Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 16

CityLine Interview with Tracy Moore

when you’re scared

Last month a child in Toronto asked, “What do you do when you’re scared?” I turned my response into a letter, which you can read (or listen to me read) over at the A Book A Day blog:

Life does get scary sometimes and there’s no shame in being afraid. Everyone feels fear—kids, teenagers, and grownups, too. Lately things have been happening in our country that make me upset. I have anxiety, which means I worry a lot. I always tell kids that “What if…?” is how all good stories begin. But when I’m feeling anxious, asking “What if…?” over and over again just makes me more afraid because I tend to focus only on the bad things that could happen.

I haven’t been blogging much lately. By the time I finish doing “all the things,” I don’t have anything left to say. Today I have nothing written on my calendar but the To Do list still wants my attention. We’ve had 90+ degree weather for over a week so I’m mostly laying low at home with the a/c on. I sent my poetry collection off to my editor last week so I’m going to take a break from writing poems—until next month when I need to write 20 poems for my novel-in-verse. I have an Authors Guild webinar on Monday and another 100+ kid lit event on Friday. On the days in between, I’m thinking about driving out to Evanston. Traveling during the pandemic causes a lot of anxiety but I think there’s a smart and safe way to do it. And if I get scared along the way, I’ll just look for the helpers…

taking my time

When the pandemic started, I thought I would finally have time to do all the things that constant travel had prevented me from doing. But these days, I find I often feel like there simply isn’t enough time. Right now I am writing a poem, revising the finished poems in American Phoenix, preparing a new picture book for self-publication, revising an essay that’s due tomorrow, researching Amish farms and Black supernaturalism, and trying to finish at least one chapter of my novel. I can’t do it all. On top of that, I found out last week that even though the USCIS website says my citizenship application will be processed by October, the Philly office has only just started processing applications from 2017. Which means I had to immediately pay another $540 to renew my green card, and I can’t move forward with my mortgage application until the new card arrives. Which, according to the website, could take up to 10 months. So on that front, the universe is definitely forcing me to slow down. And this week I won’t have time to sit and write because I have a phone conference with an editor tomorrow morning and I’m teaching an online class in the afternoon; the next day I have another live interview for a Toronto morning show called CityLine, and my second poetry class meets that afternoon. The next day I have a meeting to solve a Canadian library’s tech trouble before I’m interviewed by a professor in Texas about radical children’s publishing. The rest of the week is open but I’ve got friends who want to catch up via Zoom and colleagues hoping to talk about shifting fall in-person presentations to an online format. I keep finding requests in my spam folder…folks want videos and poems and blog posts. I can’t do it all. I WON’T do it all. I’m trying to slow down without stopping entirely, which is what I want to do some days. I should have gone for a run this morning, but I didn’t. I didn’t do my usual stretches last night. These are the things that help me feel strong in my body so I know that they’re important. I don’t really miss having a hectic travel schedule but I do miss variety. Yet when I was flying from place to place, I missed having a regular routine and now my daily routine is wearing me down. Still striving to find the right balance! It takes more than time. I need to focus on my priorities because everything doesn’t have equal value. I’ve been doing a *lot* of free gigs and that needs to stop. At least for a while. We’re halfway through July and I have another novel due at the end of August. We’ve got interest from a couple more film studios but at least I can let my film agent handle that. A small publisher reached out after hearing on Twitter that I might have to self-publish the rest of the dragon series, but I’m letting my agent handle that. A PLACE INSIDE OF ME comes out next week and we’ve only had one review in The Globe & Mail, a Canadian newspaper. I’m not dreaming up an innovative way to do a pandemic book launch. I’m proud of that book but I’m going to trust that the folks who are looking will find it in time. The essay that’s due tomorrow is about the twenty-year process of bringing that book into the world. I was angry when I wrote the first draft in December but revised it into something less scathing back in March and now I’m revising it AGAIN in July. For a magazine that won’t be published till the fall…sigh. Today should be a day of rest but instead I’m going to make a mini To Do list and see if I can do just three things that will make me feel strong, safe, and satisfied.

 

The Importance of Representation in Children’s Literature on CTV’s Your Morning

voice

Join us tomorrow for the 8th Annual African American Children’s Book Fair hosted by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. For a long time, this was one of the only book fairs that invited indie authors and this year I’m honored to be on a panel with Just Us Books founders Cheryl Willis Hudson and Wade Hudson. The fair starts at 11am and concludes with our panel at 2pm. Get your free tickets here. We tried and tried to figure out why my mic works but not my camera. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a solution so I will be audio only, which suits me just fine; I’d much rather have folks listening to my ideas. And that means I can wear my pajamas if I want!

You can also hear my voice in of the Little, Brown podcast. For about forty minutes Victoria and I discussed mentor texts and the mechanics of writing poetry. I also got to share my experience teaching poetry to teens—and my next online class will start on July 7 with the Hennepin County Library. It’s open to teens everywhere but I’m looking to hearing from young poets in Minneapolis. After everything that’s happened in the past month, I imagine they’ll have a lot to share.

american phoenix

What I should be doing: prepping for this morning’s virtual school visit, working on my two novels-in-progress, revising the poems for my second collection, cleaning the house. What I’m doing instead: watching Escape to the Country, dreaming about Chicago, and designing a fabulous cover for my new book of poetry that I haven’t finished writing yet. I did twist my hair, take out the trash, and do a little shopping at the market this morning; I keep waking before dawn so I’m trying to get up and out instead of just lounging in bed. But I find myself working around my work these days, putting small things on my To Do list so I can scratch them off and feel like I accomplished something. I spent about an hour selecting the right font for my book cover last night because that was easier than finishing off the countless poems that I started during the lockdown. I’ve got close to 40 that I think are good enough to publish but only about a third are complete. It’s hard to focus these days—I can read for about 20-30 minutes but then my mind starts to wander. I can get the first two stanzas of a poem down but then I struggle to complete the third. I’ve done a pretty good job managing my depression, I think, though I need to get back to running. I limit my time on social media, I exercise at home, I tend to the pretty planters on my deck. Today I ordered a new feeder so more birds can eat together without making a total mess. I’m writing. I’m Zooming. I’m talking to a mortgage broker today and my film agent tomorrow. Things are happening! But summer has started, we’re getting close to July, and it feels like the window’s closing on my move to Chicago. A couple of months ago I thought I’d made peace with staying put, but now I’m restless and ready to move on. Not just in terms of where I live. I feel like a chapter is drawing to a close—

maybe in my professional life? I’m not sure. I participated in an online rally (#KidLit4BlackLivesCanada) last Friday and felt very much like an outsider next to so many Canadian authors. My publicist in Toronto has kindly scheduled a few more events for me: I’ll be a guest on CTV’s Morning Show on July 9 and I’ve got a writing workshop for kids coming up on July 13. The Raptors basketball farm team hosts a literacy event for kids and DRAGONS IN A BAG will be one of the five books each 5th grader will receive. I think it’s interesting that my fantasy fiction is getting so much attention but SAY HER NAME is not. Is that because my publicist for that book isn’t doing her job, or do Canadians simply prefer dragon tales to poems about police brutality? I’ve been asked to record a reading of A PLACE INSIDE OF ME for WNET in New York. I’m thinking about how to address police violence to this audience—in under ten minutes. Kids in NYC know about the protests. They can probably name a Black person killed by police. So what can I add to their understanding of the Movement for Black Lives? There’s a line at the end of the book that gives me pause: “I am in love with my people/all people”…I wrote it 20 years ago before anyone was saying, “all lives matter.” I wouldn’t write that today. I used to tell kids it was good to have love in your heart for everyone. Not sure I could honestly say that today. I know lots of people feel like we’ve turned a corner in race relations, but I’m not feeling optimistic. Offensive statues are coming down—but we did that a few years ago and nothing changed. People are focusing on symbols and not structures. Round and round we go…the one poem I *did* finish last week is titled “I Am Not Okay.” It felt good to be honest on the page. Then I ordered some Chinese food and my fortune cookies reminded me to hold onto hope…

leaving the table

I often think about this quote by Nina Simone and even worked it into one of the poems in SAY HER NAME. So many of us have been fighting for “a seat at the table,” but why pull up a chair for a meal poisoned by disrespect? Last week Black authors shared their advances on Twitter and White authors did the same. Not surprisingly, it quickly became clear that Black authors—even those who have won major awards—are routinely offered much less money by publishers. Most of us have known this for years, but it was important to have it out in the open. On Friday we got an offer from Random House for the third book in my dragon series. The protests around the murder of unarmed African Americans have gone global and most publishers have made public statements about their support of the Movement for Black Lives. These statements from corporations are suspect, of course, since it isn’t hard to take a look at their boardrooms and offices for proof of anything but inclusion and diversity. But I felt hopeful about the offer from Random House—after dropping the series without explanation, I thought maybe they finally saw the value of my stories and my voice. My editor said as much in a thoughtful email last week. But then the offer came in and it was so low and so offensive that I almost lost it. My agent tried to calm me down but I am DONE. I shared that Nina Simone lyric and told her I didn’t want her to fight for more. Sometimes you need to accept that people aren’t going to change because they don’t want to—and don’t have to. Another wise Black woman artist—Maya Angelou—reminded us not to trust sudden transformations: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

The good news is that we signed with a film agent on Thursday. He loves DRAGONS IN A BAG and will be pitching it to studios in the coming weeks. On Wednesday we actually had a conversation with a film studio and I’m hopeful that we’ll find a team that truly values my work. On Wednesday night I had a fun conversation with Joel A. Sutherland; if you missed our conversation on his show SOME GOOD BOOKS, you can watch the video on YouTube. Monday is my last poetry class for the BPL; I have three Zoom events over the next two weeks and hope I can manage to get some writing done before the month ends. Yesterday I realized I have close to thirty poems ready for publication. Maybe this summer I’ll self-publish another collection of poetry…

just do the work

In the age of social media, it’s hard to resist the urge to share visual proof of everything we do. This has been a difficult time for Black people and I find it interesting that THIS time, so many folks are vowing to make a change. I appreciate all the folks on Instagram who are uplifting Black creatives by sharing our work. I appreciate the folks showing up at rallies day after day. I appreciate the readers who reach out to tell me that my poetry has comforted them. I do not appreciate the folks who are not Black and somehow need me to know what they’re doing. No cookies here, folks. Just do the work. Don’t play show and tell or expect Black people to pat you on the back. Time will tell just how many of these gestures are genuine or just performative…

 

And before you ask a Black author to donate books or free labor, take a look at #publishingpaidme and spread the word. Publishers are doing something on social media today but it rings hollow when you look at how few Black people work in publishing, and how little Black creatives get paid relative to their White peers.

take action at home

My county is still under lockdown and will be until the end of next week. But that doesn’t mean I can’t join others in expressing my outrage at yet another police execution. George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis has led to uprisings around the country. If you’re not ready to put your body in the street, there are other ways you can support the protestors. The Minnesota Freedom Fund has a list of organizations working on the ground that are accepting donations. Wee the People, Raising Luminaries, and MassArts are coordinating an at-home Family Day of Action tomorrow—Chalk the Walk offers people of all ages a chance to support the Movement for Black Lives in a variety of ways. I made a sign to place in my window and accepted the 8-word protest poem challenge: “As multi-generational as it gets: Invite young and old to create poems as long or short as feels right, incorporating the following EIGHT WORDS that resonate with this moment: POWER * JUSTICE * UNITY * CIRCLE * LISTEN * STAND * HEAL * RESPECT.” It takes a different kind of creativity to write a poem with such constraints; I prefer the easy flow of free verse but not much has been flowing from my pen lately. Like so many members of my community, I’m tired. My teen poetry class with the BPL starts up again on Monday and I might have my students give this challenge a try. We will definitely be talking about the protests just as we discussed the pandemic in April. I’m looking forward to teaching again; I find that having a duty to serve my students keeps me honest, and I push myself for them in a way I wouldn’t for my own benefit. I reflected on the way teaching impacted my pandemic poetry practice for the NCTE blog; they pulled the title, “The Process of Rebuilding Begins in Our Imagination,” from the final paragraph:

Audre Lorde famously wrote that “poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.” I agree, yet there are times when I feel guilty about my writer’s life. I support my local food bank and have donated books to kids in Lancaster and teens in detention in Kentucky. But I do not face the same risks as the essential workers on the front lines of the pandemic. I will honor their sacrifices by continuing to stay home and taking every precaution when it’s time to venture out into the world again. When the pandemic ends, we must be ready to rebuild and that process begins now in our imagination. As Lorde asserts, “Poetry is not only dream and vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.” I hope that my poems—alongside all the others produced during the pandemic—create a frame upon which we can build a more just world.

Bringing Diversity to Kid Lit on THE AGENDA