Afropunk?

A couple of days ago I woke up in Senegal. Keem was spending the summer with his grandmother after injuring himself during the championships. A year had passed since he’d seen Nyla and he had convinced himself he was over her. Then, while touring Goree Island with his cousin and older sister Nasira, a veiled beggar girl caught Keem’s eye…it was Nyla, of course, but their reunion was short-lived because The League was still pursuing her. Roan, their best tracker, got to Nyla first and warned her to slip away. But Nyla, now in control of her power, refused to flee…

Why do I get a flood of new ideas right when I have NO TIME to write? That story continued to unfold and if I had been writing instead of dreaming it up, I might have had a third of the novel done by now. I’m going to apply for a grant to travel to Senegal next summer. And after walking away from a respectable contract for The Deep, I’m thinking about self-publishing it next year. I don’t know that any editor will understand my vision for this book–and its sequel–and no one else seems to understand why this project feels so urgent. I just know there’s a black girl out there somewhere who NEEDS this book. I needed it when I was thirteen. And I wouldn’t have understood if some publishing professional came to me and said, “We have the book you’re looking for, but we’re not going to put it out until 2015.” Last night I spent almost an hour looking at font for the cover, which will be black with Nyla’s face in 3/4 profile…

We’re going to the Afropunk Festival this year. The photos on their Facebook page show some very glamorous women, which makes me worry it will be just another NYC event for “the beautiful people.” We’ll just be three geeky black girls taking it all in…