 All right. And for tonight's event, we are celebrating Melissa Valentine's book, all of the flowers, the names of all of the flowers. And so you can pick this book up at your library to go location or one of those bookstores. Definitely support local independent bookstores we love bookstores. And it's also just came out on audible yesterday. So you can also check out the audible version of the book. At SFPL it's available on hoopla as an ebook which gives unlimited access to all of the people at all of the times. Very lovely book. A memoir personal. I'm almost all the way through it and then just it's a really, really great book and really accessible. And I want to say, brave is not the word it's it's being able to put put herself out there and share her family experience I think. I think that was just I got goosebumps thinking about it just because it's just so personal and I know people can relate to this, the family dynamic that's happening in the book. Melissa is an award winning writer from Oakland, California, whose work explores themes of race, trauma and healing. The names of all the flowers is her debut memoir. It was the 2019 winner of the Louise Mary weather first book prize. She's a 2020 artist fellow of the New York Foundation for the arts and nonfiction literature, and has been a fellow at the San Francisco writers grotto. Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine, where Nica, Jezebel and Apigee, among others. She's a visiting professor at the University of California Santa Cruz. And tonight, Melissa will be in conversation with Amber butts. Amber is a writer organizer and educator who believes that black folk are already whole her work centers on black children, black mamas and black elders. So we have big and small questions about how we move forward toward actualizing spaces that center tenderness nuance and joy, while living in a world reliant on black tear. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Melissa and Amber. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you all for joining us tonight Melissa I'm so excited to be in conversation with you about all the things Oakland books, your book. And every talk that I participate in I like to also just acknowledge and thank the writers attendees and participants for inviting us into their homes. It's an honor, regardless of whether it's virtual or not to be invited into these spaces so thank you all, and thank you Melissa. Absolutely, thank you, Amber for being in conversation tonight and thank you, San Francisco Public Library and everyone here in the audience and those watching on other formats as well. It's an honor to be here for a couple reasons. You know, Oakland is my hometown, and my book is all about Oakland love, but I don't live in Oakland right now. So it's just it feels like I'm at home right now and as Amber said thank you for inviting us into your home this is such a strange time and, and we get to be oddly more intimate with each other and you know on zoom here so I appreciate everyone for coming out tonight and on your on your Wednesday evening. So thank you. So I thought I would start just kind of open the space with a reading. I'll read for a couple minutes. This is towards the end of the book. I think you'll understand the context I won't, I won't give away too much. I'll just start. It is the day before his funeral, the day of the viewing. Let's get your hair done. Danielle suggests I let myself be pulled like a balloon to a hair salon with Danielle. We wander there on foot, looking for the first place that offers the service we seek to be changed. The salon is near the high school I just switched out of near a familiar bus stop where kids gather in groups waiting for buses to go home or cut school. We're on the Oakland side of the dividing line that separates the city from Piedmont. We walk over the hill and cross the threshold. Neither of us has been here before. There's a liquor store in the corner that I've seen many times. And all this time I never knew there was a tiny salon tucked away in the back. We are the only customers. The woman greets us and asks us what we want. I'm in a dream state. And I let Danielle speak for both of us. Just a press, she says, for her. She points to me and the woman invites me to sit in a chair. She tells me what to do in between sips of her sweating beverage. I smell alcohol on her breath as she talks. Come here, put your head back like this. She washes my hair and for the first time in a while I remember I have a body. I remember joy until I am pulled back from the sensation violently and brought back to the knowing dead, dead, dead. He did not make it. Like being slapped or having freezing water thrown onto you. I remember. Danielle sits in a chair next to the door and watches us. All three of us are reflected in the mirror. One of us is drunk. Two of us are floating. One of us is trying to have a sense of control. One of us is being altered by the pressing comb. While the woman sips and combs and sips and combs attempting to transform me, Danielle and I look into the mirror at each other and ourselves past the reflection. While we look, we both know that everyone else is viewing Junior's body, that he is now being pulled out of a drawer, that his head is wrapped up in cloth to conceal his head wound, that his body will be empty of him, that he is gone. The woman sips and straightens. Danielle and I stare into the mirror and in between every second it returns. Dead, dead, dead. The woman announces she is finished. Danielle walks over to me. She strokes my hair. Do you like it? We look into the mirror again, this time at me. I look like someone beautiful. I look like a normal person. I look like I could have a brother who is alive. I look like I could be happy. I look like someone who could want things. I look different, I say. Still, we stare into the mirror. Neither one of us can smile. Neither one of us knows why we are here. We are the blind leading the blind. The morning trying to remember being alive. We are two women who have lost. What are we looking for? Some sign of change, some physical representation of what has transformed inside us. Some acknowledgement that we are different now. Marked. All I can say is I look different. I'd like to look different. I'd like to look into the mirror and see someone bigger, someone more powerful. I'd like to look so different that when people look at me, they could know the secret I carry. But I look the same. I look like a girl. I look normal. I look unharmed by my knowing that boys like my brother die every day and families like mine must try to go on living. No one will know how different I am, how traumatized I am. No one will know my secret. I wear my straightened hair to the funeral the next day. I wear the only appropriate dress I have. It is a long black dress with a white floral motif that I wore to my eighth grade graduation. I catch glimpses of myself in glass doors and windows. I don't recognize myself. And that feels right. Who am I without my brother? How did I get to this chapel? Who drove me here? Did I walk? I have no control over my body. It moves. It goes here or there. It wants nothing. When I walk into the chapel, I see a bulletin board filled with pictures of Junior from his whole little life. Baby, teen, baby, child, teen, man. I stare at them and then I stand back and watch as more and more people fill into the room. Black people, white people, Quaker people, street people, kids I've seen around our old high school. One by one, they pull my limp body into theirs and squeeze me. Tell me, hey, we're so sorry. They tell me, you'll get through this. They tell me, you'll survive. And in the seconds between death, when a thought enters, I think, I don't want to survive then. If this is something to be survived, I don't want to survive. If this is something to get through, I don't want to make it to the other side. That thing in me that's changed wants to let itself be seen, wants to let itself be changed by the part of this death that is universal, that is more personal, even than family. The part of this tragedy that can be described as an epidemic, the part of this tragedy that is so old, it has been written in books. The part of this death that is all of ours. Every single person walking into this chapel is part of it. I haven't been spared, and I won't survive. None of us will. You and you and you. You're all as dead as me. And you're all in as much danger. Because as long as we are dying in the streets like animals, each one of us is a little bit dead. Each one of us in danger. The anger and the secret and the death and the love all mixed together now. They come and swarms. Then a new thought enters. God how loved he was. How many different kinds of people loved him. And I sit back outside myself, and I watch in all. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. I want to invite us all to take a deep breath. Just for a few seconds, hold it if we can and release it. Thanks for that reading. I read this book twice. And each time I read it, I wanted to start it back up again. But I knew that I needed time in between. Because at its core, for me at least, my reading of it was this was like really deep grief work. And not grief in the sense of, you know, it just being grief, but it encompassing all the things and how you talk about how loved your brother was. And I wanted to witness that. And you also allowed us to see how loved he was in the book and how much you still love him. And also how funny and wild and amazing he was. So thank you for that, Melissa. Okay, so we're going to jump into a question. First, let's talk about we're both from Oakland. I love reading about Oakland from different folks's perspectives and we all say the same thing about the weather. But yeah, so you're from Oakland and you now live in New York. So let's talk a little bit about the transit transition or decisions you made to leave. What is it growing up here? What's your relationship to the town now? And also, when did you decide to leave and why? Lots of questions there. So, yes, I live in New York now. And I have, first of all, I love Oakland is my home. It's always going to be my home. I think of it just so fondly. It's so familiar to me and growing up in Oakland was just so special. I mean, I feel like people who grow up in the Bay have this like, I don't know, it's just this magical experience that is like hard to describe to other people. They're like, well, it's just a small city with a little lake. But it's so much better than that it's so much more than that and what was so special about growing up in Oakland was things that you take for granted really it was so diverse, like truly diverse. I grew up going to school. I mean, I had friends literally from like every ethnicity that you could think of. And that was just my reality. And it wasn't until I started to visit other places later in life that I started to really appreciate that because you can take it for granted. And also being mixed race, you know, my mom is black, my dad is white and growing up mixed race in Oakland didn't feel strange at all. It actually felt quite normal. And, you know, I grew up, there were just tons of interracial families around me, we weren't the only ones and so that is something that, you know, upon leaving I realized was just not the North River worlds, you know, so very special experience. I left Oakland twice. So this is my second round leaving Oakland, being away from Oakland and both times actually I went to New York, the first time for college. So I was 1819, and it was right around, you know, my brother was murdered when I was 16. So it was still very, very new to me that trauma. And part of healing from his death and dealing with that grief was this sense, like holding onto this sense that I needed to get out of this place and this place wasn't safe for me. And Oakland has many sides, right? Oakland is a wonderful, beautiful, diverse, radical, progressive place that has amazing produce and food and just there's so many wonderful things about it. But when I was growing up as a teenager in the 90s and into the early 2000s, having witnessed my brother's murder, you know, it felt just it felt like it didn't feel like a safe place and even growing up inside of my family home. Didn't feel like a safe place. And I think when we leave, when we when we go to find another home for me anyway, I'm always searching for safety. That's kind of what home is to me, you know, so, so the first time I left it was like survival is like I felt like my ticket to survival was going to be college and that's a long story too because I almost flunked out of high school and almost didn't go to college. But I did in the end and it was in part because of his death, you know, that was so motivating and inspiring like this is how I'm going to get out. And so I went to New York for college and and then I returned and I stayed for about seven years, the last time around and I was a different person Oakland was a different place. And it was, I wrote my book in that time in that chunk of time. I wrote most of it. And in order to finish it I think I had to leave again. Actually, so it was partly like an emotional distance that I needed from the city, you know where these events that I was writing about had taken place I needed to get out in order to finish and like revise and make it a book. And also, I was becoming a really angry person, you know, because of what Oakland was becoming to me, someone who grew up and, and you know it was this special sacred place that a lot of people didn't know about didn't care about, and that was great stay out. And then everything changed right and and it was just like gentrification just blew up and suddenly I didn't recognize my city, you know and it felt really painful and hurtful to me. And I, you know I wanted to leave. And so I went to Brooklyn, and you know the same thing was happening there, but it wasn't as personal to me. And I, and I hope to return because now I've written this book, and I have that space from it. I don't need to grapple with that same trauma anymore I can, I can go back home and maybe I can write something different you know because something has opened up because I've done this thing. Yeah, I hear all of that and also Oakland is I'm in West Oakland I'm from East Oakland and it is in a lot of ways heartbreaking and traumatic to see how how much it's changed and and you know, I go on walks or I ride my bike and I'm like, Okay, three weeks ago that was, you know, a kind of rundown store and now they've closed it to you know, make it high rises. Yeah, it is. It's a very unique experience. So thanks for for sharing that. Thanks for some more questions. I mean, I had to like limit the questions that I had personally because I wanted to have like 50 questions for you but of course that's not feasible. But I was really drawn to the windows you let us into with your family and both how like when you're in Oakland and when you visited Alabama. I already kind of talked a little bit about home but what do you miss most about both places. I'll start with Alabama. It's, it's a place I write about Alabama, a lot in my book because it was such a big part of my youth my mom is from Alabama and my mom was a sharecropper. So that history is just so real to me and you know, going back home and seeing the place where she used to live, you know, there's, there's my grandparents land. And then, you know, we always take a trip kind of down the road and my mom and my aunts like we're in the car and they're pointing here and there and they're like oh we used to live there. And they're pointing to, like, some bushes, you know, like there is such poverty and, you know, she grew up before they moved into this house which, after she moved to California, helped she help pay for you know as much like an immigrant experience of like leaving going to a new country sending money back home, you know, to create, you know, wealth for your family in some way like little as little as much as you can. So it's really a special place. And it's such a like living part of my mom's history and my history. But what I miss what I guess I will say I miss most is my grandmother, because she died when I was really young. And she's so special to my mom. And I feel like if she were living, we would be really close, you know, so I like, it's like this feeling of missing something that you've never had. And I also miss the red dirt. And it's just red dirt roads, which as a child I was just like how is this possible. It's so amazing thread. I miss the red dirt roads and I also miss the kudzu. Does anyone know what kudzu is? It's like this crazy vine that's, it must be invasive that just grows everywhere, and it covers entire trees, and it creates these like wild shapes. And you're driving down the dirt road and it's like this mythical place full of these giant shapes covered in like green. So that's how I remember I miss that I do miss that it's such a it's such a special place. And Oakland, I miss my family. Oakland changes, you know, cities change, things change. But people, you know are so important and my family is complicated as my family is, you know, I wrote a memoir and usually don't write a memoir if you have like the best relationship with your family. And I have in my life needed distance from them, you know, which I'm taking right now. I miss my family, and I appreciate them so much. They've given me so much. They've given me stories. They've given me, you know, it created me for better or worse. Yeah, I feel like all of that's necessary distance and also like you, I feel like you, you wrote a lot of honest things about your life and your family and your community, right. I feel like you did it with care, like it didn't. I didn't read it as malicious. One of my favorite references is I like the show Queen sugar and Nova board alone she she wrote a book on on the show, and she didn't really consult her family members in the way that she would have. And I feel like this book and how you've written it, you know, it shows a lot of care in a different way than what she did, fictionally. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. We can keep if you want talking a little bit about home. I have a question really about kind of what does it mean to you right now to create a new home. And what must your place have for you to be able to feel safe and that sense of safety that you were returning to. It's always evolving, you know, like I said when I first moved to New York. That safety was like, I need to survive. And I had that instinct like I have to leave this place to become way to become, you know, and that was safety. Sometimes safety is emotional. Sometimes it's physical. And I would say like, so that's always the definition is always changing your needs are always changing. But right now in my life like who I am right now safety for me as my partner, you know, and you know I'm good. If he's here I'm good. He's around I'm good. That makes me feel he makes me feel very safe. But also just in creating a home because like, I live far away from one of my homes and I've created homes and in many different places. But I think it's such a luxury and a privilege to feel safe, you know, and for many of us we've had to work really hard and go through a lot of healing to feel safety. So I just, I'm, I don't take for granted I'm so grateful for, you know, being able to have like nice things around me like, you know, just soft things even like crystals and like a bathtub and a nice comfortable bed you know like these are things that make you feel like you're abundant. And you can, you can like you're okay. You know you have a place to recharge. And we all need the space to be able to visualize and also actualize those spaces and unfortunately in this world, they're treated as luxuries when they should be, you know, they are human rights right. Absolutely. Absolutely Amber. Let's, let's talk craft for a bit. So many things to talk with you about that I'll talk with you about we'll talk together at another time because I have lots of ideas and excitement. But let's go with the how did you embody a child's voice. You know, um, the decision to write from a child's perspective really felt so natural. It's how I started and it just like, it just worked and I kept doing that for the whole book it didn't feel limiting. I can like writing from that perspective can feel really limiting it can feel very, you know simplistic like I start the book when I'm six years old. But there are ways to weave in that dimension and that depth. There's, there's definitely ways to do that. So, and then the voice also evolves right the voice is growing up. So it's like the book takes place from six to 16, and then there's an epilogue around like 30. Um, so it's quite a it's quite a span of time, and it's in the present tense for that, that whole for the whole book. But the little girl who is telling the majority of the book little me. She. I think I think I just probably wanted to be close to her. Like befriend her and know her. And it became really fun and really healing to because so much of the book there's like this theme of there's this theme of like smallness in the book like she feels so small. And she's like I feel so powerless, and that is the experience of a child you know like your life is dictated by the adults around you and either way. You know so it's kind of scary to be a child really your life is in other people's hands you have no power truly. But that experience for me as a super emotional sensitive child who wasn't necessarily nourished and nurtured in that way. I think she needed some support you know and. I went back to her and, and I feel like we wrote this book together. And, and it was. Yeah, I feel like I have so much more compassion for my, my little self. And it's it's funny to talk about them as two different people because obviously I'm one person, you know, but it's a it's a really beautiful thing to be able to kind of do some inner child work while you're writing your book and heal parts of you and you know so she was she was dealing with not feeling heard, you know, and me writing in this book gave her a voice. She was dealing with with feeling powerless and you know writing this book made her feel powerful. So, so yeah, and I've never actually talked about it this way before. It's really interesting. And now, me now when I have those feelings of not being enough and feeling powerless and, you know, feeling unloved or unheard or all those human feelings that we often feel. I do think I'm able to have a little bit more self compassion. You know, for the little mean for me. Yeah, I mean, I hope that was a very like who answer, but a lot of craft work also went into writing from a child's voice. And, you know, just like, yeah, it took a lot of work to to to grow that voice over time for that, that span of time. It was, it was very careful craft work. Like making sure I could weave in the adult perspective, because obviously that's there. It's me telling the story now, you know. Yeah, it feels like definitely I was going to say inner child work because it feels very much like, you know, your inner child and your current self and all of the versions of yourself that you've been and currently are are in communication with other in a way that feels very special and unique to this book, and also to, you know, a unique skill that you have which is also probably because you know you are a very aware and sensitive child and, you know, are still a very aware and sensitive person. And I think, I mean, I was just really excited about the access points that you had and then I think to one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is the ways that folks are also re parenting themselves in doing the inner child and you have to build a relationship with the inner child in order to be able to be honest and also apologize which a lot of children don't hear, regardless of where they where they grew up or what the socio economic political ethnic backgrounds they came from. Let's move into more questions I have so many. Let's talk about the theme of flowers and how it's present throughout the book. Why did you choose the name of all the flowers as your book title. The name of all the flowers was a line in my book. And the line, the scene where it lives in the book is. I'm talking to my brother junior. We're around like, we're both teenagers, and this is before, you know, before he goes off to prison so my brother spent the first year of his adult life in prison right so this is all leading up to that so this is before that happens and before he's killed but I'm getting really worried about him and he's sort of like getting really into crime and he's selling drugs and I know a little bit you know I just know a sliver of what he's doing he tell he does bring me into his world but only only so much I'm his little sister, you know. I used to go into his bedroom when he'd come home because he was kind of in and out of the house and kind of out out a lot and, and I wanted to know my older brother was up to you know and so I go into his room and sit on his bed and kind of, you know, just asking to talk about little sister big brother stuff. And it was been one of these moments where I'm kind of like praying in a way, you know, like we're in this space together and this is when the voice zooms out right so it's not the child voice it's not in the moment it's zooming out. And I'm just sort of it's almost like a prayer you know I'm just like, I don't really want you to be like I just want us to be who we are, I want us to be brother and sister, like I don't want you to be a drug dealer I don't want you to have that name. I don't want you to have the name thug I don't want you to have the name criminal. I don't want you to have those names and it's sort of this desperate like prayer for him to, to just be who he is right and who he is acknowledging in that moment is so much bigger than that. And it's so much more beautiful than those stereotypes and those labels that I'm seeing the world put on him and I'm seeing him go down this path. And it's just heartbreaking for me even as a teenager, because I can see it so clearly and it's like the whole house is just like, you know, waiting, because we know, we know what happens to boys like him you know we know what happens in this, we know how this story ends, you know and we're living it. And in that moment I'm just saying, I, I wish that you would just honor your, your, your all the flowers you are, you are so huge you are transcendent you're bigger than all of this you are so beautiful. And that's where that the title of my book lives in that kind of transcendent like wish for him and for me and really for all of us to be more than those labels, and whatever that means to you, you know, and so it's that transcendence it's also. So throughout the book, my father's a landscaper. So we did know a lot of the names of a lot of flowers growing up. And, you know, flowers and trees and different plants kind of weave their way into the book, just because that was part of our world, you know my dad used to quiz us when we'd go on drives and, you know we wouldn't get the treat unless we've got the name of the tree right, you know, because it was very important to him. So, so it's kind of an honor to my dad, and his, and his legacy, you know. And it's of course, in honor of all of the lives that are lost to gun violence because you know in the cover of my book is really meaningful, you know it's, it's a street grave, and it has all these flowers and I was thinking very much of that you know. It's these nameless people who are killed that you know we don't talk about we don't honor they're just really forgotten we don't say their names we don't, they're not part of this. Black Lives Matter movement you know it's a little bit too complicated to fit so neatly into any box and so I really felt the need to to just say his name to include all of these nameless people and kind of put them all into this category of like flowers in this kind of beautiful metaphor. It's also so much about community right like folks in the neighborhood and outside of the neighborhood, travel to these memorial sites which is what what they are right and they pay homage to the folks we've lost and they make offerings flowers, you know, candles, their favorite things photos, any way to remember the lives. And I think to in the face of like all of the gentrification that's happening one of the real realities is that those lives can be erased in those those places right, and so I love that you know you are refusing that and saying hey, this is a life and also. So I don't want to get too far into the book but I love the way that you complicate this kind of expectation or representation that black children, especially have to be good or bad in order to receive care when they are just already deserving of it. And how, you know, already that categorization of bad is a prison to school pipeline thing that just reinforces carceral legacies that are really unfair. I have so many questions that I'm not going to ever get to. But one of the, I think, most important questions before we move into the Q&A portion is, I want to talk a little bit about a little bit about care. What care practices have you prescribed yourself since publishing the book, and have you kind of built or enforced any new boundaries for yourself professionally family wise, whatever. I love that question and I think it's a work in progress for me. But yeah I mean one boundary is the physical boundary right like I'm in New York and it's funny that I live in New York when my very Oakland book publishes you know, and I think it was subconscious, I think it was totally subconscious but I think that was a boundary for me like I didn't want to be I don't think I wanted to be near my family when this book came out because it was too much. It was just like I mean I dealt with a lot of, I knew it was going to bring up so much for for my family it's really painful, you know. And, and I have created characters out of my family, and you know my parents my father in this book is, you know I think he was probably the most sensitive to this book when it came out and felt the most hurt. And I've gotten a lot of support from other family but you know I think, I think that was like the main the physical boundary for me was the biggest one was like, we can talk on the phone. And I get to decide I get to decide when, when that call ends you know, whereas if I live in the same city it's just, it's just too close. So, so I've gone through all that and I'm still processing that. And, and I think I'm ready, you know, so to return home I think we've, we've dealt with it and my siblings you know have, you know it just opens a wound. It opens a wound and I guess one boundary another boundary to is I throughout my writing process, I had to tell my family members. I had a few rules. The first one was I don't want feedback. And the second one was, okay I don't want feedback I only want praise. So if you don't have anything, you know, you know, if you want to if you want to critique or say like I didn't say it that way. I don't want to hear good things and that was part of my process because it's really tough to write a memoir and have other people's voice in it. Yeah. So that was a boundary as I was writing and then, and then the boundary that I had with my family to when it came out was. I have, I have written this book for seven years. I've been with this grief I've been with. I've been attached myself from it I've been inside it I've been all around it right. And now it's your turn and I'm, I don't think that I can be the one to like hold your hand through it. And you guys have to be with each other through it and so I did sit that boundary as well so I didn't think I had any boundaries and turns out I did. So boundary work constant constant constant. Yeah, I think we have to transition into questions but I wanted to just give a little bit of praise for this book and also say that one of my favorite. One of my favorite scenes in the book is when you know you and your family are in Alabama and there's a storm and there's lightning and everyone is afraid. And your brother junior is outside, he has a bar of soap in his hand and he just like starts washing his body and like, I love that. It was just so I could see it all happening. And I just think that was so beautiful and I'm so grateful you put that in your book. So thank you. Absolutely he was so so full of life and energy and wild in so many ways you know, and I wanted to make sure that was captured he was a really special vibrant person. So there's a question from Lucy, and it's hello thanks for speaking with us. Have had you envisioned yourself as a memoirist prior to writing this particular book, or did you become a memoirist on account of having written this book. When did you realize you had to write the story. It's a great question. When did I realize I had to write. When did you realize you had to write the story. Yeah. Um, I did become a memoirist, as I was writing this book and after writing this book. But I think I will leave that title open to other things in the future to, you know, writer is good enough, because I want to write other things as well. I've always been an observer, and you can tell through the book that this child is observing her surroundings so fiercely. And I have always just taken note of human behavior and my family was the great study. You know, and I mean I journal since I knew how to write, and you have always documented. I have always documented my life. It wasn't until I went to college that I started to explore storytelling in different ways so I actually wanted to be an actress. And I was studying theater in college. And I was really interested in characters and embodying characters and so that was like my first pathway into storytelling. And then I started doubling in writing classes and when I, when I took a nonfiction class. You know you have to come up with a story, and this was clear. It was so clear that this was my story and it just started knocking and it didn't stop knocking until, you know, until it was done. Those knocks be loud. Another question. A line from your reading this is from invita a line from your reading struck me. If this is something to survive. I don't want to survive it. You said you didn't want to see what was on the other side. At what point did that change for you. It's been a process. I think I think part of grieving, especially when you're grieving at such a young age is. You know I learned these terms much later but like survivors guilt. I did not want to even be alive. And I didn't have language for that when I was a teenager, or a young adult, I didn't have language for not feeling like I deserved to be alive. And I learned that much later, you know when I went to therapy and started, you know, looking at myself and my, my trauma. That I read, you know, it had just happened. And when, when I think the first part of grief is like, you're so terrified of forgetting that person. And you do not want anyone telling you, you're going to, you're going to get over this, you're going to be okay. It's like, that's the worst thing you can tell someone and as a teenager I was just so angry like I want to survive this. I want like I want to, I want him to live forever in my memory I never want to forget this and I think for like the first few years of grief. It was just about like remembrance, you know. So, and over time, over time, through healing. You know, I learned that I do want to be alive and I deserve to be alive and I deserve to have things and I deserve to have a life. And it's okay and I can let go and I don't have to be so hyper vigilant. And I can have a life, you know, and I can like let go a little bit and breathe and so it was long process, you know, but, but eventually I did want to see the other side of my own life, you know, my own experience. And I think it's also a way that we honor our dead. I, when I was in middle school and high school, so many people I knew had been killed just, you know, walking down the street, going to parties. And so somebody would be in class and the next day they would, they wouldn't, you know, and then family members also, you know, and from a lot of different forms of violence and I think, you know, we also have to hold the, the hope in the relationship of like memory, but also of, you know, honoring. And I think we do honor them by, by living in and committing, you know, to live in happier lives. We have more questions. Okay, so I feel like you kind of talked about memoirs, but so I'm not going to actually ask that question but we have another question that what was it like for you to write about your very personal and very private grief and such a public way for such an extended period of time. Well, it wasn't public for a long time. And so writing this book was extremely private and personal for a long time and I hoped that someone would care about it and that someone would want to publish it, because I was an ambitious person and I thought you know I'm doing this thing. I wanted to go somewhere and be something, you know, but it was really private, and I didn't share it with many people for a long time. I went to grad school. And that's when I really started sharing it publicly for the first time and kind of a safe, well, you know, safe and quote space and getting feedback for the first time and in the response I think gave me a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to keep going and that people did care and that they were interested in this family and this this girl and so I just kept going, you know, but yeah it was it was definitely private for a long time and even after that experience of sharing in a class like continue to be private you know you writing a book it's very solitary. And I'm not someone who seeks out a lot of feedback because I was really on a roll and you know I kind of honored the sacredness of the writing and I didn't want and especially especially being so personal. I was really particular about who I would let read and give me feedback and whose feedback I would take, you know. And later on that became like an agent and later on an editor and you know, made it a better book, but it wasn't until pub day last year that this book became public and it has been a journey, but it's been a good one. Because I feel like the healing message. People have really taken that and I've gotten so many beautiful messages from readers and you know if it helps one person. Then that's like I've done my job, you know, but but I think it's helped a lot of people and and a lot of people have gotten something out of my work so that's all I want. Our last question is from Cecilia is editing harder than writing. Yes, it is. Because of structure. And because of plot, even in a memoir you need a plot. You need like to have a point, you know, like why am I saying this what does it mean. And that part of the revision process, you know, is the hardest because you have to ask yourself really tough questions you have to cut a lot. Yeah, I would say that's harder, but it's a beautiful place to arrive at because it means you have a draft, you know which is a huge accomplishment. Are there any other things you want to share with the attendees. Thank you for listening for coming for your beautiful questions. I know we've shared a lot about my book I read from the end of my books I hope you'll still read it I hope you'll still read the beginning in the middle. You know I'm very clear when the book opens how it ends so it's no surprise. But just thank you so much for your support and for for listening. This has been a wonderful conversation. Yeah, and thank you so much. Amber, I loved your questions you have great questions. Thank you so much for this and everyone who's here and participating in the chat and on YouTube and whatever else is out there in the world. We're super grateful to have you here, especially during this time and please you know grab Melissa's book for family members and also, you know, support your public libraries. Thank you for that library love and we thank all of the people for being here tonight. And if you have an attendant SFPL program. Check us out. We're doing lots of stuff almost every night of the week. So there is the library community we are still here and we miss you San Francisco we love you, Melissa and Amber thank you so much for being here we're honored to have you and congratulations on the book and pick it up. So today, I put all those links in the box and I'll send a follow up email to the folks who registered YouTube thank you for being here. Amber, Lisa, thank you so much, Amber, Melissa and Lisa. Thank you so much. Good night San Francisco.