to find an agent. I got rejected a number of times. I was rejected for racist reasons. Im not supposed to curse. [laughter] so i want to say, the journey you are on is the journey we all have been on. The rejection is always part of gang and artist. I will also say that the way that many of us found our agents was through direct mentorship. In my case that meant going to literary conferences, taking a class with someone, we will not tell you your agent, our agent will be mad if we did that. But what got me my ancient, and i am my agent, is by being in men t ship menteeship where my mentor opens up opportunities for me. That is my advice to anybody looking to professionalize, find the writers you admire and apprentice yourself to the writers in things like workshops. Can i do a thing real quick . Can you ask the question part of your question, very quickly . The question part of your question. I was wondering how do you reach out and break through into the industry . I am right behind you. Our right behind you. How do you demonstrate you are knowledgeable about craft while separating it from the content . I have been someone who has submitted to agents and magazines, what i will get is you are a great writer, make it mainstream. How can i demonstrate that i am knowledgeable about craft, without going completely mainstream to something that might be i will just do the question part. How is your experience with undoing as you uncover and recover your own black voice after having read a bunch of iced writing colonized writing . And what is a source of stability and love for you right now . In a talk earlier, inspiration is myth, either you will write or you wont. I want to know what your thoughts are on that. As people who struggle to get started. I do believe have to sit down. You have to sit down and do it, be it one minute or hours. The source of stability, mine is whatever mine is, you have to find whatever your sis. Otherwise you do not have the strength to keep doing what you need to do and make the connections. Finding the source of stability and trust and belief, the home in your community. That is crucial. Jericho i am sorry that we could not get to these questions. We have to do a book signing. If you ask us those questions there, we will answer them. Thank you so much for coming here. [applause] it is a good idea for you to five. You might want to go get this thing. Inc. You. Tha about you. It is about food culture. In the meantime, we are pleased to have rain on us and author and historian whose most recent