Seven writers with books coming out in the first months of the new year share their thoughts about creativity, the transformative power of writing, and the infinite potential of the literary imagination.
“I believe in writing through the difficulty of a truth, the ugliness of a truth. I believe it is worth asserting that we have value beyond the humiliation, hurt, oppression, and trauma we face in our lives and our skins every day.”
Why do you write?
I write in order to live; to be sane in this world; to expand my own ideas of what’s possible; for the girl inside me who did not believe she was valuable; for the woman inside me who trivializes her own pain; for all the living people, especially women of color, who feel the same way; to rail against silence and erasure; to center my own narrative; to recover history; to imagine a future; to record and witness the present; to tell the truth.
What has changed you as a writer?
Perhaps it’s the way I process or address trauma in my work. Before, I rarely wrote poems that were autobiographical or about my personal experiences—if I did, they were hidden or tucked away. Recently I began taking steps to approach the personal in a way I’ve avoided before, and I do recognize something liberating and comforting about allowing poems to carry the weight of a pain that is both deep-rooted and fresh. I am probing my wound and also acknowledging that the wound is more complex than its pain: It is a human experience, and all wounds can be seeds.
Who do you turn to when you feel like you’re losing faith?
I think of the women who have come before me, all the revolutionary women who are also my muses.
How do you challenge yourself to grow as a writer?
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Literary MagNet
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