Are in the bookstore. Their books are in the bookstore so, please, go to the bookstore, check out their books, brick em back here or get them signed out there or back here. The next panel coming up, again, a great, great panel. I know a couple people on the panel, shaping memories the odd city to manhood. Shaping memories the odd city to man odyssey to manhood. Panel coming up next. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible] adulthood. Adulthood. Theres some women on the panel. [laughter] im pushing so many programs around the country [inaudible conversations] and the National Black writers conference continues now with a panel on writings from youth to adulthood. This panel contains language that some may find offensive. All right. Good afternoon again. Good afternoon again. Good afternoon. All right. I hike that response. I like that response. Again, shaping memories the odd yssey to adulthood. Our moderator is going to be kathy wright lewis whos going to share the names of the panelists. [applause] thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. [inaudible] okay. This afternoon we have the pleasure of the following panelists speaking on shaping memories the odd city to adulthood. First on my far left is mr. Watkins, hes a columnist for the salon. His work has been published in rolling stone, the guardian and other publications. Hes also professor of creative writing at the university of baltimore. Watkins grew up and will never leave baltimore. Come on, claim it. His collection of essays, the b side, is now available, and his memoir will be released in may. Nice, nice. Can we have a hand . [applause] next in line is mr. Michael [inaudible] hes an awardwinning poet and journalist, critic and poet. His book, raising fences. 9 this acclaimed historical novel and a collection of essays, the life and death of tupac shakur, and hes a professor of english at Loyola University in los angeles. [applause] seated right next to me is ms. [inaudible] and she was born and raised in the bronx, new york. A hand for the bronx. [laughter] [applause] she has a masters degree in psychology and has worked as a counselor for teenagers and families in crisis situations. She also has an msa in creative writing from the new school, okay in her first novel won the Los Angeles Times book prize for young adult literature, and her novel [inaudible] was selected by the American Library association as best books for young adults. Her first middle grade novel, kind of like brothers, was selected as an ala notable book for children and an npr best book of 2014. Lets have a hand for ms. Booth. [applause] all right. So what were going to do today, im going to pose a question, a couple of questions, and in between each question each author will read from their work. So the first question, well get started with the one, then the next, then next. 57 minutes for each, basically. Okay. So, first and well start at the other end of the table with mr. Watkins. Who was your intended audience, and what do you want them to understand about shaping memories and the odd city into adulthood . So my intended audience is what most of us would identify as being nontraditional readers. I write for young people who hate books because, you know, i think about how reading has transformed me. To be imperfect of the books are aimed at the wider public, as we know know us through lil wayne or the snoop dogg; the way we read a book, its a slow process. You spend time with a novel, and when people read a whole novel they get to know the characters in a way thats very full and complete, and they can remind them how beautiful and complex black folks are. At times we often times are not viewed as complex beings, which is why you can walk down the street with skittles and get shot the hell up. I agree with the panelists here. My book is written for teenagers. Its a young adult novel, and when i started writing it i wanted my novel to appeal to quoteunquote reluctant readers. I. A it to be something my brother would have read when he was a teenager issue dont think he read one book as a kid. I was thinking of in my mind, when i thought of writing it, that was my audience. As i now have four books and have done a lot of talking and stuff like that, and gone around the country, and now i kind of opened up my mind a little bit, and like mike was saying, i want my books to be read not just by those kid but by every kid. I was in the suburbs of illinois, and a teacher, english teacher, asked me. She said, in our School District we only have two ethnic kids, so im not making this up so, i couldnt so why should our kids read your book . And it was, wow. Like, this reminded men when i was a kid growing up the bronx, we never said there are no white kids in this school so why read the great gatsby. Now i think that all kids should read books before kids of color, and open up their minds to seeing that not just what they see on the news or what they see to get a Bigger Picture of what it means to be a black kid in this country, and a fuller and interior i think that you see on the news, you see the stories, but books can bring you inside of the childs head and inside of their lives, and just get a fuller picture. So, now i just save i write for everybody. A piece of writing from each author. Ill start. This book is america, my newest book. Identical swintons and one sons you know a skin disease, the Michael Jackson disease, makes people who are black and brown lose their skin tone. Not just blotches. If youre a kid at age ten youre a darker kind young black kid and you begin to fade away in spots. Imagine the stares you get and what will happen to you as a social subject. This book, charismatic young boy, goes from being a fun kid to growing up and becoming an angry and embittered and challenged son. In the book the father is concern about his kids, as all parents are, and tries to prepare them. Offering them strategy. One thing he decides to do at the age of five he stopped giving his kid gifts. The creates a map and buries their birthday present in the back yard, and cease here is your map. And if you dont find them you have to forfeit them to me. His trying to teach his kids a man works for everything he gets. The fathers name is tip, americas had been burying his sons birthday present since day were five years old. It allowed him to combine his love of mapmaking and manmaking. Inherited his own fathers skill with map us but was determine to break the childrearing approach and shake off its effect. A slow press. Tip skill had the selfconscious look of a critical fathers only child, bee anything seamless skin, puzzle face. Jeb learn from experience that tough love was playful rides and wasnt tough love, it was just tough. Thats why such a good father last week when the betweens tumble into the library and ask rambling ride he enjoyed more than his boys. He decides the birthdays would start the rites of passage into manhood. His own father had always told him that sin was a number of perfection, when his wife went into labor, he knew there was going to be Something Special about his child, but what he didnt know is that the specialness would come in twos. From the day that babyfaced daniel man drake handed the twins to the exhausted wife to the elatest father, kip began plotting how to turn his little boys into perfect men. [applause] my book has some language so expect something that might bother you. This is a good time to leave. Ill read a little bit from me book tyrell and its about a 15yearold boy whose dad is locked up, and he and his mom and little brother are homeless as a result, and theyre in the system in new york, being bounced around from one motel to the next, and i guess thats all you really need to know about that. The 15yearold boy is speaking. New was going to send to using ben it in hotel. Some niggers were talking about this place. One dude said his room had bullet holes in the walls and blood stains on the rug. This other guy said the roaches was getting paid to run bennett. The roaches signed you in and took you to your room and thatmen hired rotches that would come to your room to kill other roaches. That was funny but aint nothing fun in you more. The place looked like a bombed out building, like something you see in old war movie us. Inside it aint no better. Stinks like old sneakers because they aint got in fresher fresh air in here. The next thing, how busted the lobby look width old chairs and stuff hanging out. The floors is dirty and aint never been mopped. One quarter of the room, burger king bags bags bags and soda cae floor and plastic flowers on the table. Thats go to make you fuel right at home here. The second we get to our room my holm says, can you believe this shit . I got a 15yearold child. Dont say nothing. This whole situation got me mad i know i have to keep my mouth closed. I need to keep this shit. Theyre going to have children sleeping here for three nights . I dont get it. My mom went on and on. I stop listing. Im tired of the way she acts like everybody is supposed to do something for her all the time. She never did nothing for hers herself when my pops was home. He expected her to do things for her and buy her things. Troy starts crying and my mom does nothing to help him so i find some sweatpantses for him to sleep in then tell him to get ready for bed. Later he calls me because theres a roach in the sink. Kill the roach with toilet paper and kill to more on the wall. Then when i come out my mom is on my cell taking to a friend thats my phone, i said, she pushes me away. Got out of my face. I sit down on a bed mad. How come she can take misshit without asking. I hate that troy came out of the bathroom. Go to, be i said. Didnt want him to see how jacked up the room is. He so tired, he just laid on the other bed and pulled the blanket over him, which is good because theres a reach on the side of the bed. Dont kill it because it dont matter. Our room aint got no bullet holes or plod. The paint i dirty and peeling pg and the rug is worn out. Two double belt inside the room with blankets but no sheets and the mattresses is toe up. Bennett user the worst so far. My mom give uses up the last ten mints of the prepaid and then throw my cell on then bed and then turn on me. Whats your lazy asking do . Whats that supposed to mean. She followed her arms in front of me. It mean what you doing for his family . Why aint you doing something for your mother and brother dont got to live like this. For a second if try to hold it in because i want troy to sleep but im screaming back, what am i supposed to do. She say,ow dont go to school because youre to damn laziy ignorant and when youve get your black ass to school all you do is fight, and i have to talk to the god damn vice principle. Asked her, what you doing for this family . She dont hear me. He just keep on going, dont go to school and dont work, damn near 16. What kind of man you going to be, some lazy ass nigger . I said you want me out there selling weed . Woe wouldnt be at bennett if you was out there would we. Troy started moving away and my mom start Walking Around the room like she is an animal. Tyrell, you got to do something, this shit is sear you enough. She looked real mad and real scared. You spend all your time Walking Around the streets, screwing that little girl. That dont make you a man. A man got to take care of his family. Whats the man doing for his family, i ask her . You whatnot me to take care of you because my old man cant keep his ass out of rikers . Thats your problem. Not my problem. Grab my cell and jacket and leave. I want to punch something. Feel the blood pounding in my brain. Got to do something. Want to go somewhere. I dont go nowhere to go. Strong, girl. [applause] so im going to read a piece of the introduction from my book, an essay collection that coors range of topics from systemic racism to why schools exist, to street harassment to what they eat, food. I put all of these things in a Historical Context and use my own story as the backdrop. Im just going to read a piece of it. First time reading this aloud. One night i participate in a peaceful protest near downtown baltimore. My fellow protesters and i do have an immense amount of prepicket for protesters and organizers but after all the chanting and marching, darren will son, the cop who murdered brown, still went free, and cops in america still feel comfortable killing innocent black people. Every time a black body falls at the hands of a rouge cop the same protest on one side and the same naive voices on the other. Well, if they were innocent, why did they run . Why did they attack on officer . Why didnt they obey . I hear where these confused voices come from in a perfect world. Innocent people should not have to run or protect themselves from the people responsible for protecting them. However, america is far from person and africanamericans are about as safe as a chunk of stake steak in a den of lions. Doesnt mary if you stay or run, either way theyll burden now. Freddie gray in baltimore ran and when they caught hem he was murdered. Oscar grand, oakland, face down on the ground with the cuffs on and they murder him. John prophet in dayton was minding his own business, shopping at a walmart. Holding a store b. B. Gun and an officer opened fire within seconds. Mike brown in ferguson, who we we are rallying for that day in baltimore, put his hands up and the cop shot him. Sean in new york was trying to get married and Police Killed him. Eric garner pleading for his life. After he was in custody, on video in broad daylight and the still killed him. Partially deaf had his pants hanging low so the Police Tasered him. Jonathan in North Carolina wanted some help. Cops shot him to death. Tamir rice in cleveland was only 12. Being a kid cant save you because he was gunned down, too. Boyd in chicago was killed by officer who fired into a dark alley. Graham in new york trade to run into his home and they got him. Kasper johnson, 92yearold woman in there is in atlanta was relaxing in her home and cops burst in a drug raid. You can be from africa like new york or known as a nice guy around baltimore. Doesnt mary. No black person is safe. Kids, prom queens, junkize, whatever, theyll murder you, these killings happen every day in america and newspapers should print a daily death toll like wartime, because for black america this is wartime. And the officers are found innocent. Many arent even charged due to the various versions of the officers pill of rights in maryland where i live, Police Officers get ten days before they have to speak about the kill can theyre involved, in giving them ample time to assemble the lies. The guardian report it police will kill blacks at twice the rate of the whites and this is the norm. [applause] im just going to throw an extra question in there based on everything that we just heard you read. As students as young people read your work and how did they respond to that . Im from brooklyn, born and raised in brownsville and one of the places that has the most crime in the city, and we have more gangs, basically shelters, jails, and projects, and most of the prisons are for kids, and a lot of our kids are Walking Around with this mentality. If i have a gun im straight, and then i realize how theyre being used. So when they dish would think when they read your words, it would make them a little more knowledgeable about what is going on in the world, so can you just tell me how what kind of response you have gotten some. My biggest honor is that we raised money from our private donors foundations and different places and donate over 1500 copies of my book to the Baltimore City area. [applause] Baltimore CityPublic Schools making it required reading for tenth graders next year. [applause] thank you. Im in schools between baltimore and d. C. And virginia two or three times a week. So one thing that im extremely proud of is that young people young black students who, again, they dont identify as traditional rathers, are getting the b side and finishing it in two or three day. The run is because they see themselves in the book and its accessible. Not a language that needs to be decoded by someone with 37 degrees its a conversational tone and speaks directly to them. And, three, puts all of this issues some issues took 500 years to create. Talk about why . Why schools in the black neighborhoods so messed up . I dont just pose that question but i talk about how white students got a 2344 year head start, how schools attack faith and how things like the g. I. Bill and what how that money was allocated and basically the different policies that created these realities. So i use my own experience, but i also put a Historical Context and a language that is really easy to read, and explains things and gives you the option to figure out what you can do and what your place is. So, like i just read part of the production, and if i would have continued to the end, basically talked about how the best way 0 for me to make a difference is not to march up and down the street. For me, the best thing to do is to create content that gets people excited about reading and go around to different schools and encourage people to tell their own stories and help them understand how important their stories are. So its doing really well in schools. They react really well to it. I have a program for a writers project and teach hogue to be journalists, and were controlling the narrative. Were telling our stories and not letting them come to the neighborhood and create the narrative they want to create. Were in control of that and im proud of that. My first major book was a memoir called raising fences my own coming of age story. That book has seemed to hit younger black boys and young girls. I get letters and emails from students who read the book in high school in particular, who basically say that theyve seen themselves in the book, and thats really important. Many kids dont like to read. Rather be on instagram or twitter, online immediate yarning but when they see themselves in the book it makes reading exciting. You can document your own life in the book by reading your own life in the book, makes it more exciting to read. My book is written for teenagers, i get a lot of letters from kids, and the one is love the mose are to the ones that say its the first book they ever read, and i block to the American Library association, had prom where they fav 20, 30 books to kids in different well, a whole bunch of books at each setting and had a book club, book club for boys and nontraditional settings, places where kids wouldnt necessarily get books and encourage them to come in and give them a fro book and then have a discussion group, and then they actually flew any around the country to go to the book groups, which was great. And i do a lot of talks as juvenile Distinction CenterDetention Centers and thats where i go the most. My book is fiction but kidses can see themselves in tyrell in who in the scene i just read where his mother is telling him to sell drugs to support her, and a lot of kids are put in that position, and my book he does not do that but he does feel like its his responsibility to take care of his family, and gives us a lot of discussion. Its not a true story. When i used to work with children who were in crisis and i kind of a lot of it is based on true stories so gives us a lot to discuss, talk about when guy to juvenile Detention Centers because a lot of kids are in the same situation. So kind of fun. Its very rewarding being able to talk to kids. Thats wonderful. Automatically brought the faces right before me, and its a sad situation. But what i want to see now is how you can share if you can share the specific life challenges and the homelessness, your work friends and then a means of survival or arrival into adulthood. How did they get the . Start at the end. Okay. So, for me, i think about whats my place, right . What i can do. And between, my own story is, from east baltimore, grew up in a drug family. Me older brother, who basically raise me, he was murdered, and that sent me down a really dark path. I tried to go to college. East baltimore is 102 black. Like two percent margin of error. So i never met a white person in my life, and then i go right to a predominantly white institute, and they were like, you know i felt like a alien. I couldnt communicate with them and they couldnt communicate with me, and even some of the black students had boat shoes and sweaters and were talking about the grass. I dont know what the grass it. Im from the projects. I say that because as i went through the streets and did the drugs, i was tyrell and when i made it through that, and i went back to college, thats when i became a reader, and thats when i really learned how to communicate. Communication is serious in this country. A lot of these things happen because we cant talk to each oomph its easier for me to hit you on the head with a bottle than for me to say, hey, man, you hurt my feelings itch was talking to my home boy and he had rough day, and he just kept saying, any girlfriend is you know, and my job, my i mean, i mean, and i was like, now exactly what youre saying but you cant express it and thats where frustration comes from. So becoming a reader and becoming a writer helped me be able to be a petitioner communicator. Can talk to people who come from places like where i come from and can talk to people from the middle of oklahoma, and its all good. So, i think that one of the reasons why i these things one of the reasons why a lot of readers arent coming out of our neighborhoods us because were not giving them books like the pieces of work were talking about right now, and i think us giving them the largely relevant books are making them better communicators and its going to help everyone be able to go for other thats what i try to accomplish in my work. But then i also understand that im just one guy. This is three people and this is like were fighting against hundredses of years of systemic racism. So were not going to fully play out in our lifetime but that doesnt exempt us from dog the work. [applause] my book im trying to get people to think about power of selfknowledge, this is a novel, but its a reimagining of an ancient egyptian narrative. The characters are its that egyptian deity in st. Louis in 1970. This is a black of black mythology turned into a novel. As a scholar i have read many books based on greek mythology and i like those books as well. This whole book is a reimagining of african mythology in st. Louis, all of my books deal with some way know the self. The great power in simply knowing ourselves, and the memoir is about a Journey Towards selflove and selfdiscovery. Find that younger people especially have a hard time loving themselves, and knowing their value, and at times if you cant express that lack of love, you act out. Find creative ways to do harm to yourself or harm to others. My neighborhood, growing up you saw many black men, particularly in particular who were frustrated but acted out with those who are around them. Their girlfriends, brothers, cats in the neighborhood. We had frustrated black men in my neighborhood inflicting harm on other black people. Theres many Outstanding Forces coming into our neighborhoods in a racist pair paradigm, and black folks are hitting other black people. So my philosophy is learning how to love yourself. If you love yourself, youre less inclined to hurt someone else. My book talks about creative ways to fine love for yourself and just to acquire knowledge, to read a book, and to be open about our emotions or feelings. A lot of cats have hard time saying, you hurt my feelings, but i love you or i care about you, or i care about myself enough not to hurt you. Thats my strategy. Think about how we can learn about selfknowledge and then transmitting selfknowledge into selflove. For me, i guess i only have four books. Four is a lot. I guess overall what ive tried to do with my writing you know how they always say that write should be a mirror or a window, and i wanted to be both. Wanted my books to be mirrors. I wanted kids to look at it and see themselves reflected. Grew up in the late 7s7s so, 80s, and never the only i read sounder, read it was like i dont know. And it was so bad that i wasnt even a reader growing. Was a writer but never a reader because i didnt see myself in the books, and the books about black people just werent about me. I was a little kid growing fun the bronx and i wants to read books about kids like me and just didnt exist. So i always wanted to grow cup be the up grow up and be the black judy bloom. That daytona work. I wrote about inner cities and just kind of so, i wanted to write that and i want kids to be able to see their own lives reflected but i also do want a back to be a window. Want other people to look at my books and see a world they dont know. And just see it for the complexity that it is. You see these kids going down the street, and i know people have a negative opinion of tyrell character, look at him and good, he is up to no good. But if you read my book i want you to see in his life he is a good kidful might beatle rough around the edges, but he is a do he has a lot of pressure on him and interior things going on, conflicts and he has goals and he has dreams and he has love, and in other words i want people to see that theres more to these kids than just what they think. That these are real people with real full complete lives, and love them. He is a great kid and i want people to feel the same way about him that i do. Want the books to be both windows and mirrors, and mostly i did start writing because i did want kids to see themselves, and im so grateful whenever i get a letter saying, from some kid who says, oh, im just like tyrell, or i can relate to tyrell because of my dad is locked up, too, or we were homeless for a while, and just anything. So i love that. The last thing im going to ask is selfdiscovery, writing and reading, things that they can see themselves in, reflects, having books as windows and mirrors and definitely getting them into the schools because thats where our kids are. Thats really those of great answers, and a way to reach the children and get them to read. I wholeheartedly agree. Im a 30year veteran teacher. The last book some kids i was working with were reading, painfully, was the crucible. And they hated it. So i kept trying to make them focus on see why she is being used as somebody to cause all this trouble and thats a pattern in america. So, one last thing. Your inspiration. What keeps you writing . Inspiration . I dont know. I have no way to answer that. Ive been writing since i was in second grade so im always amazed most people dont have, whichs talking in their heads. I dont know. I just love what im doing, and i wouldnt be able to stop if i tried. 150 mission driven. I know that the work im doing serves the community, and i work for the people, and i answer to the people, and the people are the ones who validate me. So, as long as i know the things im doing are representing them in the best way possible, and that they are reading and developing their love for knowledge and that i know im doing my job and i work extremely hard at that. [applause] the spate of recent killings of black people, the history of black people in america, you see the folks who are killing us dont fully see us as fully human. Thats what drives me from the very beginning of my writing. Trying to find interesting ways to talk about our full, rich humanity and complexity. If we can show complex characters characters and novels and memoirs, we can help stem some of the tide of the aggressive dehumanization of black people. Im driven to create dynamic, interesting black folks on the page. As a brief aside, this book, which is has incredible reviews. Ive been traveling the country and all over europe with this book, but initially i got many, many, many rejections from over 100 rejections for this book. And what the editors were saying who said no, they felt like there were, a. Too many black characters the book a true story and that we already know about black people. Like some version of that im serious with already know about black people elm want a different type of story. Kept thinking if you did know about black folks we could walk down the street without being shot for being black. I want to represent black humanity whenever possible in my work. [applause] so at this time were going to open it up to questions from the audience. You can move to a mic. Hi, michael. In addition to being a novelist, a nonfiction writer, an amazing poet and im from california, developed and support black poetry in the city and has done so for a long time, and its really extraordinary, and i just wanted you to know that. [applause] thank you, michael. I have a question. Grew up in a family, my family is middle class but my parents were grew up working class in pittsburgh and they grew up loving books, courted over reading poetry to each other. That there was no inconsistencies. When they grew up in 50s between being black and a reader. They were both really avid readers and that was part of our upbringing. Im trying to understand how we reconnect to that sense that reading is what black people do. And how do we especially for young people, who dont realize theyre reading all the time. Theyre reading twitter, theyre reading facebook. Theyre reading instagram, but theres a disconnect between all the reading and writing theyre doing, and the idea of reading books. So, im wondering howl how we make that connection. One other question. What have you learned from the young people you have shared your writing with . What have they enlightened you about as a result of having a conversation with them . I think now we have so much so much more competition for books. Like, before maybe there were becomes, there was tv. Now theres so much, the internet and twitter and snapchat. So books, i think you have to really the book has to fight for kids attention now. And i know its for a lot of black kids, not a lot of books for black kids or about black kids. This whole push now we need diverse books. Its shocking. Every year they put out statistics on the percentage of black authors or the books that deal with black characters. Its terrible. And i think it was better in the 60s and 70s and has actually gotten worse. Thats why a lot of black kids are not reading. They dont see themselves in the book. Think books became more of like a business in the last, maybe 20 years or so. More they need a big hit, the big blockbuster book. Harryharry potter and the twilis and those that get the attention and not a lot of room for books, a quieter book about a black child. Its harder for kids to see themselves and just dont thats not for me. And a lot of of times when i get letters from kids theyre surprises they a book when about a black person. And share shocked when its assigned in school. I thinking along with seeing themselves in the books, is us making poocks more attractive. Being pragmatic. We have to make being smart cool. Thats my experience. You have to make reading cool. Not like in a fake way but cool as in being able to go to a school, as we all do, and travel around, and embody people who love reading. I love to read. I read all the time. I love to read books. I also embody i embody a being who love thursday read books. So i meet students in high school, talk about a loving book but also when i read i try to make the reading interesting. Talk to students about im a poet so i can read my fiction or nonfiction with a poetic vibe so i can make the work come across in such a way that attracts them. I know for me, i grew up in a really wild complex, in at the middle of a really wild situation. I was overexposed to pretty much anything and everything you dont want a child to see. Very exciting life. And i would walk across the street to my school, like i said before, and the only thing they would have for me is Huckleberry Finn 0, ben carsons, gifted hand. A book everybody hates. Ol just found out ben carson was crazy. Well knew he was out of his mind. So, for me, what i do is i start with slavery. I tell young people, look, how do you think it was illegal for slaves to read . You dont want them to be able to develop a thought to conceptualize Something Like freedom you. Want to control them. So when guy to the schools and i see that im in a school that is 100 black, and theres no books that speak to the children, and these administrators and teacher s who act like cultural things dont matter, i ask myself to d do we not want our children to read . Social reproduction, are we using education to create a permanent underclass so we can sustain capitalism . Thats why i say about my working mission driven. Read the stats and i know that its not this is not great question but not something that we can its not a quick fix. It takes books like these to be create over and over again and put in different places, but we can create that and build that foundation and grow into whatever it can grow to be. Id just like to quickly more parents if youre reading and you are reading the same thing your children are reading, whatever your kids are reading in school, you should be reading, too. So you can talk about and it everybody should have a library in their home, and i love animation and the japanese animee. They know a lot about that culture. Why not give them the neglectology and teach them about what our culture knows. Next you had a you had your hand up. Its okay. I appreciate the panel is excellent. [inaudible question] the main problem is i [inaudible question] negative, ignorant mindset, and hopefully we break out of that. The Technology Starting to kick in, youre doing selfpublishing and doing your own book, theyre reading material that black comic books and black super heroes, things start to change. [inaudible question] thank you. Thank you. Very much. Couldnt hear the question because it wasnt on the mic. It was more of a comment. Offered to help us to reach children, reach youth. Next question. I am tracy smith and always amazed that adults who write obviously young adult fiction, how do you stay connected to voice of a child . I think every 40 somethingyearold woman has a 15yearold boy living inside them. No. I dont know. I think that we have all been children, and teenagers, and when i was in second grade i wrote about 15yearolds, and when i was 15 i wrote about 15yearolds and now that im really old i write about 15yearolds. Im kind of stuck there. But its an exciting time to write about teenagers. Everything is first, the first heartbreak, the first little taste of independence, everything is its an exciting time to write. Writing about adult is not as exciting because everything has been done already. But i volunteer at the naacp, a group called acts and we tutor and mentor kids, and im just always surrounded by kids. I just remember so vividly what it was like to feel like a teenager, and im kind of emotionally stuck there. Next question . I just wanted to step back for a second. You talked about how start 500 years ago and this is a country built on slavery, and it also has through all kinds kinds f contradictions has changed, including people have fought heroically to shaken e change this society. Do you think about a whole different world could be created and by the very same people that are considered not human, actually coming to understand how the system works, and then im from revolution books and this is our mission, to put out a strategy and vision that could actually make this happen. But not on its own, because the system itself is in crisis. We have hitler for president. The economy is tanking. Theres 800 increase in mass incarceration. Its an untenable situation, and the people that took the streets in baltimore, a whole different way of im sure they had many different ideas but they were not tolerating this completely legitimate system, and so i guess my question is twofold. What do you think about a future and contemplating a future where that would not where it would not but run dog eat dog, and do you think about writing we need some novels that imagine. What if it men if the masses of be people ran society. Our first three shelfs in our book store are all novels but there are very, very few novels that imagine what we could do if we could make a revolution, get rid of this monster on our back, and actually have a society where the masses of people run things, and it is possible. Please check it out. The leader of the movement and the book store is open to you. Ill be there. Im on the calendar. For my memoir. I dont know the date. I will say that its happening. Its just not highly publicized. And some of these ideas vest gone viral yet but were building. Were building readers. Were building thinkers. Doing the things that schools dont do. We dont even acknowledge the government. Dont know what i dont know what trump is. Thats not on my radar. The people who are service and who i work with, were doing exactly what youre talking about. Its not how we publicize, and its not a five, ten, 15 year hustle. These things take a long time to create that reality. Longer than any of us will live, but i truly believe its going to happen through knowledge, through creating readers and thinkers, and o our own money and businesses and everything. The only way it can happen. [applause] i wish it could be quick, but its just not. Quicker than you think because the contradictions of the system itself. The planet is burning. Futurism, that type of writing, which is what i do and a few other other people too here also. We examine the excite part of that is teaching the children what happened, and let the understand why theyre behaving the way they are today and why things are the way they are and they will want to make the change. They will build the future. I was talking to a young teenager she same so aware about everything and why the system is like this and how theyre trying to keep her down, and i was like, bit why are you falling victim . Shes doing everything they want her to do. Getting high, cutting out of school. And im like, they have the knowledge, its getting in there but it we just need to now take that now change your behavior, now do something. Its frustrating because they are getting old. They are aware of do you now how they know how many prison cells to build . Because of the standardized testing. She knew all this stuff and then just like she cant so frustrating. Dont fall victim to it. So smart. Hi, yes. Im just soaking up everything you guys are saying and im being totally enlightened, and this is very relevant and i can say that ive been im a walking example of what you guys are speaking of today, and this leads into the question, because from prek to grade 11, 12, ive always been able to read, if a teacher called to me to read, i would read well and articulate, but at the same time i never had a connection to reading with such becomes like. The great gatsby or gifted hands or the catcher in the rye. I wasnt in love with literature until the 20s. The autobiography of malcolm woke me up. That inspired me to become a writer. My question for you guys, i have been writing for four or five years now, and i want to know how exactly do you guys get people within your circle when i mean circle, your brothers, sisters, family, friends to really support and push you guys out there and to make you work your work visible. If i have a friend hell say thats cool but im going to support this guys local mix tape. Instead. What are some of your concerns about that or your ideas concerning that . Trying get to Family Support for your writing . I actually didnt go through my circle. I actually i got beat up by the masses first. I query 800 literary agents. Submitted everything in the whole entire world, even dish submitted to magazines that the editors who ed decide ed ited my work didnt read. I so i took that route and let everybody else catch up. For me i didnt have time to, like, read this. Read this. Because i come from a i read three books my whole life between when i started reading, but let me go back. I read the little Curious George as a kid, but after Curious George went away, from Like Middle School to when i went back to college for the second time, only read three books. Malcolm action, frederick douglass, only because my brother method me read them. And so a bunch of people around me, not we probably have different realities, different places. Are you from new york . People here read. So in baltimore a lot of people dont. But were changing the culture. Were changing that culture, and so from our own experience i didnt start from the inside. Started with the world ask then a lot of peoplecatching up so that might be a different way to take it through. Everything changes. When they start to see your name pop up on papers and magazines, hold on. Thats my cousin. Im everybodys cousin now. 7,000 cousins. I didnt start with family, either. My family are not really readers and i just when i felt like i was ready i went and got a masters in writing because i thought i was okay but needed to get better and needed to push herself and take it seriously, and i thought inning that environment would help me, okay, this is what i want. And then i just went to agents and editors and all that. I never looked to my family and inner circle of friends. Theyre fine. Theyre lovely people. But just were not the people i needed to get any kind of recognition any feedback from. They werent in the same world i was itch needed the literary world to say if it was good or not, and i started wering agents and editors when i was ready but from from friends and family. I dont know if my friends even read stuff i wrote to this day. Theyre just not readers. I have a question for dewatkins you mentioned earlier you went to school and had trouble communicating with people. You left school and then went back. What was the catalyst for you going back and why did it work the second time. It took a whole lot for me to get back. I was really, really densed when i first went to come. Coming right after my brother died, and i went to school, went to this white space, never been in a white space, and it was difficult. So i felt at home in the street so i put my time and argue and everything into that energy and everything into that. And i wanted to make some money and that was the best thing that ever happened to me because i realized that type of money and lifestyle, thats not that was an illusion and it took me a lot of losses and a lot of setbacks to understand that, and somebody gave me a reputation and energy and the ability to, one, be resilient enough to get through knowledge and to approach these agents in this publishing world, and i understand what people to through, so it took a lot for me to get out of the street, but i lost some close friends. Changing industry. I came up selling crack. People say stop doing that. And then the biggest thing, the biggest thing, was travel. I took a little bit of money i made and went to different places. A lot of my friend were dont leave east baltimore. Dont know what west baltimore looks like immigrant dont want to be a person with a short obituary, and a person that never left me neighborhood. Realized that everything is my whole world, you cant even see it on a map and it changed my whole value system from that exposure, and i can honestly say that being inquisitive, kind of saved me. [applause] have time for two more questions. Im very, very grateful for you guys. This whole experience has been really encouraging for me. I have been kind of burnt out because of 40 years of counseling and trying to uplift us, our children, especially, and so this is very hard. But i wanted to ask for your writing, did you selfpublish or did you good to you said you look 800 people, 800 rejections and how many how did you go about actually getting published . For me . Anybody. Like i said, im a one those writers who i write, so my memoir was like 100,000 words. Chopped it down to 55. So i write in bulk. I write articles, i write six at a time, and i just go through waves where i create all this content and then throw it away. But through the process i submit it to a lot of different places blindly. Didnt know i was supposed to send a pitch paragraph. See something in the news and i wrote it and throw the article away. It took awhile, a lot of people wasnt feeling me and a lot of people were rejecting me, at home, on the internet and in general and then one day an editor from salon read something and she thought that she said, no no no, who how the south i was somebody else. She couldnt believe she never heard of me and i wasnt a professional, and she ran and it it got two or three million hits. After that i didnt submit anymore. Peer were just hitting me up. You want to write is in . Im like, lets make it happen. Lets do it. In my case i got an agent, after grad school, after college, and she awrote a proposal and that was bought by a press that first racing fences raising fences and that led to more gigs and kind of stumble into them. I did a lot of writing for hire. I dont know if anybody knows basically i was writing books for other people, and their name is on it, but i was writing it. So i kind of somehow i fell into that really called being really poor, and writing really, bad, terrible stuff, and you thank god your name is not on that. Anyway, so i did a lot of that before. Kind of knew a lot of people in the literary world, and but as for my own book, i wrote it and i kind of got a little lucky because identity met an editor at scholastic, who publishes my books, and he expressed interest, and worked together. He was my thesis adviser for my msa, and i kind of knew he liked it already, so i was kind of happy. When i graduated from the school he told me he wanted to acquire it for scholastic. So i kind of already knew i had a publisher, and i had to find an agent to help me do the contract and stuff. So i got lucky in a way with my own first back and just been with them for the whole time. Thanks. They the end of the question. Are there anymore . Go back to our last questioner here. Thank our panelists ask and our midator, of course. Again, obviously too adulthood. Our final panel is coming up. Conversation with michael eric die son and khalil muhammad. And dr. Green will he closing words about our conference, thank you for this wonderful, wonderful, conference, and all the team members. Lets give it up for them for the great work theyve done. Dont forget the authors books are in the book store. Make sure we get to the book store with the authors and support the work because theyre doing some really great things. The so much. The next panel starts at 4 30. [inaudible conversations]