Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 10

The Next Chapter

It’s April so I’m writing a poem a day in honor of National Poetry Month. As I penned my second poem this evening, I realized I never went over the poems I wrote last April. Then I remembered that I’d written a poem a day for November as well…and then I found a bunch of “loosies” in my computer’s poetry folder…so I spent a couple of hours this evening pasting them into a single document and now I’ve got over a hundred poems to review! I’ve been posting poems on social media as well but it feels wrong using “old” poems when I have so much new/unfinished/published work lying around. Moonwalking comes out in about a week but so far I’ve only shared one concrete poem for Pi Day last month. I also read that poem for a virtual talk I gave at a local school last week and a student immediately asked where she could get the book…I hope our verse novel has that effect on other young readers. Poetry is more accessible for a lot of students and our book combines verse, music, and fine art—there are a lot of entry points for librarians and educators to exploit. Lyn and I will be talking about our book with Baltimore librarian Deb Taylor on April 13; you can register at the Politics & Prose website. We’ll also be presenting at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 14; I haven’t seen Lyn since the pandemic so it’ll be nice to be on stage together for to discuss our collaboration. Tickets for the event at the Ashland Theater in VA are now available and I spoke to a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday; she thinks the event will draw quite a crowd and did a nice write-up in today’s paper. I’ll conduct my first in-person school visit while I’m in Richmond, which should be interesting. These students lost their school in a fire not too long ago so I hope we can work together to write some poems to heal their hearts.

Last week I found out that my play wasn’t accepted into a local development program. I was disappointed but also grateful that the rejection made it easier to close that chapter of my writing life. The next day I spent the morning at the Art Institute and then walked back to the South Side. It sure didn’t feel like spring weather-wise, but my heart felt full again and I know I’m ready to write. The play will just go back in its drawer for the time being. My shadow puppet workshop starts on Monday; I’ve got a long list of materials to purchase so that’s tomorrow’s task. Random House came back with a better offer so hopefully we’ll seal the deal and then I’ll need to get started on Book #5. It’s not the ideal time to start sifting through a hundred poems but I’ll try to work on a few each day this month. Write a poem, post a poem, revise a poem. That’s doable for 30 days, right? At the end of my wonderful conversation with Shelagh Rogers last month, she asked me to recite a stanza from A Place Inside of Me but most of our conversation was about The Witch’s Apprentice. You can listen to the segment here. I’ve got an in-person event just outside of Toronto scheduled for September. Will the pandemic be under control by then? Who knows. But I haven’t crossed the border since January 2020 and hope I can finally connect with family and friends in the GTA.

trickster tourism

Tourism is complicated. For too many previously colonized countries, it’s a necessary source of income—but how galling to have to cater to the whims of those (former) colonizers without being able to tell the full, true history of exploitation that makes tourism necessary in the first place. While I was in San Juan, I kept thinking of the documentary Life & Debt. which juxtaposes the causes and effects of neocolonialism with the ridiculousness of White tourists demanding and glibly consuming a fictional narrative about Jamaica. This was my first second time staying at a beachfront resort and though I appreciated the comfort and convenience, I’m not sure I’d do it again. Is there a way to be an ethical tourist—in it but not of it? I’m not sure. Maybe that’s why I’ve largely avoided vacations, preferring to embark on research trips that make me feel like something other (better?) than a pleasure-seeking tourist. If I’m studying some aspect of a country’s history, then it’s respectful and not exploitative, right? I went to Puerto Rico without much of a plan and didn’t try to accomplish much. There’s something about squandering sunny days that makes me feel guilty, even here in Chicago, so I wasn’t upset when it rained off and on for two of the three days—that made it seem acceptable to just hide out in my hotel room. When the sun was out, I got up early and walked the length of the beach, I dozed on a chaise or read for a little while, I finished my puppetry application, I researched tours but only took two—one of Old San Juan and another of the caves at Parque Histórico Cueva María de la Cruz in Loíza. That last day was the best in spite of the rain that caused my flight to be delayed by several hours. I skipped my morning walk and took an Uber out to Loíza where I joined a bomba workshop that was already in progress for a large group of middle school students. The drummers, musicians, and dance instructor were impressive and I was mostly able to follow the conversation despite the fact that it was entirely in Spanish. But the best part came when the dancer tried to bring students onto the dance floor. One young woman jumped up right away and it soon became evident that she didn’t need any instruction—she must have been making those moves since she was a child. The boys were more reluctant but then one of the teachers—a very young man with braces and skinny jeans—got up, saluted the lead drummer, and showed everyone how it’s done! He kicked off his white sneakers and danced so elegantly and expertly…and two of his female colleagues later did the same. Then more and more students found the courage to give it a try…it was amazing. Education should always be that way—electric and experiential. I had brought a few of my books with me and thought I might have to take them back to Chicago but when I offered them to the teachers, they gladly accepted them. When the rain let up a bit, I got a quick tour of the caves, saw the fossilized coral and buzzing beehives, bought something from each of the three vendors on site, and then the younger drummer kindly drove me back to San Juan when Uber couldn’t find me a driver. We talked about his plans to open a restaurant and how challenging it is to preserve bomba music when salsa and reggaetón dominate the airwaves. I got to the airport at 1pm, managed to get the last seat on a later connecting flight in Charlotte, and settled in to wait out the rain. Almost twelve hours later I was back in Chicago, back in my apartment, sleeping in my own bed. What did I learn? Puerto Rico was both familiar and foreign; familiar because it’s a lot like Nevis and the other Caribbean countries I’ve visited, with US fast food chains almost squeezing out the local restaurants. At times it felt as though my inability to speak Spanish limited my ability to connect with folks in a meaningful way. Learning Spanish wouldn’t make me less of an outsider but at least folks would have the option of communicating in their mother tongue. The middle graders looked so familiar—just like the students I used to work with in NYC. But they’re not the same. My character in Moonwalking is part of the diaspora; he feels removed from his roots, which is why he heads to San Juan at the end of the novel. But if I wrote a sequel, I’d have to address the challenges Pierre would face once he arrived. That was an interesting aspect of the Mamie Till story on ABC—Emmett was shown striving to impress his cousins and the other teenage boys in Mississippi; some saw him as a big city show-off, and so didn’t bother to school him in the ways of the South. It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would send their child to the Deep South in 1955, but then my parents were eager to forget and/or conceal their roots. Some departures—for some people—are meant to be final. My favorite photo from this trip was taken as we prepared to land in San Juan. The midnight moon was glowing in the starless black sky and the sea was black as well. There were darker shadows cast on the surface of the water…it was beautiful and nothing like the technicolor postcard images designed to represent Puerto Rico to tourists. When I go back, I’ll skip the beach and stay somewhere inland—rent a house instead of booking a hotel. And maybe by then I’ll have acquired enough Spanish to make communication better. Maybe…

 

shadow & substance

I put puppets on my vision board last year. When a student last month asked me what I’d do if I wasn’t an author, I told her I’d be a puppeteer. Now, I don’t actually know how one becomes a puppeteer and I don’t know if I want to pull strings or just write the scripts…but I’m applying for a three-month virtual residency and I’m taking an online history course on Black puppetry and performance that starts in April. Today I went to see The Magic City performed by Manual Cinema and it was extraordinary. Not at all what I expected—I’ve always felt that the wonder of puppetry comes from the hidden hands that manipulate the characters, but this performance put everything in plain sight. You almost didn’t know where to look because you could clearly see the narrator, the musicians, the actors, the puppets, the transparencies, the video camera—you saw exactly how the show was being produced and just above it all was the “finished product” on the big screen. It was a little overwhelming at first but also fascinating to see how expertly choreographed it all was. But what’s lost when all is revealed instead of the mechanics being concealed? It that still magic—or just labor? I doubt that it matters to kids but I’m still stuck on the idea of making something impossible seem possible. For the residency application I have to outline a specific project, which is hard to do when I don’t even know what all the options are. I think I’ve only ever made puppets out of paper bags and socks! I love this version of Peter and the Wolf but I think the strings on the puppets were removed digitally. Is that magic? Or cheating? Does it matter? (Just checked—it’s stop-motion animation using puppets!) Someone posted the Muppets singing “Danny Boy” for St. Patrick’s Day and I couldn’t stop laughing…but I don’t want my puppets to be silly or furry—I want to tell an African origin story about spiders and stars…shadow puppets would work but I’ve got this gorgeous doll that I want to use, too. Can I do both? Probably. Now I’m watching all the Muppets videos on YouTube (“Bohemian Rhapsody”!) Jim Henson was such a genius. Better get back to work on my application. I said I’d leave my laptop behind when I go to San Juan next week but I don’t think I can. It’s my security blanket and I have too many ideas percolating right now to go without it. I don’t really know how to vacation. I’m not sure I even like to vacation! A kid lit friend told me about an artist residency in upstate NY but I don’t need time away from my life…I’m blessed to have a life that’s designed to make it easy for me to write whenever I’m ready. And I’m ready now but I’m leaving on Monday so the laptop will just have to come along…

fired up

I woke up at 4:30 this morning; my new novel was percolating and I could hear my characters’ voices but I wasn’t willing to get out of bed and sit at my desk. Instead I finally got up around 8am and made a plan to walk back over to Bronzeville. We were there yesterday on our Chicago Mahogany tour but it’s different when you’re actually walking along the streets you want to study. After months of not writing, it feels good to have my process just “kick in.” Our guide yesterday, Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, mentioned just as an aside that we ought to look up Aldine Square—I think it was while we were parked in front of Louis Armstrong’s house. I complied and was surprised to learn that such a swanky address was simply abandoned by its wealthy residents. It happened over and over in Bronzeville, with landlords turning mansions into flats for working class people and then refusing to maintain the overcrowded buildings—which led to demolition. We made quite a few stops on the tour but once I got home, all I could think about was Aldine Square. And once I had time to explore the Oakland neighborhood’s history, the novel began to take shape. Our negotiations with Random House have fizzled out so I’m no longer focusing on Book #5. The prequel will follow Ma—Lavinia “Vinny” Robinson—as she first discovers magic and stumbles through a gate that leads to Palmara. So far I’ve got Sis and L. Roy Jenkins in the cast of characters; I need to work on my outline now before all the ideas in my head disappear. I know the novel will end with the racial violence of 1919—the Red Summer. I think Ma’s father was lynched in Alabama; she and her mother and grandmother are live-in domestics for an elderly White woman who hasn’t followed her elite neighbors out of the rapidly transforming neighborhood. Aldine Square eventually became home to Black migrants fleeing the South in the middle of WWI. Today as I was walking around, I tried to imagine what the area might have looked like in 1919…the greystones would have been standing but Aldine Square was torn down to build the Ida B. Wells housing projects—and those have since been demolished as well. There isn’t much that was erected in their place, just a few modern middle-class complexes. There are so many empty lots in Bronzeville—all tidy and well-maintained, but a glaring reminder that the city hasn’t replaced the affordable housing it destroyed over a decade ago. By the end of the novel, Ma and her family are facing eviction…it’s amazing how easily I can see the parallels between her childhood and Jaxon’s! After my walk I stopped at Yassa to rest a while and pick up lunch; I took a Lyft home just in time to meet with Canadian kid lit scholar Jeffrey Canton via Zoom. What an honor it is to have such a brilliant reader analyze my books! Jeff is like a detective—he finds all the clues I’ve scattered throughout the series and recognizes the intentional choices I make in the interest of inclusivity. I said I wouldn’t do another series but I can see this book about Ma having at least a sequel of its own…uh oh! For now I’m just happy to be writing again and giving myself parameters and wandering the streets looking for signs of a city that no longer exists…

Brightly

The op-ed I wrote about A PLACE INSIDE OF ME being challenged in VA is up now on Brightly. And with my publisher providing security, I’ll be heading down there in early May to thank in person the folks who have stood up to the book banners. I never imagined I’d need protection at an author event; there haven’t been any specific threats and I’m relieved to know that I can adjust our safety plan if I feel comfortable with the crowd. But after seeing how heated things have gotten at school board meetings in VA, and with that county supervisor insisting my book is “anti-police,” we thought it wise not to take chances. That means no signing line and questions from the audience will be selected in advance to avoid hecklers. How did we get to this point? Hopefully things will have cooled down by the start of the book festival. I’ve asked if we can squeeze in a school visit or two. The whole point of writing these books is to connect with kids…

We authors can and do defend our books, but protecting freedom of expression isn’t the responsibility of any individual or members of a particular profession. Communities have to embody the values they wish to pass on to their children. Sometimes the students themselves need to remind adults that the purpose of education is to invite — not prevent—the curiosity that can sometimes cause discomfort.

guardrails

For the past two weeks, I haven’t maintained my To Do list. I finished one notebook and started another; I transferred my check roster but not the list I depend on to keep me on task. The result? Two weeks of drifting from day to day, relying on my routine instead of obsessing over all the items that need my attention. Most things still got done—I didn’t miss a virtual school visit or meeting—but I also just made room for the things I wanted to do. I went to see August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and sat in a packed theater for the first time in years. I went to the cinema for a matinee and saw Death on the Nile with no one else around. I met friends for brunch and took my mask off to eat in a restaurant for the first time this year. I haven’t been writing, which hasn’t been good for my mood, but the article I wrote last month was published over at Mom.com and my op-ed about the book ban attempts in VA will come out on Monday. The weather has been mild so I’ve been able to run outside; I’ve been baking banana bread to curb my craving for sweets. This weekend I spent way too much time shopping online (a sofa, a rug, a chair, a footstool, and a cushion) but I’m hoping that these new furnishings will inspire me to finish up the many little tasks around the apartment that I’ve put off since last year. I took new headshots; after months of rejection, I found a new agent and met with her yesterday to learn the details of Random House’s opening offer for the final book in the dragon series. After a very long, very full Black History Month, I met with the woman who will be directing the staged reading of Say Her Name. We’re assembling a cast and hope to hold the reading by the end of March. It will be my first time hearing the play aloud since I wrote it in 2020; if I’m not impressed, I’ll leave theater alone for a while and try my hand at puppetry! There’s a fellowship for emerging Black puppeteers and I’m going to apply even though I don’t think I have much of a chance (having no experience whatsoever, just a love of puppets). I’ve talked with three of my Black women kid lit friends about making short films with dolls so that’s something I can build upon; I have my novel that’s loosely based on the Dogon people’s inheritance of astronomical knowledge from aliens. My new editor wants a quick turnaround on edits for the fourth dragon book and I’m not going to complain because I booked my first vacation in ages and don’t want to have that hanging over my head. I might even try leaving my laptop at home so I’m not tempted to do any work! Moonwalking comes out next month and we’ve started making plans for the virtual launch; at the end of the novel, Pierre heads to San Juan so I figured I should do the same. So not having a To Do list has and has not slowed me down. I made a new list this morning and will see if I feel more focused and/or productive for the rest of this month. Spring is coming—we’re nearing 70 this weekend!—but I stayed inside today. I hope the new season helps me shake off the lethargy that lingers after months (years?) of hibernation. Bears leave their dens scrawny and hungry and let their instinct guide them. It helps to have a list but it’s good to know I can manage without one and not go off the rails…

“garbage”

Whew—what a week! On Monday morning I spoke with WVON host Rufus Williams, Jr. about THE WITCH’S APPRENTICE before meeting with the young Black woman producer of The Morning Show on Global TV in Canada. She asked great questions and gave me a chance to share photos of my grandmothers, which was an unexpected surprise. By the time the actual interview rolled around on Wednesday, I felt prepared and relaxed (watch the segment here). The next day I did a virtual visit with students in Roxbury, MA before being interviewed by a journalism graduate student at Northwestern. I was looking forward to a quiet weekend and maybe that’s why I chose not to share a couple of posts on social media that let me know an elected official in Virginia had a problem with one of my books. If someone I knew and respected called A PLACE INSIDE OF ME “garbage,” I’d probably be upset. But a White male conservative likely trying to exploit the ridiculous right-wing rage against critical race theory? Nope. I didn’t retweet or share his original Facebook post during the week but today the story appeared in a local VA newspaper so I figured it was time to face it head on. It may not escalate and this article indicates that educators and community members refused to pull my book from their school. But buddy isn’t done—now he wants to make it possible to remove objectionable books more quickly…I’ve got a full week ahead and I’m determined not to obsess over what *might* happen. I found out on Thursday that my editor at Random House is leaving and has handed my dragon series over to another editor who will handle Book #5, THE WAR OF THE WITCHES. I’m sad to see Diane go but I’m pleased that the publisher’s “wait and see” approach has been set aside and they’re finally committing to a contract; they did a small initial print run of 10K books and I think we’ll need a second printing soon. I’ve been working on the summary for Book #5 today and think that diving back into the world of dragons might be a good way to spend the next few weeks. Black History Month is always hectic but March will be calmer and it would be good to get the book done before MOONWALKING comes out in April. We’ve gotten two starred reviews so far and our novel in verse has been named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection! The book ends with an encounter with police…will that lead to more objections from the right? Who knows. The kids are my priority, not grandstanding politicians…

Global TV’s Morning Show

Watch my 2022 Black History Month interview with Jeff and Carolyn here.

last week’s launch…

…exceeded my expectations! On Tuesday I had a phenomenal conversation with Jehan Giles at The Salt Eaters Bookshop out in Los Angeles. How I wish I could visit the store and meet Hazel and Asha in person instead of on screen. We’re still trying to put up a staged reading of Say Her Name here in Chicago but if Omicron weren’t raging across the country, I’d fly out and hold a reading in their amazing art space. I realize I want to start small with the play—have a local reading and then decide if I want to scale up. Really, I want to reach young people and they’re glued to their screens, not going to the theater. Maybe a non-narrative film with different actors performing the poems makes more sense than putting on a play…that was one conversation I had last week and it will continue when I meet with my team on Thursday. On Wednesday I gave three book talks at a school in Brooklyn and then I had a Zoom meeting with the Black woman producer of Chicago Tonight’s Black Voices. That interview took place on Friday after I signed about sixty books at Seminary Co-Op Bookstore here in Hyde Park. They handled orders from Thursday’s launch event at the University of Chicago Lab School—over one hundred students tuned in from home with their families! Needless to say, by the time I reached the end of last week, I was exhausted…but also very grateful for all the people who made the launch such a success. The interview aired Saturday night (you can watch it here) and a couple of days later I got a snarky 3am email from a rightwing troll…one of Trump’s minions, no doubt, wondering why I don’t write a children’s book about things that matter to him (violence against the police). Yesterday I got a nice email from a special education teacher who struggles to find “mirror books” for her students, and I did a virtual author talk for 180 appreciative students in MO. A couple more meetings this week and then some time to rest and write before the Canadian press events start next month…

Chicago Tonight’s Black Voices

Watch my interview about the Dragons in a Bag series with host Brandis Friedman here.