Storied Charlotte

In 2022, North Carolina Humanities celebrated its 50^th anniversary as the leading nonprofit organization charged with advancing public access to and support for the humanities across the state. North Carolina Humanities is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). As part of its celebration, North Carolina Humanities launched North Carolina Reads, a statewide program in which participants read and discussed five books dealing with issues and concerns that face the residents of the state.  North Carolina Reads was so successful that North Carolina Humanities decided to bring back North Carolina Reads in 2023. 

The person who is coordinating this year’s North Carolina Reads program is Melissa Giblin.  She is the Director of the North Carolina Center for the Book, which is the North Carolina Humanities’ collection of literature and reading programs.  I reached out to Melissa and asked her for more information about North Carolina Reads.  Here is what she sent to me:

Building on the successes of the 2022 series, North Carolina Humanities has brought back its popular statewide book club, North Carolina Reads. In 2023 North Carolina Reads features five new books that explore issues of racial, social, and gender equality and the history and culture of North Carolina. The five selected books feature stories of American perseverance and diversity. The people, places, and events in the books also pose critical questions about how North Carolinians view their role in helping to form a more just and inclusive society.

At the heart of North Carolina Reads is NC Humanities’ desire to connect communities through shared reading experiences. Reading is important because it helps develop critical-thinking skills; strengthens minds, vocabulary, and mental health; and creates opportunities to empathize with others’ stories and experiences. North Carolina Reads uses books as a way to create space for talking about important, timely issues.

Starting in February 2023, NC Humanities will host virtual monthly book club events where participants will hear from guest speakers, including book authors and topic experts. Libraries, community groups, and individuals across North Carolina are encouraged to read along with NC Humanities and host community programs of their own to accompany NC Humanities’ virtual events.  The schedule for these events is listed below:

February 22, 2023 at 6:30 PM – Carolina Built an online conversation with author Kianna Alexander and Dr. Hilary Green

March 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM – Game Changers: Dean Smith, Charlie Scott, and the Era that Transformed a Southern College Town online conversation with author Art Chansky and Dr. Matt Andrews 

April 2023 – Money Rock: A Family’s Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South – conversation with Pam Kelley. Other Book Club Details Forthcoming! 

May 23, 2023 at 6:30 PM – Under a Gilded Moon online conversation with author Joy Jordan-Lake and Dr. Jennifer Le Zotte

June 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM – Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music online conversation with author David Menconi and Dolphus Ramseur

North Carolina Reads is a unique book club. Not only is it one of the only statewide book clubs in North Carolina, but it is also an essential program resource for local, community-based book club groups and regional libraries. 

North Carolina Humanities encourages all North Carolinians to participate in North Carolina Reads. Watch our short video on how you can participate!  More information is available at https://nchumanities.org/program/north-carolina-reads  Please direct all North Carolina Reads-related questions to Melissa Giblin, Director of the North Carolina Center for the Book, at mgiblin@nchumanities.org or (704) 687-1526.

My appreciation goes to Melissa and the North Carolina Center for the Book for organizing this year’s North Carolina Reads program.  I understand that North Carolina Reads is a statewide program, but I take a certain amount of civic pride that the North Carolina Center for Book is headquartered in Charlotte.  As I see it, Storied Charlotte and the North Carolina Center for the Book are a perfect match.  

Over the past few years, I have been hearing a lot about Misha Lazzara.  I first heard her name from the creative writing professors in the English Department at UNC Charlotte.  They described Misha as a very talented graduate student who was studying fiction writing in our department.  I then heard that she had been accepted into the MFA program in creative writing at North Carolina State University.  Next, I heard that she had completed her MFA and had come back to our department to teach a creative writing course as a part-time faculty member.  Most recently, I heard that her debut novel, Manmade Constellations, had just been released by Blackstone Publishing.  Well, after hearing so much about her, I decided to check out her novel for myself.

Manmade Constellations is a road-trip story of sorts.  The novel begins when Lo Gunderson, an alienated young woman from a small town in Minnesota, responds to an ad for a “free car.” When she meets Blanche Peterson, the dying woman who is giving away the car, Lo learns that the free car comes with a condition.  Blanche wants Lo to find her estranged son.  Lo agrees to the deal, but first, she needs to get the car in running condition.  She gets help from a young car mechanic from North Carolina named John Blank, and he ends up joining Lo on her quest to find Blanche’s son. For much of the novel, Lo and John travel together, experiencing the American landscape and, in the process, learning a lot about each other.  The central characters become more and more complex as the story progresses.  They have secrets, difficult family histories, and longings that they don’t fully acknowledge or understand.  As a reader, you have a sense that you are traveling in the backseat with these characters, and they make for very memorable traveling companions. 

After reading Manmade Constellations, I contacted Misha and asked her how she came to write this novel.  Here is what she sent to me:

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. When I was eight or nine my mom gifted me the children’s book The Lives of Writers by Kathleen Krull, which highlights the biographies of a dozen or two well-known writers including Murasaki Shikibu, who I happened to name a pet turtle after. There was also Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes, among others. Ostensibly, I had shown an interest in reading and writing as a young girl, but it was really with that book in my hand that I set my sights on the job title. 

However, as it does for many, life nuzzled in. It felt like I had only been handed my bachelor’s degree in English before I found myself married and starting a family. Later, when I entered UNC Charlotte to get my master’s degree eight years out of undergrad, I was pregnant with my third child while my husband traveled for work. With all those responsibilities, I applied to grad school with more “logical” intentions. The plan was to focus on English, so I might find a job teaching one day down the line, once my own kids were all set up in grade school. True, I had the unkempt and abandoned manuscript of Manmade Constellations, a novel I’d been working on through my twenties, in the proverbial drawer (a dusty computer file), but as I formed the Graduate School Masterplan with my husband, teaching English felt like the responsible thing to do.

That responsible thing lasted about a week into my first writing workshop with Dr. Aaron Gwyn, which happened to be the very first class I signed up for and the first graduate class I ever stepped foot into. I decided (bravely or naively, I can’t say) to switch my focus to creative writing. Still, I worked on a project that I deemed more serious–a wartime historical fiction that remains unfinished–up until the pandemic descended. 

By that time, I was almost halfway through my MFA at North Carolina State University. The work of homeschooling my kids, teaching Intro to Fiction for NCSU via Zoom, and taking my own course load made it clear to me that WWII research would not fit on the docket. So, I had an idea to rewrite that old story–Manmade Constellations–from scratch. 

For me, the book is largely a story about home. And for me, Minnesota is home. That’s where I grew up at least. When do we stop calling where we grew up ‘home?’ I don’t know if I’ll ever have an answer for that. I’ve lived here in Charlotte for almost fourteen years, and I only lived in Minnesota for eighteen. Time is catching up to me, I suppose, but still it was cathartic to revisit those old haunts–the lakes, the wood-paneled diners, and those flat stretches of highway broken up by even more lakes. 

Still, I knew that the South, and more precisely North Carolina, would have to fit into this story of home somehow. Since I first visited Marshall, a small railway town outside of Asheville, I’d been enthralled by the half-hidden settlement of “snake churches” in the area. In the book, John Blank, a good-natured Southern kid who trailed his way up to small-town Midwest, harbors secrets that connect to those enigmatic sanctuaries. 

So, if the question is how this novel came to be and how it relates to my life here in North Carolina, the answer is that I may have never written Manmade Constellations, or any book at all, if it hadn’t been for Dr. Lara Vetter encouraging me to apply at my first meeting at UNC Charlotte when I was unsure whether I was qualified for graduate school, or perhaps I’d never given it a shot if I hadn’t been so inspired by Dr. Gwyn’s writing workshop that first semester. 

Well, that, and also the snakes. 

For readers who want to know more about Misha, please click on the following link:  https://mishalazzara.com/?v=2e5df5aa3470

As a long-time member of UNC Charlotte’s English Department, I am always proud when our former students go on to do great things.  I am proud of Misha, and I highly recommend her debut novel.  There is a new star in Storied Charlotte’s literary galaxy, and it’s called Manmade Constellations.

With the end of each year, I always take a moment to look in the rear-view mirror before I step on the gas pedal and make my merge into the traffic of the new year.  For Charlotte’s community of readers and writers, 2022 turned out pretty well. The year saw the launching of Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit and the return of EpicFest, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s free literary festival for children and their families. The year also marked the return of the library’s Verse and Vino as an in-person event.  Numerous books by Charlotte writers came out in 2022.  Listed below are twelve of my favorites.  These books include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s books:

FICTION

Burning Shakespeare by A. J. Hartley.  In this time-travel novel, an American businessman and Shakespeare hater travels back in time to Renaissance London on a mission to eradicate Shakespeare from history.  He is countered by three recently deceased people from our time who are given an opportunity to come back to life if they go back in time and stop the businessman from carrying out his mission.

Deadly Declarations by Landis Wade.  This mystery novel is set in a fictional retirement community located in Charlotte.  Three residents of the “Independence Retirement Community” join forces to solve a mystery related to the famous and controversial Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.  The protagonists in this novel are anything but retiring.  They are feisty, independent, and fully engaged in the world around them.  They take on a powerful law firm, a corrupt politician, and a secret society and they prove that they are more than equal to the challenge. 

The Grand Design: A Novel of Dorothy Draper by Joy Callaway.  For the most part, this historical novel takes place in The Greenbrier, the famous resort in West Virginia.  The central character has much in common with Dorothy Draper, the pioneering interior designer who renovated The Greenbrier after it was used as a makeshift hospital during World War II.

Manmade Constellations by Misha Lazzara. This contemporary novel combines the pleasures of an American road-trip story with the emotional tug of a relationship story involving two traveling companions from quite different worlds.

Secret Lives by Mark de Castrique.  The central character in this thriller mystery is Ethel Fiona Crestwater, a 75-year-old retired FBI agent who runs a boardinghouse near Washington, D.C.  The reviewer from Publishers Weekly describes this character as “an elderly Nancy Drew” who is “ready to bend a few rules to achieve her goal of seeing justice done.”

Song of Redemption by Malika J. Stevely. Most of this historical novel takes place on a French and English-speaking plantation in Louisiana in the years just before the Civil War, but the opening chapter is set in 1932.  In this chapter, a group of construction workers are fixing up an abandoned plantation mansion when they discover the body of a woman behind one of the walls.  This event actually happened.  When Malika heard about it, she decided to write a novel based on the life of this woman.

NONFICTION

Child: A Memoir by Judy Goldman. In Child, Judy writes about her relationship with Mattie Culp, the Black woman who cared for Judy as a white Jewish girl growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the 1940s and ‘50s.  Judy examines how the racism of the Jim Crow South affected her relationship with Mattie.

Legacy:  Three Centuries of Black History in Charlotte, North Carolina by Pamela Grundy.  This book provides readers with a concise overview of the history of Black culture in Charlotte.  As Pamela documents in her book, African Americans have played important roles in the history of Charlotte from the origins of the city in the 1750s to the present day.

POETRY

The House Inside My Head by Chris Arvidson.  In this debut chapbook, Chris writes about specific places and her responses to these places.  Among the places she explores are Lake Michigan, Jerusalem, a bathroom at a rest stop, and the Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte.

The Metaphorist by Martin (Marty) Settle.  The poems in this collection look at nature through a metaphorical lens.  To quote Marty, “This book of poetry comes, first of all, from my unending love of plants and animals. Over the years, I have become quite familiar with the flora, fauna, and fungi of our region. But these poems are not just any nature poems, but nature poems that are in line with current, ecological discoveries and philosophies.”

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

All the Places We Call Home by Patric Gopo.  In the beginning of All the Places We Call Home, a young girl spins a globe on her bedside table and wonders about the various places that figure in her family history. Like Patrice, the girl lives in America but has family roots in multiple parts of the world.   The girl’s mother then shares bedtime stories about these special places.

The Talk by Alicia D. Williams. The Talk tells the story of Jay, a young Black boy who is growing up in an American city with his tight-knit family and his regular group of neighborhood friends. At first, Jay is more or less oblivious to the realities of racial prejudice, but as he matures, his parents and grandparents take him aside and talk to him about how to respond to racial profiling and other forms of prejudice that Black children, especially Black boys, often encounter when they make the transition from childhood to pre-adolescence. The Talk is a book about racism, but at its core, it is a celebration of a loving Black family.

THERE ARE MORE THAN TWELVE

The twelve books mentioned above are by no means the only books that Charlotte-area writers published in 2022.  I could mention many more books, including a number of excellent scholarly works written by professors I know at UNC Charlotte.  Still, this list provides a good sampling of the wide variety of books that came out of Storied Charlotte in 2022. 

One need not come from a Jewish background to be alarmed and appalled at the recent rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions, but for those of us who do, this disturbing trend has personal connotations and connections. My ancestors on my father’s side of my family tree were Polish Jews, most of whom were from Warsaw.  My grandfather wanted me to know that some of these people fought and died in the famous Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, resisting the Nazis during Germany’s occupation of Poland in World War Two.  When I hear contemporary Americans echoing the same anti-Semitic rhetoric that the Nazis used, I think about my Jewish ancestors, and I shudder. 

Although I feel repelled and deeply disappointed by the recent developments in the history of anti-Semitism in America, I feel a sense of pride in Charlotte’s history of supporting Jewish writers, such as Harry Golden. Golden spent most of his boyhood and young adult days in New York City, but in 1941 he settled permanently in Charlotte.  The next year he published a trial run of the Carolina Israelite, a newspaper intended primarily for North Carolina’s Jewish community.  It was a success, and in 1944 he began publishing the newspaper on a regular basis.  He continued to publish this paper until 1968. 

In addition to publishing his newspaper, Golden wrote numerous best-selling books, including Only in America (1958), For 2¢ Plain (1958), and Enjoy, Enjoy! (1960). These books became known for their folksy humor, but they had a serious side to them, too.  In many of his publications and public appearances, Golden spoke out against racial segregation and called for an end to the Jim Crow laws.  At the time of his death in 1981, Golden was Charlotte’s most famous writer. For Golden, Charlotte proved to be a supportive place where he could pursue his career as a writer.  One of the reasons behind Golden’s success as a Jewish writer is that he always emphasized what Jews have in common with people from other religious backgrounds.  He used his gifts as a writer to build bridges and unite people. 

Another Jewish writer from Charlotte who builds bridges is Judy Goldman. She is especially well known for her memoirs, including her recently published Child, which is about her childhood experiences as a Southern Jewish girl who was largely raised by a non-Jewish, African American woman. In many ways, Child is a true story about a relationship that transcends religious and racial divides. Judy, however, has also published books of poetry and fiction.  For more information about Judy Goldman and her books, please click on the following link:  http://judygoldman.com

The Slow Way Back, Judy Goldman’s first novel, came out in 1999, and it went on to win the Sir Walter Raleigh Fiction Award.  Thea McKee, the central character in this novel, has family roots in Charlotte’s Jewish community, but she knows little about her family history.  She is married to a non-Jewish man, and she does not think of herself as being religious.  However, when she acquires a series of eight letters written by her grandmother in the 1930s, she begins to delve into her Jewish heritage.  The letters are written in Yiddish, which she cannot read, so she arranges to have the letters translated.  In the process, she uncovers a series of family secrets that span three generations.  Although The Slow Way Back focuses on one Jewish family, it speaks to all families who harbor secrets.

I recently contacted Judy and asked her for her thoughts on being a Jewish writer.  She responded by sending me a few paragraphs, which she titled “Am I a Jewish Writer?”  Here is what she sent to me:

I suppose, since I was born into a Jewish family and I write books, I am a Jewish writer. I’m certainly not a Presbyterian writer. Or a Methodist writer. But if I’m a Jewish writer, doesn’t this mean I write about Jewish things?

What if my subject is family? Always, family. My books aim to fully and honestly examine how we connect (or disconnect, then re-connect). Does that mean I’m a Jewish writer?

The reason I’m unclear about the answer to this question is that my Jewishness is a small part of who I am. As a writer. And as a person. I don’t really identify myself as a white-haired person or a person with a Southern accent or a person who celebrates Hanukkah. That would ignore the totality of my identity.

When Mark asked me to write a little something about being a Jewish writer, I almost turned him down. But he’s Mark and his intentions are right-minded and he’s a really good guy. So I said yes. However, my yes was an equivocal yes. Because I so wish religion did not divide us, did not separate us into teams that can turn territorial. I wish nobody ever thought about whether a writer was Jewish or Presbyterian or Methodist.

I, too, wish that religion did not divide us.  As I see it, Harry Golden and Judy Goldman both teach us that we can respect religious diversity while still celebrating our common humanity.  I wish everyone in Storied Charlotte, whatever their religious background might be, a happy holiday season.

Every December I visit Park Road Books to buy books for children whom I have never met and will likely never meet. This annual ritual is tied to the Book Tree Initiative, a collaborative project involving Communities In Schools (CIS) and Park Road Books.   The CIS website includes the following description of the project:

Communities In Schools and Park Road Books in Park Road Shopping Center team up each year to give the joy of reading and books to CIS students.  A tree in Park Road Books’ store is decorated with ornaments created by our students, including the name, age, and “book wish” of a student.  Customers who select an ornament are given a 20% discount on a book purchased for the student.  It’s a wonderful way to give a new book to a child who may never have had a book of his or her own.

This week my son and I selected two ornaments from the Book Tree.  One of the ornaments was created by a girl who expressed a desire for a Sailor Moon book.  We checked out the manga section, and sure enough they had the first volume of Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi.  I bought it.  The other ornament was created by a boy who said he would like any book about the American Revolution.  My son and I took a look at the store’s collection of history books for children, and we spotted Guts & Glory:  The American Revolution by Ben Thompson.  I bought it.  After I paid for these books, I left them with the helpful cashier.  The staff at Park Road Books will make sure that the books get into the hands of the children who requested them.

For readers who want to know more about the Book Tree, please click on the following link: https://www.parkroadbooks.com/book-tree-2022 

For readers who want to know more about Communities In Schools, please click on the following link:  https://www.cischarlotte.org/about/

I am a big believer in providing children with their own books, which is why I always take a trip to the Book Tree.  I like the fact that the children who participate in this program are given an opportunity to say what book or type of book they want.  I enjoy making their “book wishes” come true.  

I wish everyone in Storied Charlotte a wonderful holiday season, and I hope that everyone’s “book wishes” all come true.   

The Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, more commonly known as Charlotte Lit, is a nonprofit arts organization, but it is also a place.  Since its founding in 2015, Charlotte Lit has aspired to provide area writers with an inviting place to take writing classes and workshops, participate in conversations and readings, and write and reflect in a space that promotes creativity and conviviality.  For more information about Charlotte Lit, please click on the following link: https://www.charlottelit.org/about/

For a number of years, Charlotte Lit found rooms of its own (to paraphrase Virginia Wolfe) in the Midwood International and Cultural Center in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood.  Recently, however, Charlotte Lit learned that it needed to find a new place to call home.  I am pleased to report that it has just relocated to a new space not far from its original location. 

I recently contacted Paul Reali, Charlotte Lit’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, and asked him for more information about Charlotte Lit’s big move. Here is what he sent to me:

Have you heard the news? Charlotte Lit is moving on down the road! Our new digs at hygge coworking’s Belmont location are only a mile from our studios at the Midwood International and Cultural Center (MICC). It’s a bright, lively space with a creative vibe and lots of free parking. And, though we weren’t exactly eager to leave MICC, team hygge’s enthusiastic welcome has made the transition easy—dare I say, even a little fun.

Strangely, moving to hygge is a little like returning to our coworking roots. Shortly after finishing a PhD in mythology, Charlotte Lit cofounder Kathie Collins found herself longing for the kind of “synergetic” community she’d experienced in graduate school, so she set out to build one. After searching long and hard for affordable space, she lucked into a beautiful, light-filled re-purposed classroom at MICC and set out her shingle as August Moon Creative Co-op. The original plan was to recruit 6-8 people to share space, rent, and creative energy. Coworking was a relatively new concept in Charlotte at the time, however. Kathie had just one taker. Me.

Fortunately, we discovered a shared passion for writing and a desire to create a literary center focused on offering the kind of creative writing classes and literature-based programming largely missing from Charlotte’s arts landscape. In early 2016, August Moon went dark and Charlotte Lit was born. Since then, we’ve built a nonprofit organization that now offers more than 100 writing classes and two dozen special events each year. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve such a feat without the foundation MICC provided us in our first six years, and we’ll remain forever grateful for the center and all the friends we made there.

Alas, times change. Development comes for all, especially in Plaza Midwood. MICC was sold in 2021, with all tenant leases ending in June 2023. We searched far and wide for affordable studio/office space with adequate parking but quickly realized Charlotte’s commercial real estate market doesn’t exactly cater to nonprofit arts organizations with limited budgets. We also realized we didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. We thrived in MICC’s collaborative environment during our first six years; perhaps coworking was the solution we had been gravitating toward all along.

At hygge coworking Belmont, we’ve found a new creative community in a central location that will allow us to continue serving a diverse cross-section of Charlotte—and all the features essential to Lit’s success: affordability, accessibility, parking, the right vibe. Best of all, we’ve found a management team dedicated to making us feel at home. When Kathie and I first met hygge owner Garrett Titchy, he said: we want you here and we’ll make it work. He and his staff have done just that!

Our staff began working at hygge in November. We’ll hold in-person classes in the new space beginning in January. Check the new space out beforehand at our annual holiday party on December 14. We’ll have music and mingling, drinks and snacks. We hope we’ll have you, too. Please let us know you’re coming, here: https://charlottelit.configio.com/pd/132/holiday-party. See you soon!

I know that I speak for everyone in Storied Charlotte in wishing Paul Reali, Kathie Collins, and everyone else associated with Charlotte Lit all the best as they settle into their new home. 

Thanksgiving and family reunions go hand in hand.  This pairing is reflected in Lydia Maria Child’s famous Thanksgiving poem “Over the River and Through the Wood,” which first appeared in Child’s 1844 book, Flowers for Children.  This poem is all about children traveling through the woods in order to visit their grandparents on Thanksgiving Day.  As is stated in one of the stanzas, “When Grandmother sees us come, / she will say, ‘O, dear, the children are here, / Bring a pie for everyone.’” 

The topic of family reunions is of special interest to Charlotte poet Grace Ocasio. In fact, her 2020 poetry collection is titled Family Reunion.  For more information about this collection, please click on the following link:  https://www.broadstonebooks.com/shop/p/family-reunion-poetry-by-grace-c-ocasio

I recently contacted Grace and asked her if any of the poems in Family Reunion have connections to Thanksgiving.  She said yes, and she shared the following story with me:

Thanksgiving wasn’t Thanksgiving unless we (my family and I) attended one of Great-Aunt Esther’s family gatherings.  Of course, she wasn’t the one cooking on these occasions—it was my Great-Uncle Calvin who prepared all the foods.  As soon as we walked through Great-Aunt Esther’s door, we could smell the goodness of all the great food. There was sliced ham, turkey roasted golden-brown crisp, string beans, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, and a panoply of cakes and pies.

After we had all eaten, some of us got up to dance.  The Bump was the latest dance craze then.  My female cousins giggled attempting to execute other dances besides The Bump while my male cousins stood on the sidelines watching.  Uncle Arnold, fresh from South Carolina, one of the few relations coming up to New York from the South, performed a simple dance of placing his hands on his belt and slightly pulling up his pants while stepping from side to side.  Again, there were giggles from my female cousins.  Uncle Arnold’s dance might have passed for just enough movement on Soul Train.

Bored after a while from dancing, I’d wander around Aunt Esther’s three-storied house, gazing at family photos.  Chastity, one of my cousins, loomed larger than life in one of the photos, posing like a model with hands on her hips, her right leg extended slightly with her right foot tilted in front of her left foot.  In a different photo, Tanya, her older sister, sat on her father’s shoulder. She looked to be about four years old.  These are the memories that linger, tease me, and turn on like an old television show when I least expect them.

I then asked Grace for permission to reprint the poem in which she wrote about spending Thanksgiving with her Aunt Esther, and she kindly agreed: 

I thank Grace for sharing her poem and her memories of celebrating Thanksgiving at her Aunt Esther’s home in Mount Vernon, New York, and I wish everyone in Storied Charlotte a happy Thanksgiving. 

Charlotte children’s author Alicia D. Williams has a new picture book that came out this fall.  Titled The Talk, this powerful and timely book is illustrated by Briana Mukodiri Uchendu and published by Simon & Schuster. The Talk tells the story of Jay, a young Black boy who is growing up in an American city with his tight-knit family and his regular group of neighborhood friends. He likes pretending to be a superhero, skateboarding with his friends, and listening to his grandfather’s stories.  In the beginning of the story, he is brimming with energy and joy. 

At first, Jay is more or less oblivious to the realities of racial prejudice, but as he matures, his parents and grandparents take him aside and talk to him about how to respond to racial profiling and other forms of prejudice that Black children, especially Black boys, often encounter when they make the transition from childhood to pre-adolescence. The Talk is a book about racism, but at its core, it is a celebration of a loving Black family. All of the family members in The Talk do everything they can to protect their boy as he grows up.

After reading The Talk, I wanted to know more about what motivated Alicia to write this book.  I contacted her and asked her for more information about how she came to write The Talk.  Here is what she sent to me:

The subject of the talk has been in my mind for several years. Yet, I didn’t think I should write the story because of potential blind spots as a woman. I held no experience living as a Black male nor had I raised one. But I raised a girl and knew my worries were almost the same. I gave my own daughter the talk when shopping, when she got her driver’s license, and when she stayed at Airbnb’s. Still, I tried to give the story away to male peers. Even tried to enlist a male poet to co-write it. Eventually, I let it go figuring the story will ride the wind and land at the hands of the right writer.

In 2020, I, along with so many others, was deeply impacted by George Floyd’s and Ahmaud Aubrey’s murder, as well as the last words of Elijah McCain. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus. But one night when I did manage to rest, a little chatty voice woke me and wouldn’t let me rest until I grabbed a pen and paper. The boy, the character Jay, introduced me to his friends, family, and everything he was proud of. Then, those same moments of pride came with a warning or a talk. The story literally unfolded that night.

The interesting backstory of writing this story is the chatty boy that woke me. I recognized him. He was, in fact, a little boy who attended the independent school that I taught at. He was one of the small percentages of Black boys attending lower school. And from the start of kindergarten, he was always being pulled out into the hallway and given a talk for being too wiggly, too chatty, too much. I had noticed that the other kindergarteners were just as wiggly, chatty, and too much. This talk for him had carried on to first, second, and third grade. I realized that the talk given at the school was indeed given so that he could manage himself at a predominantly white institution.

What I am no longer teaching, my experiences and all that I’m exposed to direct the stories I tell. For instance, just a few weeks ago, I was shopping at the Arboretum and my car was stopped by security. The security guard prompted me to roll down my window and then began asking if I was lost or knew where I was going. This, no doubt, was racial profiling. I realize that had this been an older “Jay,” the outcome might have been different.

The Talk is Alicia’s fourth children’s book. Alicia burst on the children’s literature scene in 2019 with the publication of her novel Genesis Begins Again.  She received both a Newbery Honor Award and the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Author Award for New Talent for this novel. She has quickly followed up her novel with two picture book biographies of prominent African American women: Jump at the Sun:  The True-Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston and Shirley Chisholm Dares: The Story of the First Black Woman in Congress. For more information about Alicia and her books, please click on the following link:  https://www.aliciadwilliams.com/  In just four years, Alicia has established herself as one of Storied Charlotte’s leading children’s authors.

Joseph Bathanti, a former North Carolina Poet Laureate and a one-time resident of Charlotte, recently contacted me about a new film project that deals with veterans from North Carolina.  Titled Brothers Like These, this film tells the story of a creative writing class that Joseph taught to a group of veterans.  Given that Veterans Day is just around the corner, now is a perfect time to spotlight this film and the veterans whose voices are featured in the film.  I contacted Joseph and asked him for more information about the film and his work with North Carolina veterans.  I also asked him to comment on the experiences of veterans from the Charlotte area. Here is what Joseph sent to me:

During my stint as North Carolina Poet Laureate, from 2012-2014, my signature project was working with returning combat veterans, all veterans, really, and their families to harvest their stories through poems, short stories, memoirs, plays, you-name-it. In 2014, I teamed with the extraordinary Dr. Bruce Kelly, now my great friend, a primary-care physician at Charles George VA Medical Center; and, in 2016, he and I co-founded the creative writing program there at the VA for Vietnam veterans with PTSD.

A very short film about that program was released in July of this year. It’s titled Brothers Like These, produced by Red Light Films & The Documentary Group and directed by Academy Award-winning director, Ross Kaufman. You can also read “The Church of Classroom B” on Thrive Global. What happened at Charles George is not about Bruce and me, but about those men, all from North Carolina mountain counties, who had literally stayed silent and tortured for half a century about their service in Vietnam, and the cruel reception they received upon return to the U.S, until they opened up on paper. I’m greatly oversimplifying the story, but as I say in “The Church of Classroom B,” I have never seen such a miraculous transformation in nearly 46 years of teaching creative writing, and the film says it all.

Thousands of men and women from Charlotte and Mecklenburg County served in the military, in a variety of capacities, during the Vietnam War, and 105 gave their lives. In the very heart of Charlotte, at Thompson Park on East 3rd Street, is the Mecklenburg County Vietnam Veterans Memorial. What’s more, I hope it goes without saying that Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are home to thousands of additional veterans from WWII, the Korean War, and, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – many of whom struggle with PTSD and would profit from a writing program – not to mention the thousands that lost their lives in those wars. Charlotte hosts two VA clinics, and local colleges and universities all support veterans upon their reentry from the military. Johnson C. Smith University has the Veteran’s Hub; the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has a Veterans Services Office; Queens University, has a Student Veterans Association; and Central Piedmont Community College, its Military Families, and Veterans Services.

When I was just beginning my work with veterans, I wrote, out of the blue, for advice to Ron Capps, the founder and director of the Veterans Writing Project in Washington, D.C. Ron, a combat veteran who has been to five wars and a fine writer himself, served 25 years in the Army and Army Reserve. He instantly replied to this perfect stranger: “Your target audience will be found in every imaginable venue in the state. You’ll find them and reach them in schools, hospitals, and Veterans Services Organizations … old folks homes, on and around military bases of course. Everywhere.” Including Charlotte. But they can often be invisible.

I commend Joseph and Bruce Kelly for providing the veterans in their class with opportunities to give voice to their experiences.  As we observe Veterans Day here in Storied Charlotte, it is important to recognize that our community’s veterans and their families have powerful stories to tell and important insights to share.