Kelly Jo Ford | Mama’s Writing
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 …