 I was a paramedic for 10 years, as you know, and in that job, you know, you're on a really day-to-day, face-to-face level with death. Like, it's your daily bread, you know, you are comfortable with it, I would say. And it still smells bad, it's still sad, you know, there's a lot of levels to it. It's not like it's a good thing, but I think you understand it as a part of life in a much deeper way than people who don't get to be around it on a regular basis. And so I think a lot of that work is also, there's that element to it, is about understanding death as a part of life, but not necessarily fearing it, and about not being so linear, you know, about this idea that death is just an ending, but there's so much more there for us. And I think that's exciting to tap into in literature and in storytelling. I think also too, the temporality of it, I mean, there's things in both books that kind of like mess up time a little bit and how we perceive it and how we actually really have a relationship to time. And so I'm wondering like in both books, you know, they take place in the same world. Yeah. Right. But their time signature, the rhythms are a little bit different. And so I'm wondering like, what were the rhythmic impulses for both series? We're talking the shadow side for series and the ball sheet rumble series. Yeah, no, I love that question because I think that gets into this, you know, in these conversations about representation and the starting point is obviously that we need to see our faces on book covers, which is absurd in its own right that that was even a fight, right? But here we are. We want to fight to some extent. There's always more fighting to do. But now we're starting to see that, right? And we're starting to see it more and more, and that's amazing. But we also need to talk about those deeper levels of literature that have been completely wiped out by the gentrification of literature, you know, by the annihilation of people of color and literature, which has been going off for decades by the lie that literature has told us for so long, which is that we either don't exist or aren't worth it, you know, or our doom sidekicks or clowns or bad guys. Beyond that, we have to talk about rhythm, you know, we have to talk about the different ways that we tell stories, the different meanings that stories have in our different lives. All those things are very cultural and very deep seeded in us. And now that we're starting to see people of color take over on a way that a scale we hadn't seen before. And I mean that in the best way, we're starting to see all these different rhythms come up, not just like each culture has one. But as we know, each culture has so many, right? Each person has so many. And so to get to your question with Shadow Shaper and with Bone Street Roomba, those do represent very different ways of moving through the world, in part because one of them is a young adult novel. And Sierra's experience of the world as a teenage girl is not going to be the same as a grown man walking around the streets, right? And they both have similar, you know, arcs in some ways, but they're also different. And I think, you know, writing for different age groups is about trying to tap into what those rhythms mean, what they meant to me when I think back to who I was when I was 16. And then when I try to make that adjustment to understand how that would have been different for someone who's not me, those are rhythmic conversations. We don't have them rhythmically, often, because we're so busy just like with the kind of basic questions of like, you know, how do we represent the other, which is a really important question, but that's step one, right? Like, how do we keep going and then say, how do we also start back up even more and say, how do we represent the self? Because that's where most of us fail, I think, the most. And so we're talking about the self and literature and self. So why use, I mean, you don't want to get in the whole conversation of science fiction fairies who are always called speculative fiction as a general umbrella term. Why do you think the self is such a good locus to explore through the speculative fiction lens? I think that's what we're always doing anyway. You know, I think every book is a kind of autobiography in its own way or a memoir. And I think that's cool as long as we understand and recognize it and then are able to use that and strategically, you know, bring it into the work instead of trying to dip and dodge around it and be cute about the fact that that's happening, right? Because we're always right in the self. We are always right in the self on some level. And I think that's what I mean. It's like, you have to recognize that. I have to recognize that, you know, my position, who am I in this story and what kind of power do I have when I step to it? And I think what speculative fiction offers is opportunities to do that creatively, to use magic, to use adventure and to have it make that a fun conversation. Like, sometimes we lose track of playfulness amidst all the heaviness that we deal with in daily life, especially as people of color, we're going through so much already. And then we want to bring it to the page and it's very easy to get caught up in just that heaviness. But also we need to be celebrating. We need to be fighting dragons and winning. You know, we need to be going on quests and we can do both. And I think like what's great is we've seen people do both, you know, and now we're seeing it more and more. But I think that's where I really step into it is like we can have these conversations with Dr. Hill Squad, right? It's about the Civil War era. So there's heaviness inherent to the time. And I'd be lying if I didn't include some of that in the world building of that story. It's about kids that ride on pterodactyls too. And those things are both true because that's the truth of this world, you know, today too, like there's heaviness in this world and we get to have good times and get amazing artists together as well. And that's the balance that we hang in. And that's what I really wanted to bring up with. How many of you have read Dactyl Hill Squad yet? And so that's one of the book I think I've probably gifted the most to adults, to kids, to everybody. People are like, I want to read something new. I was like, orphans, Civil War dinosaurs, bet. All right, I got you. And then that was, and that's what we do. I mean, but there's something, there's a joy. But there was a joy in Shadow Shaper. Yeah. There's a joy in, there's a joy in, this cat even wrote a Star Wars novel. This cat's self prolific. There's a joy in the last shot. So joy, belongingness, frivolity, happiness, celebration in the midst of the heaviness, as we were saying, right? I think a lot of us in our lives could use that. So like, how do you take what's happening in your fictional world, those values? And how do we actualize those things that you think in our daily lives? I think it is about, well, from my point, it's actually like, it's the reverse question, right? It's like, how do you get that on the page? Because there's so much, there's actually a lot of pushback around that, I think. I think as people of color in the industry were expected to bleed. All the time. Onto the page were expected to bleed in front of audiences. I don't know if you've ever done a speaking event where you feel like the audience is just hungry for your blood. Please black man, make me feel better about myself. I want to see how bad you feel. It's intense. And it's a real dynamic that you can sometimes feel. When you're on that stage and particularly with the white gaze, talk about speculative fiction and vampires, right? That's a real thing. So I think it's like being aware of that. And I've read reviews of my work, different and gotten rejection letters on my work. Being like, why are these kids having a good time when this and this and this just happened? And I'm like, you must not have met us. You know what I mean? I don't know what to tell you except like, this is the real shit. This is how we survive, right? And I think all of us probably have that memory of something really jacked up happening in your life and you walk around the corner to the bodega and you see a friend of yours from around the way or whatever and you high five and they're like, oh, whatever, whatever. And just that little interaction, just that little bochinche, we say, is like, can lift you, you know? Just like the ancestors can lift you, right? And I feel like again, that's a moment that I don't see enough on the page and I think our job so much is to find those moments that we don't see enough, especially the ones that give you life and then put them on the page. I think it's a lot of people of color see somebody mad on the street like, I feel you. But they see them talking and happy, like something's wrong with them. That's dysfunctional in a lot of ways. I mean, I think that we've been beat down. So what gave you the audacity to be like, you know what? I'm gonna have some fun. I'm not gonna bleed from you. I'm gonna backflip and break dance instead. I'm not gonna bleed for you. So where did that come from? Sure, I think it's the idea of, on one hand it's the idea of writing what you wanna read. And I don't want a book to constantly be beating me down. On the one hand, on the other hand, I want a book to tell me the truth and that's that balance. And the feeling of a book lying to you is the worst thing that you can ever feel. And those are the books I put down immediately. But also the feeling of we're already so close to burnout, so many of us and some of us are burnt out and it's so much to take on. So it's almost like can come down to a strategic craft question of I don't want my reader to put the book down. I don't want them to feel beaten up by the book. I don't wanna re-traumatize them and I don't wanna lie to them. So the only way I know to do that is to try to capture the balance that I know of life to be, which is very difficult and sad and full of struggle and also full of joy and amazing people that will show up for you when you need them. And that's a spiritual practice, that's a literary practice and that's a life practice. And I don't know the answer except to just like, cause the process of balance means you have to go off balance to find it, right? And I'm sure you could find in my books times when I've been off balance and see where that struggle has led me into a lot of heavy places. And that's also the role the literature plays in how we live. And then so, if I'm wrong, correct me, but it sounds like you're talking about accountability and responsibility for the reader. But then how do you balance the responsibility for your audience not running to re-traumatize them but then for yourself, because sometimes you have to go through some ugly stuff to get to the point where you're not doing that to the reader. So what's the practice? What's the craft piece of that? You know, that's a really interesting question. In my practice and as a santero, like we really believe in cleansing. And I think almost every spiritual tradition probably has some practice of cleansing. Sometimes that's done through meditation. Sometimes it's done through different physical work. It can be dance. You know, it can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. But I really believe in the energy that we're pulling down can be a very intense energy. And so I will have a daily practice of cleaning off after a writing session, especially if I'm writing a particularly heavy scene, you know, spiritually cleansing and leaving that at the crossroads or with my alters or wherever it needs to be. Because exactly this is heavy shit, you know, and we're pulling down a lot and we have to deal with that. And I think if we don't, we risk our own mental health, we risk our families, you know, we risk the work itself. And it's all well and good until it's not, you know what I mean? And that's, it also just comes down to the basic level of self-care, which as artists of color, we're never taught to really tap into and to value. Because what we're taught is like, if you're half as much, then you have to do twice as much to all that. You know, and so it's like, we're in that equation to self-care fit in. Like, where do we get to take a spa day in the middle of all that, like trying to be twice as good stuff, right? And what's hard is that, like we are twice as good, but we think we're not. And then it's that whole thing about arrogance, right? God forbid that you believe that you're as good as you really are, then suddenly you're arrogant. And then you have a whole other set of problems to deal with. Right? So I believe in self-care, self-love. I think we have to really be active and intentional about loving our own work and encouraging our co-authors of color to love our own work and say it out loud. I love my shit, man. Like, that's why I put it out in the world. If I didn't love it, who would I be to put it out, right? And that's an important thing to model and to be like really upfront about a thing. And I think that's something you do on the digital space on Twitter is that you really give permission for people to be looking in the mirror and be like, you know what, I'm the shit. Yeah, man, what? And I think that's important to do because I think you're right. I think that we are so entrenched in the idea that we have to reveal some deep-seated truth. Like we're like the magical Negro or the dope Latina maid who was gonna help the white lady find a man or whatever, right? But you gave us permission, asked creators of color to go, hey, you know what? We're dope in this regard. And then there's something about that that's liberating. Yeah. I think sometimes writing itself can be a form of self-care. It is. When you're able to reveal whatever, that's not just the pain. Yet that. And that's also one of the challenges, right? Because shit, I'll never forget something my therapist said to me very recently, but I also know I'll never forget it, which is that artists love to take ourselves apart because we love to put ourselves back together. Well, I had to take a minute. Okay, sit with that for a second. Sit with that for a second. You are worth every dollar that I'm sitting in. All I saw was the entire Congressional go, well, that's what I just saw. I was like, I'm uncomfortable. That's so real. And that, but that's also the, that's the narrative, right? Like all narratives are about taking yourself apart and putting yourself together. Just like, that's why that whole piece about autobiography is sort of true is because we're always telling the story of our own collapse and our own resurgence, you know, resurrection on some level. And so, you know, finding that truth and owning that it is about looking it in the mirror, I think, like it is about really being able to say like, okay, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm going through. How am I going to go through it in an honest way? How am I going to be accountable to myself and to my community? And how am I going to bring that fire to the page at the same time? The good news I think is that that is fire. Like if the honesty is the fire. Like if you're really owning it and looking at it, dealing with patriarchy, you know, dealing with accountability, dealing with the complexity of different forms of privilege within the people of color community. You know, if I'm honest about what my skin tone gets me in life and how that changes the dynamic for me versus you, if I'm honest about what that allows me to say and not say in the public sphere and how my anger is red versus someone else who's darker. Like dealing with all those things, that makes literature better, you know. And I think for so long, we've told ourselves the lie that like, oh, that's how stuff gets boring or didactic or preachy. And that's the opposite of true. Preachy literature is preachy because it's preachy. Because people wrote it badly. You know what I mean? Not because they dealt with deep shit. Yo, but in that narrative deconstruction of self, like what happens when you find something about yourself and you're like, oh, why is that there? Like what do you do with that? You write it out of existence or do you highlight it so you can slay the demon because you named it? Like what do you do with it? Well, I think that, well, it's a great question. It's that we're dealing with things that are there's personal shit that we're dealing with. That's a journey. And then some of it belongs on the page and some of it doesn't or some of it belongs on the page but not in public, you know what I mean? And I think we do have to make that distinction because there's an idea too as an artist that everything is for all the people and it's not, you know, like keep a journal, man. Like, not you. You know, like, so I tell people who come up like assholes in my mentions, like put it in your journal. Like, I don't want to know, you know what I mean? Clearly you're working some shit out. You don't need to do it like here. Or charge them. Right, right. Or yeah, exactly. Or here's my PayPal. Here's, you know, give me some money. But yeah, I think it is really important that we cultivate a space that's just for us as artists because we're always taught, especially when you monetize your craft, you know, like I have some bomb journal entries, man. Like, I wish I could publish them. There's some good writing in my journal. Y'all can't see that. That's for me. You know, I didn't write it for y'all. Maybe when I'm dead, it'll come out, but I want whatever. I'm just saying there's some good writing in there that we really need to cultivate spaces that are just for us to put down our work. And I recently started just doodling. And that's been so good for my process because it just, that's my first love of an art form is doodling. Like I was a doodler. I was a drawer or a cartoonist when I was a kid. Comics was my first love. And so it's nice for me to just be able to put stuff on the page. And I'm not gonna publish it anyway. I'm just gonna draw some monsters, you know? That's it. It's important. That's self-care too. And I think that the idea of monsters shows up quite a bit in your work. And I mean, John Jennings who's here in the office has tons of wonderful things about the idea of the monster. Victor LaValle has some wonderful things about the idea of the monster. So when you're discussing the monster or a monster or monsters, what are you talking about? What is your metaphor? Yeah, honestly, it's not that deep for me. And I wish it was, because I just love. I like scaring people. I know, no, no, no, that's the opposite. So maybe it is. To me, I love the idea of monsters being on our side. I think it's similar to ghosts. It's a reclamation piece. But that moment when a trail gets on Falkor. Is it a trail? Never in the story. At the end of the story. Yeah, a trail, yeah. Get out of the kid, the other kid. Either way, that's good shit. I love it when people get on monsters and monsters help save the day. So it is kind of a counter narrative because we're so taught that monsters are the ones you have to slay. And the bad guys, I mean, the beast is so much cooler before he transforms into that douchebag that she ends up with at the end of the movie. I'm sorry, that's just a fact. And my first movie, we disagree about this, but Return of the Jedi is one of the greatest movies of all time. And that's fine, you can be wrong. You can be wrong. I'm the one being interviewed, fortunately. So it doesn't matter what you think. But the Rancor was my first movie like memory and I ran out of the theater, which is how powerful it was for me. I mean, I was three. So I ran back in immediately afterwards when I knew it was safe. And then I went and saw the movie like 15 more times because it was my favorite movie of all time and it still is. That was such an electrifying thing to be like, because up until that moment, right, it's all just Jabba's Palace, which is one of the greatest movie sequences ever. But all the guys are kind of like human sized, right? Shut up. And then suddenly it's... This thing comes out of the core. It comes out of the shadows and you're like, this scale just changed, right? Like, it's very dynamic. And I think that's an incredible thing to kind of throw into the mix, which is why Magda Lease lives in a world with dinosaurs. In Dr. Hill's Quad. In Dr. Hill's Quad, thank you. Clip notes, footnotes, right? Magda Lease lives in a world, it's 1863, but there's dinosaurs, but she can connect to those dinosaurs with her mind and they do basically what she wants. So they're her allies in the struggle to destroy racism. I mean, his first film was Return to the Jedi. My first film in the theater was Song of the South. So speaking of monsters. Right. It's a whole other kind of monster. It's a whole other kind of monster. But how important do you think it is? Shell Silverstein was talking about kids need to be scared or need to feel uncomfortable. So what do you think about the idea of fear and monsters like aimed towards a younger audience? That's interesting. He said that? Yeah. I need the context for that. That's fascinating. That's a really interesting quote. Well, to me, it's more like fear and discomfort are what makes stories work because stories are about crisis. Stories are about change and they're about tension. The tension will bring us to the crisis and the crisis is the change. Crisis literally means a turning point, right? Like now we have it so associated with something terrible. But at its root, it just means it's a turning point. It's a medical term. And I think that alone is fascinating when we need to think about it in terms of story and how that changes literature. But those are the stories that we care about are the ones where something is different at the end, obviously. And it's kind of hard to pull that off some element of fear, of tension. Whether it's fear that you'll be shot down by the person you have a crush on or fear that the ranker will eat you, you're still kind of drawing on the same source of that's part of the catalyst that brings change. And we see that in our own lives. Fear will often be the spark that sets us off, hopefully, to something better because fear can't carry us all the way, right? But that's also true in literature. At some point, that hero has to turn around and face their fear and then step beyond it and confront it and get to somewhere better. And then fear becomes an ally because you realize that it got you to where you needed to go even though it sucked at the time. And so speaking of, I mean, fear and monsters, what I mean, I'm thinking of work of John Jennings, Victor Laval, Jordan Peele, what you're doing. For a while, I was like horror movies, whatever, like what can scare me? I'm black from Brooklyn, what can scare me? Like there's nothing can scare me, but now we're seeing new avenues of how to scare because if you live a life of trauma and assault, what scares people to call, like what can scare us? Right, well, that's, it's interesting you asked that because when I was writing, I thought I was trying to come up with a bad guy to bring in that element of fear. And I was like, who could I think of? That would be really nasty. And then I stumbled on magistrate Richard Riker in the history books who was a real ass person who was really horrible and disgusting as a person who started something called the kidnappers club, which sounds like some children's book shit. Or a really bad indie band. Right, that too. He just sounds like a stereotypical bad guy in a fantasy series. His name is Riker, he's not actually, as far as I could, we tried to research this, but it's not clear whether or not Riker's Island is actually named after him. But if it was, it would be very appropriate. It seems like it was his family earlier. But anyway, he's a terrible person. And he's institutional racism personified. He worked in the court system and he went around kidnapping black New Yorkers and sending them into slavery. And he had a crew of folks that did that with him. And so it was really about tapping into what's real. And then again, bringing the monsters in on the good guys team for the most part and then trying to figure out how they're gonna go head to head. Fortunately, at the same time, there was a group called the Vigilance Committee, which was black New Yorkers getting together and organizing to stop that shit from happening and showing up oftentimes fully armed to get in the way and perform interventions on these kidnappings that happened. They would take over slave ships that were in New York Harbor illegally, like just bust up on board, guns drawn, save everybody who was entrapped. Where's that book and movie? Literally, that's exactly what happened. I mean, that's exactly, I mean, it's part, they're in Dr. Hill Squad. It is in Dr. Hill Squad, yeah. Yeah, so that's a part of that. But no, honestly, like, yes, that's what Dr. Hill Squad came out of was the frustration that so many of the stories of people of color and history are ones where we're being saved or killed. Or subservient, yeah. Or subservient, right. And even like 12 Years of Slave, which is an amazing movie, still has a white savior, right? And it was right around then that I started researching and being like, holy shit, all these heroes. Nobody talks about them. Like, nobody remembers their names, barely. Like David Ruggles, the organizer who did the Visions Committee. Louis Napoleon, who was a real person, not the emperor. Like, you know, a real black New Yorker who was illiterate and still worked the court systems to get people free when they had escaped from slavery and were getting hemmed up and kidnapped again and got all these like documents done. Like, folks who would do all these heroic things. Like, they need to be part of our collective imagination and memory. And that's why they show up in Dr. Hill Squad. I'm gonna do a little shift a little bit and talk about more craft. Because something about your work that's so powerful is that the world building is impeccable, right? And I think, we were arguing about this yesterday, but I think the reason why I believe that Star Wars has lasted in much better than Star Trek is because it's not better, but it's because the Star Wars world is more, there's more inchy points into the world. Like, so without, you know, Miss Santiago and Shadow Shaper without Carlos and better, what is it, Balchen Rumba? You could still have those worlds exist and populate new people in those worlds, right? So what is your world? So for all the craftspeople in the audience, what are your like, say, top three world building tips for people who wanna create? Whether it's video, audio, whatever, whatever, build a world. How many writers do we have out here, by the way? Put your hand up high. Give yourselves a round of applause. That's the song. That's good that you raised your hands because sometimes it's like, right, are you a writer? Well, I write every day, but motherfucker, you're a writer. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm gonna stop this way. If you're a writer, you're a writer, so you should put your hand up if that's what you are. That's a great question. World building is one of my favorite things and part of that is because I come from a background of a community organizing. And to be a good community organizer, you have to understand the world that you're organizing it. And that's a system of micro and macro. So I think one thing I would say is that that's, is recognize that, right? That you're always working within micros and macros. And that's how you avoid that really annoying one note world building thing that happens a lot. I'm not really sub-tweeting anyone. I'm just saying like, you know, those worlds where like, no, no, I'm not, I'm literally not. I don't know who you're talking about. I'm just saying those worlds where it's like the one thing that's weird and then pits all the characters against each other. But we know nothing else about the world and nothing else apparently matters about the world. But, you know, like news flash, everything matters about the world. Like, you know, we live in a world that is full of these complex, you know, interacting dynamics of power, of culture, of history, of gender, of all these different things. And that's what makes the world rich. You know, much like we were saying earlier with this idea of like examining the self makes literature better, obviously, but somehow not. It's also true of looking at the world around you. And I think the deeper we can understand, first of all, power in our world building. And the more complex of power analysis we have, I think the better it gets. And that's why Octavia Butler is the queen of all stories and everything else. Like, that's why we revere her name and like handles in her memory in part is because she understood and had a very deep conversation with power. She was the Foucault of sci-fi. Like she did not back down from getting deep about all that stuff between race and gender, between individuals, between an individual in their society. She broke it all down and she made everybody uncomfortable by doing it. And that's why she's who she was. And, you know, and we carry her with us. So, you know, it's about like just not getting, not breaking it down to this simplistic duality of good and evil and understanding that there's always gonna be in fighting within those different- So complexity of power. Complexity of power, complexity of understanding this idea, which is also central to organizing that the cops unfortunately live inside our hearts and our heads and that our real work as revolutionaries is to get that, get them out. And that's a lifelong process. It's not like you reach somewhere and then you just stop being a part of the police state. No, like we're always gonna be engaged with that, unfortunately. So how do you do it? With self-reflection, with deep conversation with people, with accountability, all those things. But that's also true in story, right? So like understanding that that level of power dynamic is always gonna be between us and the different characters are gonna be dealing with power differently. I think that's what makes worlds come alive. And then finally, character. Like, you know, Brooklyn is Brooklyn because of the people that live in Brooklyn. You know, New Orleans is New Orleans because of the culture, which means the people of New Orleans, you know? And they're changing because of the cultural erosion that happens with gentrification. And with different forms of violent police state mechanisms that are in play. And so, you know, understanding that, again, on the power level, but also just on the human level, even if the humans are dragons in your story, that that's what makes worlds come alive is the beings and the spirits that inhabit them. And I think what you and what the next author who's come, Rebecca Hohenhorst has done is almost created fiction as part of our folk culture. Like there's something very folksy, not in like an anthropologist's derivative way, like how hip hop is folk culture. We confuse youth culture with hip hop. No, hip hop is black and Latino folk culture. Right? And so I think what you've done is create folk culture. Like it's fiction, but there are cultural alleyways that I can actually go into to explore more about myself that actually take place in the tangible world. And so I'm wondering, was that intentional? Was it a byproduct or what? I'll tell you exactly why that happened because to me, as part of my inspiration, I honor the voices in the bodega as much as I do the voices on the bookshelf. And I don't think you can actually get, I know I can't really do it as a writer without those voices, because that's who I know to be telling the truth to me, because the voice on the bookshelf often weren't. And shout out to the bookshelf still, of course I'm a writer and I love reading and I grew up in a house full of books and I honor and revere them and some of them were trash and I spit on their names. And that's the truth of literature. And we have to deal with that complicated truth, but the other truth is that the best stories are told on the corner. And as a paramedic, the best stories are told in the ambulance. Man, paramedics can tell some stories, you know? And so I learned a lot about storytelling in that decade of doing that work. I learned about what makes stories matter and what makes them funny and what makes them not funny. And all of these different dynamics that come to play when people are just talking to each other, like this. That's the poetry that I really revere. And I'll never forget Walter Mosley reminding an audience at Riverside, actually, when he came to speak there. He was like, you know, like the father of Western literature was blind and illiterate. Like Homer didn't write shit down. He just told it to people, like we're talking right now. He was an emcee, exactly. You know, and every, so much has sprung out of that. So much of Western literature has come out of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which the Iliad and the Nafanaan is like one of my favorite books since I was like 10. Like I love that book. And that's a oral history, you know, of amazing things happened. That's also fantasy, Nafanaan. You know, that is a speculative fiction story about huge ethereal beings interfering and being very human and jacked up in their personal affairs and coming into, you know, humanity. And I think that's amazing. You know, and I think it's amazing that that's where we come from. I always say like storytelling goes back to the spoken word, not Microsoft Word. And that's a fact. Dude, you better coin that in the shirt because you're about to come up. What you're talking about to me is like almost like, what's marvelous about the mundane? I think that we discard the mundane because it doesn't excite what we think we should be excited about. Like, well, they get conversations are dope. People snapping on each other at a barber. Like there's no greater for me is going to a barber shop and roasting people. And getting roasted, but I'm actually really good. So, but that don't, because you get rhythm, you get perspective, you get, I mean, so if any writers in the audience, I mean, outside of writing to read, listen to read. If you can really just sit in places that you don't unfamiliar, because what I like about what you did in the other comment stages is that you never translated for us. The Spanish word, whatever it is, we don't translate for us. And so that for me was dope because I felt uncomfortable in some sense. I was like, damn, I'm half Puerto Rican. I don't even know this word. What's going on? But there's something about having to be in a world that's real for that character that I'm the voyeur into it, but I'm feeling uncomfortable because I don't know all the rules. Right. But I would also hope that on some level, you also felt respected. No, absolutely. Because as a reader, as a writer, I know that I respected you enough to figure it out, even though you didn't speak the language. No, absolutely. And that's my favorite thing in a book is I'm like, well, this book really respects me. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of like some, everyone, some of us would just be reading a book and be like, oh, they really let me figure this out. Like they didn't, I mean, we have this rule obviously like show, don't tell, right? And that gets really manipulated wrongly, I think in a lot of writing lessons. But the truth is that if you let the reader figure it out and yes, it's a very difficult balance to figure out who's, how's it gonna work? But if you can give that reader the moment where they're like, oh, I put the pieces together myself and this is what you say in all along, like that is such a great moment, you know? And great writers know that. A great writer, Cardi B, today said, I will walk. A dog walk you. I will dog walk you, right? Nobody has to have ever heard that phrase before to know exactly what she meant. He didn't know he was like. Yes. One of the great scribes of this era, Cardi B said, I will dog walk you, right? I have never heard that phrase before. I know exactly what she meant. I had a visual image. I did not need to. And you were just like, ooh, just get off the internet. And she trusted us to know what she would mean. And we did. Bless her name. So again, one time for Cardi B, let's give one time for Cardi B. I will dog walk you. And I'm just like, who she said it to in the context she said it in. Sometimes one sentence can make our break an entire work. Our lady of the dog walk. Our lady of the, ooh. Anyway, Patron Saint of FU, that's the greatest thing ever. And so, I mean, what you've done, I would say more so with the Shadow Cypher series is you've almost created a new literary canon for a new generation, right? Part of it. Yeah, because, no, because I mean, if you look at like how many young girls were just like finally, they felt seen, they felt heard, they felt spoken to and for, but not in a patriarchal way, but in a way that was like finally the shit that's been inside of me is out here. Thank you, right? When I've given the book or taught the book, students are coming to me like, where has this been? Like, who else is doing this type of stuff, right? I'm like, well, you know, you go back to Butler, of course. Sure. And then we skip up. I feel there's some more people on Niecy Shaw and K. Jammons and his people are doing it. Nala Hopkins. Nala Hopkins and Tenor Eve Dew. I mean, there's like all these people. Elizabeth Acevedo is killing it. Yeah, there's a lot of good people. Yeah, but I mean, but also too, I think because you come from a generation where, I mean, I'll say it, Shadow Cypher, it's hip hop. There's a hip hop quality to that book that a lot of people are feeling right now. That's cool. So I'm wondering like, what does that feel like? So that's the canon piece, but what is your canon? Like if you were gonna give us five books of your canon. Oh man. Just five, so stop. So what would you do? They put me on the spot. Which books would you give? Shit. It's like everybody in here has to read those five books. I was not ready for this question. What are those books? This is a really unfair question. I'm pretty mad at you right now. Most people are. All right, all right, all right. Let me see what I got. Wild Seed is my favorite Octavia Butler book. I think that is. Can you hand if you read Wild Seed? More people. Well done, well done. Yes, read Wild Seed. Those of you who didn't read just leave, I'll buy you a copy out there if they have it. It's so good. And it's really short. It's really short. I recently taught it again. And there's nothing like teach it. As you know, when you teach something, you engage with it on a whole other level. And you get to see other people engage with it. And it's so fascinating. There are so many levels to that book and why it works. I could go on forever. And then I wouldn't have to give you my other four books. So that would be cool. Midnight Robert by Nalo Hopkinson. I feel like it's a lost classic. You've read that? Midnight Robert, okay. Yeah, exactly. Pick it up. It's wonderful. Midnight Robert is, to me, is her best book. And that's saying a lot because she's one of our greatest writers of all time. But Midnight Robert deals with so many different things. And it does it in such a complex and playful way. It's fantasy. It's sci-fi. It deals with surviving sexual assault but not in a way that. Ripping off scabs. Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, I think it really confronts that topic in a way that's about healing. And then it deals also with the idea of entering another community and organizing within it and how difficult and painful that is sometimes. Without, on the one hand, totally demonizing it but also without excusing it and apologizing for it or making it into the one and only way. It's basically like everything that was wrong with Avatar was right with Midnight Robert. And it's a much more complex conversation about what Avatar was trying to do and failing at. There's also a magical tree like in Avatar. The lactic fern gully. Right. I think everything, well, not everything but most things Walter Moseley does are amazing. He has like 50 books out. So it's hard to, 50 amazing books. But his whole Easy Rollins series was really inspirational to me. It really like turned around my understanding of just the, again, this idea of like you can tell a great mystery and you can also talk about racism at the same time. Not falling to traditional detective story tropes. Exactly. He subverted every detective story tropes. He subverted it, but he also like respected it. Respected it, yeah. But not, without not kissing its ass. He was like, well, here's some good things that we can take from the classics. And here's ways that they were really jacked up and we're gonna redo it and do it better. You know, like easy being such a man of his community is really inspiring. And something that I didn't mean to like grab up but it definitely ended up being a part of the Bone Street room. Where Carlos is constantly moving through, he's kind of gathering community around him without meaning to. And that's just a part, he wants to be the lone wolf, you know, like noir hero. But he just keeps like meeting amazing people who like latch onto him and then he latches onto them and then he just builds this great world of the living and the dead that you know, eventually throw a big dance party. Which is kind of, because I think we have to have, we have to be able to imagine the future we want, right? I mean, I'm sure people have said this in really perfect ways, but it's not just about tearing down, it's also about imagining what we want. And to come back to this piece about the living and the dead and harmony, that's really the vision of the Bone Street Roomba and Shadow Shaper is like that we live in this world, which we do, where we're in harmony with our dead and not trying to constantly buck against them. Which is also a way of saying history and understanding history. Because the dead of course are from the past, right? And this concept that history walks with us is really fundamental, which leads me to another one. I would say Edward Said, you know, has a book called Culture and Imperialism, which is kind of his follow-up to Orientalism, which is really him turning the gaze of literature back on itself and asking it, why is it so fucked up? Basically, and doing it really, really intellectually, but with a lot of heart too. And I think that's a pretty like major work. That was enough, right? That's four. That was four. May. Who asked y'all? Let me think of my fifth. Come back to me on the fifth. You know, I mean, there's things I mean, I think along with that same book, I think Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's probably one of the most important books about place and person and literature I've read in the last, I don't know how many years, I teach that book all the time. Yeah, no, that's phenomenal. I mean, I think that with the Said book, I think those would be really good hanging books. What are the teachers in the house? True, true, yeah. Oh, you want me to do another one after you put in my fifth? No, I'm still thinking about it. That's your next question and I'll come back to the fifth. Yeah, okay, so we're gonna be wrapping up because I really want the audience to be able to have time to ask some questions. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. I guess the final question is I wanna ask because there's a lot of creators in the audience, but you were able to contribute mythology to probably the biggest franchise in the history of the world which is a Star Wars franchise. Yes. So I'm wondering what was it like to play with somebody else's sand? It was actually really, really fun. I thought it would suck and I was gonna do it anyway because I'm a huge Star Wars fan and like you could... Not everybody's perfect. Wow. Why do I put up with this abuse? Anyway, I was like, look, as soon as they called me, I was like, I'm doing the project and I had to let my agent, that's why agents are great because I was like, you talk to them because I've been, yes, yes, yes, yes. I said all these swear words in the email that fortunately they went to him and not to the people at Lucasfilm. Anyway, no, I thought it was gonna be really annoying and like I said, I was willing to put up with that annoying anyway but it turned out not to be annoying at all. They were very generous with their world and they're not trying to over clamp down on it. In fact, it was actually the notes that I got were in the other direction because I kept things very within the world for the most part of my first draft of the outline and they were like, no, we're tied to the tattooing. Go make up a planet. And I was like, you want me to make up a Star Wars planet? Well, that's what I got. So I made up like eight and then I made up like a bunch of monsters and I threw in a whole couple moons in there too and different kinds of spaceships and the cool part was that it's all on the Wikipedia, Wikipedia, which is a really great resource and which now like I'm on, you know what I mean? I went from like using it as a resource to seeing my shit on there and that was kind of an amazing mini arc to go through. So yeah, I just had a really good time. That world has so much room to explore in. It's complex, it's dynamic, there's history and it was interesting because I was researching the Civil War at the same time and I was jumping back and forth between the Wikipedia and the Wikipedia because yes, I do sometimes do initial research on the Wikipedia because it's kind of fun to go down rabbit holes. If you're a student? Yes. You cannot use that as a source. You cannot source? But it's fun to find out like broad strokes and their battle stuff is really interesting. Every battle is fully written out in really fascinating ways. So anyway, it was just cool to like be doing research on both things at the same time, the Galactic Civil War and the American Civil War and jumping back and forth. I just had a really good time. And the last point about that what I really appreciated about that was like, younger Hanan Lando, older Hanan Lando but what you showed about how men who were weren't maybe rogue-ish, conformed to fatherhood or be shaped by fatherhood was literally my favorite part of the book. Oh, thanks man. Outside of the whiz bang and the rest it was like, he sees me. You know, it was like one of those things where you don't really see, you know, fish doesn't see water, right? From the outside perspective, like, wow, there is this maturation, this journey of being the outsider kind of guy but to being a responsible father and husband. And so how you crafted that was something that that's why I recommend the book to people. Don't read it for the Star Wars or read it for the relationships. Yeah, thank you. The other stuff is the calligraphy around themselves. Someone just tweeted this, like right before we came up here that it's actually, that LaShad is actually a love story. And that's absolutely true. And I was like, I was like, I feel seen. You saw what I was writing about because Lando falls in love. And he's the ultimate galactic player. And I really wanted, and I was really hoping they would let me and they did, I really wanted him to have an arc that wasn't about him just like doing all the shiny hey, hey, but actually like having emotions towards a woman that he was involved with and her coming in from the past, you know, being just as badass as him and matching him in a way that he wasn't comfortable with at all. Cause that to me is a really interesting arc that I think a lot of us, you know, know or have friends who have gone through and seen and been like, wow, what happens when the player, not just gets played, but actually has to deal with something emotional. And what does that really mean? Well, we got to make space for somebody who's just as dope as you, if not doper. Right. Right. Yeah. So it was fun to write. Daniel Jose Older. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I don't know if we have a mic. Oh, we do have a mic. So are there any questions for Mr. Older? So I see one here and then one there. Oh, one there and then one there now. Hi. Is this on? It is. Okay. Hi. Thank you so much for your perspective on the host of mortals and ancestral worship in the home as a way of being and living. My name is April and I just built a seven foot tall altar for our ancestors at the Soma Arts Museum. And I basically never built that kind of altar before. And what happened with me as an artist, I had like a death of sorts in doing so. And can you tell me kind of what this is that I actually had the experience with? I ended up getting a visitor at night telling me that I was a fake because I was too much in my left brain as an intellectual forensic researcher because I just graduated grad school. So everything on my altar was about what I learned but it was still spirit, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they said, if you do not acknowledge the people that have passed that you are unwilling to talk about then you should not do this altar. Ooh, that's right. You are a fake. Wow. I ended up crying. That was kind of a rude spirit, right? Yeah, well, no, they're telling me that I was building the altar for the wrong reasons. Right. So could you tell me having to be reborn again at that moment? Sure. What is that about? Well, I definitely can't speak to your specific experience because I don't know it well enough from what you said, but I can talk very, generally I can say that all art does involve a sort of a death in some ways. In the same way that it involves a turning point, right? I think that we always have to become the writer or the creator that will create the work in the process of creating the work. And that's the gift that art gives back to us is that it turns us into those artists, those creators in the process of. So in the midst of writing a book, at some point you will be challenged by that work because you're always in conversation with it, right? And then you will step up to that challenge, much like the protagonist in the story is to step up to their challenge and you will untangle that knot and figure out what you needed to do to get it there. And I think that's what you went through. I think you went through it in a very visceral and spiritual way, but that's the same process that we all go through in one form or another. That sometimes feels very much like death, you know, when you're just at that moment and you're like, all right, I just spent like however many months and however many words are on the page and the book doesn't work and you might have to start from scratch, God forbid, or shadow shaper, I cut off the last two thirds, which isn't the last anything, it's like more of the book than not, right? And then went back and rewrote it from the first third, which felt like death at the time. But death is the beginning, of course, and death means a lot of different things. And again, we have a very negative connotation of it, but it actually is how we get to where we are now. And so I think that spirit gave you a gift and I think it was a painful gift, but those are the best kind really, you know, and it's true, grad school can really jack you up because they're really trying to get you to think with one part of your brain and the rest of the world doesn't function in that way necessarily, not to mention whiteness, you know, and all the different layers of how whiteness and academia interact to destroy us. Very literally, right? Because genocide and academia are connected, but also on a spirit and a gut level. So, you know, cleansing is important once again and I think also just listening, the listening process that Sean spoke of is very real in terms of being a writer and hearing the rhythms of people around you, but it's also true in terms of listening to spirit and understanding like, whoa, what am I really here to do and what's the real work? And I don't think that means like academia is useless or that you need to forget all the things you learn, it means how do you find balance? And part of the way you do that, you do have to let go of a lot of that stuff and that's hard to do because we were trained so rigorously to hold on to it as tight as we could for all those years, but it's a beautiful process that you're in. Yeah, other questions? Right, yeah. So thank you very much for all your work. Two, not quite questions. One, still waiting on the fifth book in this list. I'm still waiting. I was the one who's counting. I still don't know what your fifth book on the canon is. Whenever you get to it, not for here, but I'd also really love to know what your thoughts on the Spider-Man movie into the Spider-Man. It's incredible. Right. That's it. I got no thoughts. It's amazing. It's the best movie of the year. Period. Yeah, I was gonna ask for a tweet thread on that, but whatever. Actual question. One of the things I really, really appreciated about the Shadow Shaper series as a whole was how plugged into youth culture you were, and how authentic it felt, and how it felt like I had a window into the world of current teenagers in Brooklyn. You're not a teenager. Wait a minute, wait a minute, are you sure? I'm pretty sure, I didn't even feel like that's a lot of people. My birthday was actually on Monday, so no. Was it Monday? Was it the other day? I just turned something. Yes. Thank you. It's good to be a Capricorn. That's a great, I appreciate that a lot, because that's the hardest thing, I think, and that's the thing that I dislike so much about a lot of YA's is that when they don't feel that, the worst to me is when they feel like what adults want kids to be, ooh, I hate that shit. You know, and they're just like the good little children or the bad children that are just bad unrecognizably. So I did work with kids a lot, and I do still. And I think it does come back to actually what we were just talking about, this idea of listening. And I think deep listening, right? Not the kind of listening that particularly cis men are so trained to do, which is listening so that we can get our point in next, but actually shutting the fuck up and listening in a real way, both to ourselves and to the world around us. And specifically when you're writing, with this conversation about writing people who aren't us, we have to include age, right? Because we fail at it so hard sometimes. But teenagers invent language in a way no one else does. Teenagers are the heart of that whole thing that Sean and I were talking about of the botinche on the corner and of all the back and forth and all the like tiroteo, which is one of my favorite Spanish words which actually means shoot out, but which is kind of what a conversation with a teenager can feel like sometimes. And I say that lovingly, you know, that's all like language begins with young people. That's where language is born. And so I think honoring that instead of like tisking it is a big beginning to that. And then ultimately just honoring that they are very complex and they bring a lot of, their stuff is right there, you know, whereas like a lot of us by the time we're older have kind of shoved it down. It takes a while to get to it, you know, like with teenagers and with young people in general, it's often just right on the surface. It's often their first time, you know, having a lot of the feelings they're having. So they feel gigantic, you know. So I think honoring that without disrespecting it, right? Without condescending to it, but just honoring it. And remembering it as clearly as possible. I was a big journaler when I was a teenager. And I didn't reread any of them, but I do think it allowed me to be self-reflective in a way that has kind of like caught up to me now. And I can remember like what I was thinking and how much like it meant to me to have a safe space where I could write things down. So that's Sierra, you know, when Sierra sits down and draws, like she needs a safe space that she can put all her stuff into without being judged for it. So sometimes it is sort of just those very basic human things. But I'm glad that you took that from it because I'm cool with the youth. Hello, fellow kids. Yes, another question. Hi, I'm just wondering if you had to like write another book but forego all the strategies you've ever like talked about like character building or whatever. How would that feel for you? Oh, that's a complicated question. That's a great question. I don't know. You mean like just sort of start with a blank slate like from scratch? Like just, yeah, I think it would be really fun. Cause I think it would be a book that I was writing with no, kind of what we were talking about earlier, like with no thought about trying to publish it. It would have to be something that maybe like long down the road after many, many edits, I would, whatever, but it would be an exercise and just being like, let me just tell a story for me and nobody else. Let me just put a story on the page and just see where it goes instead of trying to, cause I can't speak to anyone else's process, but I know like it's very clear to me when I'm letting the story kind of run and when I'm doing what you're saying, which is bringing it, being like, you know, I think we need a turning point here. I think we need more tension in this moment, right? Those are very like intentional moments for me. Like I, I know my own voice and I know when the story's pulling in a different direction and then that, how you reconcile those two. So it mean really like being like, nope, not gonna do that thing where I try to make the story work and just like letting it ride. And I think it would be fun. I look forward to having the time to do that one day cause it's a great idea. It's a really good exercise. Yeah. I want to thank Daniel Jose, give him a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you. You've been wonderful. Thank you so much. I want to thank everybody who showed up today. Also, if you're going to tweet this hashtag is hashtag BBCAF 2019. Also give us about a six, seven minute changeover. Please stay for Rebecca Roanhorse cause that book. Yes. Woo! Let me tell you right now, that book is one of the best books you will read in the next few five, maybe even from 2058. I don't care. It's an amazing book. Amazing book. Also too, we have Daniel's books, Roanhorse's books out at the table out front. Right, Borderlands book. So give us about six minutes to changeover. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you.