Kwame Mbalia, BLACK BOY JOY: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood
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[1:29]Kwame Mabbalia is back on mom's and have time to read books to discuss black boy joy
[1:33]17 stories celebrating black boyhood
[1:36]Kwame is a husband father writer number one
[1:39]New York Times bestselling author and former pharmaceutical
[1:42]Metrologist in that order
[1:44]He is the author of the Tristan strong trilogy
[1:46]The last gate of the emperor duology and black boy joy and anthology of 17 stories celebrating black boyhood
[1:53]His work has received numerous star reviews and a karate skunking honor
[1:57]A Harvard University graduate and a midwesterner now in North Carolina
[2:01]Kwame survives on dad jokes and she's at welcome Kwame
[2:04]Thank you so much for coming back on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss
[2:08]black boy joy the instant number one
[2:12]New York Times bestseller edited by you 17 stories celebrating black boyhood
[2:18]Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to get into it
[2:20]Oh, yay
[2:21]Okay, tell me the whole story of this collection
[2:24]Tell me how you got everybody to participate how you picked everybody
[2:27]when you decided you wanted to do this when you found time to do this all your other books
[2:31]blah blah blah, the whole thing
[2:33]So it actually started before Tristan strong punches a hole in the sky
[2:39]had even been published it was like June of 2019 and I was at a conference
[2:47]I think I was at the ALID American Library and Association conference in Washington DC
[2:54]And I just saw all of my favorite people there
[2:56]So I remember Justin A. Reynolds, myself
[3:01]Gordon T. James, who isn't in the book, but who is a wonderful picture book author
[3:05]Jerry Kraft
[3:06]I feel like I've missing somebody but I know the four of us for sure
[3:09]We went and grabbed lunch Jerry was sketching
[3:11]I want to say he was sketching what would become class act
[3:14]You know the sequel to new kid and we were just watching and we were just chatting
[3:19]And I was like you know we all right for kids
[3:22]We're all black men. I would love to just
[3:26]Do something right like I love short story anthology spoke from a craft perspective and from
[3:32]an enjoyment perspective because they're like bite-sized
[3:35]You know vignettes of a story that you get to experience
[3:39]And then from a craft perspective you get to use them to when I'm working with them
[3:43]To practice on different elements of dialogue or character building or world-building
[3:49]I mean I love to use them with young writers because you know studying a giant book can be intimidating
[3:54]But you give them a five page short story
[3:56]You need to tell them hey today
[3:58]We're just going to focus on character and how we can create a fully fleshed out believable character
[4:04]And they're into it
[4:05]So I met you know I was there with all my fav Lamar Giles was there
[4:10]I saw him I ran into Jason Reynolds
[4:12]My got to sit in on the credit sky King author awards which was amazing the year before Tristan was honored
[4:19]It was so cool just to be in the room with all of these
[4:23]You know legends and listen to them and talk to them and I saw so many of my favorite people
[4:27]I was like I and I was talking to my agent and I was like I would love to write
[4:32]Something about black boy joy with with us and just as the concept right
[4:37]She was yeah, that's amazing of course at the time Tristan hadn't come out yet
[4:42]The sequel hadn't been written yet
[4:43]So she was you know, we were like hey, you know, we still have all of this stuff
[4:47]We need to do and then 2020 rolled around we were in the pandemic
[4:51]Brianna Taylor was murdered George Floyd was murdered and there was just all of this
[4:56]Pint up rage and something that I've always noticed is that
[5:00]The cameras are always on I feel like I always own black people when we are at our worst
[5:06]When we're suffering when we're you know in pain the cameras always catch that but they never catch those moments of joy
[5:13]Right the person who has you know, the little kid who's been
[5:16]Trying to hit a backflip, you know and finally the desert or the person who you know ties their shoe for the first time
[5:24]Right or the little girl who dresses herself and steps outside successfully
[5:29]You know ready to start like there are no cameras capturing that little moments of joy
[5:33]So I want it to write a book that I can hand to
[5:38]You know a young black child and be like listen we
[5:42]See you in your moments of joy
[5:43]We recognize that and I think it was important for it to be an anthology
[5:48]because
[5:50]Joy is different for every individual right and so I wanted 17 I call them pathways
[5:57]I wanted us to show seven
[5:59]Hash that we can navigate towards joy because me moving towards my joyful place
[6:06]Is completely different than what may be for you or maybe for my children right joy exists in different forms for everyone
[6:13]And so having this anthology of 17 short stories having all of my favorite people contributed to it
[6:21]Have it have it
[6:21]You know be male and non binary
[6:24]You know male presenting authors and have it focus on the black lived experience was incredibly important
[6:30]And my agent was just like you know what I think I think it's time
[6:34]And you know we we pitched it publishers loved it
[6:38]Eventually went with double court and figuring around the house
[6:42]And the rest is history. Wow. That's amazing
[6:46]Well, I'm so glad you did it and it was so interesting to read all the different stories and perspectives
[6:50]Why did you decide to divide your own story?
[6:53]Into the you know part one part two part three sort of over the course of the interspersed with the other stories
[6:59]It was I was trying to think about what I wanted to write and I knew that I wanted to
[7:06]Tie everything together and so I'm a fan of you know one of my favorite two of my favorite stories
[7:12]The never-ending story and the princess bride
[7:15]Both of those are
[7:17]Stories about a story being told
[7:21]Right they are encapsulated in this experience of reading the story
[7:26]And so I wanted to sort of do the same thing. I wanted it. You know
[7:30]I wanted to somehow I call it the MCU. I want it to be
[7:35]Embolly a creative universe. I wanted to tie all of this joy together somehow
[7:42]And I didn't know what method to you know how it was going to happen like I knew I wanted we wanted to move from a
[7:49]Feels to a birth right because it was important for me to show that movement
[7:55]From grief to joy like in how we can transition between the two
[8:00]But it wasn't until I was just sitting down with my
[8:04]With my newborn and I think she was she was five at the time
[8:08]I came to guard there and we were just blowing bubbles and there is I don't know if there's a more
[8:13]Maybe fishing except I don't like bugs and there are a lot of bugs fishing
[8:17]I don't know if there's a more serene act and just blowing a bubble
[8:22]And I was like this is you know, I had my little my top my baby and my feet just you know
[8:27]Blowing his own spit bubbles. I have my kindergarten or dumping around trying to pop them
[8:32]And I was like this is joy for me and that's when it really was like
[8:36]You know, we have to have some you know joy
[8:39]Bubbles up and we're going to collect that and we're going to deliver it as a present as a bird
[8:45]You know as a first present for this new child a way to collect all of the joy
[8:51]Of the people that care and the people that might not even know you exist
[8:55]But I feel like it's something like almost like giving back towards the planet like when you're joyful and you spread that joy
[9:01]It goes out and someone collects it someone who needs it at that moment. So I think that's when the really the framing story
[9:08]Really cemented itself in my mind. I was like, okay, we're going to collect the joy from these different stories
[9:14]And at the end I'll deliver it to someone who needs it. Yeah, you're absolutely right joys contagious right when you're around somebody
[9:21]Look at that big smile. You're like
[9:24]Holds and smiling. I'm smiling. My dimples. I mean people just wouldn't feel so joyful being here with us
[9:30]So hopefully it'll come through the sound waves
[9:33]But you really captured that really well in the book too
[9:36]And I think I was drawn to this graphic novel towards the end by Jerry craft because my kids are
[9:41]I mean, I know you met my son before he just left it, but I once had to a cast Jerry
[9:45]Craft at like the Brooklyn book that's well
[9:47]It's like could you please like sign a book for my son. He's such a big fan
[9:51]But anyway at the beginning he rides my dad says that some people don't want to see my joy
[9:55]I wish that wasn't true, but when you look at books and movies and stuff they make you think
[10:00]that kids like me are always angry or sad,
[10:03]like we're the only ones who ever feel that way.
[10:05]But it's not just us.
[10:07]Everyone is sad or mad sometimes, right?
[10:09]These same eyes that get all teary when I'm sad
[10:11]also see all the beautiful things around me.
[10:14]But there's no movie about that.
[10:16]Dad says we have to make our own movies
[10:17]to show the world that the same mouths
[10:19]and Pat when we're angry.
[10:20]Also, kiss our moms good night.
[10:22]People need to see that too.
[10:23]Anyway, I want to read the whole thing,
[10:24]but people should just go buy the book
[10:26]and read the rest.
[10:27]But I feel like that really captures
[10:30]what many of these stories give as a message,
[10:32]which is like let's go deeper, right?
[10:35]I mean, it's so funny.
[10:36]I don't know when this episode is coming out,
[10:38]but right now is right after this Jubilee
[10:40]and Queen Elizabeth.
[10:41]I don't know if you looked at these crazy pictures
[10:43]of their youngest child who's just like making faces
[10:46]and all the time and we're like,
[10:47]wow, he must be like that all the time.
[10:49]But like, we don't know that.
[10:51]That's all we got to see similar to what you're saying.
[10:53]When you have focused on a person or a thing
[10:55]at a certain time, then that you extrapolate that
[10:59]to mean everything.
[11:00]When that's completely not true.
[11:02]I mean, if you, if somebody only knew me
[11:05]based on how I interact in my kitchen
[11:08]before we all have to get out the door for school every morning,
[11:10]they would never want to talk to me again.
[11:12]And they would think I was a bridging lunatic.
[11:15]So you're absolutely right.
[11:16]And harnessing all the wonderful memories
[11:19]or moments even is just absolutely critical.
[11:22]So I love that.
[11:23]I mean, it's true.
[11:24]This thing goes, you know, you don't judge a book by its cover
[11:28]or, you know, appearances could be receiving.
[11:31]And yet, you know, people will form opinions
[11:33]about other people, you know, stamp judgments
[11:35]just off of, you know, a 30 second TikTok video
[11:40]or, you know, tweet that goes viral or anything.
[11:44]Sometimes, you know, yes, maybe where you bet
[11:47]is accurate representation.
[11:49]I am very discombobulated if I don't have coffee.
[11:53]You know, like that is, that is a fair judgment to me.
[11:56]If you meet me before I make my morning coffee,
[11:59]that is part of who I am.
[12:00]But it's not the whole of who I am, right?
[12:03]And I think people don't either put themselves
[12:07]in the position or even what to view the whole, right?
[12:12]Because that shatters, you know, some preconceived notions.
[12:16]If you don't interact, if you don't mingle,
[12:19]if you don't share lives with someone,
[12:23]it's hard to visualize their home.
[12:26]But I think we all have to make that attempt, right?
[12:30]No matter where we are and what spectrum or what side of life,
[12:34]you have to make an attempt to see the whole.
[12:36]Otherwise, we're just, you know, creating and living
[12:41]and just making decisions based off of what we see
[12:44]on the surface when we know it goes much deeper than that.
[12:47]Can we go back to the coffee?
[12:49]Because this is now the second or third time,
[12:52]how do you take your coffee in the morning?
[12:54]What does it you do?
[12:55]What do you put in it?
[12:55]What do you like?
[12:57]How many cups do you have a day?
[12:59]Let me start with the second question first,
[13:02]because that's probably, people are going to judge me
[13:04]last for that.
[13:06]So typically, like if it's in any time,
[13:10]but the summer, for some reason, I don't know.
[13:11]I'll have like one big, I don't use mugs.
[13:14]I use travel mugs just because they keep,
[13:17]they hold the heat longer.
[13:20]And I can sip it from, for me,
[13:22]if you have a mug of coffee,
[13:23]like you have to drink within the first five minutes
[13:26]or just cools off too quickly for me.
[13:28]So I make a big, a travel mug.
[13:30]And that's typically the only coffee I'll drink,
[13:35]because it's enough.
[13:36]It's like, I don't know, maybe two,
[13:37]two and a half cups or so.
[13:39]However, recently, you know, as it's gotten hot
[13:42]and ice coffee right around 2 PM or so,
[13:46]any later than that, and it starts to mess
[13:48]with my digestive system.
[13:50]But like right around 2 PM,
[13:52]when after you've eaten lunch and everything,
[13:54]and it's warm and you're sitting outside,
[13:56]and ice coffee has really started to be my go-to.
[14:01]Like, all right, I've got my second win.
[14:03]I can be more productive now.
[14:04]Let's jump into it.
[14:05]Because between the hours of like two and four,
[14:08]like when the kids are out for summer vacation now,
[14:11]but like four o'clock they begin home from school,
[14:13]I have to go get the little from daycare
[14:16]between two to four, I'd be like,
[14:18]oh, I can really just be lethargic or take a nap.
[14:21]But I get that ice coffee.
[14:22]I'm like, all right, you know,
[14:23]we're cleaning our house, we're doing our writing.
[14:26]As for how I take the coffee,
[14:28]I actually, the only coffee I've ever drank black,
[14:34]like nothing no additives was in Switzerland.
[14:38]I don't know, I think it was the water
[14:40]that they brewed the coffee with,
[14:42]but it was absolutely fantastic.
[14:44]Otherwise, I like to tell people,
[14:46]I drink caffeinated sugar milk because of how much creamer
[14:50]and either it's usually either a caramel macchiato
[14:53]or a hazelnut creamer that I will add coffee to.
[14:58]And that's what I drink.
[15:02]Thank you for that.
[15:05]Yeah, the three o'clock hour, I'm with you.
[15:07]I try to pair it with some chocolate covered almonds,
[15:09]like dark chocolate almonds and a warm cup of coffee.
[15:12]That, that takes me at least to dinner time.
[15:15]Anyway, okay, back to the book.
[15:16]So let's talk about short story as a form for two seconds
[15:20]because it is really hard to write a good short story.
[15:23]And it may seem like it's way easier than writing a novel,
[15:27]but according to Liam and who's my business partner
[15:29]as if he books, she's like, no, no, no, no.
[15:31]Like you need to get every sentence, right?
[15:33]It is so much more challenging,
[15:34]especially a whole collection.
[15:36]And although these are by various authors,
[15:38]it's the same thing.
[15:39]Tell me about the difference for you
[15:42]and like what you have to think about
[15:44]when you're crafting a short story
[15:45]and how you, like what makes a great short story
[15:48]to you and how do you do it?
[15:50]Well, for me and everyone's different,
[15:52]but for me, traditionally a short story
[15:54]has way fewer characters, maybe one or two,
[15:59]three at the most, way fewer set changes.
[16:03]If you think of it as like a movie or theater,
[16:05]like it's the story is unfolding either in one place
[16:09]or one person is carrying us through,
[16:13]different places, but typically there's fewer set changes,
[16:16]fewer setting changes.
[16:18]And there is, I'm trying to think of a great analogy
[16:24]or whatever, like a short story or a novel would be
[16:28]like a whole roller coaster, right?
[16:30]You have that slow climb up to the top
[16:34]and then you're zooming, you're whipping,
[16:36]there's some, you know, lutely lose, you're changing
[16:38]and then you finally you coast to the end, right?
[16:41]Whereas a short story would be that moment you start
[16:45]right before the first drop and then you descend, right?
[16:50]Sometimes I'm just gonna keep going with this analogy.
[16:53]Sometimes you make it all the way
[16:56]and you hurdle through to, you know,
[16:58]the next flat period before the rise.
[17:00]Sometimes there were really great stories
[17:02]who stopped mid descent, right?
[17:04]You're hurling forward and it works
[17:07]and you stop suddenly and you're like,
[17:10]almost out of breath as you finish the short story.
[17:13]And it really depends on the type of story
[17:16]that you're trying to tell whether it's genre,
[17:18]whether it's contemporary or just a literary fiction short story.
[17:22]But for me, it's like it's an abbreviated slice
[17:27]out of someone's life that we're just capturing
[17:30]in this brief moment, right?
[17:32]If you didn't know, you know, my short story
[17:34]in the collection, the griot of Grover Street,
[17:38]you know, we have a, it's, even though it's stretched out,
[17:41]one part, one part, two parts, three over the entire book.
[17:44]We're really looking at maybe two hours out of 42 zones life,
[17:50]right?
[17:51]We start with him devastated at a funeral
[17:53]and we end with him accepting new responsibility
[17:57]and stepping, you know, into this new role that he's accepted.
[18:02]I mean, it's really just two hours on his life
[18:04]and we are witnessing the chains that occurs within him,
[18:09]within these two hours.
[18:11]And that's what I like to think.
[18:11]When I write a short story, we are abbreviating that tale
[18:17]until we just see that moment of change, right?
[18:20]We see a brief glimpse of the before,
[18:22]maybe we see the after, but it's really that moment of change
[18:26]that we're focused on.
[18:27]And that's what I like to tell young writers
[18:29]when we're, you know, writing our short story
[18:31]or have my pick, you know, which is why, you know,
[18:34]I love using fan fiction as a tool for writing short stories
[18:39]because you have the characters, you know,
[18:42]they don't have to build the characters,
[18:44]the readers already familiar with them with the setting,
[18:47]you know, maybe even with some of the obstacles, right?
[18:49]And we can just focus on a moment of change in their life
[18:53]that usually distills it for the young writers
[18:57]and makes it easier for them to conceptualize, you know,
[19:01]what the short, because the worst thing that can happen
[19:03]is you start writing a short story and then keep going
[19:06]and you keep going and you're like,
[19:07]I don't know how to end this, right?
[19:10]But if we could just focus on that moment of change
[19:14]and then stepping out with that, accepting that change,
[19:17]it makes it a little bit easier.
[19:19]I feel like the short story is to the novel,
[19:22]like a pop-up shop is to like a giant mall
[19:27]or some figure a giant, you know,
[19:29]it's just like the best, like it's like the curation
[19:32]of all the high points and things you really want people
[19:35]to know and see.
[19:36]You have to put it in there.
[19:38]Mm-hmm, exactly.
[19:39]It's not big analogy.
[19:40]You go to the amusement park.
[19:41]I'm gonna go to the store and, you know,
[19:43]somehow we'll get this message across.
[19:45]Do you remember the first short story you wrote?
[19:47]Because I know mine was finders, keepers,
[19:50]lizards, we burst when I was in third grade
[19:52]about pair of twins.
[19:53]Mm-hmm.
[19:54]Mine, it was a short story that I was going to turn
[19:57]into a comic, but I can't draw.
[20:00]So it just remained a short story.
[20:02]I actually had several short stories that I would write
[20:07]when I was younger just because I didn't know how to write
[20:09]a full novel.
[20:11]And so I would just, you know,
[20:13]I would have like a summary of the story.
[20:17]Like, oh, this is such and such.
[20:19]She weren't here.
[20:20]They do this.
[20:21]They live here.
[20:22]I'm in one day block.
[20:23]And then I would just talk about that one day.
[20:26]Cause I didn't know how to write the before or the actor.
[20:29]But I wrote a short story about a superhero named
[20:33]Emock and he was way overpowered,
[20:36]better than Superman, better than Batman,
[20:39]devilishly handsome.
[20:41]And it didn't, of course, people are like, oh, yeah,
[20:44]what that makes sense when I tell them that Emock
[20:46]was just Kwame spell backwards.
[20:49]But it was probably the best short story I've ever written
[20:52]that no one else will ever read in their life.
[20:54]Well, OK, last question.
[20:57]How are you going to find joy today?
[21:00]Today.
[21:02]Oh, man, that's that's difficult.
[21:06]I'm in the middle of revising what will be my next
[21:09]middle grade fantasy adventure series, the start of it.
[21:13]So it's like paranoia mixed with dread, mixed with, you know,
[21:18]just fear that, you know, hopefully, you know, readers
[21:20]will like this one as much as they like the last trilogy.
[21:23]But I may look forward to, let's see, it's 930 where I'm in now.
[21:28]I think we'll say one, one p.m.
[21:33]I'm going to, there's a little tiny coffee shop about a mile away
[21:39]from me.
[21:40]If I get all of my revisions done, you know, up to that point,
[21:46]like don't get sidetracked.
[21:48]Today's also, yeah, today's Tuesday's a new book
[21:51]today. There's some great books that came out.
[21:53]So I got to hold off.
[21:55]But if I can make the 1 p.m. I will treat myself to a delicious
[21:59]ice coffee and I will just sit outside on the patio with the sun
[22:03]on my face and just breathe for about 10 minutes.
[22:06]That'll be where I find my joy.
[22:08]Oh, that sounds really nice.
[22:12]Well, you can pick up some chocolate covered almonds too.
[22:14]And you can think of me.
[22:15]And that inspired me to try to do something similar.
[22:18]I feel like I'm not going to get outside at all today.
[22:19]And it's a beautiful, beautiful day.
[22:21]So all right, here's to finding joy and showing all sides of us
[22:26]and hyper curation of emotion and story and all of that.
[22:30]So anyway, thank you so much, Kwame.
[22:32]Good luck with your edits.
[22:33]Know that.
[22:35]Thank you.
[22:35]Thank you for having me.
[22:37]My pleasure.
[22:37]All right.
[22:38]Take care.
[22:38]Type to you soon.
[22:40]Bye.
[22:42]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[22:44]to Read Books.
[22:45]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens
[22:49]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:51]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com
[22:53]and sign up for my virtual book club
[22:55]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[22:57]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[23:00]for the Sound Editing.
[23:01]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[23:03]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.