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Callaloo 23.4 (2000) 1395-1409



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Conversation

Gloria Naylor and Nikki Giovanni


Wintergreen Women Writers Retreat, Wintergreen, Virginia, 17 May, 1997

NAYLOR: You did a conversation with James Baldwin, didn't you?

GIOVANNI: I did.

NAYLOR: That was twenty years ago or so?

GIOVANNI: Maybe a little bit more than that. Because Thomas was not in school, and we did it in London, because Jimmy lived in France. And London was like the half-way point, because he didn't want to come to the United States, and I can't say as I blame him. And so, it was probably more like twenty-two, twenty-three years ago. And I did one with Margaret Walker.

NAYLOR: That one I don't know.

GIOVANNI: You don't? I'll give you a copy. Before Margaret began writing Demonic Genius, she was having trouble organizing it. And I said to her editor, "Why don't you just sit down and talk to her, and let her talk it through." And she said, "Oh, that's an idea, isn't it?" And I said, "Well, that would be the best way to do it because once writers start to talk about things it organizes in their minds." And so, about four hours later, she came and said, "Why don't you do it?" So we went down because of Margaret's age--I mean, she is senior to me--so we went down to Jackson [Mississippi], where we did two days worth of talking in her den. Then after we transcribed it, we did the rest of it in D.C. Jill Krementz--you know Jill--the photographer, she did the pictures. I like Jill's work and I like the fact that she has devoted herself to writers. But that is a question, Gloria. Does it help you to talk ideas out?

NAYLOR: To a degree. To a limited degree. Because I feel that if I say too much about the book--you talk the book, you've written the book. And so I do take that under advisement. But I will in very broad outlines. I stopped doing that because, one, the ending will change on you, because it takes its own organic growth. And it spins off and you're there with your computer trying to take down what all these crazy folks have done. So, in that regard, that's why I do keep it to a minimum. But I love to read a work that I feel is quasi-complete. Like, if I'd known people were going to read here, I would have brought something of my new book. It's very new and I'm not reading it much, you know? I wrote it so quickly that it hasn't really digested in my head. This last baby--and I call them all babies--was the strangest one to date in what it took for [End Page 1395] me to get it delivered. I was going through a lot of harassment, a lot of stupid stuff that was going on. I left my home in St. Helena, where I had gone to write a historical novel. But under all the mess they were doing to me I couldn't write. So I said, there's another book that's been in the back of my head to do. I was just going to call it "The Men . . ." with an ellipsis, but then I said I may as well go ahead and call it The Men of Brewster Place. Because there was no way when the publishers got through with it that they would let me call it just "The Men." But it was always in the back of my mind to do this book. So I brought it to the forefront of my mind, and I began to work on it. And it took no real research, whereas "Sapphira Wade" took a lot. But I watched some guys play one-on-one basketball, I did do that. And I did a little reading on idiot savants. There's a character named Brother...

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