Transcripts For CSPAN2 Conversation With Lisa Lucas 20170306

Of trustees and i am delighted to welcome to an evening that highlights so many amazing women who contribute to our literary and Cultural Community and most especially, lisa lucas. [applause] if you havent heard, lisa is the roxanne and shes been on campus in various groups today and so we welcome her. Tonights program is also part of this semesters script present theories, script present seeks to bring scripts to the world and the world to scripps by finding the intersection between and are caching and scholarship and society and culture. Presenters often linked to issues that are vital to student and faculty such as, race, gender, class, literature and the arts. Programs provide a form for Community Engagement and the exchange of ideas beyond the classroom and their environment for inquiry, ideas and intellectual exchange. While shes been on campus she has been meeting with students and faculty and sharing her perspective on the executive director of the National Book foundation and the former evident them on. Im sure her conversations will inform tonight session and i want to tell you that she tweeted today that claremont is an exceedingly pleasant place. [laughmac] joining her on stage is poet robert louis whose voyage in 2015. Cost lewis has taught at hunter and Hampshire College is among other and shes a poetry studies at the university of southern california. Joining them is rachel kushners novel the flamethrower from cuba is a finalist for a National Book award. Her fiction has appeared in the new yorker, harper, and paris review pierce review and she was the recipient of the 2016 howard t purcell award from the academy of arts and letters. Finally, moderated discussion tonight is carolyn kellogg. She is the book editor for the Los Angeles Times and the Vice President of the board of National Critics circle. If you are a fan you will enjoy her statement, i can mix a mean martini and skateboard but not at the same time. [laughmac] i know tonight will be an opportunity to reflect on how each of these amazing women think about leadership and the responsibility as artists, editors and art administrators to their community. Please welcome lisa, robin, rachel, carolyn. [applause] good evening. Id like to start with you lisa. Youve said youre an ambassador for books. What does that mean to select i dont know that ive ever called myself that but when i started just about a year ago immediately, there was a lot of visibility around the job and the fact that i was black, a woman, younger than my predecessor had been when they to the job and i think that, it was really energizing for everyone to see that there was an opening up and a change of the National Book foundation. Because there is so much energy and felt like a really Good Opportunity to use the platform that we were receiving to change the conversation about books. What we do, the primary function, is to present the National Book award which is about excellence. The best books that are published in america and thats not about all books but a specific set of books but in order to get people to care about that night in the middle of november of and about 20 books that we honor in the four books that win there has to be a strong and robust and excited generation, or population of people who care about books at large. We had to start by saying youre invited. Books are amazing. And because i love books there are huge part of my life and im blown away by every author that i get to spend time with in this role, trying to share this enthusiasm and remind people that im not special but that im a person who likes books. We can all be that person and then it makes my life better and itll make other peoples life life better and happier and smarter and bigger. It was a Good Opportunity to say, come on. Come join me. And that turns into an ambassador for books. I dont believe them. I think were not dying. Its a thriving world full of readers and writers and librarians and were doing just fine. Can you give me a sense, what has your year looked like so far. Ive been traveling around a lot. One of the things is that the National Book foundation, early on i made a joke about were not the found Baseball Foundation and thats actually showing up in california, mississippi, minnesota, or any other place readers are. Theres been a lot of travel but the beginning of the year is when i try to convince fancy writers for very little money and almost no thanks to read hundreds of books and decide what the National Book award is. Harold auger from with predecessor called me the other day and asked said this is one of my top people. People when i asked him to be a judge for the National Book award. Im not done yet. I still have four or five slots to go. That is happening now. Im also thinking about the award and we do other stuff besides National Book awards. We just a program were going to be giving away, thanks to several large publishers, 300,000 books. Were just getting ready to make that project happen and getting ready for the year. Theres just all kinds of buildup. And the audio. Thats been my favorite part. Every year nonprofits get audited and someone comes your office and you pay them a lot of money to harass you for a week and asks you for a tiny paper that were surely lost. Thats been a part of my 2017. [laughmac] neck lets move on to more fun things. Robin and rachel if you could tell me what its like being named a finalist for the National Book awards . She actually won the award. [laughmac] but you were a finalist to separate times. We celebrate our finalist is as much as we do our winners. My nine yearold is very unimpressed, he just thanks i lost twice. [laughmac] but in fact i dont feel that way at all. This is in a lucky thing. Theres a lot of great books to come out every year and i thought it was neat to just be in this sudden Small Community with four other writers for the first time. I read all their books and then i felt somewhat close to them when we got toward the event and i just felt like, what happens this is an unusual moment for me to get his attention and to be in a circle with these other writers going through this thing together and then the second time i was nominated, i was really happy about it partly because i knew already what it was like. I knew the emphasis was not on whether i won the thing or not but the lock in the good fortune to get to go and have this experience and sitting they said to at with the publisher and the announced the winner and the bigwigs of a Publishing Company that i dont know but the whole thing is very alien to me for them it would be important if i won because they can sell a lot of books but when the announced the winner and now im forgetting why we won last time that i was nominated instead of the flamethrower but i feel like i should know this. I dont know that. Does someone want to google that . It was before lisas time. Im still memorizing all finalists. [laughmac] i was so happy for him that i was beaming and everyone was looking at me like is there something wrong with her. Did she have a lobotomy . I was so happy. But i really was and it wasnt about winning the thing but it was hot being there and going through this rarefied experience and i got to work twice with carol organ from the seated lisa in the job and i was saying to her i wanted her to flourish and i wanted the National Book foundation to grow in the ways that it needs to and maybe its ready to as well. Hes a guy who cares about literature and is always ready to have a deep mindful conversation about literature no matter where you are. And so to have those kind of meaningful interactions with people is wonderful. What was the question again . Since we know what the process is like, what was was it like when you want . In that moment, it was surreal. I love that you talked about the community that gets formed within the finalists because i was just madly in love with everyone that was nominated everyone that was a finalist. Patrick, ross they were all friends of mine and even the people in the long risk for friends of mine. We were a static from from september all the way through to the awards we were just partying on facebook and twitter, like i love you. I love you too. Im so happy. Its just so weird. My book is my debut so they be one in the third time the poetry one, last time was in 1974. I was just happy to be there and i was happy for all my friends and we were just having a big laugh fest. When they call my name, i was just i had never met tim but everyone thought i knew tim because i iran up and hugged him so hard and i was saying i cant say what i was saying in his ear but i was screaming what the in his ear over and over again. That was a state anecdote but truly, im still very much shaken by it. Its taken in best possible way. I will understand what it means historically and this kind of historical moment i was born in compton to people who came to los angeles for the great migration from new orleans, theres a poem in my book there was no library in my town when i grow up. Hes doing this amazing project with book deserts. I loved books and thank god my family and my parents were the kind of parents who within our means you can have anything you want. I always wanted books. I read a book a day. Four years and wanda coleman, octavia butler, all these all these los angeles writers, la was a book desert. In many ways it still is. Winning for me was like winning for those people. Thats what it felt like. Or that i was just deeply honored and i still am and i feel incredible amount of love and generosity and i want to just be of service. Can i say one more thing . The question i wanted to answer was the thing that was most shocking for me is how many people are working behind the scenes for the love of literature. I had no idea. Again, it was my first book. As ive gone through it i have learned that there are so many people working as editors, publishers, copy editors, fact checkers, whatever. Thousands, tens of thousands of them they blow my mind. I dont even even care about writing that much anymore, i care because they have to but im much more impressed with whats going behind the scenes in terms of whos working to get books out into the world than the actual writing of it. Thats been profound in real life. You are sharing something backstage with us and i dont know if you want to talk about that. About the meaning of some big publishing organizations. Yes. They were talking about how to increase diversity. Reporter yes. There are a lot of people working on behalf of literature to tie together what people are saying. As you think about the expanding the audience for literature. To back up and stay with me, someone was complaining to me that awards keep focusing on the same book and they were focusing on the book that everyone is for viewing and whats the. Of having all this attention on one book. How many copies of the underground railroad have sold . They didnt know. I dont know the number. It was like 250,000. I promise you it is nowhere near a million bucks. And there like 368 million americans. We need more people, we need more advocates and when you look at the publishing houses and that the fact that theyre not diverse and while there are tens of thousands of people working on behalf of literature what if we add black and brown folks, what if we had more folks more rural forks invited into that, into the fold that we could do more for books and more more places. I would make a difference. Weve done a lot with a relatively small amount of passionate advocates and writers. But if we could build that network we could really change the way reading in america happens. I think that starts with inclusivity at the publishing houses. We sometimes focus on the work of the writer and the writer doesnt seem as exciting, writers are everything to me without them we wouldnt have the books but i dont know that change starts with saying to write people under we need to court writers and we need to nurture these writers and we need to be a safe harbor at home for all different kinds of writers. When there is a net like that that more people are drawn to actually being writers and that will change the fabric of what it all looks like. May i jump in . I keep arguing, suggesting when ive been on tour about diversity and one other way that we dont speak of enough. And thats geographically. Im grateful that youre here on the west coast thankful for this program that and the people have put it together. Theres a way in which california and the west coast particularly, are often the work is set on the. The work is particular to the west coast or the different communities within the west coast it gets looked over. It would mean so much to me, im on a mission right now to make the Publishing Industry more aware of the work on the west coast and what that means. Can i Say Something also . Im not going to name the publication but there was a magazine from new york that was out in la recently and i went to a party that they threw and one of the publishers spoke to the audience and said writers who live in la are all screenwriters or work in this Film Industry and i dont know anyone who works in the Film Industry. I thought deep into my acquaintance layer of my reality and i could come up with a name or two but nobody anywhere near. They gave this talk like you guys out here and so every day since then i do this neurotic thing where i open this draft of an email that i have that im writing to the editor of this magazine with statistics like guess what, 40 of the good the comedy United States come to the port of la. Guess what, we are the largest Manufacturing Center in the United States. Guess what, 20 Million People live in the greater metropolitan area of los angeles and moreover we have the highest poverty rate of any big city in america. There are people here from all over the world and its fascinating and noble place, very compensated complicated economy. Im lecturing you guys as i talk. I was so mad about it. I just save it in the draft file every day ive never sent it. I think theres something in my anger about it, im not trying to be selfrighteous or moral but theres something in my anger that may be symptomatic of misunderstanding in a broader sense and publishing. In terms of who American People are and where they live and im very dedicated to living in los angeles. I think that there are, they love brutalities here and life is very hard for people in la. Thats contrasted with the sanity of people in new york. Lisa is not among them. Who under thats all i have say about that. Thats extraordinarily arrogant and one of the things that as we think about the foundation of the future is that were in new york, thats where i live i was born born in york and i love new york. Everybodys allow two of of home but how do you recognize support, on lift and acknowledge literary around the country. And to make sure that the stories of the reality of whats happening in those given places is actually told and were thinking about the future of the foundation and part of that is how do we amass the work of these communities and what theyre doing how do we make sure they have visibility . How do we make really have access postmark i go i go to libraries all the time in sacramento right before the holidays and the librarians have this gorgeous library, i have all this resources, how come i can get these authors to come here. How do you encourage National Board winners and finalists that dont live on the west coast go to Sacramento Library and talk to the eager and Wonderful Community that there to buy their books . And to read their work . I think theres a lot of new york writers and theres arrogance they are that we have to think about how huge this country is. I look at the work i can do and say my budget is this but if i raise money and tell a different story than i can be this much bigger and do this much more work. Same with readership. If i assume this whole country rather than just new york but im a bigger and organization. If you can find more readers, a friend of mine was just scheduling her to her and she is going to kansas city and to someplace in texas that was in austin. [laughmac] and all these places and it was really cool. I just said yes and they asked me. All those people are going to buy those books in those books are owners that are doing this events with you are going to be so excited that youre showing up that theyre going to promote the hell out of your event and youll have tons of books sold and those people are going to be grateful that you showed up. People want to connect. And they want to connect all over the country, they want to collect and aptly appalachia they want to connect in la, they want to connect in new jersey and i never saw a single author there. It is important to do the work and sopping snobby. So where do we talk . Thats a dumb way to frame it doesnt make sense but its not good Financial Sense for artists, organization or a publisher. Or a president. [laughmac] i would like to ask you about book deserts and the project you have to address i was so excited when i saw this. The 300,000 books so when do we get libraries and Public Housing, how do we make this happen . This is an interesting project. Weve been talking a lot about how do we build new audiences, how do we reach new readers, potential readers that have not been reached out to. I dont do literacy work. Thats not our job. We dont teach kids how to read but we can teach kids how exciting books are and how fun it is. I got a phone call in the summer about this day of action to read where you are. It would increase encourage young people to read where they are. He mentioned there was a project in the works with hud and with the campaign for capable reading to think about book desert and all of these areas that dont have bookstores or people are using the library and there isnt culture of thinking about books, and Home Ownership of books. He said we have all these organizations and participating and theyve been engaged in the work of giving books and literacy work in the communities but we want something else, i said we have something tight with all the publishers. Maybe we can get them donated. Random house give us 200,000 books, mcmillan also contributed some and then i realize how to figure out how to pay the shipping books. And how to become a material distributor. Were going to be distributing those books to 33 different Public Housing authorities and will be using the librarys, and passing out Library Cards at the same time that theyre getting their books. This is a thing that we had to push the beginning of the project up because of the election and everyone including that we would continue to stay on the same staff and secretaries. We pushed it up and were hoping to bring authors into the different communities and were hoping to enhance all the programming that i will do three advents at the different sites over the course of next year and it will go back to the publishers and get a second round of donations and continued to do this to the best of our ability. Its a Trifecta Program and to do that all of these printed issues of lack of equity and property you need philanthropy, government, nonprofit, and corporate support. It was a really interesting model to me and i think that all this will make a big change. 300,000 books is not a joke. Some of the libraries that we called cant handle as many books as youre trying to send us. This is great because you can add new sites but i do think there havent been any really book joy work. I think thats really important. Lets have documents and com1 were bringing 2000 copy of brown girl dreaming and actually make that work, live and have a young person say why would this be for me and that gold medallion doesnt mean anything to me on the front of the book and make it pop and make it feel like jackie grew up in brooklyn and she grew up in a situation that was different than mine and it makes the connection that changes the way a young person encounters a book. And then you get to have it and have it in your house and owning that book and having something really nice, not a junk book, please dont send us your remainder work. We ask for list we dont want that. Send us different titles. It makes a difference. We want books in the home. I grew up thinking books were valuable. When i got a present it was a book. When i got a trait treat it was to go to a bookstore. I responded to that. I learned to love books. This is valuable when you get something nice this is what you get. And then you get this time to sit and read and live in a different world and this is a good thing. We can give that to children and families that are not for whatever reason, location, circumstance, economics that its not easily accessible for those families that it could start to change the game. Its just a step. I dont know that it will move the needle alone but i think that the visibility around it and we do visibility work with the National Book award its about press is about people caring, its about the sticker on the book, if i can make a gesture about giving 300,000 books that i cant fault reading. And how people feel about reading but i can do it really big so that everybody sees that its valuable to put her effort and money into the community and if we all do it and thousands of people who engage in making sure that the written word stays alive join hands that we can actually really do something. Theres a lot of money out there, effort, intelligence and theres a lot of need. If i can do anything, at the foundation, itll be to lead by example. Ill do what i can do but make the larger. That i need partners and that were not going to solve it alone and the more people to do this work the better off well be. Theres a real shift when a lot of people putting their brilliance into getting people to care about books. To take it. To take it back to your personal, im looking at rachel and shes cheering up. Are you okay . Tell me about one of those books that you got as a gift. Can you tell me a story . What book that i get is a gift that i really loved the smart the book i remember the most is not like literature but Piers Anthony novels. They focus heavily on puns and my dad got me the first one as a Christmas Present when i was really young and i just loved it i dont know why i love these books so much but i remember i dont know. I just this woman has so much vision and energy. Her changes well, the theme of this book by John Steinbeck called the red pony and i read a lot of sign Beck Steinbeck when i was young. Thought you were supposed to be a hobo derelict to become an author. I read cannery row when i was in the third agreed. I read red pony this year with my son, who is nine, and we were in bed together, sidebyside, reading and, we got the part where im loving but its not funny where the ranch hand, billy buck, has made a promise to the little boy, jody, he will safely deliver the foal and he broke a promise by allowing the red pony to be caught in a rainstorm and it gets sick and dies. So its anguishing to the little body and this is a last chance to have a opiniony and bully buck says hes going to deliver foe foal safely and in foal is breached and he can either save the mother or smash the mothers skull with a hammer demeanor im sorry to safely deliver the foal and i was reading this we my son and i promised this experience for us being like, i loved this book when i was young, and we were reading it together and it was just the most brutal and morally ambiguous situation. I cant remember what he said about it. Definitely provoked conversation about difficult choices. We are all going to hell for laughing. Three books stand out for me, the black stallion and the ones after. I read all of them. And i was convinced, i was going to move to an island and be a horse woman. Im still trying to get there. Lets see. God. Oh, junior high that was in elementary school. Jury high i distinctly remember reading a collection of the plays and autography called then to be young and black which is a hideous title for what is in the book. They book i still have and i just that book was so important to me because it was the first time i read a book by a black woman who was unapologetically smart. She didnt hide this woman is a genius. Was a genius, period. Im going to give you a little anecdote. They just had an exhibit at Brooklyn Museum of art and had some of her papers, and there was a yellow pad she had and she wrote two columns, things im board bored by. Things that excite. He. Her play, raisin in the sun. She wrote, things im bored by, raisin in the sun. Things im excited by, raying race raisin in the sun. And her actual play shat she was writing toward the end of ore life war just brilliant. We need to read it right now. These children its very dystopia. Children in a cave and we have blown up the world and theyre eating bugs and weeds. That was really impactful for me to read, a book like that when i was i dont know 13. I dont know how old junior high is anymore. But also to watch her she has this line in raisin in sun and talks about it in the book where if you measure somebody, measure them right. And you have to take into account every hill and valley theyve come through to arrive where they are standing in front of you. So its a complete manifesto against being judgmental. Later she talks about how, of course, you know, irish africanamericans have basically theyre saints and everybody does and the goes through a whole thing, do you have goes through this wholing . For everyes nighty and nationality and ethnicity and nationality and i heard somebody turn away from propaganda and waving a flag for a particular kind of performance in literature over a particular kind of nationality, and say, no, no, and were going into the vulnerable place. Still in my psyche when i write. Dont do that. Resist the propaganda stance. The real novel that changed my life and i was very certain i would be a writer i knew i wanted to write but i was like, im going to write. I read Tony Morrisons tar baby and i read it in one sitting and the funniest story, i was at a club, i was 16. My sister had given me her drivers license so i could get into the club because it was 21, and i was dancing wives of with this mom and she said are you going to see Toby Morrison at ucla on friday . And i said, who i he. And shes like, im taking you. So i went with this woman, very inappropriately. I ditched school to go hear Tony Morrison at ucla and she walked into the room. I was like, whoa. Who is she . And then she read, and i still advocate that tar baby is one of her best novels, still. An amazing novel. Then she read i was like, what is happening . What is happening . Speaking of writers never come to your neighborhood. Hell, books never came to my neighborhood. So, can you imagine . And then during the q a, she said do you know for baby . No, yes, i dont want to be a spoiler. I wont say what the ending is. So, the ending is the ending, and it leaves you in a certain place, and someone asked her how can you due that . She said i wish to write the kind of books you want to throw against the wall when youre finished and that is still in my head. I dont want to leave you in that place. So that book really in in place of closure in a way that a lot of american narratives leave you bubbled up and perfect and happy. That is one of the first time i saw an alternative to the kind of abc, subject, verb throwing a book against the wall in hi house is a sign of great love. Exactly; i want to switch gears. Want to ask about i follow you on twitter, and you took and pretty pictures of california. Right on. And campus. But youre really political. You have been engaging very much in the discourse around our new president , the womens march, lots of other stuff. And so how do you see is there for you a very politico magazine. What do you see is the connection between poll sicks and literature and engaging in 2017 . Theres a difference between the National Book Foundation Lisa lucas. Its an independent Nonprofit Organization i happen to be in charge of. But the i dont know how to separate myself from my work. So people are readers and paying attention what i tweet. But it feels like if i werent saying anything it would be inauthentic. I dont know everybodys poll ticked but im devastate by the police were living in, and so i speak my mind. I came from a place that was very political. A magazine of arts politics so designedded to be political. Was used to being pushy about what i was thinking but i think the work we specifically do the National Book foundation is hugely important. I think, first off, it just seems really clear we dont know much about government and how it works, and that makes me want to, like, give people books so we now how our government works. Theres just so much misinformation. Foreign got about fake news. So much we dont know and win we talk about literature, we forget to talk about our history books and artful stories of peoples lives. The president ial biography which im a huge fan of. Im in a president ial Biography Club and were reading chronologically through the president s. Its super fun and i totally recommend it. Not everyones cup of tea, though, i guess. But, no, i think that we have to learn more. Think theres a real problem about information, and i think that arming yourself with a book is really, really important. Think secondly, having a prolonged engagement with a piece of text is different from watching a film, different from listening to a song or listening to somebody who lives in alabama talking about voting for trump on npr. I think that if you spend time with someone elses perspective, for ten hours or eight hours or however along it takes you to read a november, you actually are going to have a lot more empathy for that persons circumstances in life, and i think i need do a better job of reading books about people that are not recognizable to me, and i think that a lot of other people need to read more books about people like me, like one thing im horribly offended by all the time is theres no such thing is a a black middle class. Grew up in teaneck, new jersey, cute little house and a middle class life. But the affect dont exist except for on the cross by show, which we can never talk about anymore abuse he shamed himself. But i its offensive to me but there are books that actually illustrate what my childhood might have looked like and i hope that everybody who is listening to donald trump talk about the sad, sad lives of africanamericans. Might actually read a book about somebody who had a childhood much like mine and understand there is a wide variety of experiences that anyone who is black or brown might experience in this country, and i just think that we get so in our own bubble that we have to find a way out, and i dont think a movie or documentary or article is going to do it. Do think that books do it. When you think bat novel you love you stayed up awe night read, even if it what 20 years ago. Remember the characters name, and like you do your friends or family, because you spent a huge amount of time with the story. And so i think thats the thing that books do. The books allow you to spend a huge amount of time and huge level of detail at with someone who is not you. If youre a man, read more women. If youre from the country, read more city books. Read something that is different from your life, because thats how we learn. We cannot fly everywhere, knock be everywhere, cannot know everyone, we cannot be everything. But books give you this incredible, magical opportunity to be in a Different Community and we are in a moment politically where where we can use spending time in other peoples shoes and think the foundation cant be political because its like, readers are everywhere and everything and they vote for everyone. We can say, heres some information that we think might be good for you. Stories of immigrants, stories about people who live in rural communities. Heres some history books we think are artfully done. Im reading a book called sex in the constitution right now by university of chicago law prefer law professor who said sex wasnt a part of the constitution. Parsing how we live our lives in bed was not the intention of the document and goes through hundreds and hundreds of years of law and makes the case, and i wonder if somebody who shares a totally has a totally different perspective from mine, might actually look the different arguments and even if they dont agree, might think im less scummy for feeling the way i feel and i think thats really helpful. I think that some of the work that over the course of the next couple of years i hope we do. I will keep shouting on the internet and hope i dont get fired. Robin, when you write, is politics part of your process in your poetry. I dont think i understand what you moon by politics in that context. You mean am i trying to change the world . Or aim trying to engage a politicalling a . I guess i political agenda . I guess i mean i think sometimes people think of writing as a purely creative project that exists in this very rarefied little around which the outside world doesnt touch but your work is engaging with come on. I guess i dont believe that mug, first of all. Think that all work is political. All art is political. Im in that camp that even if i write about that lamp over there that it takes place in a particular historical time and context and the air has a particular history and story that it confesses at all times. So if game going to do my job well i have to write about the historical point where that lamp is. Im always thinking that way. Its not a conscious thing i have to write about. I just dont. I just think that politics are always with us. While we are brushing our teeth. How we look at ourselves in mirror. We have been in inindoctrinated by our political context. So when were brushing our anything mirror, were alive the same time together and i forget i forget what happens, something that happened here ten minutes ago and i was thinking, we dont know how our government runs and i thought, right, because they gutted civics in the 80s. And so i am a teach ir, and i remember profoundly this moment, i was teaching that guy, the novel. Brilliant novel but i remember looking at my students going, oh, my god, its reagan. There was this complete moment where we were just having a conversation, salvation novel class, and somehow oh, we were talking about the difference between voting in the United States and voting in india where theres so many parties and the voting population is Something Like 78 and ours is abiz mall. And abysmal. So just thinking about that and the students didnt know what in gods name i was talking about in terms of the structure of voting. Was like, they didnt have civics, and then you have to redo the civics class. It comes up for me quiet ways and i should add, when lisa was talking about you should read people who are people who are rural should led read city. Have two poems in my book, its both deal with me family is from louisiana and my family owns slaved the black side of my family owned slaves and it was a shameful thing to hold in my mind most of my life and now im not ashamed at all. Just very interested in all the ways in which that can be all the things that can teach us. Purpose live put the poems the beginning and ending of my book because i wanted to invite to us stop saying not me. And say, yes, me, too and i hope that by modeling that in the poems to say if i can say it was at time the didnt Confederate Flag and my black family opened slaves and you can say your family did, too. It was an interesting way to have conversation with rathers in through interviews and whatnot. So in that way, my working be political but i always say that aim a pastor poet in a i would like to write about flowers and birds, and so thats why theres so much pass pastorial on the work butter its disbankrupted by the historical and be political, and like i dont feel like my work is political necessarily. I feel like the world is political and it ruptures my life. A real privilege to consider yourself not political, to be able to forget. I its like im not a writer but i got im just like a person who works and got a job and then all of a sudden shes the first africanamerican woman to run thats not about whether im political or not. Can either lean into it and do what i can do and use that as a way to affect chiang but i didnt have a choice. I if didnt want to be dribbed that way issue had no option. Thats an interesting question. Sometimes you cant avoid it. Its a privilege to say dish think that women are often boxed in empeople of color are often booked in. So its really hard to escape it. Rachel in what ways does your work engage with politics or not . Well, yeah. Again, when robin asked you what you meant by politics i was thinking maybe theres a way in which i dont really separate the two spheres. Theres the world of art and the world of politics and i too many things to say. I feel like one of the weird inheritances of the neoliberal is this thing called humanism where people came to believe that, under one umbrella, all people share the same forms of common decency an very complicated judeoclip level judeochristian level that might be true but onen ideology level the i dont think its true at awe that people have common cause and feel the same way itch think maybe there have been moments in things ive read where the writer sort of wants to believe that, like, a slave in mississippi feels the same way when her fabric brushes across her shoulders on a whatever on a humid summer night as a white woman in connecticut. Dont believe they feel the same way and im sometimes offended by that kind of thing itch dont want to sound morally righteous which im not interested in. Im someone who is interested inning and herself and getting up in the morning and asking how i can be a good person. When i go to write, i want to and hopefully do consider the sort of warp and diseye my characters in reality and the part of the world they move through and you dont look as it as a burden. It seems natural. People are built of conditions that pressure their lives. So maybe that does result in n something that some people call political. Im also interested in larger political movements which have ended up in both novels that i wrote. Just because its those are, like, big stories of history. So, if i wanted to, like, dip in and write a book about a 1970s i would write be something that was bigger than just a few peoples lives and had more like the logic of crowds or mass movements about it. I dont separate the two. I think of myself, these are political novel sod only read them if youre interesting interested in politics. Its more like one thing to me. So, then, do you think that in this moment, that there is a place for novelists, say, to speak bring some of that knowledge and that and this richness of how you describe what the Creative Work is that you do into the public sphere and represent . Because of the donald trump and the presidency and all that . Yeah. Well, i have very mixed feelings about awful all of that. They change from moment to moment. Ive been goetting these misdemeanor decide again my im other. The pen america has been doing this thing and trying to get writers to speak in ewanson and other writers say we have 0 to come out of Group Writers resist and defend and im actually permanently very ambivalent about it. Rate fine for other people. Dont have a judgment of it. As a method and a tool. But for me i dont speak as a core chorus with other people. I seldom agree with them about politics if hate donald trump but i obama deported 2. 5 Million People. Dont know at what point do you get up and Say Something publicly . I just dont know. I do certain things in my own life to remediate anguish and guilt eye. Involved prison abolition, its a huge come component of my life that has nothing to do with writing and thats where i enact that kind u crimed of oldfashioned activism urge. Maybe at some point i would write an oped if the the New York Times would publish it, i want to use something extreme and use my platform for good. Im not joking. Im not on social media and kind of shy and i dont like, from day to day know what i specifically have to offer other people to, like, use the public platform of a novelist so im his tenant to do that hesitant to do that. Lisa, robin . I want to know what you think. Its funny the pen emails are interesting. Im not a write sore its like i dont need to sign my name as a writer, but it does seem like i dont know if writers banding together or literature banding together and making an antitrump statement is useful. Seems too fuzzy and theres not an explicit goal of what we want other than we dont want trump. Think pen is a Free Expression organization and when there are direct challenges to Free Expression thats time to activate. I think that we were talking about earlier that writing i political. The job it to make sure weretling the stories that need be told, were supporting the work of the writer whos writer whore not making it out into the world which theres an equitable environment. I talked about how people didnt know a black middle class girl could exist. People can be very hateful when they dont wreck nye the humanity of another person and theyre so up familiar they dont need to acknowledge you. James baldwin you talked about a film out bright now by called im not your negro a filmer in rate using text that was unpublished by James Baldwin and bun video is him talking about the fact that racism doesnt exist. Its a lack of knowledge. Its a complete unfamiliarity with everything i am. And i think that the role for me or the what hope from writers is to continue to make a. They right about familiar to others so we have less of a less ease with denying people basic humanity and more awareness of the things truly happening in the world. But standing up together at a march issue get finicky about marchs and im like, whats the strategy here and if not im not marching anywhere. I want to know what were marching for and what the timeline is for achieving that outcome. You get stuff done. You just get stuff done. That what you do. The direct action the airports worked for me. Works, right . Its suddenly i was out of up to for that and i was like, that is something i can march for and i thought the womens march was amazing bugs it was an act of solidarity, nonpartisan and about numbers and achieved a specific thing. But i think the protests component of the Creative Community has yet to come into play but may well come under threat any minute now the National Endowment for the arts and people dont know is that some years ago always under threat. The ne and the nea and when i were taking cults 20 or so years ago, there was a group called litnet that banded together to lobby for literature fellowships to remain in place and theyre the only fellowships intact the National Endowment for the arts and thats going to go down when they propose the 2018 budget. So then theres a moment for writers to band together to preserve the only fellowship that exists for artists in america that are federally funded. And then i think we have something to the Creative Community dish dont mean to we with writer because im not a writer but a time to have direct political conversation. I also think it would be great if we could band together to help make a voice against trumps assault of the First Amendment, and journalists specifically. I think that the breakdown in genre hurts us at times because i totally want to support journalists right now and want to sport the First Amendment. Aisle very aware the kind of writing do, if i lived in another country and in to eric particular country i would be in trouble if not in jail. So im always an advocate for the First Amendment and i think its time right now with regard to writers to really support journalisment at the same time im really pised at journalists found new and have been for a year and a half because i cant believe the with a they did not so many in the Corporate Media did not exercise completely the rights give to them by the First Amendment in the last election and so now to be trying to back pedal and say these abuses took place and, et cetera, feels way too late for my taste. Im glad its finally happening but even when i watch press conferences, i still think that we tell our students all the time youre in such a privileged position to be a student. Now is the time and i feel that way, too, about journalists. Its like completely protected and sure you might lose your job temporarily but the First Amendment they cant touch you, and so i feel like im where i want to put my activism in terms of writers and what is happening in our country to support journalists until thena ea cams down and im very aware of that and ive been writing Different Organization its give money to or volunteer for. I believe in volunteerism very strongly and just reiterating youre probably going to lose your without but if i can help, call on me. they saved it last time. Yeah. So, were going to take questioned from the audience. Theres a microphone right here. Just come on down and stand the mic. Wed love to hear from you. Yes . Anybody . Dont be shy. We need the first person to come on up. Yes . I would like your views on amazon, which in my opinion probably destroyed the book store, but through it kindle, may well have induced more people to read. What are your views on that . If you have any. What dol think about amazon . What toool think about amazon . Ill bite. Being a person who does not sell books, i dont make money from direct sale of a book. Im neutral on how people access work. If you read a book and purchase is on amazon or barnes noble or your indy book store or from a library, just want you to read a book. Thats my professional stance. I do think that amazon puts enormous pressure on the publishers, and that in turn put s enormous pressure on the writes who are trying to make a living and when you look over the past 50 years what it looks like economically to be a writer, its bleak. The number of people who are able to make their money just from doing the work they do from their vocation. And so for whatever role the economy of internet book buying plays in that issue think that its a shame. Its a same. Anything that makes it such that authors cant make a living i think is really, really, really hard. I dont know that the kindle has changed the way we read. I think there have been reports over the past couple of years that remind us that the paper book is alive and well. And that the book stores in fact is not dead. So more people are reading in paper than they are reading digitally. Book stores for the second year, after a sixyear plummet have had increased returns. Theyre 12 billion industry. They wrote 2. 5 this past year. They rose the year before. More people are opening book stores. So i think amazon is it own thing, and i dont hate amazon. I dont need their book store. Went to think book store and it was lovely. But i believe in the indy and barnes noble and i believe in people caring about paper. So, i dont think its as bleak, and thats part of what i have spent time in the past year doing, which is saying, okay so book stores arent dead, books arent dead, people are reading, we like paper, we have actual physical books in our libraries in our homes. So i think the narrative is like wellgot so much bad news and i think my dad used to say to me, well before kindles were a thing and everybody was telling me you know theres no such thing as a paper book anymore, right . And he was like a computer person and would say all the time and i would say, no, never going to go away. Anniversary going to not have books and id get really upset because i was a kid. And i got the really delightful experience of showing my dad this article says na na, poohpooh. Youre so long, and i think its i think we have to try to sing the praise of what is happening and Pay Attention itch read this snuff Publishers Weekly and publishers lunch and these trade publications that people dont see, but one thing ive tried to do is to take a lot of what i know and that you know and you probably see all the time and to communicate im talking to a reporter who is the New York Times or you do a great job, but like a lot of other publications do a really poor job of talking about books in an appropriate way, and so when talking to one of those outlets i try make the case. Let me send you several articles ive been raid read thing the trades that are reporting what it actually happening. So amazon is a challenge for different types of businesses and professionals, but i do think that, again, that idea if we rise and if we sell more books and we cultivate a bigger, more diverse audience, and we think about new tax incentives in different cities and states for opening up a book store, bringing down taxes on books. We dont pay tacks on clothing, underneath 100 in new york city. End dont pay taxes on clevelanding in new jersey and if we provide these economic incentives around becomes. Does that change the way we shop and change the plight of book stores . Encourage somebody to open a book store in a remote area because they have been given just like were enscourged to buy hud homes for a dollar in areas where theres abandoned houses or encourage women or minorities to open businesses . Might change the game. Think its not the end of the story. Amazon is not end of the story. Want to say about your question, dont know what the answer is but i realize part of winning the National Book award taught me is i did good on tour everyone and it was an amazing experience to be on tour while the election was ramping up, and going to these places where i saw utter depression, economic depression. Talk about book desert. Its like everything desert. It was real where thats why kept sayingey when theyd asked know go to places id never been. I learned about the Publishing Industry and people and the country, but now that my tour is slowing down, and im thinking about my work, i realize its not my job as a brighter to think about amazon or kindle or not. Its not my job. I would do the worth writing ever if i think about the business of writing. My job wright now is to to try to forget that you exist, that i exist, that amazon exists, that paper exists, ink xis. My job is to forget the whole world or otherwise i will never find the place i once philadelphia when i wrote my first book. Ill never find it again. Its been something i have tried to figure out how to get back inside. So i just wanted to offer that because i think the conversation we need to have more about what writers actually do and need. Someone i was at a reading last night, actually, and this guy came up to me afterwards and all the questions were political. Said, yes, thats okay. Goes no, what about craft. I and i was like, thank you. Im a big so i appreciate your question very much but as a writer i dont think it would be helpful to my doing work that you might want to read in the future if i thought about the answer too much. Also think with amazon conversation, lets not go down so easy. Its like a little competition. Capitalism aside, a little competition never hurt anybody and i think we cant just lay down. Any business or industry just cant lay down. I didnt mean you were. This is a conversation that is had a lot and im responding red reacting to much of the conversation thats happening, not even just the question. I just want to say one more thing. I have a lot of former lives, one i used to be a theologian of ancient languages, and so for me history is much broader than a lot of people, and so when i think about these kinds of things, i tend to get very weird and freaking and, a thousand years from now what matters . Its not the healthyiest way. Im sure its some sort of psychological defense. But having said that, the book has been a long, long time. Let me put it this way. Paper and ink have been around a long time, and i think what is true about human beings is for some reason we must create. We dont know why. Neurologists, neuroscientists, everybody trying to figure out why humans must create art. We dont know yet and have been doing it the last tomb they clocked the painting, 38,000 years in indonesia. The earliest painting we can find. I kind of have im a hippy. Kind of have faith that human beings will figure it out no matter what. We have time for one more question. Do we have another question in the audience . Hi. Thank you so much for talking today. I had the privilege of hearing lisa lucas talk yesterday so two times, yay. Its been great too hear the rest of you talk. So as a very am ambitious and 20somethingle and my ambition is to set in one of those seats. My question is, how can it get there . I cut her off so i feel bad, too. I was going to answer the easy question. I think she can abc can answer the easy question. I was just going share if you look over kind of the pattern of spikes in modern highsation over the last, late say modernization of the last 1 years thing that hat has changed life most is the advent of the washing member because women used to spend six hours a day washing clothes for men and children. And that is so people who theorize these things even these kind of crackpot futurists, dont they do acknowledge that the internet has not really changed daily life all that much, even though we live inside the narrative that everything is different now. Soon well just be living online. Hasnt changed life that much. I dont know about the Publishing Industry or amazon or anything but i think the washing machine changed lives significantly and i dont really even know what kindle is but maybe it will change someones life somewhere but i doubt it will we that kind of magnificent shift in terms of what people do with their time each day. Thats all i would say. With. With those extra six hours you should sit up on the stage some day, i would say read and read and read and then write and write and write. Die have one quick amazon thing. I dont know anything about that thing but my publisher sent me there once and i felt like i was been renditions to a super max prison, its colorado. They wont tell you where youre going, they dont tell you who they are or what the purpose of the meeting is and i got into the elevateor they said, this is awkward but will you town around and they didnt wants us to see what floor we were get offering at. And there are no windows and people dont tell you their name. It was a really peered experience really weird experience. How do you get there . I was going to Say Something else but how do you get to be a writer. The other thing about amazon sorry and then ill go. North texas no, no, its a great question. Always ask these questions. You cant make a living off poetry and i love that about poetry. I love it. And its just going to where is the permanent who asked the question, how do you get there . I love that about poetry because i hope that im never really thinking, this is going to sell. So its a really interesting place to be. How you get there i think the question is you write and write and write and you read more importantly, you read and read and read and read and read, and sat standpoint you start send ing your work out. Its so easy to submit now two journals, the whole submittable thing you do online. You get your rejections back faster, too. One thing tried to do, i try to get as many rejections as possible. Right . You have to get used to rejections. Have friends i have friends who applied once and didnt get in, theyre like ill never apply again. Im like, youll never get in again either. So you have to get used to rejection as my best advice, its just so its like as normal as air. Just be rejected and get used it to. Read is the best, best, best thing. You can learn everything about writing if you read very carefully. When i said aread Tony Morrisons novel when i was in high school, the think that shook me kind of in territory of bag writer and i knew i wanted to write since i was your age is when i read tar baby i was paying attention the language. Not just the story, which is profound, i felt so validated, and also i was paying attention to how she was telling the story. So, you know, i told my students all the time. Just read the commas in the story. Or were just going revise the semi colons or look at the line breaks in this poem. Nothing else. I mean, that kind of meticulous attention will teach you everything you need to know and then start experimenting on your own. Its fun. A fun life. But i dont think you should do it for money. Even though for some people theres good money in writing but for most of us there isnt any money in writing so you have to figure out why youre doing it love and if it it keep meds from striking a match and burning down buildings. Seriously. Im not a writer bit can talk about listening to you guys and writers have been around in my own professional career. One thing youre talking about be a theologian and youre talking about prison abolition and living a full life is the best thing to do to be good at anything you do. Its being a whole person. I think makes you better at any kind of creative or cultural life, and so i think thats one thing. Also, discipline. Its like people dont want to tack bit. Its not just sitting down and being able to write six hours its about being the place youre supposed to be at and being uncomfortable and do the thing outside have to do over and over and over again. Then i think also eye suspect from the time ive spent with you, you dont often do things you dont think feel right, and i think that being guided by a sense of sort of what feel goods for you and making those choices. Ive turned down jobs that made every pit of sense on paper, that everybody in my life pressured me to do and i knew didnt make sense for me, and a series of making those chases based on what it felt was good for me and good for my development and my happiness, let know only do thing its really cared about, the only way to get myself to do something really well and have hat kind of discipline and keep learning and living and having new experiences so whether youre a writer or a cook or an art administrator, i think a lot of those things are important just guiding ways to deal with your life. For me at least. My goal was never to be sitting in this chair. My goal was to write a good poem. I bet your goal is toite is to write a good. I imagined i would be a writer but never thought i would be capable of writing a novel. Even until very much later, until after id gone to a writing program and then on occasion i would meet a writer who was a published author and they just seemed like they existed in a different world for me. So i dont teach but when die interact with student is always want to communicate to them im not on the other side of a rubricon. Im not superior because of that status. Some is lock or i dont but i wish i would have had more confidence when i was younger to just do what i wanted to do and not think that the other people who were getting to do it were getting to do it by virtue of the fact they were not me, if that makes sense. So, i eventually came upon a subject that i sort of saw as something that would be worthy of a novel, and for various reason is was the person to write it, and so i just went ahead and got started. At that point i had a couple people encouraging me, which was helpful, but i didnt always think im going to go write big books. Once i wrote the first one ive only written three. Once i wrote one novel i felt like i know this is something that i can do because i wont quit. Never think, oh, the problem is the subject i chose or the shape or stuck tour. The problem is me if i cant finish it. So i will stay and change myself or find a way to get through the door so it works. Now i can finish a book now. I guess thats my narrative about novels. One thing about being young and wanting to be a writer and maybe im out of touch and doesnt apply but sometimes i worry about younger people thinking that having an opinion is an achievement, and like maybe im not o on social media but i look at it and i know what happens there and i worry about people thinking that they can sort of define themselves earnings if its just a passing thing for a day saying im the kind of person that hates this. Say move toward what you love and try not to define yourself through that kind of negative affect of things you dont like, because its it doesnt its not productive, i guess. Maybe thats obvious. I think our time is up, and i thank you so much for coming, and please join me in thanking robin, rachel and lisa, three brilliant ladies. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]