Category Archives: writing

Ravynn, Ravynn: Act 4, Ravynn: Act 4, Scene 2, Uncategorized, writing

“Agented!”: Writing Across Genres

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If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll know that I recently announced that I am now represented by Leah Pierre of Ladderbird Literary Agency. I’m super excited to begin working with her and hopefully get my words on a bookstore shelf near you.

That said, I’m sure there are questions, so I figured a quick Q&A would be helpful!

  1. How did you find your agent?

One morning in October, I woke up to find there was this Twitter pitching contest happening, #DVPit, which happens to specialize in connecting marginalized voices with agents and editors. I had finished drafting Love in 280 over the summer, so I thought, well, may as well give it a shot. I got interest from three agents, two of whom I submitted queries. When one of the agents passed on my manuscript in December, I actually emailed her to ask if there was anyone else on her team that’d be interested– I’d been doing a lot of reading about Ladderbird and wanted to be there. Incidentally, this agent had been trying to forward my manuscript to Leah, and maybe a month later, I got my offer from her.

  1. Why do you need an agent?

You don’t necessarily need an agent if you’re doing academic writing and publishing, but I write novels and am interested in trade publishing, which is much harder to enter without an agent. Many editors, particularly at bigger publishing houses, don’t acquire manuscripts from unagented writers. So, if I want to have a larger audience, having an agent means I have a better shot.

Also it’s great to have someone who loves your words in your corner to advocate for you and help you navigate the industry. I am absolutely transparent about the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing in the Academy and also in publishing, but I’m just writing what I need to write, the way it needs to be written, and worrying about whether it will find a home after.

  1. What happens next?

Now we do some edits to the manuscript before we start sending it to editors. I’m unsure how long this process will take and there’s always a chance we can’t sell the book, but even getting this far is exciting to me.

  1. Why are you writing across genres?

It’s just right. I’ve always written novels and short stories as long as I can remember. I used to write novel length stories about what I thought my friends’ lives and my own would be like in twenty years. I wrote Harry Potter fan fiction and X-Men stories to entertain people. I entered NaNoWriMo every year (and won) for about five years. I used to write comics and whole newspapers for my family. I’ve blogged for years and found homes for my words across the internet. I have always been a creative writer and trying to tell myself that I was only ever going to write academic pieces for the rest of my life was disregarding everything I had ever done in my life up until this point.

I write across genres because different stories require different forms or containers to be most effective. Some ideas require an article, others a short, still others a novel. And within those forms, I’m still going to experiment and push boundaries because that’s just what I do.

This is me walking in my purpose. This is right.

  1. How do you balance it all, your academic writing and creative writing?

I get this question a lot, actually.

It’s all about time management. I know that my academic writing pays the bills, so to speak, so I prioritize that. I set a weekly writing goal, which I then break down further. If my goal is 1,250 words per week, I need to average 250 words per week day. It only takes me an hour or so per day to get there, so I have the rest of the day to read and research, and work on my other projects.

One thing that happens is that I often get carried away by my creative projects and I can write a lot more and faster than I write my researched work. I usually cap a day’s work at 1,000 words for creative projects, and try not to write much more than that on a give day so I don’t get carried away.

Remember, some people work better with word limits/guidelines, others with time limits. Find what works best for you and work with that.

(I really should hold a time management webinar; if you’re interested leave a comment below.)

  1. Are you happy?

Yes.

Black Enough Recaps, Dissertation, Ravynn, Ravynn: Act 4, Ravynn: Act 4, Scene 1, Research, The Journey, Uncategorized, writing

The Big Chop | Beneatha, 2019 Recap

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In the penultimate episode of Black Enough’s first season, “Beneatha, 2019,” Amaya has finally worked up the courage to do what has been on her mind since she first concocted the idea of a Black Girl Magic Potion in episode 1: The Big Chop.

For those that are unfamiliar with the term, The Big Chop refers to the haircut one gets to go from relaxed hair to natural. The Big Chop comes in a variety of packages. Some folks transition for a few months (or a few years) before cutting off their relaxed ends; some make the decision and the hair is gone days, even hours later. Some people go into salons, and some do it themselves in the bathroom mirror.

The reactions to chopping one’s hair is equally varied. It stirs up feelings of joy, release, anxiety or shame– sometimes all of the above and more. As Watson has explored over the course of this season, there is a lot of value and significance tied up with Black hair. It was never just hair. And for some of us that eventually undergo the Big Chop, we do so because we realize that we have little or no memory of our hair in an unaltered state. Though it’s unclear from the narrative, one might assume that Amaya falls into this camp.

As she waits for her turn in the salon chair, Amaya pulls out Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo to read while she waits. This choice is all too appropriate. Amaya is about to undergo one of the most important, most magical transformations of her life, and she holds in her hand a book about and made of magic. (Remember that first line: “Where there is a woman there is magic.”) Shange’s novel, like much of her writing, weaves together forms and stories to create Black women’s narratives so that we aren’t run into the ground under the weight of the narratives society tells about us. It pulls together pieces and bits to create something new, much like how Amaya has been quietly adding and crossing off ingredients to her Black Girl Magic Potion over the course of the season.

The salon becomes a cocoon, an incubator, for Amaya, as does the book. Both are spaces of retreat and refuge where one might turn inward, but also that of unbecoming in order to transform. When Amaya steps out of the salon, she is not, and cannot be, the same person she was before.

And that feeling of knowing that you can’t turn back is heavy. It’s mixed with things you didn’t even know you could feel. Amaya has to sit with the realization that she is different, the feeling of not immediately recognizing yourself when you look in the mirror– and dealing with why that is.

Anyone who has ever Big Chopped knows the struggle. It’s that awkwardness of trying to make your outward appearance match what’s going on in your head and in your heart. It’s that discomfort of stepping out what you knew and into the unknown. It’s the realization that you’re going to have to learn yourself all over again.

It’s all of that and more.

It was never just hair.

Further Reading

Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake Shange

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry

“My daughter is the reason I wear my hair curly,” Taylor Harris, Washington Post, Feb. 2017

Ravynn K. Stringfield is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at William & Mary. Her research focuses on Black women and girls as creators and protagonists of futuristic, fantastic and digital narratives in new media. She often likes to say she writes about Black girls flying. When she’s not researching, you can find her writing for her blog, Black Girl Does Grad School; learning new yoga poses; or bullet journaling.

Black Enough Recaps, Dissertation, Ravynn, Ravynn: Act 4, Ravynn: Act 4, Scene 1, The Journey, Uncategorized, writing

“When we see water, we see death” | Wash Day, 1955 Recap

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In lieu of a traditional blog post, this week’s episode of Black Enough, “Wash Day, 1955,” necessitated a break down. The spoken word poem, performed by Micah Ariel Watson herself, includes deep currents of history that bridge to the present and beyond. So in the spirit of weaving, I have annotated a piece of the spoken word, complete with links and as always, further reading:

When we see water, we see death.

400 years of life flashing before your eyes.

400 reasons to stay on the shore:

We are currently commemorating the 400 year anniversary of enslaved Africans being brought to America. As a graduate student living in Williamsburg, Virginia, I know the anniversary is heavy on everyone’s mind: from student work commemorating the occasion to the Association for the Study of Worldwide African Diasporas conference which was recently held in the city, we are actively looking for ways to pay proper tribute. One of the most compelling lectures I’ve heard about the difficulty acknowledging Black people in the Historical Triangle is Mark Summer’s, of Jamestown Rediscovery, talk, “The American Heartbreak.”

Reason number one too many bones dissolved into dust on the ocean floor

Reason number no one ever asked us to climb aboard–

They took is in droves too tragic to count into waters

In the “Further Reading” section of this post, I have listed several monographs, particularly those by Black women, whose histories of enslavement have been critical to my understanding of the Middle Passage and beyond. These readings include: Scenes of Subjection (Hartman), Saltwater Slavery (Smallwood), and The Price for Their Pound of Flesh (Berry).

Reason number $5.59 for a box of Dark and Lovely—

I worked too hard for my respectability to get it wet

As Tanisha C. Ford discusses at length in the chapter, “Jheri Curl,” from her book Dressed in Dreams, hair has been used as a vehicle to communicate one’s politics, as well as communicate one’s identity.

Reason number twelve million stolen dreams

“What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?”

 

–Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

Reason number 1619, the beginning of being drowned by the land of the free

Reason number 1896 brings us to reason number 2 separate but equal fountains that said my water was inferior

 

Watson calls back to the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, which established “separate but equal,” legalizing segregation. Despite the order to have equal facilities, Black facilities were poorer and lacked support from the government.

Plessy vs. 6 shots fired in Ferguson

Vs. “I don’t even let my son play with water guns.” for fear that it might kill him

This smart line references both the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 and the shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12 year old Black boy, whose crime was to be holding a water gun, later that very same year.

Reason number this ain’t old news

Reason number 1955

We found Emmett Till’s body in the Tallahatchie

Emmett Till was a 14 year old Chicagoan visiting family in Mississippi the summer of 1955 when he made the mistake of “offending” a white woman. Shortly thereafter, he was found horribly mutilated in the Tallahatchie River. His mother, Mamie Till, insisted on an open casket funeral so that the world could see what white men had done to her child.

So you can miss me with that Mississippi Wade In The Water

It’s already been troubled

The Negro spiritual, “Wade in the Water,” includes the line: “God’s gonna trouble the water.” I’ve included a link to an Alvin Ailey dance performance to the song because something about the movement and the song together pierces my soul, and I think it might be impactful for you.

So why on earth would we surround ourselves in something that we can’t even taste?

I mean if Flint was the only water you H2knew, wouldn’t you be afraid to drink, too?

Let alone immerse your whole body into a lead poisoned pool.

 

Flint, Michigan has been without clean water since April 2014 and has birthed the rise of young activists such as Mari Copeny, whose childhood was disrupted by water crisis.

When we see water, we see death.

*

Further Reading:

*The 1619 Project in the New York Times, August 2019

*American Heartbreak, Langston Hughes

*Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora, Stephanie E. Smallwood

*The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in Building a Nation, Daina Ramey Berry

*Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America, Saidiya Hartman