Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. Who are your writer-mama heroes? My grandmother JoJo is the first person who comes to mind. She raised four girls on her own. Much like Lula in Crooked Hallelujah, my grandmother clawed their way through terrible poverty, telling my mom and aunties to hold their heads high and be proud of who they were, that they could do anything. Through it all, she was writing. She probably has a couple of albums worth of gospel songs she’s written the music and lyrics to. Holiness churches all across the country sing her songs to this day. For many, many years, she wrote a column called Jodie’s Journal in the Sequoyah County Times, her local paper back home in the Cherokee Nation. She’s a very talented woman, one who always insisted on perfect enunciation and proper posture!  I don’t have to think hard about a literary hero of any sort before I’m talking about Louise Erdrich. In a Paris Review Interview in 2010, she says:  By …

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. How has parenting influenced your writing? It has brought clarity to my writing, and a sense of profound urgency. It didn’t occur to me until I became a parent that my writing is my legacy, and it is for my son. That was a real epiphany that happened for me in 2014, and I write about it in my memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. The day that Michael Brown was murdered by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and my then-9-year-old asked if he or I would get shot because we are Black, I knew that in addition to mothering him through my answer, I needed to also commit the truth of my answer, and its legacy — of police profiling and murdering Black boys and men — through writing.   How has writing influenced your parenting? Writing for me is a discipline, and a form of expression — by doing that, and I write almost exclusively at the kitchen table in the center of our home, …

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. How has writing influenced your parenting? I think that writing has made me more creative as a mother. The same way that I aim to think more expansively and deeply in my writing, I try to do the same while raising my two girls. On the fun and frivolous side, writing has given me more room to have fun with storytime and games I make up on the spot with the girls. On the more serious side, I employ creativity in both disciplines and encouraging them to be creatively expressive as well. What’s your favorite thing about being a mother? There are so many things I love about being a mother. One of my favorites is being able to see the world through [my children’s] eyes. When they marvel over something that I’ve gazed past a million times, or when they offer a clear, succinct assessment of something that I made much more complicated in my mind, I’m so grateful for them and our …

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. What’s your favorite thing about being a mother? This is actually a really tough question. I feel like it shouldn’t be difficult to answer, and I’m slightly embarrassed that it is….so…I’m going to give you the most honest and real answer I can give you, and I really hope your readers understand. I don’t really love being a mother, per se. I’m not really cut out for the so-called (i.e. made-up) “mom things.”  BUT…I absolutely LOVE being Emory’s mother. She truly is just an absolute joy and is funny as all get out. So I would have to say my favorite thing about being Em’s mother is just getting to be goofy together when no one is watching, and then watching her stare at me in horror when I’m goofy in public, or in front of her friends. Or when she works overtime to prank me – we live for a good prank in our house. What’s your least favorite thing about being a …

Mama’s Writing is Raising Mothers’ monthly interview series, curated by Deesha Philyaw. What’s the best motherhood advice you’ve ever gotten? The best motherhood advice I’ve gotten is from my own mom who said, “You need to reduce your stress because your baby feels everything that you feel.” She said this to me after I had my son and while I was pregnant with my daughter. While I can’t always reduce my stress, I try to remain cognizant of how I’m feeling so that when I’m interacting with [my kids] and responding to them or their behavior, it is not from a place of my own stress, which may lead me to snap. I don’t always succeed, but I try.   How has motherhood shaped your priorities? I’ve had to reinvent my life. Before having children I wanted this big New York, news [producer] life. My husband hates the North so it was still very far-fetched, but after having my son, I realized that I didn’t want to go back to work in news at all, let alone …