go west

Morning!  I’m still a bit groggy, and it’s a gloomy sort of day here in Brooklyn, but I think I’d better jot down my thoughts before they evaporate like the fog.  This was my first trip to the west coast of the United States; I’ve been to Vancouver, and so the landscape in Oregon was fairly familiar, but this trip still felt like an adventure.  I never realized it took so long to cross the continent–nearly the same amount of time it takes to cross the Atlantic!  The time change makes it seem longer, I suppose, so I was a little tired when I got off the plane and really appreciated the warm welcome I received from Bill (the student sent to pick me up).  He had a big smile and held a paper with my name written on it–how sweet!  It took nearly an hour to drive to Salem, and so we talked politics and race and literature–Bill’s working on his first novel!  I was nowhere near able to write a novel when I was a sophomore.  His intelligence and optimism made me feel hopeful about the future of the country.  My own students give me hope, too, but I’m never sure how representative they really are of young adults across the country.  I had time to shower and eat at the hotel (shouldn’t have had quesadillas, but wanted something quick off the room service menu), and then Bill returned to pick me up–bearing a dozen yellow roses.  Olympia thought of everything–stressed as she is, she was such a gracious host.  Bill led me over to the campus library, and at the entrance was a big poster featuring a photo of me, an image of Bird, and all of our awards–plus excerpts of the most complimentary reviews Bird has received.

Strangely enough, I got really nervous before my presentation; I’m not sure why–I thought I had conquered my fear of public speaking, especially when it comes to my own books.  How many presentations have I given on Bird?  Dozens, I think.  Yet this presentation was different–in part b/c my good friend Olympia Vernon had invited me, and she’s an astonishing writer, so perhaps I was intimidated by her creative genius (if you haven’t already, check out her amazing novels: Eden, Logic, and A Killing in This Town).  It was also my first time reading from A Wish After Midnight, and I didn’t take time to practice beforehand, and stumbled over a couple of phrases.  I was nervous, which never makes for a smooth reading.  And I didn’t have my trusty powerpoint presentation to back me up!  I’ve become very dependent on visual images, I realize, and not having slides to turn to left me at a loss at times…especially when talking about illustrated children’s books or television shows–I think my words fell flat.  I read a little from my paper, and then just started to improvise and then read a few pages of Bird, but it felt strange reading a picture book at a podium to a dozen seated adults.  Olympia passed around some extra copies of Bird so they could see the illustrations, and then I switched gears and started talking about “Afro-urban magic,” the Door of No Return, portals, and time travel.  I chose a section of AWAM that I thought was quite good, but as I read, I noticed a couple of yawners in the audience; I kept reading, trying to make the text *sound* compelling, and was relieved to finally reach the end of the chapter.  I often give a talk and then walk away feeling like it was a disaster–or feeling like I don’t have a sense of how it went; this talk in Oregon was no different.  One woman came up at the end and said she could have listened to me read all night!  So were the yawns about general end-of-semester fatigue, and not about me?  Had that student been out in the sun all day (it was over 80 degrees in OR), and perhaps was fatigued from playing frisbee?  Maybe that chapter just isn’t as good as I thought.  I think I need to practice reading from the novel, and perhaps find a better way to set up the selection and/or couple it with something else.  I did sell a few books–Olympia declared my memoir, Stranger in the Family, was the best memoir she’d ever read!  But I had only brought two copies…I never think of Americans being all that interested in my life story.  I figure Canadians ought to be drawn to the book, but apparently I’m wrong about that, too!  I just booked a flight to Toronto, and will head up there in early June.  I’m hoping to meet with a literary critic who specializes in black Canadian authors.  Maybe she’ll have some ideas on how to get the book circulating up in the “Great White North.”  The best part of my trip to Oregon was having a chance to hang out with Olympia…thank God for my black women artist friends!  We don’t have exact experiences or backgrounds, but we are on the same path, hitting the same bumps, searching for the same beauty and validation along the way.  After the talk at the library we went to dinner and talked about what our lives might be like outside of the academy.  In some ways, being affiliated with a college lends your work legitimacy; but then, academics often pooh-pooh creative writing, and merely pat you on the head with a smarmy, “Oh, you write for children?  How nice!”  The academy wants to be inclusive and diverse, but it isn’t built to accommodate or appreciate REAL difference.  It has to adhere to its own standards in order to maintain its exclusivity and authority…many administrators think that, at least.  So it’s time to jump out of that box.  Many, many thanks to Olympia for inviting me to Willamette University, and thanks to those who turned out to hear my talk and share their thoughts on birds, hybridity, and home.