WEBVTT - Literary Detectives 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:12.039 On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:22.480 You Are Beef Today. Zor Nolhurston is a household name 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:23.960 for the average booklover. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.239 Doubly so for the average black book lover. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.360 But that wasn't the case in the nineteen seventies when 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.519 Alice Walker rediscovered the deceased writer's elusive works. Despite being 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.880 the most widely published Black woman author of the nineteen 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.360 thirties Harlem Renaissance, when Hirston died in nineteen sixties, her 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.160 stories and books had gone out of print. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.199 And if you listened to our previous episode, which one 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.680 of y'all want Beef, you'll recall that Zora's beef's with W. E. B. 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.920 Du Boyce, Richard Wright, and others led to her fall 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.000 from literary fame and into literary obscurity. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.520 You may also recall her beefing with her Frenemie Langston 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.200 Hughes over the play meal Bone, despite Zora never speaking 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.560 to him again. Langston included Hurston's story The Gilded Six 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.039 Bits in an anthology title The Best Short Stories by 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.840 Black Writers. Alice Walker also had a short story in 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.920 that collection, call to Hell with Dying, but Several years later, 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.040 a neighbor let Alice Walker their eyes were watching God, 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.920 and then Walker's journey to unearthed Zorra began. The young 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.959 Walker began studying Heurston's life in writing, and in nineteen 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.520 seventy three, she found herself knee high in grasses and 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.080 weeds in Fort Pierce, Florida's Garden of Heavenly Rest, searching 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.320 for Hurston's unmarked grave. In a two thousand and four 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.840 MPR interview, Walker described calling out to Zorra to find 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.920 the writer's resting place. I actually started to call to 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.600 her to Zorra, she remembers, and I just kind of 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.080 stepped into this hole, which was the only thing that 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.800 looked like a grave in the area. Walker took it 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.680 upon herself to buy Zora a headstone and inscribed it 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.040 a Genius of the South. Walker wrote about looking for 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.760 Zorra in a Miss magazine article titled in Search of 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.720 zor Or Neil Hurston. The article sparked a renewed interest 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.440 in Zora Neil Hurston and her writing. Later, Walker edited 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.320 A Hurston Reader, taking its title from a Hurston quote, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.880 I love myself when I am laughing and then again 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:13.840 when I'm looking mean and impressive. 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.880 I shuddered to think about what would have happened to 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.120 Zora's story and writing if Alice Walker hadn't taken it 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:21.359 upon herself to go looking. 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.440 Now we have Zora's novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God, Moses, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.880 Man of the Mountain, and Jonahs Gordvine. We have Zora's 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.520 folk tales and short stories like every Time Got to 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.320 Confess and Mules and Men, and her autobiography Desk Tracks 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.800 on a Road In short. We have Zora. We still 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:39.600 have soa. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.360 My name is Zora Neil Herston. This song the call 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.000 shove it Over, and it's the line in rhythm, pretty gentle. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.680 To distribute it all over Florida where I got you 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.919 you land noise. I'm going to spread the news about 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:02.840 the Florida boy shove it all. Oh wow, Hey, you'll 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.840 catch a line a shack. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:07.720 A like a lack a la like a like a like. 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:23.200 I'm Katie and I'm Eve's today's episode Literary Detectives. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.280 After the break, we'll take a look at another black 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.080 woman writer whose writing and story went out of print 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.560 after her death in nineteen sixty six. Then we'll speak 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.119 with Michael Gonzalez, the curious reader and intrepid writer who 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.600 resurfaced that writer's short stories in the early twenty twenties. 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.920 That mystery writer we tease before the break, it's Diane 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.800 Oliver Eves. Do you remember the first time you heard 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.040 of her? Honest, it was really recently same. I didn't 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.320 learn about her in school or even as a bookstore owner. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.920 I found out about her in twenty twenty two, when 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.360 Michael wrote about her in The Bitter Southerner. I was 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.119 fascinated by Diane, a twenty two year old writer whose 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.480 life was tragically cut short by a motorcycle crash in 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.800 nineteen sixty six. I was also fascinated by her stories, 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.560 which are mostly about the horrors of racism and black 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.839 communities in suburban America. Reading her stories now, when might 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.400 place her work in the historical fiction category For a 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.400 Remember she's writing in the mid sixties. The lunch counter 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.840 and the grade school integrations and the ever present Jim 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.760 Crow was very current when Diane was writing these stories, 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.640 and we wouldn't be alone in not knowing Diane's work. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.960 She was young, very talented, but still young, so when 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.440 she died, some of her short stories were published posthumously, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.520 but they were believed to be her only remaining works. 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.240 But sometimes reality has plot twists too. Diane's family kept 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.200 Diane's writing in a chest for nearly sixty years, and 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.400 idot late eight new unpublished stories a positive plot twist. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:05.120 We love to see it. 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.840 Of course, we want to learn more about Diane, so 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.680 let's speak with Michael Gonzalez, the writer who was the 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.160 catalyst for the renewed interest in Diane's work. Michael is 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.400 a literary essayist, music journalist, and short story scribe and, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.599 as our luck would have it, a podcast guest. Michael, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:22.880 Welcome to On Theme. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:24.480 Thank you for having me. 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.279 Thanks for joining us. Can you give us a brief bio? 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:29.680 How you describe yourself? 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.159 I describe myself as a cultural critic. I mean, I've 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.560 been writing since I was a kid, and you know, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:38.320 when i was younger, I used to write a lot 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.279 of short stories, which I'm doing again now, but for 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.160 most of my career I was writing about music and 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.320 books and television and film and that kind of stuff. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.120 So one of my heroes, Greg Tait, used to call 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.599 himself a cultural critic, and I kind of adopted that. 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.640 So we have you on today because Diane Olive short 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.320 stories were recently published and you had a hand in that. 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.000 So I'm curious to know and hear you describe how 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.000 you came to find out about Diane Oliver in her writing. 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.880 Well, you know, it was kind of weird because one 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.120 of my friends, Paul Price, he and I went to 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.200 college together, and he was moving from Jersey to Florida 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.479 and he was cleaning out a historic facility and he 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.200 started sending me all kinds of old black stuff that 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.800 he had, and one of the books that he sent 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.279 me was an anthology called Rite On and Right On, 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.280 I believe was publishing either seventy one or seventy two, 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.159 and you know it had a bunch of people in there, 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.599 Lorraine Hansbury and Leroy Jones, and you know, I came 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.919 across this name Diane Oliver, who, out of all the 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.560 names in the book, hers was the only one that 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.120 I was unfamiliar with. So I was like, okay, well 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.400 let me check her out. I've never heard of her before. 0:06:55.520 --> 0:07:00.200 And I the story that was in there was Neighbors, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.279 which is actually the title story of the short story 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.240 collection that just came out from Grove Atlantic and I 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.800 read Neighbors. Neighbors was this short story about a family 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.440 and their little boy that is supposed to integrate a 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.960 Southern school during Jim Crow the following day. And it 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.320 begins with the older sister on the bus coming from 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.240 her job as a domestic thinking about the pressures of 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.080 that her little brother is going through. You know, she's 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.960 walking through the neighborhood. People are giving their support or 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.720 given their opinions one way or the other. And then 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.040 she comes home and you know, there's the men are 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:47.200 meeting in the dining room, the minister and you know, 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.760 the local men of the community, the men from the church, 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.800 and the kitchen, the women are meeting and everybody's trying 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.560 to decide if this little boy is going to go 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.880 to integrate this school the next day. And it was 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.120 such a real story to me because you know, when 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.280 you watch movies about civil rights, and you know, you 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:14.239 never really deal with the dilemma. You know, we deal 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.640 with you know, yes, this is going to happen and 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.080 you have to be strong or whatever, but you know, 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.200 there's not a lot written about, you know, what the 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.280 family is going through in terms of their nerves, what 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.720 the little boy might be going through in terms of 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:33.560 his fear. I mean, everybody's afraid. And this story was 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.880 just so real. I mean it felt like I was 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.080 in these people's homes. I mean, I you know, of course, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.679 like everybody else had read about Jim Crow and about 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.960 people integrating schools, but this was the first short story 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.440 that I read that really put me in that house, 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.680 put me with those people. And after I read the book, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.040 like I put in my essay, later on, I wanted 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.040 to know more about Diane Oliver. I'm like, who is she? Like, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.880 how come I don't know more about her? How Come 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.960 she's not up there with you know, Tony Morrison or 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.360 you know any Alice Walker or any of the other 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.040 you know, black women or black writers period. And I 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.240 just started digging and looking for more of her work. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.800 I found some of her work online. Thank god, there 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:31.720 is an archive of Negro Digest Slash Black World, which 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.400 was a magazine that Johnson Publications, the same people that 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.319 put out Ebony and Jet did. It was a black 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.000 literary magazine in the fifties and sixties and early seventies 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.960 that published some of her short stories. And so I 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.280 just started looking more and more into her work trying. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.559 It wasn't really that much about her written at the time. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.800 And so the essay that I wrote, which was published 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.040 in the in the Bit Southerner and it was called 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.600 The Short Stories and Too Short Life of Diane Oliver, 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:12.120 which was published in March twenty twenty two, I just basically, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.480 you know, went with a little bit of material that 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:19.320 I could find and basically wrote this essay about her 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.080 and her stories, the few stories that I did find 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.520 through Negro digests and as well as some that were 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.880 published in anthologies that I later ordered, And you know, 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.520 I just felt so, I mean, I feel really good 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.840 that this revival of her work is happening. You know, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:43.040 years ago in the seventies, Alice Walker basically brought on 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:49.560 the revival of Zoria and Neil Hurston. She found Zoria's grave, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.040 if I'm not mistaken, which didn't even have a marker 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.080 on it. She wound up buying a gravestone for Zoria 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.840 and Neil Hurston. And she was instrumental in basic bringing 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:06.040 back to this woman of the Harlem Renaissance that who 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:10.600 had kind of faded away. And so a small part 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.000 of me felt the same way with Diane Oliver. I 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.239 mean I kind of claimed her as my own because 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:23.280 prior to my essay, nobody was talking about her. I 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.280 was basically turning on all these different black writers to 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.680 Diane Oliver's work, and so it felt I mean, it 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.200 just felt really good. It just felt really good. And 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.120 you know, I'm just so proud of where it's going. 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.920 I feel a sense of pride that this is happening. 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:46.320 It seems like there's tradition of black writers making sure 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.559 that other black writers do not fall into obscurity or 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.840 that their work is seen one more time, one more time, 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.600 one more time. And I was wondering, do you feel 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:59.280 like you're a part of that tradition or what do 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.640 you How do you that tradition of rediscovering and then 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.640 amplifying not just keeping it to yourself, but making sure 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.840 that as many people as possible. No, kind of like 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:09.880 Alice Walker did, was Zora Nelhurston. 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.160 Well, a small part of me kind of took that 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:18.560 as a mission, maybe about ten years ago, like in 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.760 twenty fourteen. You know, one of the things, I mean, 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.120 I love black writing. I love black writers, but I 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.520 also you know, would visit a lot of bookstores and 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.199 it seemed to me, like, I think I got frustrated 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.720 with the beats. I mean, as much as I love 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.040 Jack Kerouac and William Burrows, and I'm like, how many 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.600 more editions of their work do we need? You know 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.000 what I mean. I'm like, you know, there are so 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.920 many black writers who put out one or two books 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.520 in the seventies and just basically disappeared. Nobody has heard 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.840 about these people. And you know, I kind of just 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.959 took it on myself to start writing about these rights. 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.719 I did an essay on a Chicago writer named Ronald o' 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.400 fair and he wrote a book called Hog Butcher, which 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.160 later on was made into a movie called Cornbret Earl 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:17.120 of Me. And it basically was about a teenage kid 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.280 in Chicago who is shot by a policeman. And this 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.840 guy is like the hero of the neighborhood. He's mistaken 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.160 for a thief and he's killed. But I wanted to 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:34.400 know who was Ronald Fair, and so I started doing 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.959 some research, you know, on who this guy was. I mean, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.839 Black Expectation films is something that I've written about extensively. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:44.760 A guy I grew up in the seventies during the 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.480 Black Expectation period. I didn't know that Corporate Early in 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.560 Me was based on this black Man's book. So when 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.439 I discovered that, I just started digging into his autobiography 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.559 finding what I could find. You know, thank God for 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.160 the Internet. But I also, you know, started going to 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.880 the libraries more often. I had to actually stop going 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:12.280 to the library, you know, because now, I mean, I 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.679 love libraries, but I don't like to go as much 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:19.160 as I used to because they're not the same. They're 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:25.440 not quiet, you know. I used to go there to 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.640 have a sanctuary that it's like a recsenter or something, 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.640 you know. But I did start going to the library 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.960 again to do research because there's a lot of books 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.560 that you can't find online or you know, even if 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.640 you could order them from Amazon, they're like, you know, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.920 sixty dollars. I'm not paying sixty dollars just to read 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.760 the section of a book, right, So you know, it 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.360 sent me to the library again. In twenty fourteen, I 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.600 was living in Philadelphia, and then later on I moved 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.920 to Baltimore, And you know, when you tell librarians were 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.920 you're doing, you know, I would get into some conversations. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.040 They were just so helpful, and I can't give enough 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:12.040 props to the librarians in Philadelphia and in Baltimore who 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.560 just was you know, would go out of their way 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.680 to help me with these columns, I mean with these articles. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.040 Rather, did you find that in your research process you 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.520 ran into anybody who had an intense interest in Diane Oliver, 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:27.800 like somebody that you didn't seek out who you knew 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:28.600 had that interest? 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.160 None? Nobody. I mean I did find and I can't 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.920 remember her name of him, but I found a woman 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:41.400 that was in uh the Iowa Writers' Workshop with her. 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:48.200 She had written a little essay in that appeared in 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.680 a magazine called The Brooklyn Rail and she had written 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.640 a little bit about Diane Oliver, and so I, you know, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:01.400 reached out to her. But other than not know, I mean, 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.480 it was almost like she didn't exist. And to this day, 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.800 I don't know why. You know, I discovered her work 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.880 in different anthologies that you know, came out through the 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.120 seventies and eighties, and I just don't know why no one, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.880 you know, attached themselves or looked into her. I mean, 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.080 you know, sometimes with these anthologies, you know, people look 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.880 at them and they read them or whatever, but you know, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.160 other than that, they're just throw them back on the pile, 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:36.400 and that's it. I just had a general curiosity, and 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.280 you know, as a I don't know, I mean, I 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.200 don't want to call myself like a literary detective or anything, 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.200 but I just wanted. I just wanted to know more, 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.400 you know, and so I just found what I could 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.920 find them. Nego Digests and Jet were the only ones 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:58.040 who actually did obituaries on her. From what I understand, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.840 she was supposed to graduate in June of nineteen sixty 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.600 six and then she was going to go to Chicago 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:09.760 to work for Johnson Publications. But I love, you know, 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.879 finding some of this stuff on Google Books. I mean, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.040 Google Books is such a great research you know, a 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:21.720 research guide, as is sometimes the Internet Archive, where I 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.239 could find different books and different things like that. I 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:30.960 was writing a column for Catapult called the Blacklist, which 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:35.280 was basically about out of print black writers, and so 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.840 I think that was part of you know, I had 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.280 already started on that mission. I only did six of 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.600 them for Catapult because my editor got a promotion and 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.800 I didn't really want to work with another editor, so 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.359 I stopped doing that. But you know, it didn't stop 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:59.880 my curiosity in you know, unveiling or discovering or rediscovering 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.600 other these you know, black writers. 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.679 Yeah, I love your Catapult column and you went on 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.920 to continue to write about other authors for other publications. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.520 Why was that exploration and examination and discovery and rediscovery 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:15.320 important to you? 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.359 I love writers, I love writing. I love you know, 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:25.680 various styles. I love you know, the era of the 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.800 you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, the writers that came out 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:35.159 of that era. And you know, even though Diane Oliver 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.480 was the MFA candidate, you know, most of the writers 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:45.560 that came out of those periods didn't go through the 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.520 same kind of MFA programs. They were like writing out 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.600 of experience and you know, who knows, Like they might 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.640 have been day laborers or whatever. People had different kind 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.639 of jobs and different kind of career paths. And you know, 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.000 I've just always been curious about who these writers are, 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.320 Like I was saying before, you know, I see a 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.800 lot of white writers who you know, they are constantly 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.639 in print, People are constantly writing about their work. There's 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.679 no shortage of essays or you know, books about these writers. 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.920 And a part of me was just like, how come 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.040 we don't have that? How come you know, people aren't 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.320 curious about the black writers. I mean, you know, there 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.360 are a lot of black writers that people do are 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.639 curious about, you know, who stay in print, like you 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.359 know Tony Morrison or Tony cable Bar or you know 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.720 Alice Walker. But you know, I wanted to know more 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.399 about the other people as well. The first person that 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.880 I wrote about was Who's a guy who's a friend 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.800 of mine named Darius James who wrote this crazy book 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.440 that came out in the nineties called Negrophobia. And if 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.520 you haven't read Negrophobia, please do. I mean it's one 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.800 of the most bizarro books ever. I don't know if 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.119 my essay had anything to do with it, but within 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:15.919 months of me writing about his book was reprinted. And 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.680 so there have been a couple of writers that I've 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.480 written about, Neddie Jones being one who wrote a book 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:27.119 called Fishtails. I wrote about Fishtails for long Reads. It 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:31.800 was an essay called Beautiful Women Ugly Scenes because which 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.280 I actually stole from a book from you, but I 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.200 always loved that title. And Eddy was a writer that 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:47.080 I found. You know, my late girlfriend she loved Neddie 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.240 Jones and she used to talk about this book Fishtails 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.080 and I actually bought it for her, but I never 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.280 read it. I bought it for her in the nineties, 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.280 but I never read it myself, and that when I 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.000 finally read it, I was like, wait, this book is wow. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.200 Like she was just like, you know, drinking and talking 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.040 mad and I just loved her for you know, it 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.119 took the book took place in New York and Detroit. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:19.520 Neddie is from Detroit originally, and I discovered that one 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.600 of my friends was friends with Nettie and I found 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:28.200 her like that, and you know, it's been that kind 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.359 of thing. I mean. Charlotte Carter was another one that 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.840 I wrote about who She was a black crime writer 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:41.160 in the in the nineties who put out a trilogy 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.720 of books about a black woman. She was like an 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.359 amateur detective. But they were really good books and I 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.120 really enjoyed reading them, and so I wrote about her, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.080 and she wound up getting her books came back into print. 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.120 But you know, one thing, and I guess maybe it's 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.080 my ego so times, but you know, these books come 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.720 back into print the way he ever says, oh well, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.639 you know, you know, Michael Gonzales is the reason that 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.280 these books are back and for everybody acts like they 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:12.480 were there was that we discovered it. I mean, not 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.000 the writers themselves. I mean I've had the writers reach 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:17.840 out to me and thank me and whatever. I mean. 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.360 You know, I'm a simple guy. I don't need awards everything, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.320 just you know, recognition. 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.920 What's a respect? Michael's names, props, you know what we 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:29.600 you give me your props because I feel like you 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.600 truly have the magic touch with this. Because I remember 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.760 seeing that article in twenty twenty two and then hearing 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:38.480 that the book was coming out in twenty twenty four, 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.320 knowing how slow publishing is, I was like, oh, y'all 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.160 fast tracked this, like y'all really wanted this out after 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.840 reading Michael's article. And one of the things about Diane 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.960 Oliver's writing, especially in this collection, it's very of the 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.000 time she was in in the time she was writing, 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.479 which is the sixties. So what do you think it 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.119 is about her writing that's resonating with people in twenty 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.560 twenty four? It being about Jim Crow era situations. 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.280 I agree with you, and I don't agree with you 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.640 because some of the stories just have like a gothic 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.920 kind of feel to me, Like that story meant Julip's 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.240 not served here that is. I love that story. I 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.040 love it. It's so stunning. 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:24.000 When I started feeling the twist coming, I was like, oh, am, 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.520 I right, But. 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:30.200 You know I think I mean, especially with the current 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:36.320 climate or race, it's like, I mean, who doesn't feel like, 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.040 you know, racism is alive and well in America. I mean, 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.479 it's never gone away. Sometimes it might hide out for 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:48.160 a little while, but you know, affirmative actions being has 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.320 been taken away. You know, we see what the Santus 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.800 is doing in Florida. You know, now it looks like, 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.080 you know, God forbid that Trump is going to get 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:01.320 back into the White House, and we know what he's 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:05.720 all about. I mean, I think black people and you know, 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:11.200 are realized that, you know, these things can change it 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.280 any time, you know. I mean I used to joke 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:16.120 with a friend of mine and be like, yeah, we're 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:17.720 gonna wake up one day. They're going to be like, 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:20.960 you know, slavery started back, you know, and it's like, 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:23.520 you know, I say that as a joke, but it's 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:26.600 not funny, you know. I mean, we don't know what's 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:29.280 going to happen with these people. You know, the people 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:36.240 in the Supreme Court, you know, the public officials. I mean, 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.600