February 15, 2022 • 29 mins
Glory and Jacqueline Woodson, MacArthur Genius Award winner, talk about her latest children’s book, The Year We Learned to Fly. In this episode, they also discuss Woodson’s writing trajectory, the value of artists' residencies, and how she feels about her place in history.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Pushkin Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a subscription podcast program available on Apple Podcasts.
Members will get access to exclusive bonus content like my
weekly bookmarks, where I talk about how I got a
(00:39):
book agent and what I'm watching on TV that week.
You'll get uninterrupted listening to many of your favorite podcasts
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up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple
podcast or at pushkin dot Fm. For me, it brings
(01:13):
me so much joy to have written. Not when I'm writing,
but to have written is joyful for me. And in
order to get to that joy, I have to write.
Writing is hard work, and when you become as successful
a writer as Jacqueline Woodson, there is a whole new
level of noise and distraction that seeps in. So how
(01:38):
do you settle down and just write? Welcome to Well
Read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't know you
need it. I'm your host, Glory Adam. Each week I
sit in conversation with one of my favorite authors. We
(02:00):
talk about the craft of writing and of course, what
it means to be well bred. Jacqueline Woodson is a
literary rock star. She's an award winning author, has written
over thirty books for adults and children, and in twenty twenty,
she even nabbed the MacArthur Genius Award. She also writes
(02:21):
screenplays screen plays. Jacqueline turned her book Miracles Boys into
a TV mini series and it is currently working on
a screenplay for another one of her books. Among her
many accomplishments, one near and dear to my heart is
Baldwin for the Arts, a residency program that Jacqueline founded
(02:42):
in twenty eighteen. This residency gives artists a space to
just slow down and focus on their craft. It's a
real gift to be able to give that time and
space to writers, and I'm happy to say that I'm
on the board of that organization. We touch on all
these things in our conversation today, including her latest fuck.
(03:05):
It's a picture book for kids that came out earlier
this year, and it's called The Year We Learned to Fly.
Jacqueline and I were able to have such a great
conversation about her book's exploration of mindfulness for children and
the need for escape. I plan to read it to
my little boy, Zeek. How are you doing, How are
(03:33):
you feeling good? It's so good to see you, Glory.
I want to talk about your new book, and like
how you keep turning them out, like every time you
write a new book. It is just so phenomenal and
well done. And I just got my copy. I can't
wait to read it to Zeek. He might try to
eat the pages, but I think you will understand the
(03:56):
concept of being free and flying and being your fullest self.
What made you write this new book and what inspired you?
The crazy thing about it is I keep saying, you
know what, I need to stop writing because I started
it before the pandemic, right, and I started in twenty nineteen,
and I was thinking about the way kids get put
(04:18):
in time outs, the way they feel it, the sense
of powerlessness, and the sense that their physical bodies aren't
their own, because we get to say, take that physical
body to school, take that physical body to bed, take
that physical body up to your room, and think about
what you just said. And so I started thinking about
how the thing we can control is our mind and
(04:39):
what happens inside it. And then I was writing it
and trying to think of it in the moment. But
I can never think of stuff like just in the moment,
because we don't live in the moment. We live in
this history. And so then I went back and read
The People Could Fly because that was such a story
I had loved forever, Virginia Hamilton's book, and thinking about
our ancestors and the way they had to escape using
(05:02):
their minds. And I had read The Water Dancer by
Tanahasi Coats and it just all started coming together, and
I wanted to talk about gape and the power and
the psyche, and then we got locked down. I'm like, okay,
this is timely in a very scary way. But by
that time I had pretty much finished writing. It was
(05:25):
a little freaky for me to be like, oh, here
are my characters and they're stuck in some space, and
here's the world, and we're stuck in a space. But
it was bananas. I was talking to Raphael Lopez, who's
the illustrator, about it, and it was interesting because you
look at the illustrations and no one has on a mask,
right because it was before the pandemic, and I'm thinking
(05:47):
about what's going to happen to picture books from this
moment on, like, well, kids look at them and see
maskless people and say, is this an old timey book
right right? This is our new reality? It's yeah, it's
wild to think about that. It's so wild. But I
love the fact that you are so intentional about mindfulness
(06:08):
for young people, for children, for little people that are
just trying to come into themselves, because I don't think
I really started meditating or had a really clear concept
of that and to adulthood. You know, I've read all
your books, and I love Brown Girl Dreaming, and I
think the one thing that stood out for me when
I opened the book is the family tree, the fact
(06:30):
that we get to know who your people are before
we even start to go into the beautiful story. And
I'm really curious to learn more about your family and
how your family helped you become the person you are today.
Can you share what you like your first childhood memory
of books were or just reading anything. Oh, that's such
(06:54):
a great question. I'm trying to think my earliest memory.
I have to say that the first time a story
struck me in the gut was The Little match Girl
by Hans Christian Anderson. And the fact that it was
the first time I read a book where a character
died at the end, and I was like, wait, where's
(07:15):
the happily ever after, Like turning the page and like, wait,
it's not supposed to end this way, and being devastated
because I felt like I had been taught to believe
that fiction always had a happy ending, right, because you
start with the fairy tales, then you go to the
parable the fables, and then here was this book where
(07:38):
this girl, this child who was young like me, hadn't survived.
And I had not known any young people who died, thankfully,
but that really kind of struck a chor with me
and really made me think about not only looking back
on it, fiction and writing and the way stories get told,
(08:02):
but also social justice, because it just felt so wrong
that a child would be homeless, that a child would
be without family, that a child would have to be
in the streets selling matches and trying to make a
living for themselves and not having someone to take care
of them, That a child would die of neglect. So
all of those things really puzzled me and angered me.
(08:25):
And of course a first step toward activism is rage, right,
and a desire to change things. I also think that
there's something to be said about this slow and steady
growth as an artist, as a writer, as a person
in general. And you have been very vocal about even
how you read. You know, you've mentioned before that you
(08:48):
can be a slow reader, and very intentional about that.
What do you think you've gained from taking your time
with things? How has that like influenced how you just
like move in the world, and how you even write
and revise. It's such a journey, and it's one that
I've always been on as a slow reader, as someone
who's always thought, if I do this, then this is
(09:08):
going to happen, and then I'm going to need to
do this. I need to follow through with that not
so much like a game of chess, but contemplative. So
I think that I've always written that way. And when
I see writers who are thinking, Okay, I finished this book,
We'll have ten other people read it. Have you revised
it ten times? Have you read it out loud to
(09:30):
see what it sounds like? What has the character wanted
and how have they gotten it? Has that been answered?
What about you know, the non primary characters? And then
next thing is like, well, how come such and such
got a big advance and I didn't get a big
advance and all of those things that when I was
coming up, I was like, yeah, I get an advance.
I have no idea what anyone else got because I
(09:50):
don't have the internet, right, it hasn't been invented yet,
so so it is a different time. And I don't
know if it's because I'm older. Let the world feels
so much noisier now and there's so many more ways
to procrastinate, right. I started out in the eighties on
(10:10):
a typewriter, and so there was no distraction. There was
no phone to pick up unless I was picking up
the phone that was plugged into the wall and calling someone.
It wasn't like, oh I'm stuck at a place, let
me go online shop or let me go check my
Twitter account or Instagram. That didn't exist. So it's like, okay, Jackie,
all you got are these words in front of you,
and if you don't do something with them, they're going
(10:32):
to still be in front of you unfinished. I think
we are bombarded with so much noise and the mindfulness
the slowing down to be more quiet and subdued, and
just like relaxing into our bodies. How would you like
advise or recommend people do that? I mean the obvious thing,
we can go to residency of state, you know, But
(10:56):
for a new writer that may not have those tools yet,
how can you like build your practice of like quieting
down and just like being focused on the writing. Yeah,
when I first went to mcdell, you know, it was
it was before cell phones. You got to your cabin,
you had nothing. Nothing was happening there except the windows
(11:16):
and the deer outside, and your table and your typewriter
are your laptop and your printer. Actually I didn't even
have a printer. I would go back to the main
house to print, and that would be a reason for
me to leave my studio. But they would bring a
basket lunch to your door when you were ready to
go outside. You get your lunch, you eat, and keep
on writing until the dinner bell rang at six pm.
(11:38):
And what they wanted was at six pm all the
artists to stop working. And this was the time to
engage with the visual artists and the composers and the
other writers, and it was a time to talk about
art and then people would do performances. People were deliberate
about how they were going to engage with their work
and their art. And that's how I learned it, and
(11:58):
I think now that's a mindset can be built by
young artists, right, So be deliberate about it. Say from
eight to twelve or whatever those hours are, I'm plugged.
I don't want to get any text from anyone. I'm
going to leave my phone off or in a different room,
and I'm going to turn on some program to not
(12:19):
let anything come through my computer and just be very
deliberate about letting the people come, right, because the characters
aren't going to come to you. If there's a sale
at Bloomingdale and whatever that's happening, that's going to keep
you from having the voices that become the fiction ter.
And it's a muscle, right, And the more you use it,
(12:41):
the stronger it gets, and the less you use it,
the more at atrophies. And I definitely do feel like
you have to fight the noise and be intentional and
set those boundaries for yourself. And it's interesting because I
think people are looking more at self care now and
looking more at the ways that they can do the
stuff they love. And it's also kind of interesting that
(13:05):
there's could be a fight against writing, right because is
this work? Do I really want to be working now
you know, if we don't do the work, the writing
doesn't get done. So for me, it brings me so
much joy to have written. Not when I'm writing, but
to have written is joyful for me. And in order
to get to that joy, I have to write. I'm Glory, Adam,
(13:44):
and this is well Red Black Girl. I'm speaking with
writer Jacqueline Woodson. I have been thinking about this idea
of pairing self care and self discipline, and this idea
of when things are challenging, it's actually okay to sit
with difficult moments and work through them and build through
that uncertainty because in the end, the end result is
(14:05):
what we're building towards. But I'm finding them learning to
love revision and I'm loving to learn to like rewrite
and rewrite like that. Revision process for me is so rewarding,
and I'm really curious to learn how you get into
your revision process, especially when you're juggling multiple narratives. It's
so crazy, Glory. It's yesterday. I was taking notes on
(14:30):
a new book that I'm writing, and I took the
notes and I put them to the side because I'm
working on an outline for a screenplay that I have
to finish by tomorrow, and you know I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna sit here until it's done. I close my
office and I'm gonna pull my curtains close. And that's
how I do it. I love a deadline. I love
(14:51):
the revision process. I love when I can see a
book falling apart. Right you're writing and as wonderful and
it's fabulous and it's the best thing you've ever written,
and it's the next great novel. And then you get
to that point and all the characters are trash, right,
and it's cliche, and you're like using adjectives that lead
us nowhere and all of that, and that's the point
(15:11):
where you have to start scaffolding, right, That's the point
where you have to ask what your character wants and
how your character is going to get it, and you know,
what's the hero's journey. I always I depend a lot
on the hero's journey. And so when I get to
that point of scaffolding, I sit and I'm mad at
myself for a couple of days, and then I bring
fresh eyes and I read everything out loud. So so
(15:32):
usually in the morning, when i'm starting a rewrite, I'll
start by reading it out loud to bring the story
back into my body and my head, and that really
helps me sit down and start taking it apart or
piecing it back together. I don't have to worry about
characters getting mixed up, and of course they're overlapping themes
in all of my work, but I do try to
(15:53):
keep the characters different. I love that. I love that
because I'm now working on a couple of different projects
and it's been and I literally have all these like
sticky notes on my wall to like organize them. But
seeing it visually does help me. You've written over thirty
books for children and adults. What drives you to continue writing?
(16:16):
It keeps me sane, A writing really does, And any
writer out there knows that. I'm sure you know that
that the writing is the thing that keeps me feeling
like I have some control over what happens in the world,
whether or not I do or not. I know I
have it in fiction, so it makes me feel like
it's a place I can go to, and it's also
(16:39):
a place that helps me breathe better. So I couldn't
imagine not doing it. I've never done it for the money.
The money has been nice and when it's come, but
early on, as a lot of people know, the money
does not come, and you have to have other jobs.
And when I had the many, many other jobs, I
(17:01):
was never happy doing them, and I was always happy
when I was writing. So and that still holds true.
The thing about writing is it keeps me happy, It
keeps me sane, It keeps me feeling like I have
some way of creating change in a world that so
often makes us feel powerless to creating change. I see
(17:21):
that in your work today, and now I see it
as it transforms into the Baldwin Residency, in this community
that aims to protect writers, especially when they're most vulnerable.
And I'm so honored to be part of your team
building Baldwin for the Arts because it is so important.
(17:42):
Can we talk about how that originated and you know
what led to you starting the community and what your
vision is for the residency. When I was coming up
as a writer in the eighties and early nineties, I
just remember this sense of invisibility because I was in
a different world. So I have Virginia Hamilton, I have
(18:04):
Walter Dean Myers, I had the writers who really supported
and mentored me and held me up. I was also
writing for adults, and that was a different world. That
was a world outside of young people's literature. And I
found that that world was a lot of white guys,
a lot of attention paid to white guys, and very
little attention paid to writers of color, especially writers of
(18:26):
color who are coming from young people's literature. And it
just it made no sense. So I would send out
to your stories, they would get rejected. I would apply
for fellowships, I'd get rejected. And then I'd see the
people who had gone through these residencies and gotten these fellowships.
And I remember I used to call the Whiting the
white People's Award because for so long I didn't see
(18:48):
any people of color getting the Whiting. And there are
a number of awards happening like that at that time.
I mean, when you look at the history of the
National Book Award, when you go back and you look
at the winners early on, it was very undiverse and
part of the reason those people weren't theirs because they
hadn't had the foundational structure. There was that period where
if you went through the Iowa Writer's Workshop, you were
(19:10):
golden right, that period's gone, thankfully, but there was this
way in which you had to belong to this certain
kind of club that a lot of people who were
outside of that narrative couldn't be a part of. So
people of the global community, queer people, and so the
first residency I got finally was at McDowell, and when
(19:32):
I got there, I was one of very few black folks.
I think Tulani Davis was there at the time the
first time I went there. But for decades I always
dreamed of a safe space for people of the global majority,
for bipoc people, you know, for people who are trying
to do their work without having to explain anything to anyone,
(19:53):
especially people at the beginning of their work, where I
think there's such a fragility and it's so easy to
lose young writers and composers and visual artists because they
don't have support systems. They don't have someone saying I
see you come for a week comfort a month and
do of work and I will support you. And so
(20:14):
it was this kind of back of the head dream
of mine that I thought, when I finally get enough
money from writing books and when I'm older, I can
do it. And then I got the Alma Award, which
was at that point was about five hundred thousand dollars
and maybe something more. And I thought, this is a
sign that I can do this work now, and so
(20:35):
I know, bought the property and started building the vision
of Baldwin for the art and thankfully people like you
came on board and helped with the vision. And of course,
you know, you were one of the early people I
thought of, because what I saw with well Ware Black
Girl was the vision you started with and the amazingness
that it has grown into. So I really wanted to
(20:59):
do that and it's been crazy to see the result
of that, and the fellows that have come through it
are all so grateful and also creating amazing stuff, Like
I think that was kind of a surprise to me.
It's like these young artists, and of course it's not
just young agewise right as people at the earlier stages
of their career are doing some phenomenal stuff that I
(21:21):
had never imagined would be the kind of work I'd
see because of course I'm older, like, oh, it's gonna
be this and that, and it's like, whoa this is?
This is amazing. I have Oh gosh, I have so
many questions because I'm thinking about you winning your first
National Book Award and then winning this prize that gave
(21:41):
you the funds to start this institution, and you are
now on the other side. You are this incredible elder
that is guiding and providing insight and wisdom. But now
you're part of the club. You know, like you were
outside of the club, you know before you were looking
at the Whiting Foundation and how like, what does it
feel like to be on the other side and be
(22:05):
part of that community that once you felt so outside of.
It's so funny glory. I was at a economy event
and it was packed and there were no seats anywhere.
And I came in and three people got up and
gave me, you know, try to give me their seats.
And I was like, oh, they're so sweet. You know,
they're giving me their seat because you know, I'm a woman,
(22:26):
or because I don't know what. And then I sat
down and I looked around. I'm like, I'm Auntie, and
it dawned. I mean, I'm like, everyone in this room
is probably about twenty years younger than I am, and
they're giving me my seat because I'm an elder. And
it blew my mind. Like it feels like it happened
very quickly. Elizabeth said it took thirty years to become
(22:50):
an overnight sensation, right, right, right, And it is true
that since that time, thirty five forty years have passed,
and here I am. And it's surprising when I even
see my name or someone calls me out, or someone
recognizes me outside of the world of children books, like
(23:11):
it is still this thing I'm coming to understand is
myself being in a different place. I know I'm in
a different place economically, but also in terms of the attention.
Like I see the awards and I know I've gotten them,
but I think also because of the pandemic, Right, so
since the pandemic, I got the Hans Christian Anderson, I
got the MacArthur, and those awards are international, and so
(23:36):
then when I go into these spaces, which is so
rare now, then I see that people know, oh, you're
the MacArthur fellow or you're the one who got the
Hans Christian Anderson Award, and it's like, oh, yeah, this
didn't just happen in a small room in my house,
you know. With a couple of zoom interviews like it
happened on a bigger level, so it's interesting. It's a journey. Hey,
(24:04):
I'm Jacqueline Woodson and you're listening to well read Black Girl. Okay, Jackie,
it's time for everyone's favorite segment, rapid Fire, where I
(24:24):
ask you a series of questions and you answer the
first thing that pops into your head. So okay, First one,
name one book that is on your nightsand it's a
galley called Trust by Hernan daz Oh. That sounds good, okay. Next,
one favorite board game as a child, Checkers, Free Sag
(24:47):
or red Light Green Lights. I have to say red
Light green Light. I've read that somebody. Okay, do you
prefer to write in pencil or penum pen describe Bushwick
in three words? Um the bushwiive my childhood or today's
Bushwick because they are a different choice. Okay, let's do
(25:07):
childhood colorful a lot, I'm home, that's beautiful. Name three
items on your desk headphones, CBD oil, and a stack
of projects in folders. You need the oil for those
(25:28):
stack of projects. Yes, between beloved the book or beloved
the film? Which was better? Definitely the book? Definitely the book.
I think the performances in the film were extraordinary, but
no one was how I imagine them in the book,
(25:49):
especially not um Tanny Newton's character. I was just like,
what is going on here? There was something so ethereal
about beloved the book and then when I saw it
on this where I was like, no, sorry, And being
someone who's at this point, you know, trying to turn
narrative into something visual for the screen, there is a
(26:12):
way in which some stuff has to be left unseen
except on the page, because that's where it was meant
to work. I know your screen Blight's gonna give us
all the feelings, I hope. So it gave me all
the feelings right in, and I won't say those are
always good ones. Thank you Jackie for your time and
(26:39):
your energy and just sharing all your wisdom with us.
Are wonderful. Eldert, Thank you, Gloria. I'm so glad to
have made it this far. I'm so glad for your
work in the world. I'm so proud of you and
so thankful and thanks for having me on the show.
(27:05):
I learned so much from my conversation with Jacqueline. I
think for me, I'm really inspired to pay more attention
to how I treat myself when I'm writing. I need
to give myself the space to breathe and create, and
you should too. Aspiring writers, you know I'm always looking
out for you. You can find information on how to
(27:27):
apply to Baldwin for the Arts Residency on their website
Baldwin for the Arts dot org. And everyone should go
out and pick up the year We learn to fly
for a little person in your life. In the next episode,
I'll be speaking with me one and only, Gabrielle Union.
Don't forget to tell your friends well read. Black Girl
(28:04):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Adam and produced by Cher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams, Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Special thanks this week to Vicki Merrick. Our executive producers
(28:28):
are Mia Lobell and Leet Hall Molad. At Pushkin Thanks
to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrau, Julia Barton, Jen Goerra,
John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You can find me on
Twitter and Instagram. At Well read black Girl. You can
find Pushkin and all social media platforms at pushkin Pods,
(28:51):
and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin
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(29:15):
sure to check out my exclusive Bookmark series on Pushkin Plus.
Starting on February eighteenth. You'll hear extended interviews with book
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(29:39):
or wherever you like to listen
Pushkin Before we get started, let's talk about Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a subscription podcast program available on Apple Podcasts.
Members will get access to exclusive bonus content like my
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(00:39):
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You'll get uninterrupted listening to many of your favorite podcasts
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podcast or at pushkin dot Fm. For me, it brings
(01:13):
me so much joy to have written. Not when I'm writing,
but to have written is joyful for me. And in
order to get to that joy, I have to write.
Writing is hard work, and when you become as successful
a writer as Jacqueline Woodson, there is a whole new
level of noise and distraction that seeps in. So how
(01:38):
do you settle down and just write? Welcome to Well
Read Black Girl, the literary kickback you didn't know you
need it. I'm your host, Glory Adam. Each week I
sit in conversation with one of my favorite authors. We
(02:00):
talk about the craft of writing and of course, what
it means to be well bred. Jacqueline Woodson is a
literary rock star. She's an award winning author, has written
over thirty books for adults and children, and in twenty twenty,
she even nabbed the MacArthur Genius Award. She also writes
(02:21):
screenplays screen plays. Jacqueline turned her book Miracles Boys into
a TV mini series and it is currently working on
a screenplay for another one of her books. Among her
many accomplishments, one near and dear to my heart is
Baldwin for the Arts, a residency program that Jacqueline founded
(02:42):
in twenty eighteen. This residency gives artists a space to
just slow down and focus on their craft. It's a
real gift to be able to give that time and
space to writers, and I'm happy to say that I'm
on the board of that organization. We touch on all
these things in our conversation today, including her latest fuck.
(03:05):
It's a picture book for kids that came out earlier
this year, and it's called The Year We Learned to Fly.
Jacqueline and I were able to have such a great
conversation about her book's exploration of mindfulness for children and
the need for escape. I plan to read it to
my little boy, Zeek. How are you doing, How are
(03:33):
you feeling good? It's so good to see you, Glory.
I want to talk about your new book, and like
how you keep turning them out, like every time you
write a new book. It is just so phenomenal and
well done. And I just got my copy. I can't
wait to read it to Zeek. He might try to
eat the pages, but I think you will understand the
(03:56):
concept of being free and flying and being your fullest self.
What made you write this new book and what inspired you?
The crazy thing about it is I keep saying, you
know what, I need to stop writing because I started
it before the pandemic, right, and I started in twenty nineteen,
and I was thinking about the way kids get put
(04:18):
in time outs, the way they feel it, the sense
of powerlessness, and the sense that their physical bodies aren't
their own, because we get to say, take that physical
body to school, take that physical body to bed, take
that physical body up to your room, and think about
what you just said. And so I started thinking about
how the thing we can control is our mind and
(04:39):
what happens inside it. And then I was writing it
and trying to think of it in the moment. But
I can never think of stuff like just in the moment,
because we don't live in the moment. We live in
this history. And so then I went back and read
The People Could Fly because that was such a story
I had loved forever, Virginia Hamilton's book, and thinking about
our ancestors and the way they had to escape using
(05:02):
their minds. And I had read The Water Dancer by
Tanahasi Coats and it just all started coming together, and
I wanted to talk about gape and the power and
the psyche, and then we got locked down. I'm like, okay,
this is timely in a very scary way. But by
that time I had pretty much finished writing. It was
(05:25):
a little freaky for me to be like, oh, here
are my characters and they're stuck in some space, and
here's the world, and we're stuck in a space. But
it was bananas. I was talking to Raphael Lopez, who's
the illustrator, about it, and it was interesting because you
look at the illustrations and no one has on a mask,
right because it was before the pandemic, and I'm thinking
(05:47):
about what's going to happen to picture books from this
moment on, like, well, kids look at them and see
maskless people and say, is this an old timey book
right right? This is our new reality? It's yeah, it's
wild to think about that. It's so wild. But I
love the fact that you are so intentional about mindfulness
(06:08):
for young people, for children, for little people that are
just trying to come into themselves, because I don't think
I really started meditating or had a really clear concept
of that and to adulthood. You know, I've read all
your books, and I love Brown Girl Dreaming, and I
think the one thing that stood out for me when
I opened the book is the family tree, the fact
(06:30):
that we get to know who your people are before
we even start to go into the beautiful story. And
I'm really curious to learn more about your family and
how your family helped you become the person you are today.
Can you share what you like your first childhood memory
of books were or just reading anything. Oh, that's such
(06:54):
a great question. I'm trying to think my earliest memory.
I have to say that the first time a story
struck me in the gut was The Little match Girl
by Hans Christian Anderson. And the fact that it was
the first time I read a book where a character
died at the end, and I was like, wait, where's
(07:15):
the happily ever after, Like turning the page and like, wait,
it's not supposed to end this way, and being devastated
because I felt like I had been taught to believe
that fiction always had a happy ending, right, because you
start with the fairy tales, then you go to the
parable the fables, and then here was this book where
(07:38):
this girl, this child who was young like me, hadn't survived.
And I had not known any young people who died, thankfully,
but that really kind of struck a chor with me
and really made me think about not only looking back
on it, fiction and writing and the way stories get told,
(08:02):
but also social justice, because it just felt so wrong
that a child would be homeless, that a child would
be without family, that a child would have to be
in the streets selling matches and trying to make a
living for themselves and not having someone to take care
of them, That a child would die of neglect. So
all of those things really puzzled me and angered me.
(08:25):
And of course a first step toward activism is rage, right,
and a desire to change things. I also think that
there's something to be said about this slow and steady
growth as an artist, as a writer, as a person
in general. And you have been very vocal about even
how you read. You know, you've mentioned before that you
(08:48):
can be a slow reader, and very intentional about that.
What do you think you've gained from taking your time
with things? How has that like influenced how you just
like move in the world, and how you even write
and revise. It's such a journey, and it's one that
I've always been on as a slow reader, as someone
who's always thought, if I do this, then this is
(09:08):
going to happen, and then I'm going to need to
do this. I need to follow through with that not
so much like a game of chess, but contemplative. So
I think that I've always written that way. And when
I see writers who are thinking, Okay, I finished this book,
We'll have ten other people read it. Have you revised
it ten times? Have you read it out loud to
(09:30):
see what it sounds like? What has the character wanted
and how have they gotten it? Has that been answered?
What about you know, the non primary characters? And then
next thing is like, well, how come such and such
got a big advance and I didn't get a big
advance and all of those things that when I was
coming up, I was like, yeah, I get an advance.
I have no idea what anyone else got because I
(09:50):
don't have the internet, right, it hasn't been invented yet,
so so it is a different time. And I don't
know if it's because I'm older. Let the world feels
so much noisier now and there's so many more ways
to procrastinate, right. I started out in the eighties on
(10:10):
a typewriter, and so there was no distraction. There was
no phone to pick up unless I was picking up
the phone that was plugged into the wall and calling someone.
It wasn't like, oh I'm stuck at a place, let
me go online shop or let me go check my
Twitter account or Instagram. That didn't exist. So it's like, okay, Jackie,
all you got are these words in front of you,
and if you don't do something with them, they're going
(10:32):
to still be in front of you unfinished. I think
we are bombarded with so much noise and the mindfulness
the slowing down to be more quiet and subdued, and
just like relaxing into our bodies. How would you like
advise or recommend people do that? I mean the obvious thing,
we can go to residency of state, you know, But
(10:56):
for a new writer that may not have those tools yet,
how can you like build your practice of like quieting
down and just like being focused on the writing. Yeah,
when I first went to mcdell, you know, it was
it was before cell phones. You got to your cabin,
you had nothing. Nothing was happening there except the windows
(11:16):
and the deer outside, and your table and your typewriter
are your laptop and your printer. Actually I didn't even
have a printer. I would go back to the main
house to print, and that would be a reason for
me to leave my studio. But they would bring a
basket lunch to your door when you were ready to
go outside. You get your lunch, you eat, and keep
on writing until the dinner bell rang at six pm.
(11:38):
And what they wanted was at six pm all the
artists to stop working. And this was the time to
engage with the visual artists and the composers and the
other writers, and it was a time to talk about
art and then people would do performances. People were deliberate
about how they were going to engage with their work
and their art. And that's how I learned it, and
(11:58):
I think now that's a mindset can be built by
young artists, right, So be deliberate about it. Say from
eight to twelve or whatever those hours are, I'm plugged.
I don't want to get any text from anyone. I'm
going to leave my phone off or in a different room,
and I'm going to turn on some program to not
(12:19):
let anything come through my computer and just be very
deliberate about letting the people come, right, because the characters
aren't going to come to you. If there's a sale
at Bloomingdale and whatever that's happening, that's going to keep
you from having the voices that become the fiction ter.
And it's a muscle, right, And the more you use it,
(12:41):
the stronger it gets, and the less you use it,
the more at atrophies. And I definitely do feel like
you have to fight the noise and be intentional and
set those boundaries for yourself. And it's interesting because I
think people are looking more at self care now and
looking more at the ways that they can do the
stuff they love. And it's also kind of interesting that
(13:05):
there's could be a fight against writing, right because is
this work? Do I really want to be working now
you know, if we don't do the work, the writing
doesn't get done. So for me, it brings me so
much joy to have written. Not when I'm writing, but
to have written is joyful for me. And in order
to get to that joy, I have to write. I'm Glory, Adam,
(13:44):
and this is well Red Black Girl. I'm speaking with
writer Jacqueline Woodson. I have been thinking about this idea
of pairing self care and self discipline, and this idea
of when things are challenging, it's actually okay to sit
with difficult moments and work through them and build through
that uncertainty because in the end, the end result is
(14:05):
what we're building towards. But I'm finding them learning to
love revision and I'm loving to learn to like rewrite
and rewrite like that. Revision process for me is so rewarding,
and I'm really curious to learn how you get into
your revision process, especially when you're juggling multiple narratives. It's
so crazy, Glory. It's yesterday. I was taking notes on
(14:30):
a new book that I'm writing, and I took the
notes and I put them to the side because I'm
working on an outline for a screenplay that I have
to finish by tomorrow, and you know I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna sit here until it's done. I close my
office and I'm gonna pull my curtains close. And that's
how I do it. I love a deadline. I love
(14:51):
the revision process. I love when I can see a
book falling apart. Right you're writing and as wonderful and
it's fabulous and it's the best thing you've ever written,
and it's the next great novel. And then you get
to that point and all the characters are trash, right,
and it's cliche, and you're like using adjectives that lead
us nowhere and all of that, and that's the point
(15:11):
where you have to start scaffolding, right, That's the point
where you have to ask what your character wants and
how your character is going to get it, and you know,
what's the hero's journey. I always I depend a lot
on the hero's journey. And so when I get to
that point of scaffolding, I sit and I'm mad at
myself for a couple of days, and then I bring
fresh eyes and I read everything out loud. So so
(15:32):
usually in the morning, when i'm starting a rewrite, I'll
start by reading it out loud to bring the story
back into my body and my head, and that really
helps me sit down and start taking it apart or
piecing it back together. I don't have to worry about
characters getting mixed up, and of course they're overlapping themes
in all of my work, but I do try to
(15:53):
keep the characters different. I love that. I love that
because I'm now working on a couple of different projects
and it's been and I literally have all these like
sticky notes on my wall to like organize them. But
seeing it visually does help me. You've written over thirty
books for children and adults. What drives you to continue writing?
(16:16):
It keeps me sane, A writing really does, And any
writer out there knows that. I'm sure you know that
that the writing is the thing that keeps me feeling
like I have some control over what happens in the world,
whether or not I do or not. I know I
have it in fiction, so it makes me feel like
it's a place I can go to, and it's also
(16:39):
a place that helps me breathe better. So I couldn't
imagine not doing it. I've never done it for the money.
The money has been nice and when it's come, but
early on, as a lot of people know, the money
does not come, and you have to have other jobs.
And when I had the many, many other jobs, I
(17:01):
was never happy doing them, and I was always happy
when I was writing. So and that still holds true.
The thing about writing is it keeps me happy, It
keeps me sane, It keeps me feeling like I have
some way of creating change in a world that so
often makes us feel powerless to creating change. I see
(17:21):
that in your work today, and now I see it
as it transforms into the Baldwin Residency, in this community
that aims to protect writers, especially when they're most vulnerable.
And I'm so honored to be part of your team
building Baldwin for the Arts because it is so important.
(17:42):
Can we talk about how that originated and you know
what led to you starting the community and what your
vision is for the residency. When I was coming up
as a writer in the eighties and early nineties, I
just remember this sense of invisibility because I was in
a different world. So I have Virginia Hamilton, I have
(18:04):
Walter Dean Myers, I had the writers who really supported
and mentored me and held me up. I was also
writing for adults, and that was a different world. That
was a world outside of young people's literature. And I
found that that world was a lot of white guys,
a lot of attention paid to white guys, and very
little attention paid to writers of color, especially writers of
(18:26):
color who are coming from young people's literature. And it
just it made no sense. So I would send out
to your stories, they would get rejected. I would apply
for fellowships, I'd get rejected. And then I'd see the
people who had gone through these residencies and gotten these fellowships.
And I remember I used to call the Whiting the
white People's Award because for so long I didn't see
(18:48):
any people of color getting the Whiting. And there are
a number of awards happening like that at that time.
I mean, when you look at the history of the
National Book Award, when you go back and you look
at the winners early on, it was very undiverse and
part of the reason those people weren't theirs because they
hadn't had the foundational structure. There was that period where
if you went through the Iowa Writer's Workshop, you were
(19:10):
golden right, that period's gone, thankfully, but there was this
way in which you had to belong to this certain
kind of club that a lot of people who were
outside of that narrative couldn't be a part of. So
people of the global community, queer people, and so the
first residency I got finally was at McDowell, and when
(19:32):
I got there, I was one of very few black folks.
I think Tulani Davis was there at the time the
first time I went there. But for decades I always
dreamed of a safe space for people of the global majority,
for bipoc people, you know, for people who are trying
to do their work without having to explain anything to anyone,
(19:53):
especially people at the beginning of their work, where I
think there's such a fragility and it's so easy to
lose young writers and composers and visual artists because they
don't have support systems. They don't have someone saying I
see you come for a week comfort a month and
do of work and I will support you. And so
(20:14):
it was this kind of back of the head dream
of mine that I thought, when I finally get enough
money from writing books and when I'm older, I can
do it. And then I got the Alma Award, which
was at that point was about five hundred thousand dollars
and maybe something more. And I thought, this is a
sign that I can do this work now, and so
(20:35):
I know, bought the property and started building the vision
of Baldwin for the art and thankfully people like you
came on board and helped with the vision. And of course,
you know, you were one of the early people I
thought of, because what I saw with well Ware Black
Girl was the vision you started with and the amazingness
that it has grown into. So I really wanted to
(20:59):
do that and it's been crazy to see the result
of that, and the fellows that have come through it
are all so grateful and also creating amazing stuff, Like
I think that was kind of a surprise to me.
It's like these young artists, and of course it's not
just young agewise right as people at the earlier stages
of their career are doing some phenomenal stuff that I
(21:21):
had never imagined would be the kind of work I'd
see because of course I'm older, like, oh, it's gonna
be this and that, and it's like, whoa this is?
This is amazing. I have Oh gosh, I have so
many questions because I'm thinking about you winning your first
National Book Award and then winning this prize that gave
(21:41):
you the funds to start this institution, and you are
now on the other side. You are this incredible elder
that is guiding and providing insight and wisdom. But now
you're part of the club. You know, like you were
outside of the club, you know before you were looking
at the Whiting Foundation and how like, what does it
feel like to be on the other side and be
(22:05):
part of that community that once you felt so outside of.
It's so funny glory. I was at a economy event
and it was packed and there were no seats anywhere.
And I came in and three people got up and
gave me, you know, try to give me their seats.
And I was like, oh, they're so sweet. You know,
they're giving me their seat because you know, I'm a woman,
(22:26):
or because I don't know what. And then I sat
down and I looked around. I'm like, I'm Auntie, and
it dawned. I mean, I'm like, everyone in this room
is probably about twenty years younger than I am, and
they're giving me my seat because I'm an elder. And
it blew my mind. Like it feels like it happened
very quickly. Elizabeth said it took thirty years to become
(22:50):
an overnight sensation, right, right, right, And it is true
that since that time, thirty five forty years have passed,
and here I am. And it's surprising when I even
see my name or someone calls me out, or someone
recognizes me outside of the world of children books, like
(23:11):
it is still this thing I'm coming to understand is
myself being in a different place. I know I'm in
a different place economically, but also in terms of the attention.
Like I see the awards and I know I've gotten them,
but I think also because of the pandemic, Right, so
since the pandemic, I got the Hans Christian Anderson, I
got the MacArthur, and those awards are international, and so
(23:36):
then when I go into these spaces, which is so
rare now, then I see that people know, oh, you're
the MacArthur fellow or you're the one who got the
Hans Christian Anderson Award, and it's like, oh, yeah, this
didn't just happen in a small room in my house,
you know. With a couple of zoom interviews like it
happened on a bigger level, so it's interesting. It's a journey. Hey,
(24:04):
I'm Jacqueline Woodson and you're listening to well read Black Girl. Okay, Jackie,
it's time for everyone's favorite segment, rapid Fire, where I
(24:24):
ask you a series of questions and you answer the
first thing that pops into your head. So okay, First one,
name one book that is on your nightsand it's a
galley called Trust by Hernan daz Oh. That sounds good, okay. Next,
one favorite board game as a child, Checkers, Free Sag
(24:47):
or red Light Green Lights. I have to say red
Light green Light. I've read that somebody. Okay, do you
prefer to write in pencil or penum pen describe Bushwick
in three words? Um the bushwiive my childhood or today's
Bushwick because they are a different choice. Okay, let's do
(25:07):
childhood colorful a lot, I'm home, that's beautiful. Name three
items on your desk headphones, CBD oil, and a stack
of projects in folders. You need the oil for those
(25:28):
stack of projects. Yes, between beloved the book or beloved
the film? Which was better? Definitely the book? Definitely the book.
I think the performances in the film were extraordinary, but
no one was how I imagine them in the book,
(25:49):
especially not um Tanny Newton's character. I was just like,
what is going on here? There was something so ethereal
about beloved the book and then when I saw it
on this where I was like, no, sorry, And being
someone who's at this point, you know, trying to turn
narrative into something visual for the screen, there is a
(26:12):
way in which some stuff has to be left unseen
except on the page, because that's where it was meant
to work. I know your screen Blight's gonna give us
all the feelings, I hope. So it gave me all
the feelings right in, and I won't say those are
always good ones. Thank you Jackie for your time and
(26:39):
your energy and just sharing all your wisdom with us.
Are wonderful. Eldert, Thank you, Gloria. I'm so glad to
have made it this far. I'm so glad for your
work in the world. I'm so proud of you and
so thankful and thanks for having me on the show.
(27:05):
I learned so much from my conversation with Jacqueline. I
think for me, I'm really inspired to pay more attention
to how I treat myself when I'm writing. I need
to give myself the space to breathe and create, and
you should too. Aspiring writers, you know I'm always looking
out for you. You can find information on how to
(27:27):
apply to Baldwin for the Arts Residency on their website
Baldwin for the Arts dot org. And everyone should go
out and pick up the year We learn to fly
for a little person in your life. In the next episode,
I'll be speaking with me one and only, Gabrielle Union.
Don't forget to tell your friends well read. Black Girl
(28:04):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. It is written and
hosted by me Glory Adam and produced by Cher Vincent
and Brittany Brown. Our associate editor is Keishall Williams, Our
engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Special thanks this week to Vicki Merrick. Our executive producers
(28:28):
are Mia Lobell and Leet Hall Molad. At Pushkin Thanks
to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrau, Julia Barton, Jen Goerra,
John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. You can find me on
Twitter and Instagram. At Well read black Girl. You can
find Pushkin and all social media platforms at pushkin Pods,
(28:51):
and you can sign up for our newsletter 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 and uninterrupted listening
for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus
Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you're already a subscriber, make
(29:15):
sure to check out my exclusive Bookmark series on Pushkin Plus.
Starting on February eighteenth. 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 on my radar,
and of course what's on my reading list? Each week.
To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
(29:39):
or wherever you like to listen
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