Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 18

practice makes perfect

I’m far from perfect when it comes to teaching with Zoom, but I think I’m definitely getting better! It helps that I’m getting plenty of practice. I delivered a keynote for Kansas State University on Saturday and I taught my second poetry class for the Brooklyn Public Library yesterday; I’ve got two Zoom meetings today another tomorrow, and another on Saturday. Next week I teach my last class on Monday and then give a guest lecture for a local university later in the week. May so far is pretty quiet with just one scheduled online event, so I’ll need to get back to writing. Mostly this month I’m just managing to write a poem a day. Yesterday for my class we talked about odes and students had the option of writing to a person or object. This poem isn’t really an ode, I don’t think, but I wrote it last spring after passing a lovely young apple tree. I decided to try an ode to the coronavirus but didn’t get too far. Will try again this afternoon in between my Zoom events. Saturday’s talk was fairly exhilarating—I couldn’t see any of the attendees since their screens were turned off, so I was just talking into my own camera and advancing slides that told a story about how my family history informs my fiction. Folks gave me really positive feedback on social media, and one attendee even captured some screenshots. Trying out a new talk can be a bit nerve-racking but I got up early to pull my materials together, my hosts were organized and supportive, and it went off without a hitch. A professor who attended my keynote invited me to present for her class in the fall, and it’s looking like many colleges will still be operating online by then. I started this year wanting to slow down and the pandemic has granted my wish…

practicing poet

Today I taught my first online poetry workshop! The Zoom platform is fairly straightforward and my participants were gracious and patient as I figured out how to move between my Powerpoint slideshow, YouTube video, MS Word document, and regular screen. It’s challenging to monitor the chat window while also looking at those who choose to use the video option. But I did it! And I was able to share a poem in progress to show how I created a turning point. The first two stanzas aren’t great but it got me to this final stanza, which is better but still needs work:

once Easter was

something solid I could

search for in tall grass

gather in a basket

taste on my tongue

but now it’s the faded

fragrance of lilies

left on the altar

of an empty church

I try to remember that the poems I write each day are drafts; most are 75% complete and I know that at the end of April, I’ll look them over and decide which ones are worth revising. The best part of NaPoWriMo is that it helps you to develop a practice—after a while you get used to producing a poem every day. You set time aside for reflecting and writing, but it’s not the same as working on a novel. There isn’t the same kind of continuity, which means you have to dig deeper to come up with something that can stand on its own. This afternoon several folks were brave enough to share their poems, and I was impressed with the quality of writing they produced in just a few minutes. Writing a poem a day is challenging but it’s made me more invested in expanding my vocabulary. I’ll hear a word on the news and the next day I’ll build a poem around that word. I just watched a documentary on mental illness so will likely write about that tomorrow. For next week’s class, I think we’ll try writing an ode. It’s a good time to pay tribute to the essential workers who are keeping us afloat right now…

It’s National Poetry Month!

I’m slowly working out a schedule that brings a sense of balance to my life. In addition to my night walks, I’m doing exercises throughout the day, pacing the apartment to boost my steps, and I realized this morning as I refilled the bird feeder that I can use the four steps leading up to the deck for a little extra cardio. Don’t get me wrong—I’m still napping, binge-watching Netflix, and reading for hours on the couch! Today I hid from a giant hornet that somehow found its way into my front room. I’m not pressuring myself to produce, though I’ve closed the quarantine series in order to do NaPoWriMo: writing a poem a day in honor of National Poetry Month. I’m posting poems from SAY HER NAME on social media this week, and I was proud to share this microfilm that I made here in Lancaster with the assistance of the expressive teen poets at The Mix. My editor Ibolya was working in Spain and we swapped lockdown tales while envying the artists in Germany who are getting support from the state. The plan was to film at least three microfilms and release them throughout the month of April, but Corona had other plans. But there’s still a place for poetry during a pandemic! Yesterday I sent a few haiku to my new penpal LR, a teen in detention in Kentucky. Imagine how frightening it would be to have no visitors and no family to comfort you during a pandemic. This afternoon I’m getting ready to work on my last teen character’s back story; I’ve got four teens in a halfway house, all convicted of murder. I was struggling to find the right circumstances for Millie until I heard an adult survivor of Jeffrey Epstein talking on the radio about her exploitation as a teen. It takes so many people to enable a serial abuser like Epstein, and it’s disgusting how he manipulated young girls into supplying him with even more victims—their friends, basically. I’m going to start there. Epstein allegedly took his own life in prison but what if one of his teen victims fought back?

Just as I was getting ready to write, the giant hornet came back. Then I got an email from Ancestry.com letting me know there are new “hints” about my Allen ancestors in Philadelphia. I’ve got 90 minutes before my 2-hour news binge begins at 5:30 with BBC World News. No pressure! We’ve got another month at home—longer, I suspect—so there’s time for everything to get done. Or not…

 

night walks

These are anxious times but my sleep pattern is the same as ever, which is a blessing. Tonight I took a walk to make up for the fact that I didn’t go for a run this morning; it rained most of the day and I used that as an excuse to loll in bed with a book for several hours. A new addition to my daily routine, night walks are soothing and a good way to get some exercise while avoiding people. A week ago I greeted anyone I happened to pass, but these days I step off the sidewalk to put six feet between us. I saw a meme on Facebook that said, “Act like you’re already infected,” and I think that’s a good approach. The news is depressing and I’m trying to limit my time on social media but for the most part, “socially distant” is how I normally live my life so I haven’t found it challenging to shelter in place. I don’t yet miss traveling and doing school visits, and am considering an offer to teach teens poetry in a four-part online class. A librarian in VA asked me to record a few chapters of DRAGONS IN A BAG for kids stuck at home, and then she made this great little video. A school in NYC has asked for a virtual visit, my keynote for an April conference has been moved online, and a couple of editors are interested in my PA novel-in-progress so I spent the weekend working on my writing sample. I’ve started a new series of quarantine poems and so I’m writing on a daily basis, which is good for my mental health. It’s hard to plan when we don’t know how long the pandemic will last, but one way I’ve learned to manage my anxiety is to follow a fear through to its worst possible conclusion. If I can’t move to Chicago, then I’ll stay in Lancaster a little while longer; if I don’t want to buy a home here, I’ll just continue to rent and save. If schools don’t reopen or request author visits, I’ll focus on finishing and selling more manuscripts. On Friday the ARCs for A PLACE INSIDE OF ME arrived; it comes out in July but it’s hard to know whether I’ll have to do a virtual launch instead of holding a party at a bookstore like I used to do. I don’t think anyone really knows what the “new normal” will be. But this pandemic has exposed the many disparities in our society. This shutdown is a chance for us to imagine new ways to strengthen ourselves and our communities. So when you’re making your new daily schedule, pencil in some time to dream…

the pole

Nothing slows a person down like a global pandemic. I got home from NC late Tuesday night and within 48 hours, the rest of my March gigs were canceled or postponed. I suspect that will reach into early April since many university campuses are shutting down. It all makes sense and I’m fortunate that I won’t struggle financially as a result of these cancellations. I will probably leave my house hunt for another month or two; interest rates were dropping last week but uncertainty is destabilizing every market so better to wait than rush in. I filed my taxes yesterday, which gave me a migraine. Once I recovered, I picked up some essentials at the store, read for a while, and then watched a sad movie about Jane Austen dying young and poor before turning in. I wasn’t sure the citizenship office in York would be open, but I was first in line and left twenty minutes after my 8am appointment with this handy study guide. My Lyft driver was sniffling and I tried to be discreet about applying hand sanitizer in the back seat. There was a meme on Facebook about the need to take measures now that *seem* like overreacting—social distancing isn’t hard for me and after a full five days in NC, I’m ready for some silence and solitude. But I can’t say my anxiety hasn’t been triggered by all the news reports and articles I’ve been reading. I’m thinking about going to the market and then walking over to the movie theater for a matinee. There’s a new adaptation of Emma and even though my author friends at the Whirlikids festival panned it, it might be a good distraction. The film I watched last night was called Jane Austen Regrets and it focused on the choices she made in her personal life: setting up a household with her mother and sister in order to write rather than becoming some man’s wife and mother to a dozen kids. She was judged and blamed for her family’s financial misfortune but at the end of her life, she claimed she had no regrets. Not an uplifting film but fairly honest about the sacrifices women still have to make in order to put their art first. 2019 was a good year for me, though as a freelancer I now owe the government a sizable chunk of that income. One good thing about having anxiety is that it makes you plan for any and every eventuality; I saved enough to pay my taxes and I saved for a downpayment for a home of my own, and so I think I can weather the coronavirus storm. We were bumping elbows in NC—no hugs, no handshakes—but that didn’t stop us from connecting in a meaningful way. I presented for Prof. Erin Miller’s grad students on Monday evening; three lovely students then took me out to dinner and advised me as we walked not to “split the pole.” The next day in Prof. Miller’s undergraduate class, I asked students to share some customs or folktales specific to their state. They mentioned sweet tea but insisted that ghost stories were more common in SC, yet when I asked about splitting the pole, all their heads started nodding. We then developed a fantasy story about an immigrant child who was new to NC and so didn’t understand or follow the custom; after walking around the opposite side of a tree, the child found herself in another dimension, separated from her friend. My head’s been full of story ideas lately…I think a baby phoenix will be added to my next dragon book! But now that I’ve got two weeks off, I need to get back to writing poetry for my Afro-Puerto Rican kid version of Basquiat. The sun just came out…will get out and do my off-peak shopping so I don’t have to brave the stores this weekend. Take care out there!

March madness

The three trips I had planned for March have now blossomed to five. Clearly, I’m not doing a very good job upholding my New Year’s resolution to travel less. Two gigs that were supposed to happen last month will now have to be squeezed into March…unless the spreading coronavirus leads to some cancellations. I’ve been home for almost three weeks and have been fairly productive despite a lingering cold. Stocked my shelves with nonperishable food, turned in an essay on the so-called rules of publishing, and I’m almost done reading Cyntoia Brown-Long’s memoir. That’s research for my PA novel, which my agent is preparing to send out now that I’ve put together a substantial writing sample. She’s troubled by the protagonist killing her abusive father but I’m basing my characters on actual teens–Cyntoia, Bresha Meadows, Chrystul Kizer. The contemporary teens’ stories unfold alongside those of historical figures from Central PA—Black women who fled, killed, or conjured in order to be free. My middle grade novel is due next month so I will have to shift gears and set the PA project aside for a while. Hopefully I’ll have time to write while I’m on the road—and I’ll be on the road a LOT this month. On Thursday I head to North Carolina for the Whirlikids Festival near Raleigh; from there I head to Charlotte for two presentations for Ed. students at UNC. I come home for a few days, I have my biometrics appointment in York, and then I do a couple of school visits in Philly before heading up to MA. Two more school visits in Philly and then I head to Houston for a week for the Texas Library Association’s annual convention. I’ll be a guest on the DC Public Library podcast at the end of March and then I have a couple days at home before I head to Kansas State University to deliver a talk at the “Fantastic Identities” conference of the Children’s and Adolescent Literature Community. I complain about being on the road but sometimes the connections you make with other readers and writers make it worthwhile. Last week I read with Julia Mallory at Midtown Scholar Bookstore and we had a great conversation about the power of poetry to heal or at least reveal trauma. Tomorrow I’ll be filming the young poets at The Mix here in Lancaster, and through Julia I’ve connected with some more teens in Harrisburg. I reached out to the Lancaster Public Library to see if they’d be interested in hosting a self-publishing workshop like the one I did in Philly at the Logan branch. They said yes so I’ll try to schedule that for April. I haven’t booked anything beyond the start of May so I’m looking forward to a quiet, stay-at-home spring! My horoscope says it’s a good time to buy a home so I feel justified spending so much time on Zillow…

 

spotlight

I woke up yesterday with a plan to write for most of the day, but in the morning I learned that my essay for School Library Journal went live. Then in the afternoon I got the link for my interview with ABC27’s Valerie Pritchett; it was part of the “Midstate Hidden History” special that aired Thursday night, starting with a great segment on the Underground Railroad Tour run by the AAHSSCP. By the time I finished posting those two things on various social media platforms, there wasn’t much left to the day. I chatted with my agent about the Central PA project and tweaked the outline since she’s getting ready to send it out. A friend of mine objects to the term “Black girl magic” and wishes people were as eager to recognize and name Black women’s genius. I think it’s possible to do both, and with this experimental novel I’m trying to historicize the “magic” Black women practice as a mode of resistance and empowerment. Will it find a home with a traditional publisher? Who knows. We heard from a publisher in Canada that’s interested in my dystopian YA novel, so that’s encouraging; if it works out, that will be the first book of mine published by a Canadian press. I talked a bit about the publishing industry earlier today as the special guest at Bright Side Opportunity Center. I sold a few books and met more folks who are interested in making their own books; hopefully I can find a way to hold a self-publishing workshop here in Lancaster.

It didn’t take long for my citizenship application to be processed—I got my first notification letter today and I should get my biometrics appointment in a day or two. I didn’t think I’d be able to vote in the November election but who knows!

commitment

Today I finally applied for US citizenship! After 25 years of living in this country, after weeks of starting the online application, stopping, and starting again…I did it. When I renewed my green card ten years ago, I swore I wouldn’t renew it again. It expires in April and I have no idea how long it will take for my citizenship application to be processed, but at least I got the ball rolling. It’s hard for me to commit—to a country, to a city, to a profession. I’m always thinking, “What if…?” and then my anxiety runs away with me. I spent most of this evening online looking at condos in Evanston and Chicago; last week I was in California and found myself resenting all the money I had to spend on Lyft rides just to go a few miles. Seeing friends made it worthwhile and I enjoyed my time in LA, Glendale, Oakland, and San Francisco. But it confirmed for me that I don’t want to live anywhere that doesn’t have a well developed public transit system. Architecture, parks, density/walkability, art spaces—those things matter to me. I was in Philly on Saturday; the subway was crowded and grungy but I couldn’t help smiling at how easy it was to get around the city. I came in early so I’d have time to see the Black masculinities exhibit at the AAMP before heading to the Logan branch of the Free Library. There I led a workshop for folks interested in self-publishing and had a really great group of writers, all keen to learn more about print-on-demand technology. At least half the attendees had finished projects and just needed to know how to take the next step, which is encouraging since the latest Lee & Low assessment of diversity in the publishing industry shows virtually no progress since 2015. We ran a bit late so I caught a Lyft downtown to meet friends for dinner; my driver shared his opinion of Chicago and thought moving there was a good idea since it’s a mid-sized city like Philly. I reached out to a friend there yesterday and she had some good advice…I realized as I was talking to her that the past couple of years might be my way of slowly shifting away from the east coast. I’m not drawn to west coast cities at all, but there are a lot of options in the Midwest. Philly was the “bridge” that got me out of New York, and maybe Lancaster was the bridge that got me away from the east coast. I still want to visit Pittsburgh and Detroit but I’m realizing how much it means to be in a place where you have a support system of fellow creatives. LA was kind of intimidating—our colorism panel took place at a private club that had a swanky rooftop restaurant. But the organizers and attendees were down to earth and not pretentious at all. I thought I was ready to slow down but I think I’m going to have to travel a lot for at least a few more years, which means I need to live closer to an airport. I want to live in a place that attracts other Black women artists—enough to form a collective so we can share resources and easily exhibit our work. I saw Voices of the Eighth in Harrisburg before leaving for LA last week, and there’s some incredible art by Gracie Berry at the Lancaster Train station. I haven’t put enough effort into connecting with local artists but it’s hard when I’m not home that much. I’ve got three weeks before I hit the road again. I’ve made some appointments, reached out to some high school teachers, and this Thursday Julia Mallory and I will be featured in a Black History Month special on ABC27. Next Thursday it’s our reading at Midtown Scholar; I’d just about given up on bookstores but our event at Uncle Bobbie’s last week was incredible. Sometimes you can connect with strangers in an instant and other times you have to work at building relationships. Mostly you just have to put yourself out there…

 

reset

I don’t have to travel till Saturday and I am SO relieved! Seattle was wonderful and I had a nice trip up to Toronto, but I am very glad I’ll be at home for most of this month. I’d really like to write tonight but I finished an essay yesterday and just feel drained…time to soak the sponge and feed my imagination. In Toronto I visited Another Story Bookstore and picked up a couple of books by Canadian authors ($43 CDN for 2 paperbacks!!) so will try to get some reading done this week. The cost of living in Toronto is no joke. A 1BR is now averaging more than $2000/month and mailing a t-shirt to my friend who lives just outside the city cost $20. And that was regular post—not express! Riding just one stop on the express train cost $5. It would take a big adjustment if I ever moved back, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. The weather was cold and gloomy, but I was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception I got at the OLA Super Conference. I don’t think most of the librarians I met had ever heard of me before, but they stood in line to get a signed copy of SAY HER NAME. I didn’t see many people of color, which was disappointing, and I had mixed feelings about being a Forest of Reading nominee when I’ve never been published in Canada. So my book isn’t really Canadian…*I* am, and that makes me eligible for certain awards. But it feels like we’re letting the racist Canadian publishing industry off the hook by embracing authors who are publishing in the US. Another Story is such a beautiful bookstore—and everywhere you turn, there are books by and about BIPOC. I took photos of several displays when I realized that almost all the books were by US authors. It’s not the store’s fault—they can only display what’s being published. I’m grateful that they’re carrying three of my traditionally published books, and I think they’ll order my indie titles for those who are interested. But what’s to be done for the reader who wants Black Canadian content? I worry that proximity to the US and access to African American authors will make it easy for Canadian publishers to shrug off demands for more Black Canadian kid lit authors. Will I ever be published in Canada? I don’t know. The latest Diversity Baseline Survey from Lee & Low shows that the US publishing industry is still overwhelmingly White. Canada, as far as I know, doesn’t even bother to track racial disparities in its literary community.

Time for bed. I’m looking into visiting an Amish farm this week since that’s the setting of my latest novel. I did a Twitter chat this evening with college students in TX, and on Friday I’ll do a virtual visit with 2nd graders in Boston. Wednesday I meet with the teen poets at The Mix. And Saturday is our event at Uncle Bobbie’s. Then I’m off to CA for the week! And THEN I have a stretch of open days. February has one extra day this year and I’ll need it!

other worlds

There’s a cold weather advisory here in Toronto; it’s about 26 degrees and will get colder overnight. This time last week I was in Seattle where it was chilly and damp, yet I still saw Japanese cherry trees in bloom and there were snowdrops around this stunning globe in the Chihuly garden. I went there after finishing two talks with teen boys in detention. It felt wrong—being out in the sunshine, enjoying beautiful art—when the boys were likely back in their subterranean cell blocks. Each one got a copy of Find Your Voice, and there were some keen writers in each group. But it’s still hard to connect for forty minutes and then walk away. When we went to Elmina in Ghana, our tour guide took us from the slave dungeons to a nearby luxury beach resort. And again—it felt wrong but it was also a much needed salve for the soul. I’m not doing any school visits while I’m in Toronto. I’m attending the Ontario Library Association’s Super Conference and know I won’t see flowers blooming or a golden hummingbird hovering outside my window. In Seattle there was so much rain and gloom yet the city still felt lush with plants thriving and neon green moss clinging to curbs and concrete stairs. I definitely couldn’t live there in the winter, but the weather did help me turn inward. I’d talk to kids about dragons and ghosts during the day, then I’d hole up in the hotel and think about the ghost story I’m working on now…when my host recommended an island ferry I immediately thought of a faerie. I’m ready to write! Which is good since my essay is due on Monday. What if I said NO for the next few weeks? What if I honored the commitments I’ve already made but kept my calendar open for April, May, and June? I could probably finish three of the four books I’ve had “in progress” for the past few months. I’ve agreed to extend my LA trip next month so I can join a panel of Black women discussing colorism in Hollywood. I just published an interview on that topic with Yaba Blay and Kiri Laurelle Davis, and two other friends will be on the panel with me. I’m not going to follow up with the publisher that asked me to do five school visits next month; they’re clearly not serious and I don’t need the extra travel/work. I’ll be in Philly on February 8th for a reading at Uncle Bobbie’s, and I’m giving a talk on self-publishing at the Logan Branch of the Free Library on the 15th. I’m reading with another poet at Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg on the 27th…

Grateful for all these opportunities but it’s time to rearrange my priorities…