Kai Harris, WHAT THE FIREFLIES KNEW: A Novel
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[0:41]Chi Harris is the author of What the Fireflies New, A Novel.
[0:45]I absolutely loved this novel, by the way.
[0:47]This was so good.
[0:49]Chi is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan, who uses her voice to uplift
[0:54]the black community through realistic fiction centered on the black experience.
[0:58]Her work has appeared in Guernica, Quelly Journal, Long Form, and the Killings Review
[1:02]Amongst Others.
[1:03]In addition to fiction, Chi has published poetry, personal essays, and peer-reviewed academic
[1:08]articles on topics related to black girlhood and womanhood, the slave narrative genre,
[1:12]motherhood, and black identity.
[1:14]A graduate of Western Michigan University's PhD program, Chi was a recipient of the University's
[1:19]Gwen Frostick Creative Writing Award in fiction for her short story While We Live.
[1:23]Chi now lives in the Bay Area, with her husband, three daughters, and dog Tabasco, where
[1:28]she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Santa Clara University.
[1:32]Welcome, Chi.
[1:33]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss What
[1:37]the Fireflies New.
[1:38]Thank you.
[1:39]Thank you.
[1:40]So, Chi, as you know, when I finished this book, I had to DM you right away.
[1:45]And I was sitting there with my hand over my heart, just holding your book, being like,
[1:50]wow.
[1:51]Anyway, I just had to reach out and I'm, it was so good.
[1:54]It was so, I feel like I just went on such a journey with your characters.
[1:58]And it was so emotional and just immersive and beautiful.
[2:04]Anyway, I just loved it.
[2:05]It was so good.
[2:06]Wow.
[2:07]Thank you so much.
[2:08]Thank you.
[2:09]It was really cool to get that message.
[2:11]So, thanks.
[2:12]I'm sure you get it a lot or, you know, but anyway, for my own two cents.
[2:19]Okay.
[2:20]Well, let's back up a minute.
[2:21]What the fireflies knew, please tell listeners what this is about.
[2:25]And so, the book is a coming of age story.
[2:29]It's about a young girl named Kenyatta.
[2:32]Most people call her KB and she's 10, going on 11 years old.
[2:37]And she is sent to Lansing, Michigan to go and stay for the summer with her grandfather,
[2:43]who she doesn't really know.
[2:45]But her mom brings her and her sister there after the death of their father.
[2:50]And they think they're kind of just going for a visit, but they end up staying for the summer.
[2:55]And the book is just the story of that summer of KB trying to navigate shifting relationships
[3:02]and, you know, the trauma from her father's death.
[3:06]And you know, her sister is, you know, a teenager, a new teenager and KB is trying to navigate
[3:14]the ways that their relationship is shifting.
[3:16]So it's just a lot of learning and figuring out some catching bugs, trying to make friends.
[3:22]And it's just really the story of that summer, as seen and told through through KB's
[3:28]perspective.
[3:29]Oh, I loved how at the end you were like, I didn't lose my sister.
[3:32]I found her because there was so much about the sister bond and when one grows up and the,
[3:38]like, you can just feel them sort of like magnets repelling, right, like, like come together
[3:42]and then they go apart and it's either one or the other.
[3:45]And oh my gosh, like that sisterly story at the heart of this book was so powerful and
[3:51]real.
[3:52]Oh my gosh.
[3:53]I know in the acknowledgements you said, and now I want to hear where this all sort of
[3:56]came from that this was loosely based on parts of your life and that you did.
[4:02]And I'm so sorry, lose your father.
[4:04]And then you've lost your grandfather, which then made me even more sad because I was
[4:08]this grandfather, tell me about where this book came from.
[4:11]So this book started out as a story that I wrote when I was in my master's program in
[4:17]Nashville, Tennessee.
[4:19]And when I wrote the story, the story was, was pretty based on my own experience.
[4:23]I was trying to write a story set in a place that felt really familiar to me.
[4:29]And I decided on Lansing, which is where my grandfather lived and I visited him sometimes
[4:36]during the summer.
[4:37]My relationship with my grandfather is completely different than, you know, what K-B experience.
[4:42]I visited my grandfather often and we had a really great relationship and, you know, so
[4:48]it was different in that way.
[4:49]But the setting was true.
[4:52]And in that story, there were just a couple scenes.
[4:56]There's the scene where K-B is learned to catch a firefly.
[4:59]That scene would just fill in the book was the first scene that I wrote when it was still
[5:03]a story.
[5:04]And then the scene where K-B finds a caterpillar and then wants to be a to find caterpillars
[5:09]with her.
[5:10]That was the other scene that was in the story.
[5:11]So the story was pretty much made up of just those two moments.
[5:15]And all of the plot that's in the book right now was not in the story.
[5:19]But after I wrote the story, I had several people saying to me like that they really
[5:23]loved K-B and they wanted to hear more of her story.
[5:28]So I was like, okay, maybe I'll write a book.
[5:31]But the first thing that I did pretty quickly was I wanted to move it away from my own
[5:37]personal experience.
[5:38]So for the book itself, the main thing that is, I guess autobiographical is just the setting.
[5:45]And I wanted to keep that setting of Lansing Michigan where I've been so many summers
[5:51]and K-B goes because the setting just means a lot to me.
[5:55]And it was really cool to develop a character and put her in a place that meant so much
[6:01]to me and then kind of see her fall in love with it and get to know it and that sort
[6:05]of thing.
[6:06]So that's pretty much the main thing that I would say is systems from my life.
[6:11]The rest of the book ended up becoming really fictional.
[6:14]I do have a sister, but we're not really anything like K-B and Mia.
[6:19]I've had a lot of people ask me like, oh, is this like you and your sister because
[6:22]it was like so realistic, this dynamic.
[6:25]And I think that what happens is it's easy to create that dynamic because I do know what
[6:31]it's like to have a sibling.
[6:33]And I have a sister, she's older than me, but my sister is, she's less than two years
[6:37]older than me.
[6:38]So we're really close in age, we have a really close relationship, we're still really
[6:42]close.
[6:43]So it's a bit different.
[6:44]But just like you said, that kind of feeling of no matter what happens, I need to have
[6:49]this relationship with this person because, you know, K-B and Mia, they go through everything
[6:54]together.
[6:55]Like K-B says, they share the same memories.
[6:58]They're, you know, navigating the same traumas and all of these things.
[7:01]So I guess I would say that like lots of K-B's experience is familiar to me, but it's
[7:08]not mine.
[7:09]It's not, it's not my story.
[7:11]I kind of started with a base that was mine and then wanted to create something fictional
[7:15]that would hopefully turn out to be more, more universal.
[7:19]Do you feel like now they're your friend?
[7:21]So I definitely feel like family-friends or something.
[7:25]Yeah.
[7:26]Yeah.
[7:27]It feels like they exist, it feels like they exist somewhere, you know, like K-B exists
[7:32]somewhere in the world.
[7:33]And that's really cool feeling.
[7:35]I didn't expect to get to know her as much as I did.
[7:38]I said something one time during an event and I wondered if I sounded so weird when I said
[7:43]it, but I was saying something about hearing K-B's voice or, you know, and that was the
[7:49]experience that I was having, especially in later drafts of the novel as I was continuing
[7:53]to revise.
[7:54]It became really easy for me to read over a part of the novel and then just immediately
[7:59]say, oh, K-B can say that or like, that's not the way she pops, that's not the way
[8:03]she thinks.
[8:04]So by the end of it, I was so deep into her head, she, yes, she absolutely felt like
[8:08]someone that I knew really well.
[8:11]She feels like that to me too.
[8:12]I mean, you know.
[8:13]Oh, that's great.
[8:14]I used to say, sometimes I say this and now I sound really ridiculously crazy, but like, who's
[8:20]just to say, who, like, how things get created in the universe?
[8:24]Do you know what I mean?
[8:25]Yeah.
[8:26]I don't know.
[8:27]Imagination, dreamland, reality.
[8:29]I don't know.
[8:30]There are a lot of unanswered questions.
[8:32]I feel like these characters that come out of these novels, I don't know.
[8:35]Sometimes I feel like my whole room is just like, dancing around, like little ghosts,
[8:40]you know?
[8:41]It could be.
[8:42]I wouldn't be surprised.
[8:43]Tell me about your, like, the use of language in the book because that's also beautiful
[8:49]and you obviously made a bunch of decisions on how to have the dialogue and the narration
[8:53]and all of that.
[8:54]So talk to me about that.
[8:56]So this was a big part of the project is the language and KB's voice.
[9:03]And it went through a few different stages.
[9:06]I think when I first started writing, it wasn't as fully, like, deep in KB's voice as
[9:13]it is now.
[9:14]I think that originally I was a bit nervous and I wasn't sure how it would be received
[9:20]to have the whole story, like, first person perspective from this young black girl.
[9:25]And everything is through her voice.
[9:27]Everything is just the way that she speaks.
[9:29]And I didn't know how that would come across.
[9:31]One of my really big inspirations when I was writing this book was, their eyes were watching
[9:35]God by Zora Neohurston, which that book, KB actually picks up and reads that at one
[9:40]point in the novel.
[9:42]And I had to read that book because it meant so much to me as I was writing.
[9:46]And in that novel, that's one of the first books that I had ever read.
[9:51]That was so immersive in terms of voice and language.
[9:55]And I remember reading it.
[9:58]And it was interesting because I...
[10:00]It could imagine that for some readers,
[10:02]it'd be really hard, like difficult to follow, right?
[10:05]Like, okay, you know, some, and because it wasn't just,
[10:08]it wasn't just grammar or, or, but not,
[10:11]it was like words that were spelled differently, right?
[10:14]To show the way that they're being spoken.
[10:17]And I really fell in love with that.
[10:19]This, this idea of just like,
[10:22]displaying it so authentically as it is.
[10:25]And I wanted to do that.
[10:27]And, and another thing that happened was,
[10:28]I had a mentor who had read an early version of the book
[10:33]and she saw that I was, at the time,
[10:37]I was shying away from like going all in.
[10:41]And so I was like doing these little things
[10:43]to indicate that like, KB says it this way,
[10:47]but that's not the way that it should be said.
[10:49]And my mentor was like, why are you doing that?
[10:51]You don't have to explain yourself.
[10:53]You don't have to explain KB or the way that she speaks.
[10:56]How she speaks is how she speaks
[10:57]to put it on the page like you want it to be.
[11:00]And that really, really changed things for me.
[11:03]And after that point,
[11:04]I just stayed so committed again to just hearing her voice,
[11:08]excuse me, hearing her voice and putting it down
[11:10]on the page as it was.
[11:13]And it's a really cool experience
[11:14]because to me, that's like what makes the book,
[11:19]what it is.
[11:19]It's, you know, I wanted to, to create this,
[11:22]what I referred to as this unfiltered black girlhood experience.
[11:26]And I say unfiltered because we are in the first person
[11:29]where present tense everything's so immediate.
[11:31]The reader doesn't know much that KB doesn't know.
[11:34]Everything is just the way that she sees it,
[11:37]the way that she experiences it.
[11:38]There's no filter.
[11:39]We're right there and we're just seeing the world
[11:41]through the eyes of this character.
[11:43]So yeah, those were some really tough decisions to make
[11:46]because honestly, I didn't know how it would be received.
[11:50]And, you know, that's probably gonna be something
[11:52]that I'll continue to think about and worry about,
[11:54]even now after the book is in the world.
[11:56]But I've had enough people say to be such kind,
[12:00]and amazing things about KB's voice specifically
[12:03]that I think that I think that I made the right choice.
[12:06]You totally made the right choice.
[12:07]You know, it's literature, right?
[12:09]It feels like a work of literature being so immersive this way.
[12:14]And it was beautiful.
[12:16]It was like, I had, it's like, like I was visiting Canada
[12:20]or so.
[12:20]It was like, you just have to get used to it on the page
[12:23]for two seconds.
[12:24]And then you're in it.
[12:25]Then you're in her head.
[12:26]You get the whole thing.
[12:27]But it makes it all the more powerful, I think.
[12:29]I thought it was great.
[12:30]Yeah. Thank you.
[12:31]Thank you.
[12:32]The Canada, that was not a good analogy at all.
[12:34]Forget, I even said that.
[12:35]I don't know.
[12:36]Sometimes I say the wrong things.
[12:38]I think it worked really well from older people.
[12:39]I literally just said, let me just say that.
[12:42]Right, right.
[12:43]There were so many passages that I dogeared
[12:46]and that I loved the things about her mom.
[12:48]And what you were saying also about not finding out,
[12:51]because as the reader, I didn't know,
[12:53]like we don't know why her mom has gotten.
[12:56]We don't know what happened with her mom and her grandfather.
[12:58]We don't know.
[12:58]And so you have to keep reading
[13:00]and getting the clues and figuring it out.
[13:02]And like, I'm thinking, you know,
[13:04]it's like that show like,
[13:05]are you smarter than a third grader?
[13:06]Or something?
[13:07]And I'm like, can I figure this out before she does?
[13:10]You know, I think I had my whole chance.
[13:11]Yeah, you know, but maybe I was wrong.
[13:14]I'm so happy you said that
[13:15]because that was what I was hoping for.
[13:17]You know, I mean, because I wanted it to be the case
[13:19]that we as adult readers experience,
[13:23]what it's like trying to gather information as a child.
[13:27]You know, you don't get anything,
[13:29]but the same breadcrumbs that KB gets.
[13:31]And so, you know, I wanted to kind of really highlight
[13:35]this reality that like our kids are like right there
[13:40]and they're in the middle of these things
[13:41]and they're noticing things and they have questions.
[13:44]And I wanted to kind of put the reader in that in their shoes
[13:48]to say like, I put these upside about me.
[13:51]Oh, but to put the reader in their shoes and say, you know,
[13:55]okay, I don't know exactly what's going on.
[13:57]I have this piece of information.
[13:59]I have this piece of information.
[14:00]Maybe this is what's happening in KB
[14:02]is going through that same process as well.
[14:05]It's like, it's like watching a movie,
[14:08]but the whole time the camera's at the height of the trial.
[14:10]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[14:12]We never get like the whole thing, right?
[14:15]We just get this point of view
[14:17]and then you have to make sense of everything.
[14:19]Absolutely.
[14:20]The parts on loss and love and loss and, oh my gosh,
[14:24]I mean, especially written as if it was KB's loss
[14:29]and how a child makes sense of loss.
[14:31]Oh my gosh, there is this one thing that Granddaddy says
[14:34]if I could read this like time to the little part.
[14:36]You're welcome, Granddaddy says,
[14:37]because she says thank you for every birthday.
[14:39]He pauses and continues, you know,
[14:41]it's good to talk about the people that's gone can Yara.
[14:43]Now I'm positive he can read my mind.
[14:45]Granddaddy fixes his eyes right on my eyes.
[14:47]I concentrate on the dark spots as he talks
[14:49]to keep from looking away.
[14:51]When we lose someone we love,
[14:52]it's easy to just pretend they was never there
[14:55]to try and make it easier,
[14:56]but it don't work because they was there.
[14:58]And now you got a big ol' hole
[15:00]where that person used to be.
[15:01]Granddaddy reaches across the table
[15:03]and taps his finger against my shirt right above my heart
[15:06]and moves his hand toward mine like he'd gone grab it,
[15:08]but he don't.
[15:09]You got to fill that hole with the memories,
[15:12]else you might lose him for good.
[15:13]Granddaddy don't say nothing else after that.
[15:16]So neither do I.
[15:21]All right, so sweet, right?
[15:23]And it's all about how she's willing to talk about things
[15:26]and maybe other people have a life where I'm not,
[15:28]you know, I don't want to give anything away.
[15:29]And not that, you know, it's such a plot subject.
[15:32]I mean, it happens in the beginning,
[15:33]but just that feeling, right,
[15:36]that everybody has,
[15:37]how do you talk about the person that you lose?
[15:40]Are you afraid to bring them up?
[15:41]You know, will the memories just get lost?
[15:43]What if you never talk about them?
[15:45]I don't know.
[15:47]You know, that was another thing I really wanted to explore
[15:50]is just the way that grief works in this family
[15:54]and just showing that like everyone is dealing
[15:58]with the grief and the loss and the trauma differently.
[16:02]All of them are and KB is it's throwing her off
[16:07]that other people don't want to do the same things
[16:11]that she feels like she needs to do, to heal,
[16:14]to move forward or to keep moving forward.
[16:16]She's like, well, obviously we need to do this
[16:19]in order to feel better,
[16:21]in order to keep these memories,
[16:23]which she's very confused because, you know,
[16:26]her older sister or her mom,
[16:27]like she's seeing people deal with this differently.
[16:30]And I think that that's the way that it goes, you know,
[16:33]at least in my experience.
[16:35]And I'm sure lots of other people's experiences is,
[16:38]we all kind of need different things in those moments.
[16:41]And, you know, there's no straightforward,
[16:44]like here's what's going to work, you know?
[16:47]And I wanted to show what that looks like
[16:50]for one family in particular,
[16:52]to just see them all grappling with this.
[16:56]But also to really show the ways that they can help each other
[17:01]if they let themselves like be open to it
[17:05]because, you know, something that's interesting is KB,
[17:09]you know, she at the beginning of the novel,
[17:11]she kind of thinks that she's going to just do things
[17:14]the way that everyone wants her to do them.
[17:16]And she's understanding the rules of her family.
[17:18]And she's like, oh, we don't talk about this.
[17:21]And we don't show emotions in these ways.
[17:23]And, you know, so she's kind of,
[17:25]she's kind of trying to tell herself
[17:27]that she's going to follow the rules of the family
[17:29]and just kind of, you know, do things the way other people
[17:32]do them.
[17:33]But then she doesn't do that.
[17:34]For the whole rest of the novel, she doesn't do that.
[17:36]She does things her way and the way that she needs to do them
[17:41]for her own healing for her own journey.
[17:44]But what ends up happening is she affects other people
[17:48]through doing that, you know,
[17:50]she shows the people in her life another way to grieve
[17:55]another way to navigate, you know,
[17:57]she takes granddaddy's demeanor
[18:00]and she gives him different options.
[18:03]And she shows him that, you know,
[18:05]even if you've done something that you regret,
[18:08]you can still get back from that.
[18:10]And here's how.
[18:11]And here are the ways that you can still connect
[18:13]even if it feels scary.
[18:15]And she shows Mia, you know,
[18:17]yeah, maybe it feels easier to run away,
[18:20]but here's what could happen if you stop running away.
[18:23]And here's what could happen if you talk about things.
[18:26]And if you give something to people when they need it.
[18:30]So, you know, in that way, KB almost functions
[18:33]as a bit of a guide in her family.
[18:37]And she's the youngest person,
[18:38]but she's, you know, she's shifting away
[18:41]from what has been handed down to her
[18:45]in terms of like, here's how we deal with things.
[18:47]And she's saying, you know,
[18:49]but that doesn't help me feel better.
[18:51]So I'm going to try a different way.
[18:53]And it ends up impacting everyone.
[18:55]Well, I love how you handled it.
[18:58]It was really, it's all, you know,
[18:59]another really amazing thing I thought about the book
[19:03]was the role of books in the book
[19:05]and the role of books in KB's life.
[19:07]And you start off by talking about Anne of Green Gables.
[19:10]And that really takes you all the way through to the end.
[19:12]And it's like this narrative through line, if you will.
[19:15]And even the way libraries affect her.
[19:18]And when she stops in it libraries
[19:19]and how libraries have helped her,
[19:21]how they helped her family when they were out in between homes
[19:26]and how it helped her when she had that one moment
[19:28]where she had to regroup if you will.
[19:30]And all the books that helped her
[19:31]and her mother's love of reading and all of that.
[19:34]And you don't often see young characters in books
[19:39]with such a huge focus on reading.
[19:42]So tell me, tell me about that sort of decision.
[19:46]And I'm assuming I should do it.
[19:48]And was this how you were as a child?
[19:51]Yeah, you're assumptions, right?
[19:53]Okay, okay, yeah.
[19:54]I loved books growing up and I would choose to be at the house.
[20:00]up over during almost anything else. I was a child. I mean, you know, I would still choose that
[20:05]by the way. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it was, it was rough because my sister would be like,
[20:12]come outside. We're doing this amazing thing. Like, why are you in the house? And I'm like,
[20:16]but like here's what's going on in my book right now. And I don't know that like she understood
[20:21]that like for me, those things were happening too. And I was like in those worlds, and I was in
[20:27]it was really hard. I put it down and just go do something else. So yeah, so it absolutely
[20:34]is authentic for me as well. I want it KB to have a love of books because several things. I mean,
[20:42]first of all, I gave it to her because it was something of mine that was again special to me,
[20:48]and I wanted her to have that true as well. But I think it also explains a lot about her personality,
[20:53]you know, the way that she speaks, the way that she sees the world. It has a lot to do with the
[20:57]ways that she's, you know, she's, she becomes really in, and I don't want to say, I don't want
[21:03]to say obsessed with this idea, but she's, she's overly concerned with this concept of like a perfect
[21:09]family. She, you know, she imagines what things should be like. And she tries to figure out how
[21:15]she can, you know, create that for herself or for her own family. So that's, you know, all a part of it.
[21:21]I loved what I was able to, I loved what I was able to have her think about and experience
[21:26]because of the books that she was reading. It wasn't intentional, actually. When I, when I first
[21:31]started writing, I, I got to that, you know, so I'm in the first chapter and she was reading a book
[21:37]in the vaccine of the cars. They were driving the Lansing. And I just picked Anne of Green Gables
[21:43]because Anne of Green Gables was my favorite book when I was that age. And I just gave her my favorite
[21:49]book. I wasn't thinking anything about themes or like how this is going to connect to anything
[21:54]else later. I just needed her to have something to read. But as I was writing, and she kept reading
[22:00]this book, I, so I still have an old copy of Anne of Green Gables. So I was kind of going back through
[22:06]and then I'm realizing like, look at what she's reading right now. How would she think about this?
[22:11]How would this connect to, in her mind, to everything that she's going through? And there
[22:17]were so many connections. And so I was able to, you know, kind of thread that through.
[22:22]But also it was, it was important for me to show that like as now progresses, she also starts
[22:27]to notice the ways that she's not just like the characters in her books. And, you know, it's
[22:32]important for her when she picks up their eyes or watching God, you know, from Grand Daddy's
[22:36]bookshelf and she starts feeding it and she notices things that feel a bit more familiar to her
[22:41]in terms of, you know, the way that the characters speak and what the characters look like. And,
[22:46]you know, she notices like, okay, well, obviously this character becomes an adult. And, you know,
[22:51]there are things that aren't exactly like my life. But she can also see some reminders of her mother.
[22:56]And so I think it's important because just as I was saying that Anne of Green Gables was my
[23:01]favorite book growing up, I kind of also had this moment of noticing like these are the ways
[23:08]that things are different. Because for a long time, I would read these books. And I would be like,
[23:12]oh, I pushed my life looked like this. And it was interesting what I was meaning to myself when
[23:18]I was saying that. But a lot of times it was about whiteness because I imagined that being white
[23:25]would automatically create certain, you know, circumstances in my life. I loved the secret garden
[23:33]as well when I was growing up. And I just like imagined that if I was white, I would have had
[23:39]like a castle and a garden. I don't know. I was just like, here's where the issue is.
[23:46]And that's obviously problematic, right? We don't want kids to grow up thinking that there's
[23:50]anything wrong with their lives. We want them to see their lives represented, see themselves represented.
[23:54]So I wanted to show some of that in KB's journey. And, you know, Anne of Green Gables is
[24:00]always going to be your favorite book. You know, she loves that book and she learns a lot about
[24:03]herself and her circumstances in the world around her through reading that book. But I think it's
[24:09]really cool as she starts to pick up other books. And she is able to deepen her understanding of herself
[24:15]and of her family and realize like, oh, yeah. Okay. My experience is a normal experience. My
[24:23]experience is a valid experience. You know, where things are different for different people and
[24:29]they're still good there. So yeah, you know, that's one of my favorite parts about the book, too,
[24:34]is how many other books are in the book. So I'm glad that you asked about that.
[24:37]I literally, I just wrote this memoir. It's coming out in July. And I reference all the
[24:42]congratulations. Thank you. I have so many other books that I mentioned that were so important to
[24:46]me growing up and through my life that I have a whole like book list at the end. Like a reading list.
[24:51]Yeah. Originally, I wanted to put it on, yeah, I'll just say this is so random. I don't even know
[24:56]what I'm doing this. I found this, uh, this was like my reading list from school. Oh, wow.
[25:03]I took like all my things from 1986. I'm much older than you. I'm sure. So anyway, first
[25:08]my mom had to write it and then I wrote it. Isn't that crazy? It's like, wow. Anyway, that's
[25:14]really cool that you still have that. I know, you know, my mom saved it and just gave it to me.
[25:18]So it's all credit to her. But yeah, that's, I kind of wanted it to be formatted that way,
[25:23]but that was too hard. But anyway, um, but yes, the books that we that mean a lot really
[25:28]highlight certain periods of time and bring back the whole thing. So yeah, I absolutely love that
[25:34]in your, in your story. I feel like KB, I would like to find out what happens next summer.
[25:40]Do you think you could maybe do like little short stories for subsequent summers? I think that
[25:44]would be so neat. Maybe it's like, you know, 10 different summers or, you know, I want to watch
[25:49]her grow up. Yeah, you know, I'm going to see her grow up as well. So I don't know. We'll see what
[25:55]happens. I right now, I, so I've been still writing a lot and I, I think that what I'm just
[26:05]really interested in right now, I just keep being drawn to writing these stories about Black girls
[26:10]and Black women, but at different kind of stages of life. And that's been really interesting to me.
[26:14]The, the, the book I wrote right after this book is from the perspective of a 15 year old Black
[26:20]girl who is in high school and navigating a situation there. And it's in some ways very different
[26:26]than this book. But in some ways, it's still that that experience. There are certainly some,
[26:31]some commonalities. So that's been really cool. And then I've, you know, started writing something
[26:37]that's told from the perspective of a slightly older Black woman who's, you know, young 20s.
[26:41]And it's, you know, I think that eventually I, I really want to write books for children as well.
[26:48]You know, I think that I just, I'm just really immersed in this, this, this viewpoint of just
[26:56]wanting to show and tell these stories from the perspectives of Black girls and women and just
[27:02]staying as authentic to their voice and their, their viewpoint on the world as, as I possibly can.
[27:09]There's something really precious about telling those, telling these stories. So, but I, I can imagine
[27:16]that KB might come back around. I love her. It's, you know, it's very endearing to me that this is
[27:23]my debut novel. I'm really happy that this is my debut novel because at some point, I almost
[27:30]gave up on this particular book. You know, I was, I was trying to find an agent for a long time with
[27:36]and then I found an agent, you know, things went well from there. But before that point, it had been
[27:41]years. And I had said, like I kept saying out loud, you know, I don't think that this book was meant
[27:50]to, to sell or to do anything or to go anywhere and to be on shelves. I think this was just like
[27:56]something that I really needed to write for me. And I thought that because it was so personal.
[28:02]The journey of writing it, the fact that it came from a setting that was so authentic to me. And
[28:06]that I, you know, hid little pieces of myself and KB's character. So it felt really personal.
[28:11]And I thought maybe that was it. Maybe that was the point of me writing this. And it was the
[28:16]first time I wrote a novel. And I was like, yeah, okay, that's what this was for. But, you know,
[28:23]having that not be the case instead having this be my debut novel is so amazing because it's
[28:30]always no matter what else I write, no matter what else I do, this will be my first novel. And
[28:34]it's KB story. And that's so precious to you because I love her so much. So it's amazing.
[28:40]I interviewed Phoebe Robinson on the podcast about, you know, her book. And I was so excited to see
[28:46]what was going to come out of her publishing company. And now, and this is just so exciting. This is
[28:51]great. Did you have the best time working with her? Oh my gosh. It's been amazing. It's, you know,
[28:57]I keep saying like, it's a dream come true. And I can't think of anything better than that
[29:01]cliche because that's just all I keep thinking about. Phoebe's amazing. I still to this moment
[29:07]every time I am in her presence, I'm fairly. And so I at this point just ain't what it is. And you
[29:16]know, everyone has to accept it. But she's just so I just can't get over it. And the fact that she
[29:23]started this imprint. And then like, wanted my book as her first fiction title just really blew my
[29:31]mind. I just believe so much in the vision of the imprint and what she's intending to do.
[29:38]The team at tiny tiny reparations has been amazing. It's been so cool to be able to work with,
[29:44]you know, my editor is a black woman. That was such an amazing experience, you know, feeling like
[29:51]I didn't. I didn't feel like I had to explain myself in ways that I was expecting to have
[29:56]but it had to defend choices in ways that I was expecting to have to.
[30:00]And that was such a being experienced.
[30:02]It's just been amazing, you know?
[30:04]Maybe it's amazing that the team is amazing.
[30:07]And, you know, I hope that I'll be able to work with them again.
[30:12]So great.
[30:13]Well, I hope you're entering all the awards
[30:15]because I'm serious.
[30:18]This is a, it should win something.
[30:20]It's, it's thank you.
[30:22]It's great.
[30:22]Thank you so much.
[30:23]All right, well, thank you so much for coming on.
[30:25]And thank you for this really memorable read.
[30:28]I'm gonna be like recommending it now
[30:29]that I've finished it.
[30:30]Sorry it's late, but sometimes I can't get to books
[30:33]before they come out.
[30:34]So absolutely.
[30:35]No, I really appreciate that.
[30:37]And I was so excited to talk to you today.
[30:39]So thanks for having me.
[30:40]My pleasure.
[30:41]All right, take care.
[30:42]Bye.
[30:43]Bye.
[30:45]Hi, I'm Sydney Owens.
[30:46]And you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[30:49]Moms don't have time to read books.
[30:51]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology
[30:54]called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[30:56]Check it out and you'll hear from 49 authors
[30:59]about all sorts of things Moms don't have time to do.
[31:01]All the authors have been on this podcast.
[31:03]Also, check out my TikTok at with Zippy and Tracy.
[31:06]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Zippy and Tracy.
[31:09]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[31:12]And of course, my new publishing company called Zippy Books.
[31:16]And now back to our daily author interview site
[31:18]and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[31:20]Hi, hi, hello.
[31:22]Enjoy the show.