the importance of writing about change

STORYTELLER, ACTOR, AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR, Alicia D. Williams is the author of the book, Genesis Begins Again, which received the Newbery and Kirkus Prize honors, and was a William C. Morris Award finalist, and won the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for new talent. She’s also the author of the picture books, Jump at the Sun and The Talk. She is here today with a new book called Mid-Air, just out from Atheneum, and illustrated by the award-winning illustrator, Danica Novgorodoff. She and I discuss the importance of writing about change, and much more. Listen in and read along.

Alicia: Oh, thank you so much. You make me sound brilliant.

Marion: Well, the work is brilliant. And I have enjoyed reading through the body of your work, and I’m really just thrilled to talk to you. So, let’s jump in. One of your previous books, The Talk, which was also a Coretta Scott King Award-winner, takes on the talk that all of us should know about, that takes place in Black and Brown households and can mean the difference between life and death in this world. You tell it in age-appropriate fashion and include pauses for parents to insert their own discussions with their kids. Library Journal refers to this fine book, quote, as “an essential purchase for every library’s collection, putting words to an impossible and necessary conversation and giving children whose families don’t have the talk a window for understanding and an opportunity for compassion and change.” Your work includes young people’s books on the life stories of change-makers Zora Neale Hurston and Shirley Chisholm.

So let’s talk about writing into the idea of change. My audience is writers, some of whom want to write into this space as well. So, I guess the first question, is this a decision? Is this an obligation? Is this the only choice for you? Is this what you were born to do? Talk to me about writing into change.

Alicia: Very good question. I think it’s a bit of both. One, it’s obligation. I’ve said on many panels and writer’s note, it is hard to compete with the fantasy world and speculative fiction world, and so when you choose to write a story of change, you’re not going to get the audience participation and the following that you want. So it’s a choice to write these books.

Two, it’s a calling too. I have to write what comes to me and what speaks to me. The Talk was definitely something that I was grappling with. Why do we still have to have this decision, and how can I add to this conversation to make it more palatable for parents to have this tough conversation, as well as how, as a teacher … I was a teacher, and many writers are educators. How do we imply that our children, our young students, can be brave and bold and be adventurous too? So we look at these stories. How can we change them with the stories we tell? How can we imply that they are amazing just like other historical makers?

Marion: That’s a wonderful answer. I love the idea of obligation, and I love the recognition that we’re up against everything right now. We’re competing with Xbox when we write. And we have to stick to what we believe. It is the obligation. Good for you.

Your beautiful new novel is Mid-Air, just out from Atheneum, and again brings us the gorgeous illustrations by Danica Novgorodoff. And I want to talk about working with an illustrator in a moment, but first let’s explore the placement of Isaiah, the main character. It’s the summer before high school and the pressure is on him to toughen up, to be less sensitive, more cool. This is a well-portrayed characterization in gestures, language, and situation. So, talk to me about choosing this placement. I think younger writers or new writers or even seasoned writers need as much help as they can in getting the formulation of the person who will personify the dilemma, the what’s at stake of every story. So, did you first choose what to explore and then create the character, or did you get Isaiah first and then choose what issue you wanted to explore through him?

Alicia: Oh, another fantastic question. I usually choose the character first. That’s what comes to me. And with Isaiah, it was so different. It was the topic. And as you know, during 2020 and 2021, we were experiencing so much social justice unrest that I was still grappling with the idea, why can’t our Black boys be seen as just boys, as human, instead of threats? And then as I began this story, how can I tell this story through this kid that has experienced something traumatic?

This is the interesting thing about storytelling. What you think you’re starting to explore may not be how you end up at the end, because it expanded. This whole idea, what I was grappling with … And it came out angry, it came out confusing, it came out with all this message that I want to say, but then it developed into why can’t boys be seen as gentle, as sensitive? And the conversation expanded. Why can we limit boys in this box of toughness, and you have to be rough and tough? And we can let girls have the agency to be all that they can be, but yet we say, “Boys, when you do it …” We question their identity. We question their sexual preferences. We have all of these things tagged to it.

So it expanded into this question of boyhood. And that’s how, from the earlier drafts of Isaiah, it explored more of who he was. So that’s why, on the page, it became more of a well-rounded character. Not just a character who experienced something traumatic, but a character who was struggling with being himself and exploring parts of himself that they don’t have the agency to do.

Marion: It’s such a welcome character, and so well drawn. And I read a phrase about you in some of the promotional material that states you’re a storyteller, quote, “in the African tradition.” So I want you to define that, please, and talk to me about that in your writing. This novel, Mid-Air, is written in verse. So, give me some of the taxonomy of your style, where it derives from, and what all you bring to the page through this storytelling tradition, if you would, please.

Alicia: Yes. You remind me of when I was in graduate school, we had a storyteller, an oral storyteller that came and told African American folklore. And the administrator stood up and she asked a question. She said, “That you just did, how can we get it on a page?” And as a storyteller, you’re using your facial expressions, your body language, your voice, and you’re raising it, you’re lowering it, and you’re adding all of these rhythmic vocalities to it. And she couldn’t answer the question. And that made me think so much. That question stayed with me, and the non-answer stayed with me.

I am a storyteller and I love folklore. I love memorizing the Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox tales, African Anansi tales, and Turtle tales, and Trickster tales. I love memorizing them, and I love performing them for audiences. And that oral storytelling and exploring rhythm and exploring characterization, it’s like a joke or something, trying to make sure the audience stays with you and the joke lands or the lesson lands.

It’s the same way when I bring over to my writing. You have to have a voice in storytelling. You can’t be monotone. You have to explore rhythms. You have to explore how it gets into your body, so what it feels like. When I bring into my writing that storytelling, I’m up and I’m saying it just like the character. I’m delivering it like the character, to make sure that character is as authentic when he speaks as possible, that narrator is as authentic when they speak as possible. And honing in with a voice, you have the freedom to say, “No, I may not just write realistic fiction, or I don’t just write nonfiction. I can write and listen to how the voice dictates how story is to be told.”

Marion: Oh, I love that. And I love the recognition of the laying out of hands, this ancient form, and how … The question is great. How do we get that on the page? So let’s take that a little bit further. In Mid-Air, you explore getting accepted, staying accepted, the pressures on that are all here, but you increase the pressure with some real loss. And I’m not giving away any of the plot material here because it’s all over the promotional material to say that Isaiah’s best friend Darius gets killed early in the book. And the point I want to make here is that the death, literally the moment of impact, is somehow heightened and more animated, syncopated by the verse in which you choose to write this book. It’s written in verse. So chicken and egg this for me. Did you know from this storytelling tradition that that would make this so much more visual? Did you try it in prose first, or was it verse from the very first moment?

Alicia: Ah. You’re very good.

Marion: Oh, that’s so kind. I just loved it. And the loss is astonishing because it’s the verse. It’s just astonishing.

Alicia: I love that. Thank you. And the loss happens in the beginning. Usually, a loss happens at the end. And you hit it on the nail. I am not a poet. I don’t declare that I can compete with poets out there. What I can say is that I did try it. The first sloppy draft was in prose. The second draft was in prose. Even a third draft, I started again and I stopped. It was not coming out. Because of that death and because it was so prevalent in the beginning, the reaction on how the characters relayed the grief, I had to figure out the storytelling in this. The way Isaiah handled grief is that he initially held back, and it was staccato, and it was rhythmic.

And so, I moved from the computer and I got a pencil and a notebook. And I promise you, when I got in his head … And it is almost like he was begging. He was actually begging, because it happened. As soon as I got that pencil and paper and changed my format, it came out in the staccato, rhythmic, and it broke itself as lyrics, like you see in lyrical sheet from music or a CD. And that’s how it happened. I did not dictate that. Just honoring that moment of how he said, “This is how I speak, take note.” And it gave me the freedom to say, “Nope.” You know how we get, as writers, we’re rigid. I worked so hard on these first two drafts, it has to be this way. I can’t kill any of my babies.

Marion: Everything stays. This is a great first draft. I’m not changing a word. Yeah, right. Drink some more coffee and let’s get back to work. Yeah.

Alicia: Let’s get back to work. And that’s why I don’t like the idea of what’s your process, because it’s constantly changing. And if you allow yourself to try it differently, you are able to listen to your intuition and trust not only your voice, but the voice of the character. And I think that’s why storytelling is so important.

Marion: Yeah. I do too. I think that I read in an interview with you … And we’re not going to talk about process because you don’t like to talk about process, but you did say that you talked about the role of memories and how they come back to you as you write. So let’s talk about that a little. I work with writers all day long, specifically memoir writers who constantly tell me, “I don’t remember anything.” And I tell them to go to the desk and wait. I tell them to do some research specifically. Look in your high school yearbook, go down to the historical society and find out what your house was. Go call your sister and ask her what the name of the dog that bit you was when you were a kid. Get unstuck.

But what is it in this process of writing, do you think, that provokes the return of memories as we sit down to write? Because that’s what you talked about in the interview. And I thought that’s so hopeful, and I want other writers to hear about this, that if you sit down, the return of memories begins.

Alicia: It’s a trigger. I feel like we are triggered constantly, and we are always remembering, whether we acknowledge it or not. We can be in a car and a song comes on and instantly be taken back to our prom, or that person who broke our heart and we haven’t forgiven them. So, we are always … The scent of some biscuits would take you right back to your grandmother’s kitchen. But those moments are so fleeting sometimes.

And I remember once, before I became a serious writer, they said, “Always take note of what you see. Observe, observe.” We don’t have time to observe sometimes. Life is busy. But once you do realize, “Wait a minute, I’m a writer. That is my job, to observe. What am I feeling?” We have all of our feelings and our memories stored in our bodies. We have pockets of pain in our hips. We have laughter in our bellies. We have memories of anger and resentment in our chest. We have all of these memories stored.

And I recall one of my professors saying, “Write a list. Write a list of people, places, objects, secrets, and events. Just take a moment and just create a list of all of those things. And every day, choose one thing from that list, any of the list, and write. Time yourself. Write free. Just write freely.” And when I started doing that, memories that I buried, memories that I no longer thought was a part of me, became real. It rose to the surface. And I wonder why I was holding onto those memories. But we’re writers. We’re creators. Those memories are so essential to infuse for our characters. That moment when you know your dad said, “I’ll be back,” and it took them hours to come back and they said, “I was going to take you out,” your character is going to feel that resentment, that memory. So if you say you can’t remember, then it’s your job to find a way to remember because all of that, everything you’ve gone through, will be fuel for your characters.

Marion: You mentioned anger a couple of times, and I’m really drawn to that because in that same interview where you talk about sitting down in the memories, and now you say triggered, which is terrific, you say, quote, “Write what moves you, makes you angry, what you love, what you’d want to change to make you happy. Write it and let it be your truth. Only you can tell the story the way you can.” And I think that’s perfect. But I want to drill into that write what makes you angry piece. Why anger? And what does it grant a writer, do you think?

Alicia: Only you would hone into that.

Marion: You just created just such a great portal there, with that word. I just got to go in. I got to go through it. Yeah.

Alicia: Because you’re right. Anger is such a motivation. It is such a strong emotion. Even the love is, but through life, if you ask a question, “What is your memory? Tell me a memory about such and such,” most likely we remember all the people who wronged us, all the times we felt inadequate, all the times that somebody embarrassed us. We remember all the hurtful things. But yet, and still, we have so many more loving memories, but we don’t recall it. We go straight to anger. We go straight to disappointment. Why? Because it’s such a strong emotion that makes us flush, that makes us have a physical reaction to.

And I think honing in on the anger first allows you to explore what it feels like, and ultimately it does leave you a resolution of love or forgiveness or even self-reflection of what did I do? Anger is … Gosh, other than such a strong emotion, it’s a necessary evil of conflict that we have to have in our stories. If you look about it for craft, I know you probably said this, no trouble, no story, you put your characters in trouble and you do not rescue them. That’s more anger type emotion, negative emotion than the positive love.

Marion: Yeah. You’re really speaking about the energy of anger and writing it and letting it take you somewhere, which I truly appreciate because I think … I’ve read a million memes about write what you’re ashamed of. And I get that. I totally get that one. But this one really jumped off the page for me when I read this interview with you about the anger, and I thought, “She knows, but I want to know what she knows,” and I agree with you.

Yeah. So you conduct artist residencies in schools as a master teaching artist of arts integration in which you combine your love for drama, movement, comedy, storytelling to inspire students to write their own narrative. So let’s talk about that purpose. What happens when people, especially young people, write their own stories? I think we say, “Oh, she’s too young to write a memoir.” I don’t agree. I think a four-year-old can tell you something about their insights, their day, their losses. I think when we sit down, we do something. But I want to hear from you, what happens when we sit down to write our own narratives?

Alicia: Oh, I’m so glad you said that because I was told I was too young, that I haven’t lived enough yet. You’re right. I believe when we sit down to write our own narratives, and this is what I’ve noticed from students, there’s so much more of an openness and an honesty. When they feel absolutely safe and secure to be as honest as they can be without judgment, they go for it. They go for it.

We go around in our lives, and we go around wearing our masks, and we choose to reveal what we want and what not to reveal to other people. No one knows all of us. But when you have a young person who is in a safe environment and they’re asked to share a story about themselves, they put it on the page. They’re not necessarily scarred so much that they are caring about the judgment of what an adult may say. The task is be honest. Okay, you want me to be honest? I’ll give you honesty. Where we as adults, when we tell someone our lives, we’re looking for some kind of validation. We need you to see us because we didn’t get this and we’ve been carrying this for so, so long, and you’ve got to hear us. But these kids, when they write, they come to a conclusion and they’re not afraid to say, “Hey, what did you learn from that,” and answer it, where we’re like, “I don’t want to go there. It’s too tough. It’s too tough.” We’re still in a place of shooting ourselves.

Marion: Yeah, we are. It’s fascinating. And I think that we’ve lost so much in the schools, in the humanities, of getting under people’s story and understanding it. And of course, the only way we’re going to stop othering each other is if we hear each other’s tales. And I wonder about that in terms of your choices for writing for young people. In other words, obviously you’ve got a fabulous voice and you know how to deploy it, but the bulk of the books, the things that I’ve read, they’re for younger people, kids and a bit older. And so I think I’d like to know why. What is it about going within this audience that you find to be a place to write to?

Alicia: It’s definitely not a safe space to write because of adults, because of the bannings and the attack on literature. It’s not a safe space, but it is a space that makes young people feel safe. They find all they need to be, the validation, to know that they’re not alone, to be reminded that they’re good enough, to be told, as we’re taught, “Hey, this is a reflection of who you are or what you can be.” These stories that we present in this space are almost like blueprints for them to follow, to find themselves, to discover and define themselves for themselves. And that’s why I enjoy writing in this space and having dialogues with the students in this space. But I have to say, as a storyteller, I have so many stories that I need to tell, and I can’t guarantee that they will always remain in this age group.

Marion: When you were a child, did you find yourself on the bookshelves of your local library, or did you have to read the stories of other people?

Alicia: Definitely other people. For so long, I read so much. Sadly, I can’t recall what I read. I do remember reading the Choose Your Own Adventure stories. I had such a tumultuous childhood. And of course, there weren’t any Black characters in the books that were offered to me. And there definitely wasn’t any that had a lifestyle that I had to say, “Hey, it’s going to be okay.” But because I was chunky and because I got teased and body shamed a lot, and I found myself through body image, through Blubber and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Bloom.

And it wasn’t until I found a battered copy … I think I was in middle grade, a battered copy, had to be in somebody’s basement or somewhere, it was Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. And that was the first time I saw myself, my family. I saw myself in the shame that I carried from being sexually abused, and saw that she had the same traumatic experience and that, whoa, maybe I don’t have to carry the shame. It happens to other people. Whoa. It was such an awakening for me, which sadly, these books are being banned. But yes, not until I read those particular stories did I know that’s the power of storytelling.

Marion: Oh my goodness. That moment, laying on of hands, that recognition, we can’t say it enough. If kids can’t see it, they can’t be it, whatever it is. And you processed the body shaming in one of your books. You want to talk about that a little bit?

Alicia: I processed the body shaming. I think I processed the body shaming in Genesis Begins Again. Yes. And incidentally enough, as a writer, we know what a character can handle, but I was told that, when I initially wrote the character Genesis … She was a dark-skinned girl dealing with colorism, which colorism is the discrimination within one’s community based off the lightness and darkness of one’s skin. So she had colorism issue, plus she was bullied for being poor, and she was body shamed. And I was told that’s way too much for a child to handle. I’m thinking, “Do you know children?” They handle much, much more.

Marion: And it happens a lot, right? So yeah, this is the kind of comments that come out of publishing that we just say, “Oh, dear God.”

Alicia: Oh, dear God. Are you all in the schools? Do you know anything about what children are facing? It’s not the childhood of ’50s and ’60s. But yes, Genesis does, with this dark skin and this colorism is so insidious, and it reminds dark-skinned people the self-hatred that is such a division. And she goes about trying to change herself. When I say, “Put your characters in trouble and don’t rescue them,” Genesis did a lot of self-harm. So much self-harm that adults said, “This is a difficult book to read. It’s so tough,” but I’ve never gotten that from a student. Never, ever.

Marion: Fascinating. I love that. That’s just such powerful knowledge for us to have, because you’re writing to them. And we can’t thank you enough for doing it. So as we start to wrap this up, I want to just get to the point where I think … At least all the writers I know, when they started having kids, said, “I should write a children’s book.” I thought, “Oh, dear. That’s funny because you write about high-energy physics, but okay, sure, fine. You just go right ahead.” It seems to just come with the territory.

So shed some light on one of the unknown aspects of this, which is finding and working with an illustrator. You and Danica Novgorodoff appear to have a real symbiosis. So how does this process work? I mean, people ask me all the time. They hear I’m a writer, and then they say, “Oh, I want to write a kid’s book. Can you tell me how to do that?” And I say, “First of all, I’ve never entered that market. It’s its own market entirely. You need to get good advice from somebody who’s done it.” They say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but can you introduce me to a …” No, no, you’re not listening. So getting that work symbiosis, how does it work? I think we ask the same questions of people who write music and lyrics. Which comes first? So how does it work?

Alicia: The book comes first. And if you’re working with a traditional publisher, unless you are in a marriage with your illustrator or you come together with an illustrator, they assign an illustrator. I’ve never been able to say specifically, “This is the illustrator I want.” They’ve always said, “This is who we have for you. Do you like this person?” And I’ve learned through this process, especially already having written children’s books, that illustrators have a different eye than what writers have for their ears.

I listened to … And Danica might be the same exact way. I recall being on a Zoom with the illustrator of Jump at the Sun, Jacqueline Alcantara. And she spoke how she traveled down to the Everglades in Florida to capture the scenery, how she got in her car like Zora Neale Hurston did and did a solo trip cross country because she wanted to see what Zora saw. And she said, “And the metaphors, and I did the metaphors of the hats, because her dad said this, and I did the …”

And I thought, “Oh my goodness gracious. One, stop telling that story because I only went to the library.” And two, it taught me that they have a different way of storytelling. I had my words, and the illustrator picks up on something differently because for me, I would’ve chosen different scenes that resonated with me as the writer. But Danica chose different scenes that resonated with her as a visual storyteller. And because we don’t have communication, everything is filtered through the editor, it gives them space to tell the story through the editor and with the art editor as they see fit.

Marion: That’s fascinating. I love that perspective. And I can see now that we do get the two points of view then, the writer and the illustrator. I didn’t know there was no communication. Well, that’s just fascinating, as is everything else you’ve said, Alicia. Thank you. Thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. I’m deeply grateful.

Alicia: I am too. Thank you. And I can talk about process one day.

Marion: Well, you just send me an email and we’ll do that, okay?

Alicia: All right. Thank you.

Marion: The author is Alicia D. Williams. See more on her at aliciadwilliams dot com. The new book is Mid-Air, just out from Atheneum. Get it wherever books are sold. And if it’s not in your library, ask them to order it, along with Alicia’s other books. I am Marion Roach Smith, and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overitstudios dot com. Our producer is Jaquelin Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey.

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