 Welcome to our interview show in which we interview LGBTQ guests who are important contributors to our community. We want to acknowledge that All Things LGBTQ is produced at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. Enjoy the show. Hi, All Things LGBTQ audience. I would like to and I'm very excited. We haven't had that many international interviews, so I am really excited to welcome Richard Zimler to our audience. Hi, Richard. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me. And you're in Porto, Portugal. Absolutely. It's a beautiful sunny afternoon here and that's where I am. All right. So, how did you get to Portugal from Roslyn Heights, New York? I know you have that you went to school in the States. You have a bachelor's degree in comparative religion from Duke and a master's degree in journalism from Stanford, right? Exactly. And the story of how I came to Portugal begins in San Francisco, actually. I was living out there, starting in the late 70s, and I walked into a cafe one day, the cafe floor, which is on Market Street in the Castro. And I saw this really handsome man across the cafe and I stayed there and he looked at me and I looked at him. And after a little while, I found enough courage to go up and talk to him. And we've been together for 42 years. His name's Alex. Yeah, we got lucky. Alex Quintanillas, a Portuguese scientist from Mozambique, Africa, which was a Portuguese colony. And after we met, you know, things just clicked and we've been together ever since. We were able to get married in Portugal in 2010. So, now we're married, officially, not living in sin. And so, how I got here? Well, in the 1980s, as I'm sure you and your viewers recall, AIDS hit the Bay Area very hard. It was the only topic of discussion for a while. And everyone was talking about a friend, a family member, cousin and uncle who was dying with AIDS. Very hard time for everybody. At the same time, one of my older brothers got sick with AIDS back in New York. I'm talking about like 1987, 88. He had opportunistic infections. I managed his illness from a distance in some way because he couldn't do it himself. You know, I was talking with doctors and researchers and family and friends trying to organize things. And when he died on May 6, 1989, I was left very traumatized. And I couldn't seem to go on with my life. And it was Alex, my now husband from Mozambique, who said, you know, we need to go someplace where people are talking about something other than AIDS. I really couldn't handle it at that point. And he had received an invitation to teach at one of the medical schools here in Porto. And I was able to get a job teaching journalism, which is my background, as you mentioned. And we moved to 1990 to start over somewhere new. And it worked. Coming to Portugal saved my life. That's pretty interesting and impressive story about AIDS and your brother. I was in San Francisco, I believe around the same time as you. And you had some work. You did some work with Harvey and you knew Harvey Milk. Yeah. Well, you know, when I moved to San Francisco, I moved in with an old friend of mine from junior high and high school. We got an apartment in the Castro. At that time, Harvey had his camera store still with Scott, his ex-lover. And we used to, you know, develop our film there, strangely enough. My friend Carol took a lot of photos. So we were always in and out of the camera shop. And Harvey was already a city councilman, but he would come down to the Castro for lunch or to see friends, you know, and get away from the politics for a little while. And so I often saw Harvey in the shop and then just saw him walking around in the neighborhood. I wouldn't say we were friends, but we knew each other. We talked to each other. Occasionally rode the bus with him. And he was always extremely kind and friendly and funny with me. Nice guy. Really nice person. And when he died, we were all absolutely in total shock. And you know, it was such an intense time to be there. Yeah. Just politically, emotionally. Absolutely. The whole thing. It seemed to be like the epicenter of what was going on in. Well, few people, few young gay and lesbians will probably remember, but there was a possibility that no gay people would be allowed to teach in California. There was a referendum put to the people. And I worked on that campaign under Harvey's leadership and other people. And it was defeated. Thank goodness. But the threats to gay people and their rights were, you know, at a level that I don't think young gay and lesbian people would even grasp today. I know. Although, you know, the way things are going, at least in the States, you know, we could be back to that point pretty quickly. Unfortunately. So Richard, you received the 2009 Alberto Benvenista literary prize in France for the novel Guardian of the Dawn. The prize was given to novels that have to do with Sephardic Jewish culture or history. It was awarded to you at a ceremony at the savant in January 2009. Very impressive. So how many books have you written? That's a good question. I sometimes forget, because they come out in different places at different times. So it's very hard to keep track. But I believe I've written 12 novels and six children's books. I write the novels in English. That's my maternal language, obviously, my, you know, I grew up in the States, and I write the children's books in Portuguese. It's a new adventure for me, my adopted country. And I have a collection of short stories that's come out in Portugal, but that hasn't come out in America or Britain. And I have another novel that'll come out in America and Great Britain in May of next year, I believe. Okay. And when did you start writing? Did you always know that you wanted to be a writer? I know you were a journalist. Right. But, you know, like, what was your idea for your first novel? Get there. You know, I was when I was a little kid, you know, I wanted to be a baseball star. And then when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a rock star, you know, I didn't grow up thinking I'm going to be a writer, but it was always in the back of my mind. I liked reading. I liked writing poetry when I was a little kid. My mom used to save my poems. And then I guess I got serious about it when I went back to university and did a masters in journalism at Stanford. I was interested in journalism, but I always knew that my real goal was to write novels. But I lacked the confidence, like so many young people. So I studied journalism in part to learn the tools of writing, you know, a sentence, a paragraph, the rhythm of a sentence, the sound of words, how to put words together poetically, how to create a whole narrative that sticks together and that just isn't aren't pieces put together. And so in 1989, I had an idea for a first novel, which eventually became The Last Cabalist to Lisbon, which became a best seller in 13 different countries, and it was an amazing story. And it's based on a true story. It's based on a riot that occurred in Lisbon in April of 1506, in which 2,000 forcibly converted Jews were murdered and burnt in the main square, the main square that's still at the heart of Lisbon. And nobody knew about this in Portugal because countries have a tendency to whitewash or completely forget their crimes against humanity. I mean, I don't know about you, but growing up in the USA, we didn't spend more than an hour or two talking about Native American history, their music, their culture, nothing. Or Jewish, even. Or Jewish. Yeah. So countries tend to forget the bad things about their history. So when I discovered that this pogrom, this riot, this anti-Semitic riot occurred, and that nobody knew about it or wanted to talk about it, I have a very subversive personality. When people would prefer to forget crimes against humanity, I get very enthusiastic. It makes probably a pretty perverse part of my personality. But so anyway, I did the research because I needed to know what daily life was like in Portugal back then, at the beginning of the 16th century. That took a year. Then I wrote the book. That took two years. And then nobody in the United States wanted to publish it because, as you know, we Americans have a geographical problem. We think that the world begins in Maine and Florida ends in California and Hawaii. So Lisbon 1506 was off everybody's radar. And they were probably thinking, oh, who cares? But you know, lots of people. That's right. But readers care. It's a problem of literary editors who lack the confidence in readers. And so I had a crazy idea, which was to show the manuscript written in English to a Portuguese publisher to make a long story very short. She loved it. She published it in April of 1996. It went straight to number one on the bestseller list. And that's why I have a career. If she hadn't taken a risk on a completely unknown author on me writing about a topic that no Portuguese person wanted to know about, then maybe I wouldn't have a career. But it touched a chord in Portugal. People were very curious. They'd never heard about their own Jewish history. And suddenly there was this book out there, very well researched, based on a true event that they could read. And so, you know, my Portuguese readers are extremely loyal and have supported me ever since. And that's probably why I have a career. Well, and a good career. Thank you. And so I know you write a lot about Judaism as it has seems to have a central in a lot of your writing. And why do you think you're drawn to that? I mean, I know you're Jewish, but I mean, why do you feel, you know, you're drawn to that particular subject? I think there's a few reasons. When I grew up, I thought that Judaism was passe. It was not of any interest to me because all I knew of Judaism was bar mitzvahs and, you know, weddings and superficial things. I was very stupid. So I studied Hinduism and Buddhism and Sufism and everything, but Judaism. And then I realized when I read a scholar whom I would recommend to everybody, Gershom Shalom, who single-handedly rediscovered Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and made it accessible to non-experts. And he's got a wonderful writer with a great depth of understanding. And when I read his books, I realized what a fool I'd been that Judaism has this huge, glorious history of mythology, this tradition of wonderful storytelling, both in the Old Testament and elsewhere. And I started to read all that. And so what brought me to Judaism was its mystical aspects, Kabbalah, and also storytelling. I really love reading the ancient, you know, myths. It's mythology that turns me on. You know, I have a lot of rabbi friends now because of the books, and I have to tell them, you know, I'm not interested in the rules and regulations. I'm not interested in who I should sleep with or, you know, what foods I need to eat or any of that. And so if you're going to be friends with me, you'll have to forgive me because I love Jewish history and I love Jewish culture and I love Jewish mythology, but I don't need any sermons. And the rabbis I know are very open-minded and wonderful, and they share the same interests with me, and so it's great. And then the other thing that interests me so much about Judaism is the persecution. You know, we've been persecuted pretty much everywhere we've lived, whether it's England, France, Portugal, Spain, there's been riots, mass murders, even in the United States, anti-Semitism was rampant back in the 1920s and 1930s and it's still rampant among the militia and the Ku Klux Klan and other groups. And because of this persecution, Jews are outsiders, and I love the position, the perspective of being an outsider. I like being gay and writing about that. I like being Jewish and writing from that perspective. I think it gives me a view over history, over my characters that I wouldn't otherwise have if I weren't an outsider, weren't persecuted. Yeah, I think that's really interesting and I think it's important for people to read and know about, even people who are Jewish probably don't know a lot about some of the cultural, you know, I mean, so I think it's really important work. Your new book, The Gospel According to Lazarus, you got one? Can you show us? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about this book. Well, it's strangely enough it relates to my brother's death in a way because after he died I had a very strange dream in which I saw him walking on an outdoor patio of a huge mansion and I was in the mansion looking down at him and I thought he's alive. He hasn't died. I need to talk to him. So I ran outside and I started talking to him and he could speak but he lacked all the emotions that he had in life. All he could feel was sadness. All he could feel was a kind of morose quietness, his enthusiasm, his dynamism, his intelligence. He knew he'd no longer had it so he was very sad. And after I woke up from this dream and I had it several times after he died, I started thinking a lot about the story of Lazarus because as we know from the New Testament and the Gospel of John, Lazarus is brought back to life by Jesus. And I thought, wow, I later realized that this was probably my greatest wish in life to bring my brother back in life at the time I didn't understand that. But I started researching the New Testament and the story of Lazarus and life in the Holy Land 2000 years ago and I became fascinated with the story, what it would be like to wake up in your tomb and be told you were dead. And of course you wouldn't believe it. But slowly, your sisters and your best friend Jesus would explain to you what happened. And so that's the first chapter of my novel, is he wakes up in his tomb completely disoriented, very fragile, and his sisters, we know he had two sisters from the Gospel of John tell him you were dead. And the worst thing for him is he's lost his faith because he was always told that he would see heaven and God and maybe angels. And here he is and he remembers nothing. And he turns to his best friend from childhood in my version, their childhood friends, Yeshua Ben Yoseph, I use their Hebrew names because part of the goal in my book was to give back to Jesus and Lazarus their Judaism. They were Jewish. Jesus never renounced his Judaism. And so he discusses with his best friend what's happened to him. And the rest of the novel takes off from there, what happens to Lazarus, what happens to Jesus, and the sacrifice that Lazarus must make to try to save his friend. Interesting. In a moment, I'm going to ask you to read something from that novel. But I'd like to ask you first though, before we do that, is what were your writing influences? I mean, what brought you to this space that you seem to acquire really nicely? Well, like most American kids, when I was little, I read comic books, and then I read the young adult literature we have, everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Phantom Tollbooth, all those great books we have. And as an adult, I discovered Dostoevsky very early. He became an influence. William Faulkner taught me how to write. I studied his novel Light and August very carefully, by myself, and learned how he kept my attention without any tricks, without any car chases or gratuitous sex scenes or children kidnapped. I want to learn how he did that. And Willa Cather is a huge influence. I think an underrated American writer, probably because she was a woman, writing in a rural context. Willa Cather's novels are still completely readable and up to date, whereas some other writers, they seem so antiquated. They seem to be talking about things that have nothing to do with our time now. But I would highly recommend all of Willa Cather's novels, especially My Antonia, which is one of the most beautiful books any American or anyone has ever written. And so, you know, when I have other influences like everybody else from Saul Bellow, Phillip Roth, Jane Austen, I try to write as well as they do. I probably fail, but you know, that's my goal is to write beautiful books. And when do you write? When do I write? Well, COVID has changed a little bit about that. I used to write in the mornings because I was more alert. I'm a morning person, you know, I was very dynamic and alert and could focus. But COVID, I think, put me and everyone else through a period of so much stress and worry that I needed the mornings to just be quiet and calm. So I'd listen to music, watch little TV, maybe watch a little NBA basketball because I'm a basketball fan. And do anything but write because I didn't need the stress. And only in the afternoons would I start to work on a novel. Lately, it's a mix. You know, I try not to put too much stress on myself. I'm 65 years old. I don't have the endurance I once had. So I try to be a little bit kinder to myself and write whenever I'm in the mood and not try to push myself too hard because it doesn't work. I know what you mean. So I'm going to ask you if you don't mind. I mean, I think we should have another interview at some other time because we have not covered everything that I would like to have covered, but we seem to be running out of time. So if you don't mind, if you would read something from your latest novel, The Gospel Equating to Lazarus, I'll take a grade. Oh, thank you. I'm going to read from close to the beginning of the novel. Lazarus has been awakened in his tomb and he turns to his best friend, Yeshua Ben Yoseph, Jesus, for support and to try to understand this unique experience. And this is Lazarus narrating, my throat is desperately dry again. So we retreat into silence while I go down more water. At length, he, Yeshua, stands up and goes to my window. I sense he needs to look into a world beyond our concerns. With Yeshua, there has always been the danger of his descending into too deep a chamber inside himself and never emerging. When turning back to me, he takes a deep breath. Your sisters told me you died while I was making my way here. He says, I don't understand. You stopped breathing. Apparently you were dead for two days. He clearly believes the truth in what he is telling me. So I do not laugh. When I taste blood in my mouth, I realize that I have nibbled away some crust from my lips. My old friend studies me closely. I expect him to speak within me, as he sometimes does when voicing his thoughts aloud might endanger or compromise us. But he says nothing. My sister told you this, I ask. His eyes grow glassy. Yes, they said your fever worsened them that you became so weak that you weren't able to move. Mia said that she was rubbing your feet with oils when she felt the tremor in your soul leaving your body. She checked on your breathing and there was none. Given that I'm here now, she must have been mistaken, I say. Marta confirmed that you were dead. That's very hard to believe. Yet that's what happened. You were gone and then you returned to us. He nods as if no other conclusion is possible. Echoing the psalms, he says, as you know, I have always filled my quiver with the unlikely and the improbable. That's true enough, I think, and yet I use certain, I ask. After he confirms that I was dead, I imagine the man I've been only a moment before standing behind me, observing me, unwilling to come forward and join me. That is beautiful. Thank you. I'll be looking forward to reading. Is it in English now? Yeah, I wrote it in English. It came out first in Portuguese because my books are such best sellers here that the publisher works very hard to get them out really quickly. But we can get them in English. Oh, yeah, yeah. If your local bookstore doesn't have it, you can order it easily via whatever your favorite bookshop is. Absolutely, because we want to read it in that group. Thank you. Thank you so much. That really touched me. It was really beautiful. Thank you. So on our final note, do you have anything that you would like the audience to know about you or about your work? Well, you know, if you have any more questions about my writing, please go to my website, which is just Zimlercom, Z-I-M-L-E-R dot com. Please stay safe. Please stay healthy and sane, and please do all you can to fight against the evil, strange, ignorant people who are trying to ruin our world. Please do everything you can. Well, thank you, Richard. On that note, we'll talk to you later. Hi, everybody. I'm here with Penny Mickelberry, who is a very talented novelist, playwright, pioneering journalist. Welcome, Penny. Thank you, Anne. It's wonderful to be able to speak with you. Well, it's great to have you here. I first learned about you when I heard your editor, S. Andrea Allen, on a publishing panel. And I have an abiding interest in publishing, women's publishing in particular, lesbian feminist publishing in a more particular sense. And at the end of the panel, the facilitator asked her for books to recommend, and she recommended God's Will and Other Lies by Penny Mickelberry. And I ordered it immediately, read it, and loved it. So thank you for this, Penny. Thank you. Thank you. And I thank the universe for S. Andrea Allen. She is a force of nature. I can't wait to talk to her on the show. It's pending. What I loved about this collection is its range. I mean, there are older lesbians with agency. And that their older lesbians period is a wonderful gift to many of us as readers. But it's a whole range of people. And I love the novella. And so I encourage our audience to get this among Penny's other novels that we're going to talk about later in the show in the interview. But before we start with that, I thought if it's agreeable with you, I'll read a little bio from the book. I have so much biographical information that I was a little, you've had a very rich and continuing to have a very productive life. So I thought I would just read the blurb on the bio on the book if I may. Penny Mickelberry is a pioneering newspaper, radio, and television journalist, based primarily in Washington, D.C., which is no longer true. You're in L.A. now, right? That's correct. Who also is a teacher of both children at a Los Angeles Charter Middle School and adults in the Los Angeles Public Libraries Adult Literacy Program. Are you still doing that, even with COVID? No, not doing either of those things because of COVID and other things. See how book bios can stay in the past? Yes. Well still, you're an award-winning writer of stage plays and a co-founder of Alchemy Theater of Change, a young people's acting company, and that was in New York. That was in New York. You did that for three years, right? Yeah. I lived in New York for 16 years maybe. Did you really? Yeah, and loved it. I really, I miss it a lot. I know. I went to college there and lived there a couple years after I graduated, and I also miss it a lot. Yeah. You are the recipient of the Audrey Lord Estate Grant and your resident writer, a Hedgebrook Women Writers Retreat. Now let me indulge myself and read a little about the short story collection. This new collection of stories, God's Will and Other Lies, joins your catalog of 11 published mystery novels and three successful series. The Mimi Patterson, Gianna Maglione Mysteries, two-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, the Carol Ann Gibson Mysteries, which won the Gold Pen Award by the Black Writers Alliance, and the Phil Rodriguez Mysteries and the novel of historical fiction Bell City. So this is a wide range of productive output, Penny. Congratulations. Thank you. I read a review. I read a biography of you in contemporary Black biography that emphasized your ongoing involvement with theater and play writing. And I was wondering if we could start by my asking you to talk a little about that. You have four plays, which one has just been reproduced in 2000? Well, I've probably got six or seven finished. Theater came as a love early to me. And at about the same time, well, no, actually before I thought I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. My mother was the librarian at Spelman College in Atlanta. And I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a lot of time on campus. And one of the places where I kind of hit out was the theater department. And the gentleman who headed the theater department was, if I call him irascible, I think that's kind, but he was a notoriously irascible man. And the fact that he allowed me in his theater, everybody marveled at that. But I sat in the dark during rehearsal for, I don't know how many productions. And I was totally mesmerized. And then I'd see the productions. And it was magic to me. It was, it was a miracle. People talk about, oh, the movies are magic. Theater was magic. And I wanted to do it. But no, and there were two caveats. One, I did not want to be the director, which is what he was, because he was a screamer. And he screamed at people. And he yelled at people. And I was so very shy. So I thought, no, I can't do that. And then I knew I couldn't be an actor because I was so very shy and I couldn't do that. But everybody had a book. They had the same book. And I thought, now that I could do, if I can figure out how to make sure that all the actors are reading my words from the book that I did. And that's what I thought. It's like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And I became a writer of mystery novels. And this is the truth. Because I thought, all right, I've got to earn a living. And everybody knew that the only people who starved to death faster than playwrights were poets. No money in it. You do that for love. So I thought, okay, I'll write these books. And if I can earn a living writing mysteries, then I can indulge my love of theater. Well, some people get writing, get rich writing mysteries, I haven't. But I love doing that. And I love the theater. So I write plays and have readings and you know, hope to get a full production one day. But I do it because I love it. And I keep writing books because I love it. And what can I say? And I'm still standing. So we all, yep. Well, let's go to the journalism because you started your journalism career in college. I have here that while still in college, you worked at the Atlanta voice during several summers. And upon graduation, you became the first African American reporter at the Banner Herald in Athens, Georgia, where you got your BA. That was while I was still in college. I worked, yeah, I worked full time. I worked at the Atlanta voice summers. That was a weekly paper in Atlanta. And I worked full time at the Athens Banner Herald, my last year at the University of Georgia. And I had applied for a job there. And they made it very clear to me that they did not hire black reporters. But I could work in one of the other department's production or whatever they had me. So I said, okay, because I was intent upon working my way into the newsroom. Lot of activity in Athens, Georgia in the 1960s, lots of demonstrations and things. And I was a participant most of them. I don't know when I went to class. I didn't do that very often to my parents just may, but I was also glad I went to most of the demonstrations. And the publisher came to me one day, he said, okay, he said, can you really write? And I said, yeah, I can. He said, okay, he said, you can be a reporter because they told me they're gonna burn down my newspaper if I don't have a black reporter. So you're it. And I thought, okay, I'll take that. And within a week, he came to me and he said, you really can write and you're a really good reporter. So have at it. And then when I left to go to the Washington Post, he said to me, is there anything I can do to keep you here? What would it take? And I thanked him. But the Washington Post has offered me a job and I kind of got to go there. So that was that was the beginning of my journalism career. And that was in 1971. You started working for the Post. Yes. And then you worked in journalism in various capacities for 15 years. Yep. I was a radio reporter after the post and then a TV reporter after radio, all of that in DC. And you say in this, you're quoted in this biographical encyclopedia entry that after 15 years in journalism, you became dissatisfied with reporting because you perceive changes in the profession that you didn't like. For example, the sensationalism and the emphasis on public put on public figures, private lives. You wanted to be a reporter from your earliest days, but when it came to the media business, you didn't care for the profession anymore. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. It became the news business rather than simply journalism. Which is what it is now. Yeah. It's the news business. And that really was heralded by the growth of technology because for a century news was disseminated via print. And even up until the middle of the 20th century, the majority of people got their news and information from newspapers. Most cities had two newspapers, a morning paper and an evening paper. And then there was radio, but people still relied on newspapers for news. And then along came television. And it really was a game changer. It really was because pictures are captivating. People want to see. And there were images that did change the world. I mean, the coverage of some of the civil rights demonstrations with the turning of hoses and dogs on Black children in Alabama and Mississippi changed the course of the civil rights movement. Because people had reported it. But when people saw it when it came into their living rooms, then you think, OK, something else is happening here. We got to do something. So it is not that television was totally detrimental or that it was a totally negative thing. But then it changed again. It morphed into this fascination with people's private lives. And you actually had reporters combing through the trash cans of people on Capitol Hill, senators and congressmen. And I'm not doing that. I'm just not doing that. I'm just not going to do that. Or in the case of me, I covered government politics in D.C. and one of the mayors was a notorious womanizer. And my station wanted me to report. I'm not reporting on that. I'm not. And everybody knows that he is a notorious womanizer. Most probably so does his wife. And if she lets him come home, it's not my job to do anything about that. You know, I don't care. I'm not interested. And so that's kind of when I was ready to part ways. Well, and I think the print newspaper industry is really in decline. They're really strong. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it really is. It really is. Although it seems to me, and I have no empirical evidence to support this, but it seems that younger people are discovering print journalism that online, I think. Yeah, that they read newspapers. Rather than reading just Twitter feeds and that kind of stuff, they actually read news stories. And so I do hope that portends a change. I mean, to have newspapers go away, I think would would be not only awful, it would be dangerous. I think it would be dangerous. Well, let's turn to the publishing industry, apropos of print culture. I'd like to start this segment of the interview by quoting you to yourself. This was in an interview with in the Lambda Literary Review, which is also just a few years ago changed to an online publication. I read it avidly. However, the journalist asked you, and the other people who were interviewed, you know, how as a woman of color, you confronted as a lesbian of color, you confronted obstacles and so forth. And how are you going to fare in the future? And now, if I may quote you, you say, I have no idea what the future holds. And I don't spend time thinking about it. It will take care of itself. And I will take care of myself. I will be so bold as to say, though, that if BLF press and buywater books are part of that future, I'll have a place in it. I'll also be so bold as to say that black and brown women writers, queer or not, will not, despite the desperate and deplorable efforts of those who shall not be named, disappear or stop writing, they are too many and they are too good. What an optimistic and I think valid quotation. Would you mind responding? Well, to respond to the part of it that references me, it is true. I mean, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what the future holds. I'm just happy to still be here. And I am grateful. I am overwhelmingly grateful to be published by buywater books and BLF press. And yeah, I do think if they're still in business, I'll have a home. And I'm grateful for that. I don't know how I got so lucky, but I'm still here. I do not spend a lot of time worrying about however what the future holds. And I stand by that quote, the future will take care of itself. And it is my job to take care of myself and I will do that. There are far, far, far and away too many black and brown women who write wonderful stories, who tell wonderful stories. And they exist in every corner of the globe. And they're not going to stop. Some of them are just getting started. And then you have instances, for instance, in the Middle East where some of those women got started and there is the effort now to tamp them down. It's not going to work. There are too many of them. And they're everywhere in South and Central America, in every part of Africa, in India, in China, in places where women have traditionally, not only not had the opportunity, but have been barred and banned from exercising their intellectual capacity to write and tell stories. They're not going to stop. They're not going to stop. And it doesn't matter what they try to do to them. They're not going to stop. I hope you're right. You must be. It's got to be. I am an optimist too. I think once the page is open, you can't close it back. There are too many women in the world. There are too many of us. And fortunately, there are still enough of us still standing. President and company included who were there to kick open some of those doors. And as long as we still stand, we will continue to kick at the doors. I have no intention of being quiet or going silently away. When people go, you know, how old are you anyway? It doesn't matter. I ain't dead. And if I can keep at it, and if I can continue to have a voice that somebody will listen to, I am going to make certain that those young women have a place to speak and to be. I will always write. I love writing, but I don't have to. If there's some young people lined up behind me, some young women, and the publishers say, you know, you could give some of these young women your place at the table. Excellent. Yeah, but we need everybody. I mean, that was so refreshing to me about your collection of short stories. It wasn't all 20-somethings. You know, we're as diverse age-wise as any other. Oh, absolutely. Well, that collection was dedicated to black women of all ages. I mean, there's one woman in that story who leads the story. She's 90 years old, blind and insistent upon going to a Black Lives Matter march. She can't see, but she's in a nursing home. In a nursing home. But she said, what I've heard about these young people, these Black Lives Matter children, she said, I like them and they're having a march and I'm going. You know, and that's not just hyperbole. That's not make believe. Those women are real. You're there. Let's turn to your writing career and your publishing. You say that your influences, speaking of pioneers and trailblazers, are Octavia Butler, Nikki Finney, Gondolin Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, and James Baldwin. And you have been, are there any other influences? You say you many, many, but those are the main ones. Do you have a right? I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I just, I referenced those particular writers because they write what I do not and cannot. The poets, because I could no more write a poem than I could take wings and fly or, you know, run the LA marathon with my knees, which most days they barely will take me up and down the steps. James Baldwin because of his essay writings, not because of his novels, because of his essays that are so brilliant and so insightful and incisive. And he has a way with words and language that really rend me specialist sometimes and Octavia Butler because I mean, I could no more write what she writes, what she sees, what she envisions, how she crafts stories around these characters in a time and place that I can only imagine. I think that's marvelous. So I love them. But other writers are many, too many to speak about. Well, let's we're getting toward the end of the interview, believe it or not. Let me ask you to do a little reading if you wouldn't mind and weave into it information about your current writing projects. Okay. This is from Two Wings to Fly Away, if I hold this up. Sure. This is, this was published by Bywater in 2019, I think. And I'm just going to read the opening pages of this book, which will set the tone and the stage. The book takes place in Philadelphia in 1856. Did I say this was a novel of historical fiction? It is. It takes place in Philadelphia in 1856. Slave catcher. The hissed word hung in the air, freezing Eugenia Oliver's insides colder than the damp November evening air shelter skin. Though Eli's bare feet made no sound on the worn cobblestones and his two brief words were whispered. Jeannie's body reverberated as if a cannon had been fired next to her. She was headed home. She was almost there, almost safe and warm. But she changed direction and walked toward Main Street. The fast, loud pounding of her heart in her suddenly dry mouth where her fear manifested. If a slave catcher really was prowling in the quarter and Jeannie really was walking toward him instead of running away, dressed as Eugenia Oliver as she often was because even a black man was safer than a black woman alone. She moved with purpose toward the danger coming her way. The white man slowed his gait from a trot to a long legged stride as he entered thatchery lane, definitely looking for someone. His head swiveled from side to side. His eyes searched but found nothing but shuttered windows and barred doors. Jeannie was annoyed with herself. She should have heard the danger in the silence. It was suppertime thatchery lane. There should have been the clamour of children and women, the clatter of horses and wagons. There should have been the call of the lamp lighter. Instead there was the silence of fear that only the presence of a white man could bring and the anger. That was more dangerous than the fear. Jeannie took a deep breath and caressed the Derringer pistol in her pocket. She and the white man were close together now. She knew her neighbors could see her as clearly as the stranger. She also knew that inside half a dozen of the barred and shuttered houses were pistols and shotguns aimed at the white man. If he were foolish or arrogant enough to come alone into their lane looking for runaway slaves, he would die foolish and arrogant. And then they all would die worse than that because even in Philadelphia the killing of a white person was the most unforgivable of transgressions. They would die and their homes would be burned to ashes. Jeannie's chivalry in November was not to blame. This man, however, was no slave catcher. Jeannie was certain of that, though she could not imagine who he was and certainly not what he wanted, not in this area of Philadelphia inhabited solely by blacks, free and otherwise. The man removed his hat as Jeannie approached not a degree and he spoke before she could speak. Good evening, sir. Jeannie returned the greeting, adding a question. Have you lost your way? I lost a boy I was chasing. Is the boy a thief? Why no, not that Ah, if not a thief, then why was I chasing him? A good question and I have a good answer. The man spoke confidently. He has information I need and he ran when I approached him. I chased him and saw him turn into this lane. Perhaps you saw him and the man described Eli as if he possessed an artist's etching of the boy. Jeannie studied the stranger. His clothes were well made and of equality, though not the clothes of a wealthy man, but confidence aside, he seemed too worldly to be naive enough to follow, to chase the black man into his own residential quarter, given the unrest of recent times, not to mention the encroaching darkness. Do you know where you are, sir? I am lost to tell the truth. He allowed his words to trail off as he looked closely at the black man to find the deeper meaning of his question. I know I'm in the black quarter, if that's what you're asking. The boy you were chasing thinks you're a slave catcher. Good God. Jeannie watched the surprise spread across the man's chiseled features and then the revulsion and finally the denial. I am nothing of the sort. It is a heinous and cruel occupation. One of the, I could think of no worthy punishment. Jeannie could think of several worthy punishments, but she dared not speak them. After all, the stranger was a white man, even if not a slave catcher. Thank you. This is, you're at work on the sequel now. Yes, I am. I am at work on the sequel and oh, I hope to have it finished really soon, really, really soon. Well, we'll look forward to that. Penny, Micklebury, thank you for joining it. It's been wonderful. Thank you. It's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks, but in the meantime, resist.