In Volume Six: Chapter Eight of The Program, we sit down with Shreveport-born Writer, Poet, Essayist, and Author Destiny Birdsong,
In our conversation, we trace Destiny’s creative journey from her childhood love of storytelling to the spark that ignited her lifelong devotion to poetry. We talk about how her early awareness of difference shaped her imagination, and how writing became a way to transform both beauty and pain into art.
Destiny reflects on her university years, when writing full-time felt impractical, and how she eventually committed fully to the literary path. We explore the influence of Cave Canem, a transformative community for Black poets, and the pivotal advice from writer Chris Abani that pushed her toward a deeper honesty in her work—an honesty that shaped her acclaimed poetry collection Negotiations. She opens up about the vulnerability of writing for others versus writing for herself, and the revelations that came with seeing her first book in print a decade after completing her MFA.
We also dig into her award-winning debut novel Nobody’s Magic, a powerful triptych that follows the lives of three Black women with albinism in Shreveport, Louisiana. Destiny shares insights into character building, the emotional complexities of writing characters she loved—and even some she initially hated—and why she chose to tell three distinct but interconnected stories.
This is a thoughtful, vulnerable, and inspiring conversation with a Creative which I really enjoyed.
Contact Destiny:
Instagram: @bird_songoftheyear
Website: destinybirdsong.com
Recorded Spoken Word Performances Featured Include:
Ephraim Nehemiah – Inheritance of a Broken Home
Instagram: @ephraimnehemiah Website: ephraimnehemiah.com
Porsha O. – Trigger
Instagram: @porshaolayiwola Website: porshaolayiwola.com
William Evans – For My Wife Who Fell In Love With a Ship Buried at Sea
Instagram: @williamevanswrites Website: williamthe3rd.com
Destiny Birdsong – Killing White (working title)
Destiny Birdsong – Mythicana
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