March 22, 2022 • 29 mins
Glory and New York Times best-selling author Brit Bennett talk about her latest novel, The Vanishing Half. In this episode, they also get in the weeds talking about the task of writing a story that tackles race and colorism, what Brit’s revision process looks like, and how workshopping her first novel helped her develop a dictatorial manner towards her work. We will also be speaking with The Skimm's Bridget Armstrong about what she's been reading lately.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Pushkin. Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
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(00:38):
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Podcasts or at pushkin dot com. With the New York
(01:07):
Times bestselling author Britt Bennett was writing her latest novel,
The Vanishing Half, people would often ask her what's it about.
I would say that it was a book about how
black people become black and how white people become white
and whatever I said that. People would laugh because I
thought I was joking, but she wasn't. The Vanishing Half
is a story about black twin sisters from a southern
(01:28):
Black community. Mallard could be a stand in for any
historic all black town where folks know each other closely,
except Britt decides to make the fictional town filled with
only light skinned black people, so colorism plays a major
role in the story, where we see one sister decide
to present as white and the other sister doesn't. But
(01:52):
for me, it was always thinking about that idea of
identity as something that is fluid, that's this moving target.
It's not something that's fixed, it's not inevitable. Brit used
stories her mother told her about life growing up in
Louisiana as inspiration for the novel. The novel was released
the twenty twenty and came at a time where America
(02:13):
was facing its own racial reckoning. Her novel grappled with
the complexity of racial identity and how ideals can change
with each generation. The Vanishing Half explores our racial history
and how it still affects Black communities today. Welcome to
(02:41):
Well Read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't even
know you needed. I'm your host, Glory Adam. Each week,
I chat with one of my favorite authors about their
work and reading habits, among other things. In my conversation
with Britt Bennett, we talk about tackling race in The
Vanishing Half and what her writing and revision process looks like.
(03:02):
We also talk about what it was like to write
her first book, The Mothers, a story about a young
woman returning home years after a family tribe. Thank you
for doing this, thanks for having me. Yeah, I remember
you as one of the earliest supporters of the Mothers,
(03:23):
So it is like a nice full circle moment to
be able to do these things. I feel like you're
just like one of the og people that I remember
working with, like from the very beginning, and I remember
reading The Mothers and being just so enraptured by your
voice and the like the skill of your writing. But
before again into your books, I really want to start
(03:44):
in the beginning and talk about like Little brit as
a little girl, Like, do you remember the first thing
you read as a child. I think the first novel
I remember reading as a kid was when I was
in the third grade and I read The Outsiders. My
teacher gave it to me. I was reading a little
bit more of an advanced level than the books that
we were reading, so she was like, here's something that
(04:05):
might challenge you a little bit more. And I remember
feeling like a very big deal to read a novel.
And it was a book that I just really loved.
I loved this sort of adventure story, and I also
loved that the author was a teenager herself when she
wrote that book, and that was something that I think
always inspired me as a reader, but also as somebody
(04:27):
who eventually realized that she wanted to be a writer.
To think that I didn't have to wait till I
was an adult to write. That was something that I
could do even at a young age. Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, you wrote The Mothers or started writing it
when you were seventeen, and then when you were in
grad school you were able to have it published. When
you look back at that experience of writing so young,
(04:48):
did you know that you wanted to become an author.
I think I knew that I wanted to become an author,
but that was kind of where the certainty ended, because
you know, I had no idea what I was doing.
I think that that's true of any time you write
a novel or any big project. You don't know what
you're doing when you start it. You know, I wasn't
seventeen thinking what if this fails and I waste this
(05:08):
time working on this project, or I wasn't thinking about
those types of things because I was so young. You know,
you're not worried about the consequences of what if this
fails or what if I don't make it. So I'm
grateful for that type of sort of youthful confidence and
energy that I had in starting that project. But at
the same time, I think that my voice has changed
(05:28):
a lot over time. I think that I'm more capable
of making more decisive choices and making those choices earlier.
There were a lot of choices that I made in
the Mothers that took me five or six years to
realize that I needed to do something different, And I
think now that's the type of thing that I would
notice earlier. So I think my skill set has expanded,
(05:50):
but I still kind of look back sometimes with envy
at that type of youthful fearlessness. I think perhaps wanes
a little bit as you get a little bit older
and you become more sort of aware of all the
ways that these types of choices can go awry. Oh yeah.
I mean, even when I first started Wellward Black Girl,
I was completely ali us to that world of publishing
(06:13):
and just the industry itself. And I feel like not
knowing gives you so much more freedom because you're willing
to just kind of keep moving forward and be connected
to your passion. I'm going to move into your books,
especially with The Vanishing Half, mainly because it offers such
a unique perspective on just black and white dynamics, like
how we are when we are perceiving one another, when
(06:36):
we're trying to project a sense of self, and obviously
one of the core themes is passing. Can you talk
about why you decided to really tackle identity in the
Vanishing Half and again like beyond just like racial identity,
but just all of it. Why was that important for
you to bring to the forefront in the book. Yeah,
(06:57):
I think I was interested in exploring identity, but also
the idea of performing identity that you kind of spoke
to in that quote. I was always, i think, interested
in stories of passing, which are always stories about performance too.
But I didn't want to write about race, for example,
in a way that was reductive or fixed. I think
(07:18):
that's often how we think about race, as you're this
or you're that. But when I would tell people that
was working on this book and they would ask what
the book was about, I would say that it was
a book about how black people become black and how
white people become white. And whenever I said that, people
would laugh because I thought I was just joking. But
for me, it was always thinking about that idea of
identity as something that is fluid, that's this moving target.
(07:41):
It's not something that's fixed, it's not inevitable. And what
does it mean that we then structure our society around
these forms of identity. That we have rules relating to gender,
that we have rules relating to race, that have real
world implications in people's lives. But at the same time,
those identities themselves are not fixed, and they're not inevitable,
and they're not clear, they're not even necessarily knowable. That
(08:04):
kind of inherent tension, I think was what I always
became really interested in as I was developing the book.
Everyone always always like, oh, you know, race is a
social construct, but it's more than that, Like, I think
what your book shows the nuance of what race can
do to a family, to a community. Can we talk
about the community that you made up and what inspired that.
(08:25):
I know your mom is originally from Louisiana, but how
did this town become such a major plot point in
your book. My mom is from a small kind of
farmtown Louisiana, and really the book kind of came from
her telling me about these other communities that she heard
about growing up that she kind of heard, you know,
people talking about where people were really obsessed with skin color,
(08:46):
to the point that they would intermarry within their own
community to prevent dark skin from sort of creeping in
and some way down their genetic lines. So as soon
as she told me the idea of these types of communities,
these types of towns, I became really fascinated with that
idea and immediately thought, Oh, this is the setting for
a novel, and I wanted to lean into it. I
(09:08):
did some research into these communities and read about some
of these places, but beyond that, I also wanted to imagine,
you know, I started to think about it over time,
almost as this sort of eugenics project, and what does
it look like to live in a place like that,
to grow up in a place that has these very
clearly defined rules that these are not just you know,
(09:31):
a few people have prejudice views, but it's no, this
is the pervading ideology of this entire town. So what
does it mean to be desire and stella to grow
up in a town like this? And what does it
mean to return to a place like that after you've escaped?
So I wanted to lean into the fact that it
(09:51):
felt kind of mythological, the fact that it felt sort
of like horror. You know, there was this element that
was historical, but also this element that felt like, yeah,
you're seeing a glimpse into something that's really horrific. And
I wanted to find a way to kind of describe
both of those modes within the world of the book.
You do and in such a skillful way. I mean,
(10:11):
it's the storytelling, yes, but it's like how you create
the landscape of everything that we're looking at, so the
reader is an overwhelmed I know. Most recently you wrote
the introduction to Nella Larson's Passing. He talked about that experience,
especially after writing The Vanishing Half and studying her work. Yeah,
it was actually really fun to do a deep dive
(10:32):
into both her life and also the book. It was
a book that I read for the first time, I think,
in college, and a book that I found really fascinating.
For a lot of reasons that I go into in
that introduction, but the main I think was the idea
that there was again this emphasis on performance, this emphasis
on play in my book. The character's passing is terrified
(10:54):
that she's going to be caught. But in Nella Larson's book,
the character is passing is like delighting in the danger
of being caught, and that's something I think that's surprising
as you read the book, and that's unexpected. Nella Larson's
life itself was this life lived along the color line
and this really complicated and often painful way. So yeah,
it's always fun to revisit books that you read years ago,
(11:14):
and also to feel delighted by some of the same
things and also surprised by things that you read differently
as time has gone by. What I would love to
hear from you is just like this idea of the
coming of age genre. You know, there's a lot to
be said that there's not enough stories that reflect black
girlhood and our identities fully. Can you talk to the
(11:35):
books that really helped you see yourself and help shape
your vision and even what you're doing in your writing.
Do you feel like the mothers and the vanish you
have are included in the coming of age Cannon? Oh,
that's a big question, I guess to that last part
of your question, I think, in particular the Mothers, I
always thought of the Mothers as a coming of age story.
(11:55):
And I think the moment that that book really opened
up for me as I was writing it is when
I started to realize that coming of age is not
a single moment, that it's a process, and that we
are all, in a sense, coming of age throughout many
parts of our lives. So I think originally I thought
the Bok would just be this one moment and this
one girl's life that changed everything, and later I realized
(12:16):
it was more interested in that moment and the moments
that followed, and the way that that decision that she
makes as a teenager kind of follows her throughout her life,
and that she begins to reflect on and think about
it differently. So I think that that was one way
I wanted to think about that book, particularly when it
came to coming of age. But as far as books
that I read, I mean, I think of a book
(12:36):
like Sula, which I would maybe I would probably classify
as a coming of age story. I think that was
a book that I read and found really fascinating of
the story about this very complicated relationship between these two
women as a come of age and later kind of
reflect on it. I think of something like The Color Purple,
(12:56):
which again was a book that I read when I
was I guess a teenager. I mean, I grew up
in a world where, you know, obviously the film existed,
and I kind of knew the story from the film,
but reading book just hit so different. So that was
another story that I think really meant a lot to
me when I was growing up. After the Break, more
(13:18):
with Britt Bennett on her writing practice, workshopping early drafts
of her work, and the daunting process of doing revisions.
I'm Glorie Adam and you're listening to well read Black Girl.
(13:39):
I'm joined today by Britt Bennett, New York Times bestselling
author of The Vanishing Half and The Mothers. You were
mentioning your skill set, and it made me think of
the choice of like the Greek chorus you have and
the Mothers. How did you come to that decision? Was
that something you knew early on? Oh, it was something
that came towards the end of finishing the draft. To
(13:59):
be honest, I originally thought the book would just be
told from this third person point of view the entire time,
And as I was working on an in workshop, I
started to kind of lean into that sort of choral
voice from those older ladies at the church. And I
remember the time when I workshop the book that was
a sort of polarizing decision, like half of the workshop
loved it and half the workshop hated it. So I think, again,
(14:21):
it's the type of thing where I was, you know,
twenty two, twenty three years old, and the fact that
half of the workshop hated a choice that I made,
it didn't really determine at that point, and that's something
that I'm grateful for that I was, you know again,
I was young and willing to kind of forge ahead
even though half of the workshop told me that that
was a bad idea. And I think that that was
(14:43):
one of those kind of useful choices that I just
leaned into. But it sort of became an element of
the book that I think readers have responded to the most.
I like the fact that you brought a workshop because
I've been working more with writers trying to figure out
their voice, and it comes up so often like how
do I workshop my work? How do I know when
to take advice and went to like stick to my
(15:04):
instincts and you know, really hone my voice. How do
you know when you have a voice and when to
stop the workshop being I really trust your intuition on
a character. Yeah, I think that that is a big
question that I am constantly asking myself, because you know,
when you write, you're always in a position of receiving feedback.
And I've always wanted to be the type of person,
(15:26):
the type of writer who is open to hearing feedback
and who isn't just so siloed in my own way
of thinking that I don't hear any type of external criticism.
But at the same time, like you said, there has
to be moments where you follow your instincts and you
follow your gut. Whenever I'm teaching, I tell my students
that the workshop is not a democracy. I tell my
(15:46):
students that you are sort of a dictator in the workshop.
You're a benevolent dictator, but you're a dictator none the same.
And you know, you've got to be the person who
makes that final choice. Even if eleven out of twelve
of the workshop members think you should do one thing,
if you feel like you should do something else, then
you have the right to do that. So I think
for myself, as I've gotten a little bit deeper into
(16:07):
my writing career, I've started paying attention to when a
choice feels right, or when it feels wrong, it's almost
like I feel it in my body if it doesn't
seem right on the page, And that's something that I
try to trust, while at the same time wanting to
pay attention to feedback, because I think often even if
somebody's note doesn't lead you in the direction that you
(16:31):
want to go, sometimes your response to their note can
lead you in that direction. Like if somebody says something
to you and you have a reaction to that feedback,
sometimes that's something that's helpful that will help you realize, oh, well,
this is what I need to do instead. So I
try to just sort of soak up whatever I can
from the criticism. But at the end of the day,
you know, this is your book. It has to be
(16:51):
exciting to you. It has to be something that you
feel really good about. So I try to follow what
feels fun to me, Like what are the parts that
jump off the page for me. That's what I try
to write in the direction of I'm glad you're like
acknowledging that there is a level of being self aware
of who you are in order to have that reflect
on the page in that sense of like whether we
(17:14):
call it instinct or intuition. You have to know who
you are in order to be a stronger writer. You've
described yourself as a rhythm writer, you know, and I
had never heard that term before. So if that's like
an actual term, or if that's something you made you
made up, what do you mean by that? Like, what
is a rhythm writer? Yeah? I mean I think there's
often a lot of conversation about do writers have to
(17:36):
write every day? And again, when I'm teaching, I always
tell my students, like, no, you don't have to do anything.
There are plenty of writers I know who will go
months without writing and then bang out an amazing story.
But I am not one of those people. So, you know,
sometimes people get bogged down in rules and at so
many friends in grad schoold one brilliant friend who loved
(17:57):
to write at the bar, and that just like broke
my brain because I would be completely incapable of doing that.
But everybody's brain works differently, you know. So for me,
I'm someone that I kind of have to stay in
a rhythm when I'm working. I try to do a
little bit each day, even if I can't. If I'm
only writing a sentence if I'm only writing a paragraph,
(18:17):
I think of it almost like going to the gem,
Like once you stop going, it's so hard to get back.
Versus if you just have kind of a routine and
you fall into it, you kind of get in that
habit a little bit more easily. So that's how I
think of myself. But the biggest thing is just figuring
out what are the conditions that you need to create
or can create so that you can work at your best.
(18:38):
And those conditions are going to be different for everybody,
but I think it's more about discovering what those conditions
are for you. I think that's way more important than
following any type of rules. I recently took a workshop
with Sheila Penty. Her most recent book is Motherhood, but
she wrote how should a Person Be? And she have
this incredible like spreadsheet of how many words she wrote
(19:00):
a day, Like it was just so massive. But it
speaks to what you're saying that you have to have
your own system, your own rules. I imagine you don't
have some insane spreadsheet. I don't like that. But can
you talk about revision and how you kind of narrow
down passages and make sure they're the way you want them. Yeah,
(19:20):
I mean, I think that's something that I am constantly
tinkering with and constantly trying to figure out what is
the best process for myself when it comes to revision,
because revision is such a different animal than drafting. You know,
like I think with drafting, it's easy to sit down
and say, Okay, I'm going to write a thousand words
one day, because when you're drafting, you're just trying to
get to the end of that draft, like you're just
kind of moving in one direction. But revision it's sort
(19:43):
of this like elastic kind of yo yoing between. You know,
there's some days where I'm trying to finish a section.
There are other days where no, I want to go
back and look at that more closely. There's some days
where I'm going sentence by sentence. There's something, you know,
it's it's different in a lot of regards, but I
think for me, what I am always trying to think
(20:04):
about in revision is trying to kind of narrow those
pathways of possibility where the book can go in order
to end up where I ultimately want to go. Because
when I'm drafting, anything goes. There are no rules. I'm
just doing whatever I find interesting. But that's not a
great book to read. So when it comes to revision,
I think for me, it's kind of like you're whittling
(20:24):
away at this like massive block that you have and
trying to find the shape that's inside of it. That
makes sense, So I think it really depends on where
you are in the project. But right now I'm in
a position where I'm just like, I need to make
choices because there are like five books inside this book,
and I need to decide which is the book that
I'm actually most interested in telling. So that's where I
(20:46):
am is trying to make those decisions. And once I'm
able to make like that really huge decision, then hopefully
these other things will follow. All right, it's sound for
(21:09):
a rapid by U uh yeah, all right. First one
is name three items on your desk, A CHR vitamins,
a bottle of hand sanitizer, and a cup of water.
I drate vitamins. We love it. Um favorite place you
have traveled too? Oh I guess Italy. I'm gonna say Rome.
(21:30):
Oh yeah, Rome is a good one. Most memorable moment
while attending University of Michigan. I think I used to
always go to Happy Hour with my friends for many, many,
many hours, and I think that's the thing I remember
most about going there many many hours at happy Hour.
I love it started at eleven am. We didn't go
there at eleven am, but it was a very robust
happy hour. That's awesome. Yearning for your love or outstanding
(21:54):
by the gap ba, I'm gonna say outstanding. I'm gonna
go outstanding. You can't go wrong without seeing me. It's
like every mood right, okay, So Celastic book Fair or
Pizza Hut book get I'm gonna say Scholastic book Fair.
(22:14):
I did love Pizza Head Boocket, but Scholastic book Fair
was just like a dream every time it came around.
You know, we're a children of the nineties. I had
to make sure you can get that in. Thank you
so much, Brett. I really appreciate you and I can't
(22:34):
wait to see what you come up with next. Thank you,
thanks for having me. After the break, I'll be joined
by the Skims Bridget Armstrong for a chat about what
she's been reading lately. In February, I had the pleasure
(23:01):
of being a guest on the Skims podcast Pop Cultured,
where the host Bridget Armstrong and I talked about the
upcoming book Queen of Drag, uncovering America's black queer history.
The book features the first drag queen in the US,
William Dorsey Swan, who was once a slave. So I
invited Bridget to join me today on Well Read Black Girl,
(23:22):
and of course we talked about more books. Hey, Bridget, welcome,
how are you doing. I'm good, Thanks for having me.
I'm so good in your own So let's talk about books.
Tell me about a favorite book that you have and
why I love this book. I love this writer. The
book is called Silver Sparrow and it's written by t
(23:42):
Aery Jones. And a lot of people know about Thierry
jones more recent book, An American Marriage. This book was
an earlier book that she wrote and it centers the
story of the family and the other fat of town.
So there are two characters in the book and they're
growing up in the eighties in Atlanta. And one girl,
(24:03):
one teenager in the book, she thinks that she's like
in the family, where's her mom? It's her dad, and
her mom's like this hard working business owner. They're just
a regular middle class family. And she finds out that
her dad has also fathered another child around her age,
and he's involved with that family. I don't want to
give it all away because it's a really great book,
(24:24):
but the two girls basically become friends. One of them
doesn't really know what's going on as far as like
who the other girl is. But you see how this
lie that the father is fateful to this one family.
You see how this lie affects both of the young
women and affects their mothers, and you see how it
(24:45):
plays out. I like the book one because I just
think Terry Jones is a great writer, and she creates
these characters that feel really real. They feel like people
you can know, even when you don't necessarily like the
characters writer, even when they're doing something that you don't
agree with. But I also like the book because it's
something that i've heard, like my mother, like my grandmothers
talk about these men of a certain like era that
(25:09):
were like, you know, they paid the they were like
upstanding men who took care of their families, and they
also did stuff like this where they had a secret
life that went on for decades. And so it's not
something that I've seen other writers take on very often.
I'm sure there are other books that have this dynamic
in it, but to center that and say like, this
is a truth, this is a thing that happened, and
(25:30):
there are lots of people who are products of either
being the hidden child, the other family on the other
side of town, and that affects those people and they
take that with them, and I think this book does
a great job of showing like the beginnings of that.
Oh my goodness, thank you for sharing that. And it's
so good to hear that. There are other books in
her body of work that can be appreciated. Once you
(25:52):
read American Marriage, go backwards and read her backlists and
visit all the other stories that she's created and support
them as well. Thank you so much, Bridget for stopping by.
You can hear more of our conversation and my latest
Bookmarks episode exclusively on pushkin Plus. You can hear Bridget
on Pop Cultured every Tuesday, and I will be joined
(26:13):
by Tari Jones herself in the coming weeks. Today's conversation
with Britt Bennett was truly inspirational. She's such a sharp shooter.
She reminded me that gut instinct is one of the
greatest tools you can use as a writer. There needs
(26:34):
to be courage and confidence when producing work you can
be proud of, and Britt has all of that. The
voices of Desiree and Stella stayed with me long after
I closed The Vanishing Half. I was touched by how
far we can go to create new beginnings or in
some ways denying our past. The work Britt does in
(26:57):
The Vanishing Half makes me think of this quote in
Nella Larson's Passing. It's funny about passing. We disapprove of
it and at the same time condone it. Its are
contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away
from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we
(27:19):
protect it. Britt Bennetts The Vanishing a Half is out now.
In our next episode, I'll be joined by Nicole Hannah
Jones to talk about the sixteen nineteen project book Anna
about Her. Idol Ida b Wells Well Red Black Girl
(27:42):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Dam and produced by Scher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams. Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Our executive producers are Mia Lobell and Leetal Molad. At
(28:06):
Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton,
Jen Goera, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You can find
me on Twitter and Instagram at Well Read black Girl.
You can find Pushkin on all social media platforms at
pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for our newsletter
(28:28):
at pushkin dot fm. If you have a question, a recommendation,
or you just want to say hi, email us at
WRBG at pushkin dot fm. If you love this show
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(28:48):
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Bookmark series. You'll hear extended interviews with book club members,
bookstore owners, and more. And do you get to hear
what's on my mind, what's all my radar, and of
(29:10):
course what's on my reading list? Each week To find
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wherever you like to listen. Hi, my name is Britt
Bennett and you were listening to well read Black Girl.
Pushkin. Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
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Members will get access to exclusive bonus content like my
(00:38):
weekly bookmarks, where I talk about how I got a
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Podcasts or at pushkin dot com. With the New York
(01:07):
Times bestselling author Britt Bennett was writing her latest novel,
The Vanishing Half, people would often ask her what's it about.
I would say that it was a book about how
black people become black and how white people become white
and whatever I said that. People would laugh because I
thought I was joking, but she wasn't. The Vanishing Half
is a story about black twin sisters from a southern
(01:28):
Black community. Mallard could be a stand in for any
historic all black town where folks know each other closely,
except Britt decides to make the fictional town filled with
only light skinned black people, so colorism plays a major
role in the story, where we see one sister decide
to present as white and the other sister doesn't. But
(01:52):
for me, it was always thinking about that idea of
identity as something that is fluid, that's this moving target.
It's not something that's fixed, it's not inevitable. Brit used
stories her mother told her about life growing up in
Louisiana as inspiration for the novel. The novel was released
the twenty twenty and came at a time where America
(02:13):
was facing its own racial reckoning. Her novel grappled with
the complexity of racial identity and how ideals can change
with each generation. The Vanishing Half explores our racial history
and how it still affects Black communities today. Welcome to
(02:41):
Well Read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't even
know you needed. I'm your host, Glory Adam. Each week,
I chat with one of my favorite authors about their
work and reading habits, among other things. In my conversation
with Britt Bennett, we talk about tackling race in The
Vanishing Half and what her writing and revision process looks like.
(03:02):
We also talk about what it was like to write
her first book, The Mothers, a story about a young
woman returning home years after a family tribe. Thank you
for doing this, thanks for having me. Yeah, I remember
you as one of the earliest supporters of the Mothers,
(03:23):
So it is like a nice full circle moment to
be able to do these things. I feel like you're
just like one of the og people that I remember
working with, like from the very beginning, and I remember
reading The Mothers and being just so enraptured by your
voice and the like the skill of your writing. But
before again into your books, I really want to start
(03:44):
in the beginning and talk about like Little brit as
a little girl, Like, do you remember the first thing
you read as a child. I think the first novel
I remember reading as a kid was when I was
in the third grade and I read The Outsiders. My
teacher gave it to me. I was reading a little
bit more of an advanced level than the books that
we were reading, so she was like, here's something that
(04:05):
might challenge you a little bit more. And I remember
feeling like a very big deal to read a novel.
And it was a book that I just really loved.
I loved this sort of adventure story, and I also
loved that the author was a teenager herself when she
wrote that book, and that was something that I think
always inspired me as a reader, but also as somebody
(04:27):
who eventually realized that she wanted to be a writer.
To think that I didn't have to wait till I
was an adult to write. That was something that I
could do even at a young age. Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, you wrote The Mothers or started writing it
when you were seventeen, and then when you were in
grad school you were able to have it published. When
you look back at that experience of writing so young,
(04:48):
did you know that you wanted to become an author.
I think I knew that I wanted to become an author,
but that was kind of where the certainty ended, because
you know, I had no idea what I was doing.
I think that that's true of any time you write
a novel or any big project. You don't know what
you're doing when you start it. You know, I wasn't
seventeen thinking what if this fails and I waste this
(05:08):
time working on this project, or I wasn't thinking about
those types of things because I was so young. You know,
you're not worried about the consequences of what if this
fails or what if I don't make it. So I'm
grateful for that type of sort of youthful confidence and
energy that I had in starting that project. But at
the same time, I think that my voice has changed
(05:28):
a lot over time. I think that I'm more capable
of making more decisive choices and making those choices earlier.
There were a lot of choices that I made in
the Mothers that took me five or six years to
realize that I needed to do something different, And I
think now that's the type of thing that I would
notice earlier. So I think my skill set has expanded,
(05:50):
but I still kind of look back sometimes with envy
at that type of youthful fearlessness. I think perhaps wanes
a little bit as you get a little bit older
and you become more sort of aware of all the
ways that these types of choices can go awry. Oh yeah.
I mean, even when I first started Wellward Black Girl,
I was completely ali us to that world of publishing
(06:13):
and just the industry itself. And I feel like not
knowing gives you so much more freedom because you're willing
to just kind of keep moving forward and be connected
to your passion. I'm going to move into your books,
especially with The Vanishing Half, mainly because it offers such
a unique perspective on just black and white dynamics, like
how we are when we are perceiving one another, when
(06:36):
we're trying to project a sense of self, and obviously
one of the core themes is passing. Can you talk
about why you decided to really tackle identity in the
Vanishing Half and again like beyond just like racial identity,
but just all of it. Why was that important for
you to bring to the forefront in the book. Yeah,
(06:57):
I think I was interested in exploring identity, but also
the idea of performing identity that you kind of spoke
to in that quote. I was always, i think, interested
in stories of passing, which are always stories about performance too.
But I didn't want to write about race, for example,
in a way that was reductive or fixed. I think
(07:18):
that's often how we think about race, as you're this
or you're that. But when I would tell people that
was working on this book and they would ask what
the book was about, I would say that it was
a book about how black people become black and how
white people become white. And whenever I said that, people
would laugh because I thought I was just joking. But
for me, it was always thinking about that idea of
identity as something that is fluid, that's this moving target.
(07:41):
It's not something that's fixed, it's not inevitable. And what
does it mean that we then structure our society around
these forms of identity. That we have rules relating to gender,
that we have rules relating to race, that have real
world implications in people's lives. But at the same time,
those identities themselves are not fixed, and they're not inevitable,
and they're not clear, they're not even necessarily knowable. That
(08:04):
kind of inherent tension, I think was what I always
became really interested in as I was developing the book.
Everyone always always like, oh, you know, race is a
social construct, but it's more than that, Like, I think
what your book shows the nuance of what race can
do to a family, to a community. Can we talk
about the community that you made up and what inspired that.
(08:25):
I know your mom is originally from Louisiana, but how
did this town become such a major plot point in
your book. My mom is from a small kind of
farmtown Louisiana, and really the book kind of came from
her telling me about these other communities that she heard
about growing up that she kind of heard, you know,
people talking about where people were really obsessed with skin color,
(08:46):
to the point that they would intermarry within their own
community to prevent dark skin from sort of creeping in
and some way down their genetic lines. So as soon
as she told me the idea of these types of communities,
these types of towns, I became really fascinated with that
idea and immediately thought, Oh, this is the setting for
a novel, and I wanted to lean into it. I
(09:08):
did some research into these communities and read about some
of these places, but beyond that, I also wanted to imagine,
you know, I started to think about it over time,
almost as this sort of eugenics project, and what does
it look like to live in a place like that,
to grow up in a place that has these very
clearly defined rules that these are not just you know,
(09:31):
a few people have prejudice views, but it's no, this
is the pervading ideology of this entire town. So what
does it mean to be desire and stella to grow
up in a town like this? And what does it
mean to return to a place like that after you've escaped?
So I wanted to lean into the fact that it
(09:51):
felt kind of mythological, the fact that it felt sort
of like horror. You know, there was this element that
was historical, but also this element that felt like, yeah,
you're seeing a glimpse into something that's really horrific. And
I wanted to find a way to kind of describe
both of those modes within the world of the book.
You do and in such a skillful way. I mean,
(10:11):
it's the storytelling, yes, but it's like how you create
the landscape of everything that we're looking at, so the
reader is an overwhelmed I know. Most recently you wrote
the introduction to Nella Larson's Passing. He talked about that experience,
especially after writing The Vanishing Half and studying her work. Yeah,
it was actually really fun to do a deep dive
(10:32):
into both her life and also the book. It was
a book that I read for the first time, I think,
in college, and a book that I found really fascinating.
For a lot of reasons that I go into in
that introduction, but the main I think was the idea
that there was again this emphasis on performance, this emphasis
on play in my book. The character's passing is terrified
(10:54):
that she's going to be caught. But in Nella Larson's book,
the character is passing is like delighting in the danger
of being caught, and that's something I think that's surprising
as you read the book, and that's unexpected. Nella Larson's
life itself was this life lived along the color line
and this really complicated and often painful way. So yeah,
it's always fun to revisit books that you read years ago,
(11:14):
and also to feel delighted by some of the same
things and also surprised by things that you read differently
as time has gone by. What I would love to
hear from you is just like this idea of the
coming of age genre. You know, there's a lot to
be said that there's not enough stories that reflect black
girlhood and our identities fully. Can you talk to the
(11:35):
books that really helped you see yourself and help shape
your vision and even what you're doing in your writing.
Do you feel like the mothers and the vanish you
have are included in the coming of age Cannon? Oh,
that's a big question, I guess to that last part
of your question, I think, in particular the Mothers, I
always thought of the Mothers as a coming of age story.
(11:55):
And I think the moment that that book really opened
up for me as I was writing it is when
I started to realize that coming of age is not
a single moment, that it's a process, and that we
are all, in a sense, coming of age throughout many
parts of our lives. So I think originally I thought
the Bok would just be this one moment and this
one girl's life that changed everything, and later I realized
(12:16):
it was more interested in that moment and the moments
that followed, and the way that that decision that she
makes as a teenager kind of follows her throughout her life,
and that she begins to reflect on and think about
it differently. So I think that that was one way
I wanted to think about that book, particularly when it
came to coming of age. But as far as books
that I read, I mean, I think of a book
(12:36):
like Sula, which I would maybe I would probably classify
as a coming of age story. I think that was
a book that I read and found really fascinating of
the story about this very complicated relationship between these two
women as a come of age and later kind of
reflect on it. I think of something like The Color Purple,
(12:56):
which again was a book that I read when I
was I guess a teenager. I mean, I grew up
in a world where, you know, obviously the film existed,
and I kind of knew the story from the film,
but reading book just hit so different. So that was
another story that I think really meant a lot to
me when I was growing up. After the Break, more
(13:18):
with Britt Bennett on her writing practice, workshopping early drafts
of her work, and the daunting process of doing revisions.
I'm Glorie Adam and you're listening to well read Black Girl.
(13:39):
I'm joined today by Britt Bennett, New York Times bestselling
author of The Vanishing Half and The Mothers. You were
mentioning your skill set, and it made me think of
the choice of like the Greek chorus you have and
the Mothers. How did you come to that decision? Was
that something you knew early on? Oh, it was something
that came towards the end of finishing the draft. To
(13:59):
be honest, I originally thought the book would just be
told from this third person point of view the entire time,
And as I was working on an in workshop, I
started to kind of lean into that sort of choral
voice from those older ladies at the church. And I
remember the time when I workshop the book that was
a sort of polarizing decision, like half of the workshop
loved it and half the workshop hated it. So I think, again,
(14:21):
it's the type of thing where I was, you know,
twenty two, twenty three years old, and the fact that
half of the workshop hated a choice that I made,
it didn't really determine at that point, and that's something
that I'm grateful for that I was, you know again,
I was young and willing to kind of forge ahead
even though half of the workshop told me that that
was a bad idea. And I think that that was
(14:43):
one of those kind of useful choices that I just
leaned into. But it sort of became an element of
the book that I think readers have responded to the most.
I like the fact that you brought a workshop because
I've been working more with writers trying to figure out
their voice, and it comes up so often like how
do I workshop my work? How do I know when
to take advice and went to like stick to my
(15:04):
instincts and you know, really hone my voice. How do
you know when you have a voice and when to
stop the workshop being I really trust your intuition on
a character. Yeah, I think that that is a big
question that I am constantly asking myself, because you know,
when you write, you're always in a position of receiving feedback.
And I've always wanted to be the type of person,
(15:26):
the type of writer who is open to hearing feedback
and who isn't just so siloed in my own way
of thinking that I don't hear any type of external criticism.
But at the same time, like you said, there has
to be moments where you follow your instincts and you
follow your gut. Whenever I'm teaching, I tell my students
that the workshop is not a democracy. I tell my
(15:46):
students that you are sort of a dictator in the workshop.
You're a benevolent dictator, but you're a dictator none the same.
And you know, you've got to be the person who
makes that final choice. Even if eleven out of twelve
of the workshop members think you should do one thing,
if you feel like you should do something else, then
you have the right to do that. So I think
for myself, as I've gotten a little bit deeper into
(16:07):
my writing career, I've started paying attention to when a
choice feels right, or when it feels wrong, it's almost
like I feel it in my body if it doesn't
seem right on the page, And that's something that I
try to trust, while at the same time wanting to
pay attention to feedback, because I think often even if
somebody's note doesn't lead you in the direction that you
(16:31):
want to go, sometimes your response to their note can
lead you in that direction. Like if somebody says something
to you and you have a reaction to that feedback,
sometimes that's something that's helpful that will help you realize, oh, well,
this is what I need to do instead. So I
try to just sort of soak up whatever I can
from the criticism. But at the end of the day,
you know, this is your book. It has to be
(16:51):
exciting to you. It has to be something that you
feel really good about. So I try to follow what
feels fun to me, Like what are the parts that
jump off the page for me. That's what I try
to write in the direction of I'm glad you're like
acknowledging that there is a level of being self aware
of who you are in order to have that reflect
on the page in that sense of like whether we
(17:14):
call it instinct or intuition. You have to know who
you are in order to be a stronger writer. You've
described yourself as a rhythm writer, you know, and I
had never heard that term before. So if that's like
an actual term, or if that's something you made you
made up, what do you mean by that? Like, what
is a rhythm writer? Yeah? I mean I think there's
often a lot of conversation about do writers have to
(17:36):
write every day? And again, when I'm teaching, I always
tell my students, like, no, you don't have to do anything.
There are plenty of writers I know who will go
months without writing and then bang out an amazing story.
But I am not one of those people. So, you know,
sometimes people get bogged down in rules and at so
many friends in grad schoold one brilliant friend who loved
(17:57):
to write at the bar, and that just like broke
my brain because I would be completely incapable of doing that.
But everybody's brain works differently, you know. So for me,
I'm someone that I kind of have to stay in
a rhythm when I'm working. I try to do a
little bit each day, even if I can't. If I'm
only writing a sentence if I'm only writing a paragraph,
(18:17):
I think of it almost like going to the gem,
Like once you stop going, it's so hard to get back.
Versus if you just have kind of a routine and
you fall into it, you kind of get in that
habit a little bit more easily. So that's how I
think of myself. But the biggest thing is just figuring
out what are the conditions that you need to create
or can create so that you can work at your best.
(18:38):
And those conditions are going to be different for everybody,
but I think it's more about discovering what those conditions
are for you. I think that's way more important than
following any type of rules. I recently took a workshop
with Sheila Penty. Her most recent book is Motherhood, but
she wrote how should a Person Be? And she have
this incredible like spreadsheet of how many words she wrote
(19:00):
a day, Like it was just so massive. But it
speaks to what you're saying that you have to have
your own system, your own rules. I imagine you don't
have some insane spreadsheet. I don't like that. But can
you talk about revision and how you kind of narrow
down passages and make sure they're the way you want them. Yeah,
(19:20):
I mean, I think that's something that I am constantly
tinkering with and constantly trying to figure out what is
the best process for myself when it comes to revision,
because revision is such a different animal than drafting. You know,
like I think with drafting, it's easy to sit down
and say, Okay, I'm going to write a thousand words
one day, because when you're drafting, you're just trying to
get to the end of that draft, like you're just
kind of moving in one direction. But revision it's sort
(19:43):
of this like elastic kind of yo yoing between. You know,
there's some days where I'm trying to finish a section.
There are other days where no, I want to go
back and look at that more closely. There's some days
where I'm going sentence by sentence. There's something, you know,
it's it's different in a lot of regards, but I
think for me, what I am always trying to think
(20:04):
about in revision is trying to kind of narrow those
pathways of possibility where the book can go in order
to end up where I ultimately want to go. Because
when I'm drafting, anything goes. There are no rules. I'm
just doing whatever I find interesting. But that's not a
great book to read. So when it comes to revision,
I think for me, it's kind of like you're whittling
(20:24):
away at this like massive block that you have and
trying to find the shape that's inside of it. That
makes sense, So I think it really depends on where
you are in the project. But right now I'm in
a position where I'm just like, I need to make
choices because there are like five books inside this book,
and I need to decide which is the book that
I'm actually most interested in telling. So that's where I
(20:46):
am is trying to make those decisions. And once I'm
able to make like that really huge decision, then hopefully
these other things will follow. All right, it's sound for
(21:09):
a rapid by U uh yeah, all right. First one
is name three items on your desk, A CHR vitamins,
a bottle of hand sanitizer, and a cup of water.
I drate vitamins. We love it. Um favorite place you
have traveled too? Oh I guess Italy. I'm gonna say Rome.
(21:30):
Oh yeah, Rome is a good one. Most memorable moment
while attending University of Michigan. I think I used to
always go to Happy Hour with my friends for many, many,
many hours, and I think that's the thing I remember
most about going there many many hours at happy Hour.
I love it started at eleven am. We didn't go
there at eleven am, but it was a very robust
happy hour. That's awesome. Yearning for your love or outstanding
(21:54):
by the gap ba, I'm gonna say outstanding. I'm gonna
go outstanding. You can't go wrong without seeing me. It's
like every mood right, okay, So Celastic book Fair or
Pizza Hut book get I'm gonna say Scholastic book Fair.
(22:14):
I did love Pizza Head Boocket, but Scholastic book Fair
was just like a dream every time it came around.
You know, we're a children of the nineties. I had
to make sure you can get that in. Thank you
so much, Brett. I really appreciate you and I can't
(22:34):
wait to see what you come up with next. Thank you,
thanks for having me. After the break, I'll be joined
by the Skims Bridget Armstrong for a chat about what
she's been reading lately. In February, I had the pleasure
(23:01):
of being a guest on the Skims podcast Pop Cultured,
where the host Bridget Armstrong and I talked about the
upcoming book Queen of Drag, uncovering America's black queer history.
The book features the first drag queen in the US,
William Dorsey Swan, who was once a slave. So I
invited Bridget to join me today on Well Read Black Girl,
(23:22):
and of course we talked about more books. Hey, Bridget, welcome,
how are you doing. I'm good, Thanks for having me.
I'm so good in your own So let's talk about books.
Tell me about a favorite book that you have and
why I love this book. I love this writer. The
book is called Silver Sparrow and it's written by t
(23:42):
Aery Jones. And a lot of people know about Thierry
jones more recent book, An American Marriage. This book was
an earlier book that she wrote and it centers the
story of the family and the other fat of town.
So there are two characters in the book and they're
growing up in the eighties in Atlanta. And one girl,
(24:03):
one teenager in the book, she thinks that she's like
in the family, where's her mom? It's her dad, and
her mom's like this hard working business owner. They're just
a regular middle class family. And she finds out that
her dad has also fathered another child around her age,
and he's involved with that family. I don't want to
give it all away because it's a really great book,
(24:24):
but the two girls basically become friends. One of them
doesn't really know what's going on as far as like
who the other girl is. But you see how this
lie that the father is fateful to this one family.
You see how this lie affects both of the young
women and affects their mothers, and you see how it
(24:45):
plays out. I like the book one because I just
think Terry Jones is a great writer, and she creates
these characters that feel really real. They feel like people
you can know, even when you don't necessarily like the
characters writer, even when they're doing something that you don't
agree with. But I also like the book because it's
something that i've heard, like my mother, like my grandmothers
talk about these men of a certain like era that
(25:09):
were like, you know, they paid the they were like
upstanding men who took care of their families, and they
also did stuff like this where they had a secret
life that went on for decades. And so it's not
something that I've seen other writers take on very often.
I'm sure there are other books that have this dynamic
in it, but to center that and say like, this
is a truth, this is a thing that happened, and
(25:30):
there are lots of people who are products of either
being the hidden child, the other family on the other
side of town, and that affects those people and they
take that with them, and I think this book does
a great job of showing like the beginnings of that.
Oh my goodness, thank you for sharing that. And it's
so good to hear that. There are other books in
her body of work that can be appreciated. Once you
(25:52):
read American Marriage, go backwards and read her backlists and
visit all the other stories that she's created and support
them as well. Thank you so much, Bridget for stopping by.
You can hear more of our conversation and my latest
Bookmarks episode exclusively on pushkin Plus. You can hear Bridget
on Pop Cultured every Tuesday, and I will be joined
(26:13):
by Tari Jones herself in the coming weeks. Today's conversation
with Britt Bennett was truly inspirational. She's such a sharp shooter.
She reminded me that gut instinct is one of the
greatest tools you can use as a writer. There needs
(26:34):
to be courage and confidence when producing work you can
be proud of, and Britt has all of that. The
voices of Desiree and Stella stayed with me long after
I closed The Vanishing Half. I was touched by how
far we can go to create new beginnings or in
some ways denying our past. The work Britt does in
(26:57):
The Vanishing Half makes me think of this quote in
Nella Larson's Passing. It's funny about passing. We disapprove of
it and at the same time condone it. Its are
contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away
from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we
(27:19):
protect it. Britt Bennetts The Vanishing a Half is out now.
In our next episode, I'll be joined by Nicole Hannah
Jones to talk about the sixteen nineteen project book Anna
about Her. Idol Ida b Wells Well Red Black Girl
(27:42):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Dam and produced by Scher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams. Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Our executive producers are Mia Lobell and Leetal Molad. At
(28:06):
Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton,
Jen Goera, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You can find
me on Twitter and Instagram at Well Read black Girl.
You can find Pushkin on all social media platforms at
pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for our newsletter
(28:28):
at pushkin dot fm. If you have a question, a recommendation,
or you just want to say hi, email us at
WRBG at pushkin dot fm. If you love this show
and others from Pushkin industry, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
(28:48):
and uninterrupted listening for four ninety nine a month. Look
for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you're
already a subscriber, make sure to check out my exclusive
Bookmark series. You'll hear extended interviews with book club members,
bookstore owners, and more. And do you get to hear
what's on my mind, what's all my radar, and of
(29:10):
course what's on my reading list? Each week To find
more Pushkin podcasts, listen on iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you like to listen. Hi, my name is Britt
Bennett and you were listening to well read Black Girl.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!