Inside 'The Seven Daughters of Dupree': An Evening with Author Nikesha Elise Williams

Jason Reynolds engages in a profound conversation with Nikesha Elise Williams, centering around her newly released novel, "The Seven Daughters of Dupree." The dialogue delves deeply into the intricacies of familial relationships, particularly the complex dynamics between mothers and daughters, as well as the broader implications of lineage and heritage within the narrative. Williams articulates the challenges she faced in portraying the historical and emotional weight of her characters, particularly the enslaved ancestor, while emphasizing the importance of agency, even amidst the harsh realities of their circumstances. This episode not only celebrates the literary artistry involved in "The Seven Daughters of Dupree" but also illuminates the personal experiences and insights that shaped Williams' writing journey. As they discuss the book's themes, listeners are invited to reflect on the intersections of personal history and storytelling, making this conversation both enlightening and impactful.

Takeaways:

1. In this episode, Jason Reynolds engages in a profound discussion with Nikesha Elise Williams regarding her novel, "The Seven Daughters of Dupree", which explores complex familial relationships across generations.
2. Nikesha reveals the multifaceted inspiration behind her characters, emphasizing the importance of lineage and personal experiences in shaping their narratives.
3. A significant theme is the exploration of the Black maternal health crisis, which serves as a critical backdrop to the novel's historical elements.
4. Nikesha articulates her creative process, highlighting how her background in television informs her ability to craft distinct voices for each of her characters.
5. The conversation delves into the emotional labor involved in writing about difficult subjects, particularly the realities of historical trauma and its impact on contemporary lives.
6. Nikesha hints at potential adaptations of her work for the screen, indicating a growing interest in bringing her stories to a broader audience through film.

Hosts & Guests:

1. Nikesha Elise Williams
2. Jason Reynolds
3. Ramunda Young

Podcast Credits:

1. Production: Trap Factory Studios
2. Audio: Christian Jones (https://www.instagram.com/cjthegenesis)

Mentioned in this episode:

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Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Foreign.
Hello, hello, hello everybody.
I am excited.
I've got my clapper with meright here because I'm here about
a party.
We are about to party tonight.
My name is Ramonda Lark Youngand I am proud to be the co owner

(00:32):
and co founder of Mahogany Books.
And tonight we welcome you toMahogany Books.
Front row, good people.
And I say front row because y'all got the best seat in the house.
You're in the comfort fromyour own home, your own space, wherever
you are.
And so we just encourage youto sit back, relax, grab a good beverage,
grab some food.

(00:53):
We won't be able to see you,so that means you can just really
get, get comfortable where you are.
But just a couple of quickhousekeeping things.
One, we do have a chat that isopen, so if you have a question that
you want to drop in the chat,we'll do our best to round up those
questions around 7:30.
But if you have excitement, ifyou're ready to party in the chat,

(01:13):
please note that as well thatyou're excited or something really
resonated with you as theauthors are talking also too, I just
want to just say thank you formaking space tonight.
We had to make some quickmoves to switch from being in person
to being virtual, but thingshappen the way they're supposed to
happen.

(01:33):
I'm personally excited that alot of you are able to join from
all over, know from whereveryou are.
So in the chat, actually Iencourage you just to drop, you know,
where you, where you're from,where are you watching from tonight?
And that would be great to seeand we're excited to have that pop
up there too.
So yes, if you're able to seethis from where you are.

(01:55):
I see people are droppingthings in the chat as well.
Just drop where you're, whereyou're listening from.
Some people talking about I'mready, you're excited.
We're excited and ready as well.
I'm just excited for a lot ofdifferent reasons, but I won't make
this about me.
We're excited to have this conversation.
We're excited for spaces forauthors to be able to connect with

(02:15):
you and to share their storiesand all the hard work that goes into
some of these books.
This is a night where peoplecan listen and hear about those imaginations
and ideas and be part ofsomething very intimate, something
very beautiful and a timewhere a lot of us are looking for
community.
So I'm excited about that as well.
So again, thank you for makingspace tonight.

(02:36):
Really quickly about Mahogany Books.
If you're not familiar.
Mahogany Books is actuallybased right here in the Washington
D.C. area.
We've been in business nowabout 19 years.
Craziness.
And actually we've beenmarried for about 23 years.
My husband Derek has got a,he's in the background trying to
keep us together with all thistechnology tonight.

(02:58):
So yes, 23 years married, HBCUgrad, shout out to Langston University,
my alma mater and of courseBowie State here in the area.
But for Mahogany Books, we arejust lovers of culture, community
and of course connection.
And so this avenue, thisbusiness has allowed us to really
tap into all those things thatare dear to us.

(03:19):
So you all being here means so much.
It's a dream realized, butit's only realized because you all
participate, you all show up,you all make it an intentional space
for yourselves.
And that's something that's,that's very dear, dear to us.
So anyway, let's get into it.
Let me see here a couple ofquick things.

(03:39):
Again, the chat is there.
I see people dropping there.
There are locations in the chat.
I see some Bowie State love inthe chat as well.
Dallas, Texas is popping up.
California.
So again, thank you for beinghere really quickly.
So let's get into it.
Tonight we have with us twoamazing authors and I'm going to
kick it off with our moderatorwho is someone very just dear to

(04:01):
Mahogany Books.
And I can't remember, I knowwhere we met.
I just can't remember whatyear it was.
It was a long time ago.
And he is someone who wasnative Washingtonian here in the
area and is someone that whenwe have a reason to call an author
or thinking of an idea orreally just want to be a part of
something that we're doing, wecall him.

(04:22):
And I can't tell you how manytimes he answers.
I want to say all of them.
It might be one.
He may not, but almost all thetime he answers.
But Mr. Jason Reynolds is anumber one New York Times bestselling
author of many award winning books.
I'm going to give all the bio.
He's a poet.
People don't, I don't know ifpeople know all that, maybe do a

(04:44):
poet.
He is the recipient of aNewberry honor, he is a Prince Honor,
NAACP Image Award winner andmultiple Coretta Scott King Honors.
He's also the 2020-2022National Ambassador, Ambassador for
Young People's Literature.
And you know, Jason livesright here in D.C. so Jason, thank
you for saying yes.
You and Nikisha worked allthis out.

(05:05):
So we just appreciate you allthe time.
How you feeling?
Exhausted, but I'm good.
I'm happy to be here.
More than anything, I'm happyto be here.
Keeping it real, everybodydoing a lot of things, but just appreciate
you for being here and I amexcited to welcome everyone to this
amazing sister.
We're all here to talk aboutthe Seven Daughters of Dupri by Ms.

(05:31):
Nikisha Elise Williams.
So yesterday, for y' all thatdon't know, yesterday was the, the
publication day for the book.
So in the chat, I just want y'all to put happy book birth.
It was yesterday that thisbook made its debut into the world
and tonight we are excited tohave her here.
So Nikisha Elise Williams, twotime Emmy award winning producer,
award winning author, producerand host of the black and published

(05:54):
podcast, Shout out to theBlack and Published podcast, which
is also on the Mahogany BooksPodcast Network.
And she's also a narrativestrategist by day and journalist.
Her work has appeared in theWashington Post, Essence and Vox.
And Nikisha is also a KamblioFiction fellow and a DeGroote foundation

(06:16):
writer of note grantee.
She's a Chicago native.
She lives in Florida with her family.
Y', all, please help mewelcome Nakisha to the stage so we
can get into this amazing bookthat's all over the Internet, all
online, everybody.
Every time I log on, I see theSeven Daughters of Dupree.
Everybody's talking about this book.
So give it up for the amazing Nikisha.

(06:36):
Nikisha, thank you for being here.
How you feeling?
Like I told you earlier, I'm hungry.
Listen, listen, listen.
Somebody should arrange forsome kind of delivery meal to be
able to pop off and be delivered.
I think that should have beenJason, but we're not going to put
him on the spot, you know.
So we looking for food, welooking for meals over here, Jason.
But thank you both for justmaking space, being here with Mahogany

(07:00):
Books.
We don't take something likethis, this conversation lightly.
Just us being in community, wedon't take it lightly, especially
during moments like this wheresome people are feeling so isolated.
So some, some feeling veryhelpless in different ways.
So being here tonight andtalking and being a community is
something very special.
So thank you all for making space.

(07:22):
And so I'm going to turn itover to you all.
Let me say this last thing foreverybody in the chat.
Around 7:30, 7:40 or so, we'llbe able to grab your questions.
So if you have questions,please drop them in the chat so we
can bring them up.
And for an audience, Q and A.I'LL read those questions off.
Yeah, we'll turn it over to y'.
All.
Let's do it, y'.
All.
Wait, I gotta do my Clapper again.

(07:42):
Hold on.
Nikisha.
She booked Birthday sis yesterday.
Yesterday.
Let's get into it.
We always are short on timebecause there's never enough time
to have these kinds of conversations.
The first thing I want theaudience to know is if you hear a
beep, it's.
Cause Nikisha didn't changethe battery in her smoke detector.
She really kept it as black aspossible for y' all tonight.

(08:04):
She wanted to make sure sheset a cultural tone for you.
You know what?
I'll take it.
It's fine.
In full disclosure.
Yeah.
I ain't been in town and Igotta say it.
Cause I'm ashamed.
I ain't been in town.
I came home and all my smoke.
You heard that?
Look.
Yeah, I've been trying to.

(08:25):
I done took them all down.
It's still more going on.
I feel blessed to have a homewhere I can't find out which one
it is.
But at the same time, this isa problem tonight.
I apologize in advance, but y'all gonna hear that beat.
We good.
Happy book birthday, homie.
How does it feel?
It feels good.

(08:45):
It feels surreal is the wordthat I've been leaning on.
So I'll just say that again here.
It feels surreal.
But, yeah, here we are.
Isn't it strange?
And we are going to get intoit in a second.
But I love to talk about thisbecause this is debut, right?
Yes and no.
I was Indy, right?
Yes.
I was indie for many years, sothis is technically, like my eighth

(09:06):
book, but this is my bigtraditional debut, so.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's weird because you don't.
I mean, it's old hat at thispoint, but at the same time, I always
like to talk about it becausethe assumption is that the feeling
is one of happiness.
And that's not necessarily true.

(09:28):
It's a bit more complex.
So if you could think aboutit, let's try to figure out how to
put a name to it, because itis a strange experience.
How do you put a name to howyou're actually good is not going
to cut it with me, unfortunately.
How are you?
Okay.
Yeah.
Like, find your language.
How.
What is this feeling?
I feel like you're getting meback from our interview on black

(09:48):
and publishers.
Okay.
I feel it already.
How am I act?
It's a multitude of feelings.
So, like, I was.
I'm very excited that the bookis in the world and that people are
getting it.
But all of that is happeninginside of the algorithm of Instagram
and Facebook and whereverpeople seem to find me on the Internet.

(10:12):
And, you know, as soon as Ilog off, it's back to my real life.
So, like, I have two children.
I think my daughter hasinfected us.
So she had a fever on Monday.
My son is now not feeling well.
I woke up with a scratchy throat.
She had a tantrum this morningover toothpaste.
So, like, life is still life in.

(10:33):
It's been great and all, butit's like, you know, children will
keep you humble, they don't care.
And so it's holding all of that.
But then also.
So with respect to theindustry, you know, I got my first
sales update yesterday oflike, what those pre sale numbers
really look like and what theprint run was and who bought what

(10:56):
and when and where.
And I was like, yeah, I'll bein touch next Wednesday for your
first week sales.
And I was like, I don't needthis information.
I don't need it at all.
But, you know, it's been a 20year career and I have yet to check
my sales.
I need not know.
Yeah, Like, I know I haveaccess to it in like the author portal,
but I was.

(11:16):
I'm completely ignorant.
I had been ignorant of all ofthat information until I opened that
email yesterday.
So I may not open hers anymore.
Yeah, not.
Not worth it.
Yeah.
I want to ask a couple of sortof, a couple of questions about you
and sort of your feelingsaround this work.

(11:38):
And then I want to get intothe book a bit before we open it
up for Q and A.
This always speeds by, but thefirst question I have is, who were
you before this?
Because books change us, right?
Like, for any of you watching,to be a writer is to be.
Is to basically put yourselfthrough the wildest boot camp over
and over and over again.

(11:59):
And it's an emotional boot camp.
It's a physical boot camp.
It's a mental and intellectualboot camp.
Sometimes it's a spiritualbootcamp boot camp and it's impossible
to come out on the other endthe same.
So.
So my question is, who wereyou before Seven Daughters of Dupri?

(12:21):
The real answer is I was a wife.
Was.
Operative work, no doubt.
That's real, you know, solike, that's a part of it, but with
respect to the writing, Ithink, and maybe not necessarily
just with Seven Daughters ofDupree, but I can say, like, when
I first started Indy, I wasmaybe way more rigid in that I wanted

(12:48):
this.
So Badly that I was afraid tomess up.
I took everything.
I took myself way too seriously.
And I can see that if ever Igo and look back at an old something
I've done, how nervous and howmy nerves kind of took over because
I just.
I didn't want to mess up.
I wanted it too badly.

(13:08):
And now I'm just like, girl,let it go.
There are other things to do.
But I think before this book,it was the dream.
And then not knowing if Icould become what I believed, and
then being who I am and justsaying, eff it, I'm do it anyway.

(13:30):
And, you know, if it works, it works.
And if not, I can always do it myself.
And I think that's how we got here.
That's real.
That's real.
You know, I was thinkingearlier, before we got on the call,
when I was running around with the.
Fuck.
With the.
With the smoke detectors, andI was trying to pinpoint which smoke
detector was making the sound, right?

(13:51):
And I'm sort of moving aroundthe house, like, freaking out because
we're running out of time, andI'm unscrewing and checking batteries
and hitting the weird buttonthat makes the chime and doing all
the things.
Writing a novel about seven sisters.
Did it feel like that?
Like, how does so 7.
Seven sisters live in yourhead, right?
And at some point you have tosort of figure out, like, who's talking,

(14:12):
who's doing what, who, right?
And sometimes it's like, it'snot this one.
I thought it was this one, butit's not, right?
It's the one down the hall.
Let me check that battery.
Maybe not that one.
I'm hearing it from over thisside, right?
So I want to talk.
And this is such a.
It's an obligatory question,but because this is the beginning
of this book in terms of itslife in the world, and I know that
no one has read it just yet.

(14:33):
I do want.
I have to give some of the.
Like, I hate the question,but, like, where do they come from?
Where does it come from?
But also, where do these womencome from?
So they didn't arrive all atonce, thank God.
The first two to arrive wereTatiana and Nadia.
So the mother ended in chapter one.

(14:55):
They arrived first, and Iimmediately knew who they were and
when I.
They, like.
And they arrived in, like,2019, when I had no time for them.
So, like, I was just, like,taking notes.
And that's something that I doas a writer.
I may have an idea, and if Ipay attention to it, I'll start a
Notes app thing and just takenotes on whatever the idea is as

(15:16):
it comes to me, whenever itcomes to me.
And then when I'm ready to doa new project, I may start with those
notes.
Whoever's been lingering thelongest or whose story is really
feels like it's next and haslegs, then I'll go and I'll start
playing and see what I haveand start trying to make something
shake.
And so Nadia and Tati arrivedfirst in 2019.
And when I actually startedwriting the.

(15:37):
What became the novel twoyears later in 2021, the grandmother
was there.
And so they.
Those three arrived first.
And then when I realized thatI was going to do an expanded timeline
with seven generations, theenslaved ancestor came immediately
because of the first line inthe prologue.
And then I started to have toask questions.

(15:58):
Okay, I know I have enslavement.
I know I have to go back to a certain.
Go back to a certain area.
Apologize.
If you hear my mother and mychildren in the background.
It's crazy around here.
It's bedtime.
Cultural tone, man.
We got cultural tone.
It's all good.
So the enslaved ancestorarrived, and then I started to ask

(16:19):
the questions, well, who arethe other women?
What are your names?
What are your issues?
And the one that I've arrivedfully formed is a character that
people probably really aren'tgonna like.
So in the finished copy, ifyou look on the end paper, you see
the character Jubilee.
I don't think people reallygonna like her like that, but she
arrived completely herself.
And what was great about itwas that the grandmother Gladys,

(16:42):
when I first wrote hersections, all of the other daughters
were there.
Her mother, her grandmother,and her great grandmother, they were
all together in her section.
So then I knew them, and I hadthem all at once.
And then it about writing themand listening to them and telling
the story as they told it tome, fixing it if I got it wrong until

(17:04):
it was done.
Does this feel good?
Like, you know, for me, italways feels such an emotional labor,
right?
And this isn't like a.
Some of this isn't liked, right?
Like, some of this.
Some of this is real stuff, right?
Family stuff and memory andsecret and, you know, like, all the

(17:26):
things that.
That so many of our familiescontend with.
I mean, so many of ourfamilies, right?
Like, we're dealing with,like, you know, how do we sort of
uphold this strange.
This strange sense of, like,cultural pride while also dealing
with the dirt that's there, right?
Cause there is so much dirt there.
There's so much.
There's so much stuff there,the stickiness of it all that we

(17:48):
try to pretend is not there,that then exacerbates and becomes
all sorts of other things overthe course of generations that nobody
wants to talk about andeverybody wants to talk about, but
nobody has the courage to talk about.
And it causes all the thingsthat happens in our families.
And so my question is, like,even how do you maintain or manage
like even just the emotional stakes?
This is a lot of people that you're.
This story is being toldthrough a lot of people, you know

(18:09):
what I mean?
Look, I write like storiesthat's like, hey, it's about two
or three of us, we gonna goahead and lock in, right?
And it was wild, Nikisha, thatI'm so impressed by.
And I have to admit thisbecause I don't have.
I don't know if I had thecreative capacity or the talent.
I like it's a character drivennovel, right?

(18:29):
Like, it's a novel that isdefinitely about the interior lives
of these people.
And it's a lot of peoplethat's telling a particular story
and it works really, really.
Like, the reason why I'm so mystories are very tight is because
I'm afraid of that I'm afraidof doing, like.
Cause you could lose a thread, right?
It could get a little in theweeds, right?

(18:50):
And so my question is, how doyou manage the emotional stakes,
but also how do you manage thenarrative arc, right?
Is this just planning?
Is this like, how, how doesthis work?
You know, the emotional stakes?
I think my career intelevision taught me how to compartmentalize
a lot.
Because no matter how youfeel, no matter what the story is

(19:13):
that you're working on, theNews starts at 5:00'.
Clock.
It probably starts at 4, 58and 57 seconds.
So whether you're ready for itor not, the show is going on, right?
And so learning how to liveunder that kind of pressure every
day, because I worked fivedays a week in television, taught

(19:34):
me how to compartmentalize.
So the emotional stakes of the novel.
I was kind of able to shutpart of myself off because I could
not hold both the emotionalstakes of the novel and the emotional
stakes of my life at the same time.
And like I said at thebeginning, I was a wife, so life
was life.
And I was also a parentbecause I started this novel seven

(19:55):
days before my daughter was born.
Don't recommend.
Absolutely nuts.
Don't do it.
But you know, here we are, wehave a book and we have a four and
a half year old, beautifulBaby girl, right?
It's great.
It's great.
So I was able to kind of shutoff what I should have been processing
about what I was writingbecause I was dealing with my own
life, and I only had so much.

(20:16):
And I found that writing thenovel and writing the characters
and diving into their livesand their interiority, there was
escapism there for me becauseI didn't have to hold my own stuff.
I could play in their own stuff.
They're not real.
And then, because my life wasa shambles and it was literally crumbling,
it was the only thing I had.

(20:39):
And so it was an urgency to it.
Like, writing this book waslike a fever dream.
There was an urgency towriting it and getting it down every
day from 5am to 6:15 before Ihad to wake up my son to take him
to school that I can'treplicate, that I'm still trying
to figure out.
Like, as I'm writing on a newproject now, like, you know, I should

(21:00):
be able to do this, and Ishould be able to do this because
I did this, that.
And third, for the sevendaughters of Dupree.
And my body is like, sis.
No, we're not.
We're not.
We're not.
So it's like, I know the novelis emotionally heavy, but I didn't
feel it in writing.
That's amazing.

(21:20):
Let's.
Let's play a game.
Okay?
Pick one of these words.
All right?
We're gonna go with this picture.
Come on.
Like, let's go with.
Let's see.
Love is one memory.
Womanhood or trust.
Pick one of those words.
Trust.

(21:41):
Okay, so what do you think youlearned about trust that you did
not know?
So, like.
So think about this book.
What did you learn about trustwhen it comes to, like, in the process
of this book that maybe.
Or maybe just as you know,Nikisha, at this big.
At this age and at this partof your life, right?
Also having written this bookthat maybe you didn't know 15 years

(22:01):
ago.
It's earned.
It's earned.
It's earned.
Like, it's in the context ofthe book.
They may be mothers anddaughters, but they don't always
trust one another.
You have to earn that trust toget their story for them to be willing

(22:22):
to bear their lowest momentsin their lives to whoever you are,
whether it's the husband, thepartner, the daughter, the grandmother,
whoever it is.
There's so many differentlevels to how often you can be fully
naked and honest about yourexperiences and with whom that, you

(22:42):
know, that kind of trust andthat level of trust, that level of
intimacy.
Because trust is alsointimate, is earned.
And you don't get it justbecause you asked the question.
Brilliant.
If you had to think about,like, let's think about heroes, right?
I love to talk about sort ofour lineages and literary lineage
and like, all the things.

(23:04):
If you had to pick one, youonly get one hero to choose.
And we could be fair and say,like, living or dead?
Let's say one living, one dead.
You only get to pick one from each.
Who has to read this book?
Like, who would you be like,please, you have to see what your
daughter has made

(23:26):
living and dead.
Living.
Alice Walker.
Oh, let me remind me to tellyou a story about Alice Walker.
Continue.
I have one, too.
Let's do that.
We'll do that after this.
And then dead.
I'm gonna be controversial.

(23:46):
Cause I know y' all want me tosay Toni Morrison, and I'm not.
I'm gonna say Eric Jerome Dickey.
Yo, you know what's crazy?
Is that what I was hoping you was.
You know what's wild is that Iknew that everybody wanted you to
say Toni Morrison, too.
And I was like, please sayTerry McMillan in my mind, right?
I was like, please.
We gotta start putting somerespect on what they did in the 90s.
We really gotta have a real conversation.

(24:07):
And maybe this is for adifferent time.
Maybe me and you will sit downand go through this at another point.
But, like, there needs to be areal conversation about the respect
that these people deserve thatthey do not get.
Right?
I mean, we could go on.
I mean, there's a whole bunchof them.
During that time, I used towork in a black bookstore and we
sold those books.
Yo.
People were writing black lifein a way that we do not credit them

(24:27):
for.
Like, you gotta give credit tothe air drone Dickies, the Elin Harris's,
the Bibi Moore Campbells, theMary B. Monroe.
You even gotta give credit tothe Carl Weber and the Omar Tyree.
I'm like, you just gotta putsome respect on the name whether
you think it's problematic or not.
Right now, you know, those are20, 26 perspectives.
But put some respect.

(24:49):
Put some respect on what weused to read back in the day when
we were passing it around andeverybody had a crease copy of Cheaters,
like, exactly.
Put some respect on.
I wasn't the only one.
No.
And the truth of the matteris, is that what they were writing
was very.
It was important.
We don't like to think of.
First of all, we have toremember that literature Is entertainment,
first of all, like, first ofall, we work in the entertainment

(25:10):
industry.
People don't like to think ofit that way because all of.
Because apparently, writing,because of its difficulty, we're
seen as intellectuals, andwe're seeing that what we make is
intellectual.
But the truth of the matteris, that's what y' all do.
That's not what we do.
Right.
What we do is try to tell agood story.
Right?
Try to tell a good story.
And I think, like, when youlook at.
Yo, I saw somebody recently onInstagram reading Waiting to Exhale

(25:31):
for the first time, andthey're talking about how brilliant.
They're like, yo, this is mind blowing.
How good the book is.
And it's like, yeah, she isand was a whole legend.
And we act like it's pulp,which is crazy.
So I'm just super grateful.
Thank you for saying, like,Alice Walker, and you know what I
mean?
Like Eric Jerome Dickey, who,by the way, was moving units out

(25:52):
here, which is a whole other thing.
Can I ask why, though?
Yeah, please.
I used to love Eric Jerome Dickey.
Still do.
May he rest in peace.
I hadn't had the chance tomeet him a few times on his book
tour stops, and I would readhim, and whenever his books would
come out, it was like an auto buy.
I'd be the first to get it.

(26:13):
And then, like, you know, asthe social media platforms have shifted
and changed from MySpace toFacebook to Instagram, if ever I
messaged him about anything,he would always respond.
He was always very kind.
And I loved his work.
I love that even though hestarted to write in genre, so he
would write a thriller, hewould write erotica, that there was
still an underlying story toit and there was still craftsmanship

(26:35):
on the page, despite howpeople felt about what the genre
was.
Right.
And so, yeah.
Ej, hey, why Alice Walker?
Why Alice Walker?
I mean, I was talking about afriend talking to a friend about
this the other day, but I'mlike, you know, Alice Walker been
eating off the Color purplefor, like, 40 years.

(26:57):
And not that that's the goal,but, like, that.
That's a life well lived.
We've had a book, a movie, amusical, and a movie musical, but
I'm not.
I don't want to replicate that.
But also, she is someone whopaid homage to her forebears with
what she did for Zora Neale Hurston.
She was someone who told theinterior lives of black women through

(27:21):
the Color Purple, specifically that.
That people are still talkingabout and also still imitating and
I will include myself as oneof those imitators.
And then she also didsomething with her politics and her
beliefs about the world andlife and activism.
If you think about there's asequel to the Color Purple, I think

(27:42):
it's Possessing the Secret ofJoy that follows the characters.
The daughter who was born inAfrica and talks about female genital
mutilation.
Like, people aren't alwaysdoing that in books where they have
a deeper message beyond theentertainment that we are initially
providing.
Right.
And so she has been the goatof that since forever.

(28:04):
Word up.
Shout out to Alice Walker, yo.
One day there when I.
When.
When 1.
When either Alice or me arelong, long gone, a video will surface
that's gonna blow your mind.
I was so fortunate.
It was like one of those weirdmoments in my life where I was invited
randomly to her 75th birthdayparty, right?
And so I go to Georgia.

(28:25):
It was in Eatonton, Georgia,where she's from.
I go down there and there'sone moment where, like, they're having
like a party that we'rehaving, like a dance party and she's
on stage.
And I have no idea how I endedup on the stage.
I don't recall how I ended upon the stage.
Rocksteady by Aretha Franklinis on and Mia Alice have like the

(28:49):
wildest.
Like, we just cut it.
Like, me and Alex was justgetting it together and like, you
know, and in my mind, I'm alsokind of like, woo.
Alex got a lot of magnetism.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's a whole lot happening.
Yeah.
I'm like, whoa.
It's a lot of energy.
And I'll never forget.
I'll never forget that moment.

(29:09):
And I'm really grateful.
I'm really grateful for it,for dance, for having been able to
dance for a good bit with thegreat Alice Walker.
I appreciate that, for sure.
I want to ask about, like, Ilove thinking about intention.
I know a lot of writers, wetry our best to not sort of think
about what.

(29:30):
What.
You know, it's like we writethe thing and then the thing exists,
and then you do what you do asa reader.
You also have a job to do inthe process of this book, right?
It's like we do the.
We sort of present our side ofthe conversation and then you present
your side with the reading ofthe thing.
But I do want to know, like,if you had to choose an emotion that

(29:50):
lingers, right?
Because I do think about thatin my own work, right.
Like at the end of this, whenthey finish the Last word and a week
has gone by.
If there is a vapor of anemotion, which emotion is it and
why?
I don't know that it's anemotion, but the word that comes
to mind is understanding.

(30:12):
Fair.
And why is that?

(30:48):
If there's anything thatlingers, and I think that's to the
wider concept that I'm having,that I want mothers and daughters
to be able to understand oneanother as people outside of their
titles.
I think that's what I thinklingers for me at the end of the

(31:11):
novel and I hope that lingersfor other people.
That we all just kind of wantto be understood and there's so much
misunderstanding and sometimesit's intentional that I think that's
the one that I want to linger.
I love that.
I love that.
I usually save this questionfor the end, but I'm so curious about

(31:35):
asking it now just because itkind of leans right into my normal
sort of way of doing things.
And I know you have a daughter.
You know, we get asked thisquestion about, like, what would
we change, like if we could goback to our younger selves?
Right.
What would we, like, whatadvice would you give your younger

(31:56):
self?
I actually don't like the question.
Right.
So the question that I've beenasking for the last 10 years, and
I'm sure Ramonda and Derekhave a gazillion tapes of me asking
all these people, from JamesMcBride to Jesmyn Ward to all of
our buddies and this samequestion, and it's amazing to hear
the answer.
And the question is, if youcould go back to, let's say, 10.
Your 10 year old, right?

(32:17):
10 year old Nakisha.
What would you thank her for?
What would I thank her for?
Mm.
All what she wanted.
What did she want?
There were a couple things.

(32:39):
She wanted to write and shewanted to dance.
That was it.
She kind of just.
That was me at 10.
Those are the two things thatI love.
I love reading, I lovewriting, I love dance, I love music.
Those things haven't changed.
And at the end of the day, insome of the roughest seasons of my
life, those are the thingsthat I have leaned into.

(33:00):
Music and dancing and writingand reading.
What's your song, by the way?
I was the same kid, 10 years old.
All I wanted to do was dancemusic and write.
That's all.
I love to dance and I love to write.
What's your song?
What's the song that gets youthrough by the way?
Shout out to Richard Smallwood.
Let me tell you something Letme tell you hey, look, and I'm somebody

(33:23):
who's not even a religiousperson, but the music is the music,
and the spirit is what it is.
And I'mma tell you, I've beenlistening to a lot of Richard Smallwood
since his death.
Lot of tears on this side.
Lots of tears.
Lots a lot of tears.
My song that gets me through.
Sir, I have playlists fordifferent moods.
If we gonna go to the gospelplaylist, we got Kirk Carr for every

(33:45):
mountain on that thing.
I didn't grow up Kojic.
But Karen Clark Shear can dono wrong.
I mean, nobody got a voicelike that.
Sheesh.
That's it.
She can do no wrong.
No wrong.
So we'll stop there, becausethis will be a whole other kind of
conversation.
Answer this, then.

(34:06):
What's the song?
What's the song?
Who do my cousins text me?
What's the song for the book?
It's gotta be something from Mary.
Like, it has to be somethingfrom Mary.
Like, Nadia's listening to Mary.
It's the whole My Life album.
It's the My Life album.
That's the song for the book.
That's the album for the book.

(34:26):
The My Life album.
The My Life album is for allof y' all who don't know what, like,
the tone of the book for allof y'.
All.
If you wondering.
Cause you're like, yo, Ihaven't got the book yet.
It's the first day.
We're ready to read it.
I don't know.
I've been hearing about thisall over the Internet.
We doing this, that, and the third.
But I don't know.
I'm still in the dark.
If you.
If the tone of it is the MyLife album for Mary, that should

(34:49):
make you want to run to it.
We already know what type oftime Mary was on.
We already know what it is.
If you don't know Mary's firstof all, if you don't know Mary's
My life, I'm also a little bitlike, what you doing?
What are you doing here?
You know what I mean, right?
You.
You probably don't evenunderstand the beep.
You don't even know why thebeep is important to us.
You know what I mean?
Like, you don't know.
So we need to go.
Go.

(35:09):
So first, listen to My Life.
It'll take you an hour, jamout, cry a little bit, and then crack
open Nikisha's book.
Nikisha, I want.
I.
You know, honestly, becausewe're about to get into questions,
and before we do, I just wantto say, first of All I appreciate
what you've given to a lot ofother authors.
I think that there issomething important about making

(35:29):
sure that we love on eachother and give megaphones to the
people that we care about andto the work that we care about.
Especially for black writerswho don't always get a swing like
that.
We don't always get anopportunity to speak our piece or
to explain or talk about thework in which we do to be intellectualized.
Usually we're.
When black artists aretalking, it's about their blackness

(35:49):
and not about their work.
Right?
It's like, I want to talk about.
I want to nerd out on mylanguage and my work.
I want to think about the workin interesting ways.
And I think you do a wonderfuljob on your podcast.
And so I would be remiss if Ididn't plug it to say that, like,
yo.
For those of you who don'tknow, Nikisha has an amazing podcast
that features a whole lot ofyour favorites.
She gives a whole lot ofpeople a platform to talk about their

(36:10):
work.
And it feels so fitting, andit feels like a kind of poetic justice
in the best possible way toknow that.
And now we get to celebrate yours.
And I'm happy for you.
I know the burden of it all,but I'm just happy.
I'm happy that I'm happy thatwe get to share this space with you
and we get to see a beautifulstory in the world in this particular

(36:33):
way.
You've got lots of stories inthe world, but this story in this
particular way, make thepeople put the machine behind you.
You know what I'm talking about?
Like, tell me who I need to call.
They are.
They got the book on thehomepage of the Simon and Schuster
website, as it should be.
I wish it was in New York.
You know, if you go in NewYork, if you go into the office right
now, they probably got it inthe glass in the lobby.
That's what they probably gotit in the glass in the lobby.
Like, telling people, do whatthey supposed to do for you, because

(36:55):
we deserve that, and youdeserve that.
All right, now we're gonna getinto these questions.
Ramonda, am I handling the questions?
I can, if you want.
Let her pop up.
All right, I'm gonna go for it.
Ramonda, I don't know whereyou at.
Let me look at the.
At my chat also, even thoughit would've been nice to see you,

(37:16):
it's kind of cool doing stuffon the Internet like this because
so many more people can come,people from all over oh, Ramonda,
you there?
You about to freestyle.
I saw you.
You got to freestyle.
I'm gonna handle it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, no.
We can.
We can tag team if we want to.
I saw a few of them.
I was writing them down.
One of the questions that Isaw was, was there anything that

(37:36):
surprised you in regards tothe way any characters came to think
of the notion of lineage?
Was there anything thatsurprised you in regards to the way
characters came to think ofthe notion of lineage?
No, because I don't think theythink about that like they're really

(37:56):
just living their lives.
Like, the notion of lineagereally only becomes a question for
them when a few of them aretrying to have children.
And then it comes up.
But it comes up in passing,but it really only becomes a sticking
point for the final cast, forthe first character that you meet,

(38:19):
but the last character in theline, Tatiana.
And you see that in the epilogue.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question I have onhere is, in writing this book, that
you often think of theconnection with your own daughter
at her age, and who were youat her age and what these characters

(38:39):
needed.
Like, did you ever think aboutthat connection?
I did not.
She has grown up with this book.
She's four and a half, as Ijust said.
She's also a Gemini child.
She's very spicy.
There's one of her that's verysweet and very loving and all the
things.
And there's the one thatrolled her eyes at me while she was
doing her homework yesterdaybecause she was over me, and I was

(39:02):
over her.
I am told by my own mother,who was also in the other room, that
I, too, was a talkative child,because she talks to me from the
time she gets in the car tothe time she goes to bed at night.
I love her so very much.
I never want her to change.
She's so very headstrong andstubborn and knows her own mind.
I just wish it wasn't with me.

(39:26):
And so that's her, and that'sour relationship.
And that has nothing to dowith the people who populate the
seven daughters of Dupree.
They are not quite that young.
You see gladys at about 2, butshe's not speaking then.
But everyone else is aged up,so there's no correlation between
her and them.

(39:47):
That's a whole other talkabout how we raise these kids and
how they show up in ways thatwe never imagined.
I mean, that's a whole.
I don't want to go there, butthat's a whole Other thing, how they
show up.
I always tell them.
Sometimes I feel like, who didI raise when I think about our child,
like, what?
But it was me.
You know, I see a lot ofmyself showing up in ways that I
didn't think that they wouldsee, but they see.

(40:08):
So anyway, don't get me goingdown that path, but I loved how you
were, how you shared that andsaw it come out on the page.
The next question I see hereis asking, are there other genres
of literature you're thinkingabout venturing into in the future?
Like anything else, children's literature.

(40:34):
You got that unlocked, friend.
You got that unlock, friend.
You know your strengths.
I know mine, yes.
You know, honestly, this was astretch for me.
I had never written historicalfiction before.
All of my self publishednovels are contemporary stories.
And then the book before thiswas actually nonfiction.

(40:54):
So I mean, that stretched mein that it was.
I had to dig a lot in thearchives to get the history I was
writing about the Mardi GrasIndians of New Orleans or the black
masculine Indians of NewOrleans, which is a history that
goes back to the very foundingof the Louisiana colony in the 16th
century.
So that was a lot of researchand that stretched me there.

(41:16):
What I'm working on next ismore contemporary, but then I also
have another historical storyin my mind.
So I may go back and forthbetween contemporary historical stories.
We'll see what, what the endgonna be.
I love that you get to choose.
You get to choose.
You know, I just remember backin the day, when I think of music,
everybody was put into these pigeonhole.

(41:37):
You got to stay in this genre,you got to do only this.
And as soon as you try toventure out, people want to say,
oh, she's not being true to herself.
You know, all these things Ithink of, you know, Christian fiction
authors, if they want toventure out, it was like, you're
not, you're not hearing youraudience, you're not.
They get to write what theywant to write.
So I love that you're thinkinglike, I want to jump over here.
I want to.
Whatever I choose, I want towrite about this, I want to write

(41:57):
about that.
And not locking yourself in.
So that's dope.
Because the writers, thereaders get to win.
I should say the bookstoresget to win, but the people getting
to read get to win because weget to get all sides of it of you.
When you come across thosefrom, from
being indie for so long andbeing able to do whatever I wanted
because I was paying for it.
And also, like, I don't it'sno disrespect, but I don't think

(42:19):
about readers when I'm writing.
I'm thinking, what am Iobsessed with at that moment?
What questions do I have?
That's where my novel start iswith an unanswered question that
I can't find because I, youknow, I'm a trained journalist.
I started in television as ajournalist doing broadcasts and producing.
You know, there are stillquestions that remain when the news
goes off.

(42:40):
There are still questions thatremain when you get to the end of
the article on whatevernewspaper or blog site that you're
reading.
Right.
And so my novels usually startfrom the premise of what question
has not been answered in thestory that we've just told in these
1500 words or these two and ahalf minutes on TV.
So what question was that foryou in this seven dollars of Dupree

(43:02):
for you to say, I'm going topull out this pen, this laptop, whatever.
I got to answer this question.
I can't sleep at night.
Just keep like, what was that?
For you to sit down, put yourbaby over here.
Baby hadn't even come yet.
To put that energy intoanswering that question, what was
it?
Or question.
Real talk, she was in the bedright next to me.
Like, real talk, she was inthe bed right next to me, spread

(43:23):
out the question.
I think there were two.
The first question whichshowed up in the contemporary storyline
with Nadia and Tati was that Iwanted to write a story about a girl
who didn't know her father, toexplore my own complex relationship
with my own father andexploring what that looks like in

(43:43):
a character.
And she's immediately not mebecause I did grow up with my dad.
So I was able to play in herlife and with those dynamics and
find out very quickly that,you know, the way she feels about
him is very idolized andromanticized because he's not there.
Which made it a good emotionalbreak for me.
Me.
Once I got the expandedstoryline and I saw somebody talk

(44:08):
about the curse in the chat,that question was that of the black
maternal health crisis.
So I started this novel in 2021.
I was pregnant when I lefttelevision in 2019.
I freelanced for a very forabout three years for different publications.
And when the pandemic hit, myfirst mindset was, there's a global

(44:28):
pandemic.
How are women giving back?
Like, what does that look like?
And I think at the time, myson was like five.
So I was removed from it.
But then I went right backinto it.
And so as I wrote about theblack maternal health crisis, the
disparities, the numbers, andwith anything, whether it was, you
know, the number of women thathad, you know, adverse pregnancy

(44:50):
conditions after the birth,because you're always in that red
zone from the time you arepregnant to one year postpartum,
it's just not in thatimmediate window after giving birth.
I interviewed so manydifferent women about their stories
and like, they were so honestand laid themselves there and some
were talking about, you know,pregnancies they had in the 70s to

(45:12):
now.
And those stories have neverleft them.
And I didn't realize they hadimprinted themselves on me as much
as they did until it showed upon the page.
And I was like, oh, well, herewe are.
These are my questions.
And what did that look like?
So there's a character namedEvangeline in the novel who is a.
Who is a midwife.
And.
And as you see the generationsgo along, there's a question that's

(45:35):
asked as one of the daughtersis giving birth is like, well, do
you think so?
And so knows the way?
Because if you aren't trainedand you think about how the medical
industrial complex codifiedobstetrics and gynecology to push
black women out of theindustry, some of that knowledge
was lost.

(45:55):
And so those are some of thelingering things that I was pulling
into the novel and telling thestory and the questions that I had
and still have as a woman, asa mother, as someone with two children
and friends who are embarkingon that journey that we still don't
have answers for.
Wow.
I'm trying to ask anotherpersonal question.
Let me.
Let people, because I can go.
I got follow ups to that, butlet me.

(46:17):
Let me stay focused.
Somebody asked, did any of thedaughters begin as one thing and
then evolve into someone verydifferent as the story unfolds?
They all did.
And that was intentional.
So the way that I thoughtabout them and the way that I wrote
it to, like, make itmanageable for me as the writer,
I thought about them and Ithought about their turning point.

(46:38):
So what was the point in theirlife where they were one way, maybe
more optimistic, maybe morenaive, a little bit more ignorant
to the ways of the world andthen on the other side of whatever
happens to them, either bytheir own choice or of no fault of
their own, they are completely different.
I think that's clearest withthe character Gladys.

(47:00):
I think you see it with.
But I think you see that withall of them.
They all have a break almostin their personality from something
that they've had to get overor become or to stuff down and deal
with.
And that changes them becauseour low moments change us.
Monumental things in our liveschange us.

(47:21):
And they don't always have tobe traumatic, but they can be impactful.
And so those impacts,impactful moments will change how
we operate and move forward inthis body and in this life going
forward.
Absolutely.
I love that.
And to.
To kind of add to what youwere saying, there's a question in
my mind, kind of relates toit, and it's asking, with so many

(47:41):
daughters and perspectives,how did you keep each voice distinct
while still holding the familytogether as one story?
Like Jason was saying thatthere's a lot of people in here and
they all have amazing voicesand perspectives.
How did you.
How did you feel?
That is detective.
Whole lot of smoke.
I was everywhere.
So bad when you were talking.

(48:02):
I was trying to come off.
But how'd you.
How did you do that, Nikisha?
Like what.
How did you keep them separatelike that?
So I attribute this to my.
Again, to my televisionbackground, because I worked in broadcast.
I was always writing for a voice.
I was not the anchor.
I was not the reporter.
I was the producer.
And so when you produce at thelocal level, you're writing the script

(48:23):
and you're writing the showfor the people who are going to deliver
it as your anchors on the news.
And so to do that, you have tolearn their voices, what they will
say, what they won't say, howthey like to bend a phrase so that
they don't get on air.
And then they see somethingcome up in the prompter.
They'd be like, oh, I don'twant to say that.
And now they're struggling tofind their words on camera.
And in tv, you make all yourmistakes on air, which is not a good

(48:46):
thing.
So, like, I worked as aproducer for 11 years, trained, which
trained me to write for a voice.
So when.
When I write novels, voicescome to me naturally.
I hear the dialogue all the time.
With the seven daughters,Tati's 14.
She can only say but so much.

(49:06):
Nadia is an adult, but shestill is under the deference of her
mother, just because of thatrespect and because she's trying
to prove something to her mother.
Gladys is very sharp, verysardonic, and.
And I had to get to why that was.
And she was one of the hardestcharacters, if not the hardest character

(49:28):
to write, because it was likeshe didn't want to tell me her story,
even though I already knew itwas kind of like, well, you know
already.
So what I Got to tell you, forin the writing of it, but once I
found her voice and I saidthis before, all of the other women
were in her scene.
She's like the linchpinbetween the historical story and
the contemporary story,because she knew both worlds.
She grew up in Alabama, andthat she was a part of the great

(49:49):
migration that brought her toChicago, and then she started her
new life there.
So when she is having hermoment where she's in the middle
of her turning point, hergrandmother is there, her mother
is there, her greatgrandmother is there.
They're all there to talk toher, to comfort her.
And so I had to distinguishthem in the scene and rely on what

(50:10):
I knew about them, what theirown turning points were, and then
have them trying to care forher, but then also bickering back
and forth about the thingsthat they haven't talked about, the
secrets they were keeping fromeach other or not dealing with.
And so because they were allthere, it was easy to pull them out
and understand what theirpoints of view would be.

(50:30):
So that when I then did go andwrite their sections, they were very
clear in who they were aspeople and what their voices were.
You say it like it's easy, butreally, we talking about craft, and
I want to make sure we allunderstand that what we're talking
about is craft.
Right?
We're talking about craft.
Right?
That's a real thing.
And I want to ask one morequestion, if you don't mind, Ramonda.

(50:50):
Cause I want to talk about theending, not talk about the ending.
Don't worry, everybody.
I don't want to spoil it, butcraft wise, how did you know?
First of all, thank you fornot ruining the end, which so many
of us do, I think.
But thank you for.
Thank you for the nuance ofthe ending.
And my question is, how didyou know it was over?

(51:13):
How did you know the story was done?
And also, was there adifferent ending before the one that
we get without spoiling it, bythe way?
No, I don't want to spoil it.
So is.
Was there a different endingto, like, the end, or is there a
different ending with the epilogue?
Because the epilogue didn'talways exist.
Ah, okay.
So.

(51:33):
So can you talk about that alittle bit?
Yeah.
So when I first conceived ofthe generational story, all I had
was that very first line inthe prologue, and that line informed
the ending.
I knew exactly where I was going.
I knew how I wanted to end.
I knew what was going tohappen there.
And I knew, even in thebrutality of that, that I Wanted

(51:58):
to, as I say, turn the cameraso that you get the perspective of
someone who still has completeautonomy and complete agency, even
at the end of their life.
I always knew that that wasthe ending.
And then when I started to gothrough of it, to get the agent and
to get the.
And once it was acquired, myagent was the first person who was

(52:20):
like, so you need an epilogue,because you can't end the book like
that.
And I was like, why not?
Like, I'm good with it.
He was like, maybe you want tosoften it a bit.
And I was like, okay, let mesee what I can do.
And so then once I startedworking with my editor, the epilogue
I had written, she was like,yeah, you need to rewrite this because
it's not giving what needs tobe gave.

(52:41):
And.
And I rewrote the epilogue toaddress some of the issues that she
had pointed out.
But the true ending, which isa poem.
Excuse me.
And it's Tati's dedication.
I had to write that, like,three different times.
And what's funny about it isthat I talked earlier about how I

(53:02):
have an idea and I have a notein my phone.
A few of those lines that arein her dedication were from an unrelated
note in my phone from, like,years ago.
Lines that just.
Only to me.
And I was like, well, this is interesting.
And I didn't have.
It was like, maybe three.
Three lines.
And then as I was trying,struggling to write her poem, I was
like, wait, I have somethingin my phone and I pull it out.

(53:27):
And then it came together.
So it's.
It took a minute to get it together.
Wow.
Thank you for answering that.
I see the.
Another question in the chat.
We have a couple more here.
Where did the idea.
You spoke about it earlierabout the curse, but where did the
idea of curse being achristening come from?

(53:49):
And the rest of that says theancestor veneration and generational
bonds were so incredibly powerful.
So where did this idea of acurse being a christening come from?
I mean, so I do identify as a Christian.
I grew up Catholic.
I have friends that practice alot of different religions.
A lot of.
A good number of them practice ifa.

(54:10):
Some practice.
I have a friend who wasinitiated in Nigeria, others who
were initiated in Puerto Ricoin different places.
So I know what that is andwhat that looks like in practice.
And then I also recognize itin black Americans who will go to
church every Sunday.
But then, you know, they havealtars all over the house, but they
don't call them that.
Right.
Ancestors all over the wallsall on top of the credenzas and the

(54:32):
pianos.
And everywhere in the house,there's candles, there's flowers,
there's doilies, there's mats.
There's all the things.
But we're not calling it that.
Right.
And the incense is burning.
That's real, right?
The blessed oil.
The blessed oil is there, right.
So I reckon I recognize it.

(54:54):
And so I wanted to incorporateall of that because I feel like even.
Especially in black Americans,and I'm being specific about that,
who will identify asChristian, but if you really see
how they live their lives,it's a little flexible in there.
It's not dogmatic.
And so that was where I wantedto have the ancestor veneration from.
From.
And to be very intentionalabout what it was they were practicing,

(55:16):
even though they may call itGod or Jesus or Christianity or whatever
the case.
And they go to the churchevery Sunday.
As far as the curse being achristening, honestly, I always say
I like to leave room for play.
So I don't like.
I plot to a degree in thesense that I can answer the question
of what's going to happen inthis chapter and what happens next.
That might be an outline, butthe specifics of it, I have no idea

(55:38):
until I start writing.
And so I was just writing thatscene with the two characters in
that, Emma and Evangeline.
And they're just talking, andEmma asks and says, you know, what
are you saying?
You're saying me and all mybabies were cursed?
And she just says, well, whatis a curse but a christening by another
name?
And I wrote the line, and Iwas like, damn, that's fire.

(56:00):
I was like, bars.
That was a good one.
But it wasn't a planned thing,but it came out.
And even I was like, that was good.
That was good.
That was good.
Keep going.
And so that was very organic.
Wow.
Just the idea of curse and christening.
Christening being in the samesense is in the same idea, you know,
it's just such a juxtapositionin my mind.

(56:21):
So I love that you wove themtogether unashamed.
That's why they want you tomention Morrison.
That's a Morrison.
That's why they want youmention Morrison.
But we didn't.
We mentioned who we shouldhave mentioned.
I love Toni Morrison.
Everybody loves Toni Morrison.
We all can agree.
Toni Morrison, everybody.
People be lying.
People really be lying.
Most of these folk ain't evenread Tony Morrison.

(56:43):
They just be lying becausethey don't want to be left out.
But go ahead.
Okay.
Yeah, I agree.
Derek and I were just talkingabout that.
Not.
We were just talking aboutthat probably a week ago.
Everybody, you know, we werejust doing.
I think it was Song of Salmon,even for our book club.
And.
Yeah.
So everybody got different opinions.
Let me put it like that.
Some people just be comingthere looking.
I'm gonna leave it like that,keep it pg.

(57:04):
But it's real talk.
People have different feelings.
Let me not.
Let me be quiet because it'sgoing some and Derek in the chat
talking about they be lying.
So.
But it's real.
Everybody has different things.
What they connect with and.
And yeah, and it's fine to be
like, you know, everythingain't for everybody.
If you don't mess with ToniMorrison, then you don't mess with
Tony Morrison.
Totally fine.

(57:25):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Go ahead, continue on with the story.
Go ahead.
You said the last one.
Last two last.
God bless the child.
And home was okay.
God bless the child was like,come on, bro.
Like, listen, we.
I love it.
You can't wait till you 80 towrite a contemporary novel.
Continue on to this conversation.

(57:46):
Yes.
Yes.
My question I was gonna askwas which part of this book.
I'm trying to say, folk, whichpart of this book was the hardest
to tell and why'd you decideto still need to be told?
Like, you could have exit outyou writing this thing.
You could have been like, no,I'm not gonna say that.
This feels, in this feeling crazy.
But what was the hardest partof the book of the hardest part of

(58:08):
the book to tell and why did
you decide to tell was theenslaved ancestor.
That was absolutely thehardest part.
And it's at the end and it'snot woven with any of the other daughters
for that very reason.
I think in that respect, I didthink about the reader because I
thought about myself as areader, that even though I do enjoy

(58:30):
historical fiction, sometimesI can't take the heaviness of it.
And so I need something lighter.
And so.
But I didn't want that to be aturn off.
So I was like, okay, we'regoing to do this one time.
One time only.
Right?
And because I knew exactlywhat the story was going to be, I
knew I could make it hopefullyimpactful, but also quick.

(58:50):
And so that was the hardestpart to tell also, because I don't
understand that level of cruelty.
I don't understand that levelof callousness, how you can be so
barbaric toward another humanbeing and sleep at night.

(59:10):
Like, I don't understand it.
And so trying to get inside ofthe mind of a slave owner who viewed
the person he was, had boughtand had assaulted and all of these
different things as subhuman.
Trying to get into thatmindset, to write their interactions,

(59:34):
to write the cruelty of whathappens to her.
It was weird for me.
I didn't know because I don'tunderstand it emotionally.
I don't understand it.
So how can I put it on the page?
And I don't want to make it acaricature of the worst horrors of
slavery that we've ever heard.
I did want to keep it here,but I didn't know the balance of

(59:57):
what was too much and what wasnot enough.
What was just.
It was difficult.
And so I tried to do my bestwith that.
And again, making sure thateven while that woman is in bondage,
she is still in full controlof her faculties.

(01:00:17):
Even if it's just her mind.
Like, even if it's just hermind, she is still in control of
her own mind.
She knows her own mind.
She knows what she wants andhow she goes after what she desires,
which is freedom is her choiceto make.
I love that.

(01:00:38):
I love.
And even though it is thisvery emotional space, like there's
still.
There's still.
I don't want to say hope.
Hope is not the word.
There's still a space where wehave ownership of who we are.
And like you said, it may evenjust from a mental space.
So I love that it just didn't.
Just didn't rapture in that way.
But there's.
She had a mental space to goto and not succumb to it all in such

(01:00:59):
a. I don't know, trying tofind my wordings with it.
But I love how you just.
How you just said that, thatit wasn't all loss, so to speak.
She still had that spacementally to go to.
So my other.
My last question is for youand Jason, you might have another
one too.
But like Nakisha, do you seethis book going into a movie?
Are we adapting this thing?
Where are we going?
What are we doing?

(01:01:19):
Like, we trying to see this onthe screen.
Have you thought about it?
Have you imagined, like seeingas you were writing, that this could
be go to the next space and bea movie, something on the screen?
Have you thought about that?
I've come from tv.
Of course I have.
Of course I have.
And allegedly what I had heardyesterday is that apparently my agent

(01:01:40):
sent it out for film rights.
Rights.
I wasn't told that I wasn't onthat email thread, but I had heard
from a.
A reliable source that that'swhat had happened.
So, you know
who plays.
Who plays.
Who plays Tati.
You gotta go find Tati.
She 14.

(01:02:00):
Somebody knew.
Yeah, you gotta go find Tati.
Preferably on the south sideof Chicago.
Okay.
Come on.
No doubt.
I love it.
Well, I just want to say toboth of you, Nikisha, this.
I know so many people aregoing to walk away excited to read
this book.
It just came out yesterday.
And so many people are justthrilled to go on this journey, a

(01:02:24):
historical fiction journey.
And it's because of yourcourage, your boldness, your intention
to sit down and bring what wasin your mind to paper.
And people now get toexperience it.
So I'm excited for that.
So thank you you for sharingthat with us and with everybody else
who's going to get to read this.
And brother Jason, thank youfor making space to be here.

(01:02:44):
I don't know how you doing?
You dancing last week orwhenever it was filmed on, you know,
you know, on what's her name,Jennifer Hudson show.
Now you here.
But thank you for making space to.
Yeah, just to be.
Listen you.
Thank you for making space tobe here.
What you about to say?
It's love.
It's love.
It's love.
It's all good.

(01:03:04):
We make space for each other.
Absolutely.
And thank you to everybody forbeing on in the chat tonight.
And we don't know what y' alldrinking, but I hope it was good
and just go out and get the book.
The link is on our website.
We want to be.
Be able to support Nikisha andthis work in a.
In a very powerful way.
And yeah, we are going to do that.

(01:03:25):
So thank you, Nikisha.
Thank you to everybody.
Have a great night.
Good night.
Victoria, another amazinghistorical fiction author in the
chat who's been so excited tobe on tonight.
So thank you for.
Thank you, everybody, forrolling with the punches and switching
to virtual because the weatherwon't let us be great.
It's all right.
We here anyway.
And I'm in Florida.
Yo, we ain't trying to hearthat you live in Florida.

(01:03:45):
It was 32 degrees.
All that.
You live in Florida.
No, it start.
It was 32 degree and frost onthe grass this morning.
Morning.
Frost on the grass.
Jason, we slipping aside now.
Here.
Slipping inside.
Frost on the grass.
Frost on the.
Frost on the grass is frost onthe grass.

(01:04:08):
Don't try me, try me.
Can't leave the house.
Misha, listen.
We stuck, sis.
He stuck.
We stuck.
That's all right, though.
That's all right.
We.
We did it tonight.
We glad to see.
Enjoy your frost tomorrow.
And Jason, you be safe.
Have a good night, everybody.
Take care.
Please, please.
Bye.
By.