The Interview with Kiese Laymon.

Special AWP Edition

Greetings to new subscribers and welcome to Sitting in Silence, a newsletter for writers, readers, and thinkers. The interview is a popular ongoing feature of the newsletter. I love talking to writers about inspiration, craft, and life. They never disappoint. So, from time to time, you’ll find these intimate and enlightening conversations in this space. This issue’s conversation is with that incomparable son of Mississippi, Kiese Laymon.

Today’s guest is my mentor and friend, but frankly hundreds of writers feel the same way about him. One day in 2016, I wandered into a reading at the Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. In that standing room only parlor, I witnessed one of the greatest presentations by an author I’ve ever seen. First, the brother didn’t read or share his work. He did a Q&A and proceeded to hold us all in the palm of his hand for the next hour. Like everyone, I stood in line for quite a while afterwards just to say hi. He signed my dogeared copy of his seminal essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America with an inspirational message that I hold dear to this day. Kiese doesn’t require an introduction. But I will say that even after earning a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2022, he's the same loving dude he’s always been, always working to be kinder tomorrow than yesterday, and still an inspiration to us all…

But before we get started, what’s going on?

My new novel, The American Daughters, comes out February 3, 2024. It’s been receiving excellent reviews. You’ve probably heard from other authors on social media about how preorders can make or break a book. It’s absolutely true. Preorders make a world of difference to us. If the spirit moves you, please preorder a copy of The American Daughters from your favorite bookstore today.

As always, thank you to the premium subscribers. We had a record number of new subscribers sign up in January. I appreciate your support and hope this means I’m doing something right.

To celebrate, I'm running my first new premium subscriber sale! Anyone who signs up for an annual subscription before March 15, will receive 20% off. For details, click below:

https://mauricecarlosruffin.substack.com/theamericandaughters20

Lastly, I’ll be at my favorite writer’s conference, AWP, this week. It’s a wonderful gathering because if you like writers, you’re bound to see some of your very favorites. I’m sure I’ll be posting all over social media while I’m there because I’m so stoked.

Now, for our interview.

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Maurice: What are your earliest memories of reading or writing stories?

Kiese: I've never been asked that. I remember drawing a lot as a kid and writing sentences in the clouds of those drawings. My mama made me write all the time, but I don't remember actually writing much of that stuff. I remember writing in the clouds in 3rd grade.

Maurice: Every once and a while on social media, we get to see one of the legends early selves. Like Octavia Butler bucking herself up in her notebook. Can you talk about what you were trying to do in some of your earliest writings? I mean before amazing work like Heavy and the essay collection and Long Division. I think writers would be curious to know what your before work was like. So what were you doing and how did you buck yourself up?

Kiese: That's a great question. I was amped when I say Ms. Butler hyping herself up. I wrote essays in my student paper in high school in 11th grade. I wrote a lot of rhymes before that. But when my friends gave me props for something I wrote and I won these two Mississippi Scholastic Press awards, I was hooked. 

Then I wrote a lot of essays in college. Editing a lot. Wrote and directed plays. All in college. Didn't really write fiction until grad school. Then that's all I wrote for about 7 years. Then I used my understanding of scene and sensory details to bolster my nonfiction. That's why I'm here. What did you write before you really wrote wrote!?

Maurice: Bruh, I'm not sure I'm really writing yet. But way way back? When I was a high school senior, I wrote a monthly piece for a magazine called Sitting on the Stoop. It was just two young dudes talking about school and dating. That lasted like two issues. lol In college and after, I fiddled with short stories. Mostly imitations of Jhumpa Lahiri, Stephen King, and John Kennedy Toole. Then I wrote comic strips in law school out of boredom and a little music for my bass and guitar. It wasn't until I went back to what my teachers gave us in high school (Maya Angelo, Anne Moody, the Harlem Renaissance writers, etc.) that I started to figure out some things. There's so much wisdom the ancestors provide. I think you have to grow up to really feel it in your chest. Who do you look to when you're trying to get to that place? Who speaks to you?

Kiese: I definitely feel that. And the comicstrips meant a lot to me too. I always come back to Morrison and Baldwin. Mostly specific books. Honestly, I read you and Deesha and Robert and Jesmyn to get right. Yall's talent humbles me. And then because I know and love yall, I feel I gotta get to work. And I'm just starting to accept that most of the work is experiencing earth and humans and senses. But I also lean a lot on oddity. Weirdness. 

Maurice: Weirdness is underrated. I taught Song of Solomon last year for the first time and was shocked to really understand how strange it was for Milkman to wander through a whole jungle in America only to run up on an old mansion with an apparent witch named Circe living in it. Like Circe from ancient Greek poetry, Circe. She was just chilling and waiting on him to show up. That's the kind of weird people don't talk about. You know what's not weird? Your use of language. I feel like a lot of us out here have learned a lot from your work. One thing that struck me is how you present our voice in your work. Too often I hear from new writers from the communities being pushed by editors into using "mainstream" or "accessible" voices. But mainstream or accessible isn't really a thing. How do you decide what you want your page to sound like?

Kiese: That's an incredible question. Mainstream and accessible are definitely imaginary. I want most of my pages to be polyphonic but also decidedly black and southern and original. I think it's so hard to make a page bend to our voices. It's so so hard. You do it incredibly well. But even in Heavy, I framed the book with BEND and BEEN. That's an ode to how they're the same sound in the place that raised me. What do you think of so much of work being called "voice-driven" by critics? I'm often like, what narratives aren't driven by a voice. It might be a boring voice or a cliche'd voice. But all of our work has a voice that can drive a narrative. I just want the voices to be familiar and weirdly innovative. 

Maurice: I think that some people look for a way to downrate people who don't come from the same background as them. So if you're black, southern, queer, or whatever that isn't seen as work. That is seen as adjective work. As in they put a qualifier on it to let you know they won't fully respect it. I think it was Min Jin Lee said one of her college professors told her she needed to learn how to write normal, but she correctly assessed that he needed to learn how to read her and the rest of the world. There's more on earth than is dreamt of in Shakespeare and Phillip Roth. And I like those dudes, but rappers can tell stories and so can the lady who sells suppers at my church. Speaking of being good, every time I turn around you helping someone. Just now you're backing up Lit 16. I've witnessed you working with young people in my hometown. I know you supporting this organization and that organization. What does it mean to you to help us like this and do you have any thoughts about good ways for the rest of us to help? 

Kiese: You got me going on all the dynamic storytellers in our spaces! As far as what we can do, we can ask folks how we can be of service with our talent. That's the most important thing. And if you have good hometraining, you must use it most brilliantly in our community of writers. You share. You don't abuse anyone. You try hard as you can to keep your word. And, I'm learning now, you take big breaks when possible and you lovingly say "I'm sorry but I cant" sometimes. What do you think our writing communities need most in 2023?

Maurice:  Good question. I'm a history lover. I like learning about earlier generations of writers like the Harlem Renaissance or even, as I'm learning now, the poets and playwrights who were writing in the Mediterranean from like 600 B.C. through the time of Christ. If someone told us that people might be reading our work in 100 years or 1,000 years, I think that might help us all have more perspective and not be so anxious about our triumphs or failures. I consider myself a role player. If my job is to focus on providing a view of my community in New Orleans before the big waters come, then so be it. On the other hand, I like that line from Drake where he raps that he "drinks to his accomplishments" with friends. People know and I mentioned in the introduction to this interview some of the many things you've achieved. Can you mention a small thing you did in celebration of winning the MacArthur? I think it's important for all of us to take those moments to breakdance, dunk the football on the goal post, or sing with joy. Even if you sing flat like me. 

Kiese: Mannnn, folks need to know how long it took me to answer this question. I'm thinking about the role player comment. I feel that deeply. I like that. Same for me. Maurice, I haven't really celebrated yet. I mean, I took the semester off. But that was to get medical stuff done. I got my mama and aunties and friends some gifts that they really wanted. If I was still in Oxford, I would have gotten some season tix to the Grizzlies.

Maurice: You've given us so much, so I'll be lovingly pugnacious and say don't be afraid to give yourself something too! Speaking of giving, one of my favorite concepts you wrote about in Heavy (a certified banger) is Black Abundance, which is the opposite of a Meager Mindset. I think about that literally all the time. I have to stop myself from naming everything I write, Black Abundance, because that's what I think so many of us are working toward. When you talk to younger people about this concept, what do you tell them? What does it mean for you, them, and the future?

Kiese: You know what's wild, Maurice? When I read American Daughters, I felt that Black Abundance. The characters in that book aren't simply good or virtuous or perfect or responsible. They are committed and flawed. They are courageous and afraid. They are excessive and reserved. So yeah, when I'm talking with young people, I ask them what do they love most about being black and young. That answer, no matter what, is that black abundance. It's not nearly as rigid as black excellence. It's not utopic. It's not dystopic. If anything, it's heterotopic. And that's sorta where all my work is headed. What you think of abundance in The American Daughters?

Maurice: Thank you for the blurb, by the way! For sure, heterotopic is the word. I’m going to save that one for future use hahaha I want to present a version of us we haven’t quite seen. The good bad ugly but mostly the loving.