Dolen Perkins-Valdez, TAKE MY HAND
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
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[0:58]Dolan Perkins Valdez is the author of Take My Hand
[1:01]She is the New York Times best-selling author of Wench and Balm and was a finalist for two
[1:06]NAACP
[1:07]Image awards and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award for fiction
[1:10]She was awarded the first novelist award by the black caucus of the ALA
[1:14]Welcome, Dolan. Thank you so much for coming on mom
[1:17]So don't have time to read books to discuss take my hand a novel. Thank you for inviting me
[1:22]It's my pleasure
[1:24]Okay, can you please tell us nerds what take my hand is about?
[1:29]So take my hand is inspired by the true story of the Ralph sisters
[1:36]They were two little girls who were sterilized without their family's permission at age 12 and 14 years old in
[1:44]1973
[1:45]My book
[1:47]Takes the perspective of one of the nurses who worked at the clinic who was involved with the girls
[1:54]They were her patients her name is civil towns and in my book and
[1:59]She quickly learns
[2:01]That the work that she's doing she's trying to do good for her community
[2:06]Is very very complicated and at times tragically harmful
[2:10]Well, I have to say I listened to the first few chapters at this book
[2:14]Before taking over and reading
[2:17]and the accents and the like I felt like I was
[2:21]In this community in this time like the voice was so amazing
[2:25]It was like kind of watching a movie kind of feeling to it. I don't know
[2:29]Just yeah, I bought the audiobook narrator Lauren Daggett did a fantastic job. She
[2:36]Really nailed it the accent and yeah, the reflections. I wish I could meet her and thank her
[2:43]Fantastic job, and I'm hearing a lot of good feedback about the audiobook
[2:48]Especially when the two girls come in or when she's saying what you girls are so young. What are we doing and you know 11 or 12?
[2:55]You know, it's just it's hard to
[2:58]Believe all this stuff goes down and and how it sort of slowly play down. Yes in real life
[3:03]The Ralph sisters were 12 and 14. I made my girls in my book 11 and 13 slightly younger
[3:09]Because I wanted to emphasize how vulnerable they were and that they were just children
[3:14]You know 12 and 14 are children too
[3:16]But I really wanted to further emphasize how young they were and also in real life
[3:21]The Ralph sisters mother was
[3:23]Alive and well in my book the Williams sisters mother is deceased because I
[3:28]Again wanted to emphasize their vulnerability that they didn't have a mother around as an extra layer of protection
[3:35]Wow
[3:36]So where did you did you always know this true story? Did you uncover it at some point?
[3:41]Did you know you wanted to write about it? Like how did this come about and become a novel for you?
[3:45]I knew a little bit about it because my dad graduated from Tuskegee in the late 1960s
[3:50]I knew more about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which he told me about
[3:55]But I didn't know a lot about this case
[3:58]But I'd always felt this connection to Alabama because of his time spent there
[4:04]About seven years ago. I began to delve a little bit into it
[4:08]I began to think what really happened with those girls that I'd heard about in in Alabama
[4:16]And it's all over the internet of course
[4:18]So I just started to do some internet searching and as I learned more
[4:22]I realized that this was major national news. This was in every major newspaper
[4:28]This was in news magazines
[4:31]It was it was a major story at the time
[4:35]But yet we're not taught about it in school
[4:37]Many people don't know anything about the Ralph sisters
[4:42]Any even people who live in are from Alabama
[4:46]And I just began to feel the sense of urgency that I needed to let people know what happened
[4:51]And to make sure that something like this never happens again
[4:55]Of course, it's incredibly timely that your book is coming out now with all of the family planning stuff
[5:01]Up in the air again with review aid and all of that
[5:04]How do you feel about sort of the confluence of these events?
[5:07]Well, I tell people I started this book seven years ago. I didn't plan this. No, of course not. I wasn't insinuating that
[5:16]You could have known
[5:18]People have been asking me this question and I and I say that to say I don't have any really
[5:24]Ready answers to to comment on what's going on right now other than to say
[5:29]That I hope
[5:32]That this book
[5:33]adds to that conversation in some way
[5:35]I think we're about to have some very very painful conversations in this country
[5:39]I was just listening to a podcast in my car on the underground abortion movement that's evolving
[5:45]And it was just frightening to listen to to be honest with you
[5:50]And so I just hope that this book will add to that conversation by reminding us
[5:56]Who will be the most affected by this ruling poor women women of color disabled women
[6:05]And and I tried in the book to
[6:09]Make sure
[6:11]There was a connection drawn between
[6:14]What happened to those girls and what was happening in the larger reproductive rights conversation?
[6:20]Well, I think all conversations related to this topic now are super important
[6:24]Right and and exposing all of this and the repercussions in any way not to get political but
[6:32]It needs to be discussed and you know not buried
[6:36]So you started your first novel came out in 2010, right?
[6:40]Whench yeah, so tell me about getting started as a novelist and then what it's been like to continue
[6:48]Producing consistently and working on books for the last what 12 years
[6:53]And like it what did you always want to be a writer like how did the where did this all come from?
[6:59]Well, I was always a reader and I'm still a reader, you know, that's my passion is
[7:05]Curling up with the book
[7:07]But I didn't know any writers growing up. I didn't even know that it was a possibility. I had never met a living writer
[7:13]um and
[7:15]And I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I knew I was a strong reader and sort of just
[7:20]Writer like generally speaking, but I had never
[7:24]Fathom that it could be a career, you know that something that I could actually make
[7:29]Living at
[7:31]When I got to college. I published my first short story and a little romance magazine
[7:36]And I thought well that felt really good and I was paid for that short story
[7:40]I think I was paid a hundred and thirty dollars or something and that was a lot to me
[7:45]I've got my first article. I wrote when I was 14. It was published in 1996 or something when I was 16
[7:53]Anyway, I got paid a hundred and fifty dollars and I was like this is in I could have believed it
[7:58]It was like I'd won the lottery
[8:00]That I couldn't paid for my words which just like came out of my head anyway. That's right. It was amazing
[8:07]It was that was exactly as I mean this was when I got published this was like 96
[8:12]Same time and I was the same as you. I was like I would have done that for free and they gave me money
[8:18]Yeah, I still feel like I still feel like I would do this for free now
[8:23]I am doing this a lot of time for free by the way
[8:27]And even when you are paid right if you were not the hourly wage it would not be so good. Yeah, but anyway, yes
[8:34]I will say that
[8:37]I
[8:39]began to see it as a career in my early 20s and that was
[8:44]And and actually I wrote like three unpublished manuscripts that were never published before I started
[8:50]Lynch, which was the one that became published
[8:53]So it took me about 10 years of just grinding and learning and reading and figuring out how to put a book together
[9:01]before I was able to you know
[9:04]Get a publishing contract and then what was it like?
[9:07]Well, tell listeners a little bit more about whench and then
[9:10]And what it was like for you when that book came out and how it hadn't contrast that to now
[9:15]Well, I had the good fortune of working with a dream editor at that time and I have actually had that experience throughout my career
[9:23]I am have worked with amazing editors my current editor Amanda Bergeron is fantastic brilliant
[9:31]And so supportive. I love her, but I also had the privilege of working with Don Davis who was my first editor
[9:38]And and my first book hit it
[9:42]Sold something like
[9:45]It sold tens of thousands and in hardcover amazing and
[9:50]And we had a very modest marketing budget. We had I had a very modest advance
[9:55]But um it
[9:57]Um came out at the beginning
[10:00]the social media moment and so we were able to capitalize on some of those early social media
[10:06]word of mouth type of energies and it was great to actually have people reading my work.
[10:16]That was really my dream is that I would write something and that people would read it.
[10:20]I think one of the reasons that Lynch caught on is because it was this excavated piece
[10:25]of history, much like take my hand about this resort where slave owners vacationed
[10:32]with their enslaved mistresses and it was a place that actually existed and I became very
[10:38]curious about it when I discovered it while reading a biography of W. E. B. Du Bois.
[10:44]That resort eventually went on to become the first black college in the country, the
[10:48]first HBCU, Wilberforce University and those early students were the sons and daughters
[10:53]of these enslavers and they're enslaved women so I was fascinated by that and I began
[11:02]to think this might be actually a novel.
[11:07]I worry that my skills because writing a book is so difficult and I worried for a long
[11:13]time that my skills were not up to the task and I still worry about that frankly of capturing
[11:19]what I thought was really, really important history but I just loud forward and I ended
[11:25]up with a great editor.
[11:28]I ended up with a great publishing house and the rest was history.
[11:32]I've had a lot of good fortune and once the ball started rolling in my career it took
[11:37]a long time for that ball to start rolling but once it started rolling I have been very,
[11:41]very fortunate.
[11:42]That's amazing.
[11:43]And what are you already working on your next flick?
[11:47]I am and I'm under contract for another book but right now it's a bunch of pages that make
[11:52]no sense.
[11:53]Wait.
[11:54]I have people say are you working, you have a manuscript?
[11:58]I'm like I have pages, I wouldn't call it a manuscript.
[12:03]I would argue a lot of authors would feel that the drafts of their novels could be described
[12:08]the same way.
[12:09]Yeah, it's a lot of Matthew pages.
[12:13]Speaking of the process and the messiness of it, tell me a little more about the way that
[12:17]you write and sounds like not with outlines perhaps judging from that last statement but
[12:22]I don't know.
[12:23]I do.
[12:24]I do.
[12:25]I do.
[12:26]That's because before I published my first book I had three unpublished manuscripts and one
[12:30]of them was a 400 page monstrosity that I had not outlined and when I got 400 pages into
[12:35]the manuscript I realized it wasn't working and I needed to start over and I didn't have
[12:39]the ability to start over.
[12:41]and so that was when I moved on to something else.
[12:43]And so I learned my lesson that I am, I do need an outline and it's a, it's not a, you
[12:51]know, a detail sort of thing.
[12:53]It's just a rough sketch of scenes I need to write and I just a rough idea of where the
[13:00]book is going but even so as you're writing things take different terms and I probably
[13:07]should spend more time on outlining because my outline gets rewritten several times
[13:11]and I'm and I say rewritten I mean overhaul but the very first thing I try to do after
[13:16]it so I'll start with my research.
[13:19]I'll start with like, you know, thinking about what, you know, I want my book to be about
[13:23]and I get ideas like I went to the National Gallery of Art with my niece this weekend
[13:30]in DC which is where I live and I've had this idea ruminating about my next book and I
[13:35]saw a piece of art there that was very much what I think my next book should be about not
[13:41]the one I'm working on now but the next one and I thought oh this is a sign of fact
[13:45]that I see this are and this is exactly what I've been thinking about so it takes me a long
[13:49]time to kind of settle into what I'm going to write about and so for the next book it's
[13:53]just percolating but when I saw that art of the weekend it's you know just adds to it.
[13:58]So I start with read once I settle on my idea I start researching which involves a lot
[14:02]of like newspapers, looking at maps, reading, you know, other people, other, you know,
[14:13]scholarly books to learn about the period I listen to songs if there's there's music
[14:20]of the period and then I start to outline and usually when I outline I take a weekend
[14:26]the way like I'll either go to a hotel room, I need like three days of complete, you
[14:33]know, isolation for my family because I have two kids and so usually, you know, my family
[14:39]has learned like that's my outlining weekend that I need at the beginning of every project
[14:43]and so usually it's like three days of being in a hotel and ordering room service and just
[14:48]thinking it through, you know, they have to do a lot of thinking through and then after
[14:53]I have that outline I feel a lot better I come back into my world and then typically
[14:59]I have tried to write in the morning but with virtual schooling and then with the sort
[15:06]of a people of COVID I have learned to be more flexible before COVID I didn't write to
[15:13]music I was always a silence person but now I've learned to write with music and with
[15:18]interruption and then the other thing that happened was I don't have these big blocks
[15:22]of time anymore so now I just write in like 30 minute blocks here and there throughout
[15:26]the day so I'll say okay I've got 30 minutes before you know the cable guy arrives and I'll
[15:33]just like go turn on my timer and write for 30 minutes and at the end of the 30 minutes
[15:37]the doorbell rings. Wow that's awesome that's how I feel about reading I feel like that's
[15:41]why like I've thought this found time like all these moments pockets so much time wasted
[15:48]on our phones I know this is like true being a dead horse but it's true like honestly
[15:52]the times that those are the times when you pull out your phone pull something else out
[15:56]like have the first have the book in your bag and like we've also convinced ourselves
[16:00]that our bonus work because we're doing our social media and we're doing our promoting
[16:05]and also and sometimes it is work with sometimes it's true it's a fine line and so easily
[16:13]distracted from one app to another and I'm always like wait why did I even pick this up why
[16:18]what am I even doing anyway but anyway it's much easier to have an actual book you know what
[16:22]you're doing with it you just open up for it you know speaking of books you said you love to read
[16:27]what are you reading now or what are some books you've read lately I was just at a book event
[16:35]with Chris Bojalian I love him I love his new book The Lioness and I think he's a wonderful writer
[16:45]he's a good friend to me this weekend I brought I have not read this yet he's been on my to do
[16:51]list I bought it when it came that's good yep first week it came out in hardcover about it and I
[16:56]never read it so the final revival of Opelene I want to on it Walten up for this weekend amazing
[17:05]well I have podcasts with both of them if you want to do your some background research before you
[17:10]dive in I always I like to listen after I read yeah no I don't like I would because after I read
[17:17]I'm obsessed and I want to find out everything I can about the people totally I am there was one
[17:24]author and I stalk them online after I've been known to email like I can get emails and find emails
[17:32]I've been known to email writers at 2 a.m. after I finished their book and then like and I've
[17:35]made friends that way just writing them and saying like I'm it's 3 a.m. in the morning and I just
[17:42]finished your book that was amazing how did you do that you know and and so I know when people
[17:49]write me and say that I always appreciate it because I know that feeling well yes I do that sometimes
[17:54]too not that often but sometimes I'm like I need to I need to tell this author right now that I
[17:59]just finished it and I like we it's like we went through it together it is like yeah it is
[18:05]and you have right yeah yeah they just they just don't know it they don't know it but they
[18:10]knew when they published it that they were building a community around that story and so
[18:17]yeah I love to write writers who move me yeah very cool okay well thank you so much this is
[18:24]and so nice I love the room service outlining method I think that actually it would be really
[18:31]need to like partner with different hotels and do outlining weekends like with groups writing
[18:38]retreats or oh you have okay well yeah nobody's ever done it nobody's ever done it but there's
[18:44]so many ways I feel and I know some bed and breakfast there was one I heard about in New Jersey
[18:48]Jersey that was doing writers weekends yeah but there's still a need for that yeah because when
[18:55]I'm in a when I'm in a hotel like nobody in there is writing but me and it just feels weird but
[19:00]it's nice to have a community if everybody and then when you take your break you can come out and
[19:03]have your feet together yeah and then you go back into your cave or maybe there's a speaker or
[19:08]something yeah we need that there's a little and there's it's also for parents right for writing
[19:17]retreats with childcare there's still that need interesting I feel like I would not get anything
[19:23]done but yes it would be hard but if your kids were occupied all day think about it yeah that would
[19:29]be amazing I know if they literally summer camp if they could if they know there is an access point
[19:35]to me though even in like the most giant right they will find it like I need to be in another state
[19:42]to know that I am yeah well if you want to plan it together I'm I love planning events I'm
[19:50]gonna I'm gonna look into it and I almost did a retreat let me mom soon have time to retreat with
[19:54]like 40 authors during COVID and of course it all came crashing down and now I'm so burned from that
[19:58]that I'm hesitant to
[20:00]scheduled something else.
[20:00]But I feel like a writing retreat would be so easy
[20:02]because all you'd really have to do is just like fill up
[20:05]like a hinting in with a bunch of writers
[20:07]and like go down for the free buffet every morning
[20:09]and like there's a lot of bed and breakfast
[20:13]that would be open to that.
[20:14]But that's only like six, like they're small.
[20:17]I'm thinking I want to get like 100 authors together
[20:20]or something.
[20:21]Wow.
[20:22]Like a big thing.
[20:23]Like everybody goes, you know?
[20:25]Here you go.
[20:26]Yeah, I think I like that idea,
[20:28]especially if you can get good rates
[20:30]and you know, because the big thing is your meals.
[20:33]Yeah.
[20:33]But if you do like a hotel take,
[20:34]I mean, the meals don't have to be that great
[20:36]if you have amazing company.
[20:37]Where are you located?
[20:38]I'm in New York.
[20:39]There is a place, look it up.
[20:41]It's called, it's in Virginia.
[20:44]Okay.
[20:45]And it's called Airly AI.
[20:47]Let me see if I got the spelling right.
[20:49]I think it's A-I-R-L-I-E.
[20:51]Yeah, airly.com.
[20:53]A-I-I-R-L-E-E-L-I-E.
[20:58]Okay.
[20:59]And it's a retreat type place.
[21:01]It's owned by American University.
[21:03]That's why I know.
[21:04]And maybe we can do it.
[21:04]Okay.
[21:05]But the hotel rooms are gorgeous.
[21:07]And they've got like different little cat, you know,
[21:11]not cottages, but different little buildings
[21:13]around the property that have rooms,
[21:15]but they're all updated and pretty and gorgeous.
[21:17]And all the meals are included.
[21:20]And you're going to go.
[21:20]I'm going to look at this.
[21:21]Nature wall.
[21:22]It's course country people could do, you know,
[21:25]there's activities.
[21:27]Archery, you know, it's one of those.
[21:30]It's a retreat type place.
[21:32]And it would be perfect for something like that.
[21:34]It's about an hour outside of D.C.
[21:37]Okay.
[21:38]So I think that could be really cool.
[21:39]I was going to do my event at the Ocean House in Rhode Island,
[21:41]which is like right on the ocean.
[21:42]And it was going to be gorgeous.
[21:44]I know.
[21:45]Where is that in?
[21:45]That's in Rhode Island.
[21:47]Where in Rhode Island?
[21:48]In Watchill.
[21:48]And they did give us great rates
[21:50]because the owner is an author herself.
[21:52]But I'm mostly O'Brien.
[21:55]No, big plates.
[21:56]Yeah, Deborah, good rich, Royce.
[21:59]Beautiful.
[22:00]I had sold it out.
[22:01]I had sold out the whole retreat
[22:02]and end another neighboring hotel that they owned.
[22:05]Now there's another one that my old college roommate has
[22:09]in Rhode Island.
[22:09]It's also on the water, Rosalie O'Brien's place.
[22:11]Let me see what the name of her place is.
[22:15]Sure.
[22:16]I hear her married name now.
[22:17]Well, I think this would be fun,
[22:18]even like a cozy winter weekend.
[22:20]Like, she's got a lot of rooms
[22:22]and it's right on the water on its gorgeous.
[22:24]I don't know.
[22:25]I want to do it again.
[22:25]People have been asking me to do another retreat.
[22:27]But this sounds much easier than organizing panels all the time,
[22:29]which is basically like a festival.
[22:31]But I love the idea of a place that has some charm
[22:33]rather than like a Hampton area.
[22:35]You're right.
[22:36]You're right.
[22:36]You're right.
[22:37]And like, where we all feel like we're in a destination.
[22:40]Yeah.
[22:41]Yeah, I want to get away from this world.
[22:44]I hear you.
[22:46]Okay.
[22:47]I think we should keep talking about it.
[22:48]I think it happened.
[22:48]Let's talk.
[22:49]Let's do it.
[22:50]I'm not kidding.
[22:51]Okay.
[22:52]Okay.
[22:53]Thank you, Vivian.
[22:54]That's what you do.
[22:55]Okay, bye.
[22:57]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[22:59]Don't have time to read books.
[23:01]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[23:04]and at Moms.
[23:05]Don't have time to read books.
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[23:13]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[23:14]Heck, texture sound for the sound editing.
[23:16]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:18]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.