What Place Do You Write From?

Hi friends.

Last night I went to see Jesmyn Ward and Kiese Laymon speak at Baldwin & Co bookstore to honor Jesmyn’s new novel. The event space there is outdoors, and it was drizzling when the evening began but people held up their umbrellas and sat and smiled through it all. Jesmyn and Kiese are our neighbors from Mississippi but they were treated like hometown heroes. Too late to claim a seat among the hundreds there, I stood in the back to see what I could learn.

Jesmyn’s list of accolades is long. (So is Kiese’s!) She is one of the most respected and awarded authors in our lifetime, winning the National Book Award twice. Truly one of our greatest American writers. How do you concentrate when you have that in the foreground of your life?

Jesmyn talked about gathering up all her awards, the little statues, and giving them to her mother, leaving them at her house. A trophy in a china cabinet. In Jesmyn’s own home, she hides her books from her eyesight. Anything so she can avoid her Career while she writes.

I was eager to hear this part because I had been thinking a little bit about ego and the public self lately. When you are in the throes of publishing a book you have to contemplate yourself. How to talk about yourself, how to present yourself to the world. I don’t think it’s good for our souls. But a book is a representation of who you are. You’ve put everything into it after spending so much time with it. You will fight for it. The best thing about talking 1000 Words is that I didn’t just write it, all these other writers did, too. So it all starts to get easier when you’re discussing the work of writers you admire, too.

I think the most rewarding moment from last night was this: