Questions in Silence (Mailbag)

A New Featured Questions Post

Happy International Women’s Month. I hope that you’re exceedingly well, and welcome to all the new subscribers. This is a special post to announce a new feature for paid subscribers that I’ll be doing here on Sitting in Silence. It’s a question-and-answer situation that I’m calling Questions in Silence. It’s just what it sounds like. You ask me a question about any area this newsletter focuses on—writing, craft, joy, and worry—and there’s a good chance I’ll answer it either here informally or in the longer format general newsletter. Questions in Silence is a mail bag, a discussion, an exchange. (Yes, I’ll answer questions from general subscribers too. However, those answers are likely to be shorter.)

To kick things off, the inaugural Featured Question is from a reader who came to my We Cast a Shadow book signing at Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi way back in early 2019. I think it was perhaps my fourth or fifth public reading for that novel. I have fond memories of that event because my host was my mentor and big brother, Kiese Laymon. It’s impossible to feel unsafe and unloved in the presence of that man. We had a packed house on a Saturday afternoon, which was a surprise to me. But people always show up and show out for Kiese, so I shouldn’t have been shocked.