Morgan Jerkins, WANDERING IN STRANGE LANDS
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[2:33]Morgan Jerkins is a New York Times bestselling author and senior editor at Zora Magazine
[2:38]of Medium.
[2:39]She's the New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing,
[2:42]Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in White America,
[2:47]which was longlisted for Penn, Diamond, Steen, Spheel Vocal Award for Art of the Essay,
[2:52]and was at Burns and Noble Discover Pick.
[2:54]Her latest book, which we're going to discuss most, is called Wandering and Strange Lands,
[2:58]a daughter of the Great Migration, reclaims her roots.
[3:01]And her third book, Call Baby, A Novel, is forthcoming from Harper Books in April of 2021.
[3:07]A former associate editor at Catapult,
[3:09]Jerkins has taught at Columbia University School of the Arts,
[3:12]Bennington College, and Leipzig University.
[3:14]Her short form work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times,
[3:18]Elle the Atlantic, The Guardian, and Esquire, among many others.
[3:21]She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Princeton University,
[3:25]and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars.
[3:27]Born and raised in Southern New Jersey, she's now based in Harlem,
[3:30]where she's currently developing TV and film projects.
[3:32]Welcome, Morgan.
[3:33]Thank you so much for coming on, mom.
[3:35]Don't have time to read books to the sky.
[3:37]Yeah, Wandering and Strange Lands.
[3:40]I'm so excited to talk to you.
[3:42]Likewise.
[3:43]Wow, this was like a labor of love.
[3:45]This is a lot of travel and research.
[3:48]And oh my gosh, so tell me about when you decided to write this book and why.
[3:53]Oh, I want to hear about the journey to getting all the information.
[3:56]Yeah, so it's going to be weird of how I got the inspiration for this book,
[4:02]because the book went through many different iterations of what the scope was going to be.
[4:06]I will say that the impetus for the book began with a movie.
[4:11]It was get out.
[4:12]I was watching it in Magic Johnson Theatre in Harlem,
[4:16]and there's a climactic scene where Daniel Koolis character,
[4:20]the black man protagonist, has his hand around,
[4:23]his white girlfriend's throat.
[4:25]And she and his family has been trying to basically still
[4:28]his body for the majority of the movie.
[4:31]And as soon as the police car pulls up, everybody gasps now in a regular society,
[4:38]police would mean safety.
[4:39]Oh, yeah, he's coming to arrest the white girl.
[4:42]But we as black Americans know that the police often does not mean safety.
[4:48]And so I was fascinated that when we were in the theater, for example,
[4:53]we all had the same instinctual fear.
[4:57]And I knew, and I'm not a native heart on my, I've been living here for five years.
[5:00]And I had a feeling that other people in this theater were not all of some,
[5:04]all natives to this neighborhood.
[5:06]And so that really fascinated me, this idea of fear of state violence,
[5:10]fear of the state, that our precarious position on any type of American soil.
[5:15]And so I wanted to first investigate that intergenerational fear and trauma.
[5:21]And when I spoke about that to friends of mine who actually professors
[5:27]who are based in the Boston area, and this is after the book was sold, they told me,
[5:31]this sounds like a migratory story.
[5:33]That's how the book started to develop not into just fear.
[5:37]That fear is a self component, but these migratory patterns and how we are connected and
[5:42]also disconnected because of the violence of the state.
[5:47]And so that's how the scope grew.
[5:50]Wow.
[5:52]I actually thought what you just said was one of the most memorable parts of the book
[5:56]and has applications for really everything in life was how you can really pass down trauma
[6:03]from generation to generation.
[6:04]Even if you have lived it yourself, which I didn't even realize could happen.
[6:09]So if I had like a traumatic experience, and I have now doomed all my,
[6:14]like when does it have to happen?
[6:16]Does it have to happen before you?
[6:18]I mean, it must have to happen before you have cancer.
[6:20]Is it just a societal thing?
[6:22]What do you think?
[6:23]I don't know because, okay, so I late last year
[6:26]I got the ones that like to opportunity to be a guest professor at Leipzig University in
[6:31]Germany.
[6:32]And when I was there, one of the classes I taught was a literature seminar of Black women's
[6:37]interiorities across the diaspora.
[6:40]And I had one student there, and I still think about him today.
[6:43]He was from Israel.
[6:44]And we were talking about the intergenerational trauma of slavery.
[6:49]And he was liking it to the intergenerational trauma of those with the descendants of
[6:54]Holocaust survivors.
[6:56]And so as I mentioned in my book, this research has already been investigated by those such
[7:02]as Dr. Rachel Yudah, where she started study epigenetics and how trauma affects gene mechanisms
[7:09]through Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
[7:12]Well, then there was also Dr. Joy DeGroory, who coined the term post-traumatic slave disorder.
[7:18]And made me think about it because it's like, if you have a whole generation of people
[7:23]who have undergone just unspeakable stress to their psyches and their bodies,
[7:30]how could they not pass that down to children?
[7:34]And so that was something that it's hard because you think I'm our own person
[7:39]and also because America is very individualistic in a way for better or for worse, right?
[7:43]Because how we're dealing with, or not dealing with the pandemic.
[7:47]But that really got me to thinking about certain things, certain fears that I had,
[7:50]certain trepidation that if I just until conversation happening with my mother's and her
[7:57]siblings, or even my grandparents, I'm like, now I see the echoes and the rippling effects.
[8:03]And that's something that I really wanted to demonstrate in wandering and strange lands is
[8:08]just that echo that sort of happens from coast to coast region region, despite the fact that
[8:14]black Americans are distinct, but also overlapping in terms of the disenfranchisement that
[8:21]we face.
[8:21]Wow.
[8:22]See, I thought maybe, for instance, with the Holocaust, it was when you're born,
[8:27]it was more environmental that if you're born into a family where the parents had experienced
[8:31]a trauma, it was the environment like all that energy that just sort of transmits when you're
[8:35]around people who have gone through something awful.
[8:37]Versus does it actually shape your DNA?
[8:40]I don't know, it's so fascinating, although then it's also sort of discouraging in a way.
[8:43]But hopefully, you know, with all the progress that gets made, then the future generations can
[8:49]have that sort of listed.
[8:51]Yeah, or just, or just don't forget the history.
[8:54]That's another thing.
[8:56]Like, I remember I read this, I don't know if you saw this article, I think it was published last
[9:00]week where it's like like 23% of Americans, like young adults do not, didn't think that the
[9:06]Holocaust happened or don't know about the Holocaust, and I'm like, are you kidding me?
[9:09]Right now, like there are people in life today whose parents were Holocaust survivors.
[9:15]What is going on with the public education, just the American education system that we have,
[9:20]that we are for guidance?
[9:22]This is, don't even depress me anymore.
[9:24]Yeah, okay.
[9:26]I mean, just, I can't even go there.
[9:28]The lie, you know, it's like people who think the pandemic is a hoax.
[9:32]I mean, there are just some people out there who just don't respond to facts and science or,
[9:37]you know, and you can't do it too much, right?
[9:41]Right, but that thought me just to bring a bag around to the book.
[9:44]Yes, please, I'll try to bring it back around to the book.
[9:48]But you see, that is something that I also wanted to elucidate in water and strange lands
[9:54]is the different realities that we inhabit.
[9:57]So a lot of times, an African-American community,
[10:00]is there can be a collision course between all history,
[10:03]stuff that's passed from our other communities
[10:05]on what is actually documented.
[10:07]And sometimes for people who are a firm communities
[10:10]that are disenfranchised communities that have been violated,
[10:12]they don't always take the documentation of face value
[10:16]because they often know who has the power
[10:19]of this documentation, those who are generally white,
[10:23]privileged with a lot of networks and they're not.
[10:27]They're the complete opposite.
[10:28]So they had this suspicion.
[10:31]And that was something that I learned early on,
[10:34]something that I always did before I traveled anywhere,
[10:38]was that I got in touch with people from that area.
[10:40]I wanted them to know who I was,
[10:44]what publisher I've had to deal with my website.
[10:47]Just what I knew that I was a real person,
[10:49]but also because for example,
[10:51]when I went down to the low country Georgia
[10:54]and I was doing research on the Gala Gucci communities,
[10:57]and doing field research.
[10:58]One of the women there, she told me,
[11:00]we've had people come down here,
[11:03]interview us with our consent,
[11:04]turn our stories into scholarship without proper knowledge.
[11:07]So they've already been violated.
[11:09]And because even though I was black like them,
[11:12]I was coming from New York City,
[11:14]I was an already in New York Times, best selling author.
[11:17]I taught an Ivy League institution.
[11:19]Like I was the institution.
[11:22]You know what I'm saying?
[11:23]So I had to really tread lightly.
[11:25]And that's what I didn't lose sight of.
[11:27]So Morgan, tell me more about your story.
[11:29]Tell me how you got started writing,
[11:31]how you became a best, I mean, tell me the whole,
[11:34]tell me, give me like the cliffs notes and all that stuff.
[11:37]Because it's so impressive.
[11:38]I mean, everybody just asks.
[11:39]Thank you.
[11:40]So I thought that I wanted to be a doctor.
[11:43]My father was a doctor, you know,
[11:45]every time she asked the child,
[11:46]what do I want to be a doctor?
[11:47]I don't want to be a doctor.
[11:49]I never wanted to be a doctor.
[11:51]Just throw in and out there.
[11:52]That's right.
[11:53]That's right.
[11:54]So I have so much fun for you and doctors and everything.
[11:56]You know,
[11:57]science wasn't even my thing either.
[12:00]I just love the narrative of people's lives and their bodies.
[12:03]But anyway, when I was in high school,
[12:05]I was bullied a lot.
[12:06]And I'm not a confrontational person.
[12:09]So I internalized a lot of that low self esteem.
[12:14]And I wanted to skate.
[12:16]And because I didn't have a passport at the time
[12:18]plus I was a minor,
[12:20]the only way I could escape was through fiction.
[12:23]So I just started every day.
[12:24]When I get home, I'd hardly do my homework
[12:26]and I'd start writing the tissue stories as a way to cope.
[12:29]And I continue to do that well into college
[12:33]when I'm a trickulated at Princeton.
[12:35]And I knew that I want to be a writer,
[12:36]but I had a lot of colleagues who were applying
[12:39]to med school,
[12:40]pilot law school, going into banking.
[12:42]And it was like, oh my God,
[12:44]am I going to waste my degree?
[12:45]And I shouldn't maybe try to get a job
[12:47]and like, open sex or something like that.
[12:50]And when I graduated from college,
[12:52]I didn't get a job anywhere.
[12:54]I didn't get a job.
[12:55]I was applying for entry-level positions
[12:58]at publishing house and literary agencies.
[13:00]Assuming that that would be my way in.
[13:02]And granted, I'd already done the unpaid internships.
[13:05]Like I was told,
[13:06]I was told you had to do unpaid internships
[13:08]in order to get a photo.
[13:09]Which as you know,
[13:10]that puts a lot of economically disadvantaged people
[13:13]with short end of the stick.
[13:15]But I did all of that graduated
[13:17]from the number one university in the country,
[13:19]still couldn't get a job.
[13:20]So I returned home, jobless, heartbroken.
[13:24]The only thing that I had as an anchor
[13:26]was that I was in an MFA program
[13:28]and bending too much of low residency program.
[13:31]But I had some insecurities there
[13:32]because I was the youngest
[13:33]and I was the only black person in my cohort.
[13:35]And I was like, oh my gosh, am I the token?
[13:37]Even though I had a wonderful experience there.
[13:39]And when I was online,
[13:42]I was spending just an extraordinarily large amount of hours
[13:46]online, particularly on Twitter.
[13:47]And I'd see people my age exchanging content.
[13:50]And I was like, oh, you can exchange content
[13:52]and you can get paid for it.
[13:53]Well, then I'm gonna do that then.
[13:55]And because I had so much time on my hands,
[13:57]I was able to amass a large amount of buy lines
[14:00]in a short amount of time.
[14:02]And then everything just started to take off like a rocket.
[14:04]In 2015, I moved to New York.
[14:06]I was also, I also got an agent.
[14:08]I also met the woman who would become
[14:10]the acquiring editor for my first book
[14:12]through Twitter as well.
[14:14]And so by the time that I was the week
[14:16]that I was graduating from my MFA program,
[14:18]I was filled in calls from editors
[14:20]interested in acquiring my first book.
[14:22]That was in June 2016.
[14:24]January 2018 is when this will be my doing,
[14:28]living at the intersection of Black people on feminist
[14:30]and white America was released.
[14:32]It debuted New York Times by Silas.
[14:34]And then from there, I taught at Bennington
[14:38]as a teaching fellow.
[14:39]I taught at Columbia University,
[14:41]Life's the University.
[14:42]I've done speaking engagements.
[14:43]And of course, I just released my sophomore book
[14:46]in the August of this year.
[14:48]Wow, that is exciting.
[14:49]Wait, can you tell me please what it's like to write a book
[14:52]and have it come out and be like an instant bestseller?
[14:54]What was that?
[14:56]Did tell me about the call you got
[14:57]or when you found out or how it was funny
[14:59]because, oh my God, so I was on my book tour.
[15:04]And I'll remember what it was like,
[15:05]I was in Atlanta.
[15:07]It was about an hour or so before
[15:09]I was gonna get picked up to go to the bookstore.
[15:12]I think it's for Chairs bookstore charts
[15:15]and pronounce it with C-H-A-R-I-S books.
[15:17]So I think that was the one.
[15:19]And I was interviewing people for my second book.
[15:22]I was trying to, cause I knew I had a deadline
[15:25]that I wanted to hit the ground.
[15:27]So I was really on the call with like a scholar
[15:30]from UCLA and somebody is calling my other line
[15:34]about who is calling for me at this hour.
[15:37]Cause I'm like, why is my editor calling me at this hour?
[15:39]All of a sudden I click over.
[15:42]Cause I'm like, I'm sorry.
[15:43]I gotta take this cause somebody is like,
[15:45]frantically calling for the line.
[15:47]I click over and then they tell me the news.
[15:49]And then I click back over, mental, emotional with Blacks.
[15:53]I tried to get through the interview,
[15:55]but I probably wanted to like scream at this lady
[15:57]who didn't know me from a can of paint,
[15:59]as my folks would say.
[16:01]And that's how it happened.
[16:02]Then on the way to the bookstore I cried.
[16:05]I was in the car with my mom, had the book event.
[16:08]Family members showed up that lived in Atlanta.
[16:11]Friends of my college showed up.
[16:13]Then when I came back to the hotel,
[16:16]my publisher sent me flowers.
[16:18]And then I ordered room service of my mom
[16:21]and then I passed out.
[16:22]It was the best.
[16:23]It was the best.
[16:25]But I mean, my experience as a debut author was incredible
[16:30]because I could not have asked for better blowout.
[16:33]I knew that it was picking up steam
[16:35]because of the amount of anticipated lists that it was on.
[16:39]But in terms of just the book tour,
[16:41]the people that came out there in the book tour
[16:43]and the reception, oh, I mean,
[16:46]I wouldn't want that for any debut author.
[16:48]I was very lucky or very blessed.
[16:51]That's amazing.
[16:52]And now after that big tour with so much emotion
[16:55]and success and everything,
[16:56]now you have a book coming out into this much quieter time
[16:59]in life, how are you handling that transition?
[17:02]It doesn't feel quite.
[17:03]Like for me, it was, I think it's been hard for everyone.
[17:07]And I know that I am surrounded by a lot
[17:11]of literary citizens who,
[17:13]we could be a bit self-deprecating or promoting our work.
[17:15]I wrote this thing of some person
[17:18]or news when it's like huge professional news
[17:21]or, you know, we often lament online about how weird
[17:24]we feel about promoting our stuff
[17:27]because we live in a society that often devalues
[17:30]or devalues writing and especially devalues it
[17:33]as something that should be a monetary pursuit
[17:35]as well as a self-motivated passionate one.
[17:39]And so it often, if it's a tricky balance,
[17:41]it's often, and it's definitely a tricky balance
[17:43]when millions of people file fun employment,
[17:46]you know, stimulus checks over seven months
[17:49]goes only $1,200.
[17:51]It feels decadent to be like,
[17:53]I wrote this book and here I'm like, you to write it.
[17:55]And so when my book was originally slated
[17:58]to come out of May of this year
[18:01]and I live in New York City.
[18:03]So New York was the epicenter of the virus.
[18:05]And so I always tell people that it was nothing
[18:09]like I ever experienced before
[18:11]because I couldn't hear a thing.
[18:14]What I mean by that is that, you know,
[18:16]I live near Central Park.
[18:18]I couldn't hear a dog bark.
[18:20]I didn't hear, you know, a bus approaching.
[18:23]It stopped.
[18:24]I didn't hear people arguing on the street.
[18:27]The only thing I heard every single day or night
[18:30]rather was ambulance signs.
[18:32]And me just praying that I didn't know anybody
[18:34]in those vehicles.
[18:35]I was surrounded by death.
[18:37]And so when everything the city went to lockdown mode,
[18:41]I'm just trying to get my head together, you know?
[18:44]And so when my editors emailed me at the top of April
[18:47]and asked if we could push it on
[18:49]because I was happy about it.
[18:50]And usually I'm in a patient person.
[18:51]I'm like, though, let's go, let's go.
[18:53]But because I was trying to get myself
[18:55]like just emotionally prepared to reset
[18:58]for this different routine that I was gonna have to do,
[19:00]I like that extra time.
[19:02]But then as we know, as time went on,
[19:04]then George Floyd's more murder happened.
[19:06]Then the protests happened and all of a sudden,
[19:09]my book took on this different kind of urgency
[19:11]that none of us could have predicted, obviously.
[19:15]And so in the beginning, I was happy
[19:17]because I thought, oh, August is great
[19:19]because I thought silly me
[19:21]that everything will be opened again.
[19:22]And also because there's so much traveling,
[19:24]August's time of vacation,
[19:25]I thought we could pitch it that way.
[19:27]But then because of the protests,
[19:28]then started things like to be recalibate
[19:31]and then things just start to move really quickly.
[19:33]So when you say that it takes on like a platform,
[19:36]I didn't feel that way at all at all.
[19:39]I take it back.
[19:40]I should not be able to feel quiet.
[19:42]Well, I mean, I'll say this,
[19:43]like I'll say it definitely felt quiet in a sense
[19:45]that like I'm a Gemini.
[19:48]I pride myself from being able to work around anywhere I go.
[19:52]Like I know that I could command attention
[19:54]and I project my voice in a way.
[19:56]And maybe it's because of like the insecurity conference
[19:59]like each other.
[20:00]I'm very short, so I try to project as much as I'm short.
[20:03]I'm very short.
[20:04]I'm five feet tall.
[20:05]So I'm five, too, but every time people meet me,
[20:10]they're always like, oh, I thought you were taller
[20:12]than what you were not every time they say this.
[20:13]But a lot of times people meet me.
[20:15]They're like, oh, I thought you were taller than what you were.
[20:16]And I'm like, whoa, I think that's a compliment
[20:19]because I guess my personality's large,
[20:21]but also because I know how easy it is to be a visible,
[20:24]not only because of my height,
[20:25]but because I'm also black woman.
[20:27]So I guess I had something to do with it.
[20:29]But when I love going on book tours
[20:31]and going into bookstores because I can project,
[20:35]you can see people's gestures, their faces,
[20:38]the different comments they make as you're telling your story
[20:41]and you get energy from them.
[20:43]But when you're doing a Zoom call,
[20:45]you don't get that same interaction.
[20:47]Even though you do feel too good
[20:49]because people do Q&A stuff, but it's different
[20:51]because now you have to deliver twice as much energy
[20:54]and you're not going to get that back.
[20:56]So as I was doing these book tours in August,
[20:59]and even though they were only an hour long,
[21:01]I would be wiped out after them.
[21:03]Yeah.
[21:04]I can relate to that.
[21:06]It's also the contrast of like,
[21:08]you're sitting in one place doing your normal life
[21:10]and then all of a sudden,
[21:11]your space has to completely transition.
[21:14]Right.
[21:15]By the way, where usually you go somewhere,
[21:17]like I'll go somewhere and have to like perform
[21:19]or be like on or whatever.
[21:21]And here I can just be in my like focus self
[21:23]and then next thing you know,
[21:24]it's like, huh?
[21:26]And then, but also like, yeah, exactly.
[21:28]And then it's like, I think about okay.
[21:29]So when I was in Atlanta,
[21:30]when it was announced that you know that I told the crowd
[21:33]that I just got on the best solace, you know what I'm like?
[21:35]I was with them.
[21:36]And like a 20 minutes before it was go time.
[21:40]You know, you meet the book solace.
[21:41]They're so nice.
[21:42]They tell you around the story.
[21:44]They say, here's where your book is.
[21:45]Let us know if you want any water.
[21:47]You can say here if you can print.
[21:48]And also like sometimes they have a pet,
[21:50]a resident dog, a resident cat.
[21:51]So that book started, you know, we ain't a dog.
[21:54]So it's like, you saw the club,
[21:55]move in and out of the crowds
[21:57]as people are just like enjoying themselves.
[22:00]And it accounts for so much, you know,
[22:02]even when you're signing books,
[22:04]like that accounts for so much.
[22:06]And I'm not gonna say I took it for granted,
[22:07]but it's just like, man,
[22:09]I would have loved to like got my wardrobe together
[22:12]and like picked out the finest,
[22:14]like makeup palettes, like go to the bookstore.
[22:17]And especially in August, you know what I mean?
[22:19]And then like go and have a nice wine spritzer
[22:21]with friends or family afterwards.
[22:23]You know what I mean?
[22:24]Like there was so much that could have been double.
[22:26]You know what I, but I'm lucky with, you know, podcasts
[22:30]like this one.
[22:31]And also it's just like independent bookstores
[22:33]and booksellers like, we've really got ourselves
[22:35]in a shape because the thing about this whole time
[22:38]is it's unprecedented.
[22:39]It's not like you can go to somebody else
[22:40]that's like, what did you do during this time
[22:42]when it happened 12 years ago?
[22:44]None of us knows.
[22:45]But despite the fact that we don't know,
[22:47]we have been able to reorient.
[22:49]I'm sure we're difficult, but we're doing it.
[22:52]And I think that that's pretty inspiring.
[22:54]Hey, great.
[22:54]And I think there's something that came out of it
[22:56]that will make regular life better going forward.
[22:59]You know what I'm saying?
[23:00]I'm so, I don't know.
[23:01]I feel like so much of life was running around,
[23:03]getting places and like, I don't know about your,
[23:06]I'm sure, I mean.
[23:07]Oh yeah.
[23:08]But the pandemic has made me prioritize
[23:10]breast a whole lot more.
[23:12]Yes. Like, you know, again,
[23:13]I live in New York, New York is very fitness heavy.
[23:16]And I've really been like,
[23:17]I was really focused on like,
[23:19]I don't want to lose this much weight by the time
[23:21]my book comes out in May 12th.
[23:23]And I had all planned I went to personal trainer
[23:25]and then of course the lockdown happened.
[23:27]And I was getting so upset cause I was like,
[23:28]man, if the lockdown didn't happen,
[23:30]I would be able to bench press my weight by now.
[23:32]I'll be able to do this.
[23:33]And I realized I'm like,
[23:34]but you're alive though,
[23:36]your body has kept you alive.
[23:39]And okay, you had junk food two days in a row.
[23:42]So what?
[23:43]Like, you're working under stress.
[23:45]So I think it's more like this pandemic
[23:48]has really forced me to do a whole reset
[23:51]and shift my thinking about like my body
[23:55]and stuff like that.
[23:56]I've never even tried to bench press my own weight.
[23:58]So the fact that that was a goal of course,
[24:00]I was going to get there.
[24:02]I was going to go, but I was like,
[24:03]when I started bench press like 110 pounds,
[24:06]I was like, I could get here.
[24:07]I was like, I can get here.
[24:08]I was there.
[24:10]I didn't see.
[24:11]I am like beyond impressed.
[24:13]That is up there with the Instinear 10 bestseller.
[24:17]I don't know if I could bench press that down though.
[24:20]I don't know if I could bench press that down though.
[24:22]I don't know.
[24:22]I don't know anymore.
[24:23]So what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[24:27]Oh man, just,
[24:29]this is going to sound really weird.
[24:31]But if you have an idea in your minds
[24:36]that kind of makes you afraid,
[24:38]that's probably the one that you should investigate,
[24:42]I would say.
[24:43]If you have an idea in your mind
[24:45]that it comes to you in flashes,
[24:48]sometimes when I have,
[24:50]I know a story is important when I can see certain scenes,
[24:53]visually or certain lines constantly,
[24:55]that if you don't write it down,
[24:57]it's going to keep pestering you.
[24:59]It's going to haunt you in a sense.
[25:00]I would always tell writers that,
[25:01]but also don't ask for permission.
[25:03]And I say this especially for female writers
[25:06]or writers of color or female writers of color.
[25:09]Don't ask for permission.
[25:10]And that's the way that I had to be with my career.
[25:13]When I didn't get those jobs that I told you about,
[25:16]I could have, I definitely soaked,
[25:18]but I also was like, listen,
[25:19]I may not be the best writer out there,
[25:21]but I'm going to work harder than the best writer out there.
[25:23]So that involves me pitching relentlessly,
[25:25]getting rejected alive and doing it all over again.
[25:28]And just try every single angle I could
[25:32]to shoot my shot, basically.
[25:35]So don't ask for permission.
[25:36]Don't wait for somebody to say,
[25:37]yeah, that's a good idea, go for it.
[25:39]Just start writing.
[25:41]I start telling a story and don't worry about
[25:44]it being perfect the first time.
[25:45]First drafts are supposed to be bad.
[25:47]You know what I'm saying?
[25:48]That's why it's the first draft.
[25:49]You can revise in layers.
[25:51]So I try to encourage writers to do the same.
[25:53]I love that.
[25:54]Well Morgan, thank you.
[25:55]I feel like we didn't talk too much even about your book,
[25:58]which I felt like was so awesome.
[26:00]And I learned so much about your family
[26:02]and your background and all your amazing research skills
[26:06]and all this.
[26:07]So readers will just have to get the book
[26:09]and find out the backstory as you speak.
[26:13]Yeah.
[26:14]So wandering in strange lands.
[26:16]Thank you Morgan.
[26:16]It's been such a nice and nice chat.
[26:19]Thank you.
[26:19]It's a pleasure to talk to you.
[26:21]Okay, you too.
[26:21]Bye bye.
[26:24]Thanks again to Farrity for being a sponsor today.
[26:27]Go to Farritybrand.com slash Zibi
[26:30]and get 25% off.
[26:33]Enter code Zibi for 25% off.
[26:35]These amazing comfy winter clothes and summer,
[26:38]but for now winter and we will thank you.
[26:41]Thanks for listening to this episode
[26:42]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:44]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[26:48]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:50]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[26:52]and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:54]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:56]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[26:59]for the Sound Editing.
[27:00]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:02]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.