Ep. 206 Who Are You Loving When You Write with Destiny O. Birdsong

Written By Megan Caballero

Our guest today is author and poet Destiny O. Birdsong. Destiny's debut novel, Nobody's Magic, is about three Black women with Albinism in Shreveport, LA. We talk about the ways Destiny approached representation and nuance when writing about Albinism, her personal training ground for crafting dialogue, and the pressures people can feel around grief.

The Stacks Book Club selection for March is A Mercy by Toni Morrison. We will discuss the book on March 30th with Imani Perry.

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:09
Welcome to The Stacks a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today’s guest is author and poet Destiny OBirdsong, whose most recent book nobody’s magic is a cryptic novel that centers around the lives of three black women with albinism in Shreveport, Louisiana. We talk today about the pressures of representation, the many manifestations of grief and destinies own ever evolving relationship with her albinism. The Stacks book club pick for March is A Mercy by Toni Morrison and we will be discussing the book on the podcast on March 30. With Imani Perry. Now it’s time for my conversation with Destiny O Birdsong.

All right, everybody. I’m very excited. Today I’m talking with destiny, a bird song, the author of nobodies magic, Destiny. Welcome to the Stax.

Destiny O. Birdsong 1:44
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Traci Thomas 1:48
I’m really excited to talk to you. I have to admit, I have never read a book that is a triptych novel before. So I think we should sort of start with like 30 seconds or so tell us about the book. And then I have a whole bunch of questions for you about the characters and everything inside. So why don’t you give us sort of a bigger rundown overall picture?

Destiny O. Birdsong 2:09
Sure. So nobody’s magic is a triptych novel. It’s told in three parts. And each of the parts is devoted to a black woman with albinism, who lives in the south specifically, either lives in or has connections to my hometown, which just report Louisiana. And I think the sort of overarching theme of the book is really about endings and beginnings. You know, in each of the stories, the women have these endings of sorts, right? So for Suzette, it’s the end of her childhood for Maple, it’s the end of her mother’s life. For Agnes, it’s the end of a dream, that she I think even she has some trouble kind of articulating or deciphering herself. And so each of them kind of has to pick up at that point and figure out how they want to live the rest of their lives, you know, who they want to be, who do they want to be with? So I think yeah, I think if I had to sum it up, I think that’s, that’s, that was good gist of it.

Traci Thomas 3:08
That was very good. Okay, I want to talk about a triptych novel first before I talk about actually what’s in the book. I’ve never heard of that phrase before, I don’t think and I am interested to know how it’s different to you than a collection of short stories or than a collection of novellas or interconnected novellas or short stories.

Destiny O. Birdsong 3:27
Yeah, so I think, you know, you read I feel like my first triptych novel that I read would probably be Terry Jones is leaving Atlanta.

Traci Thomas 3:37
yeah. I read that. Okay. Yes. On a trip to a novel?

Destiny O. Birdsong 3:40
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Three stories. In think the difference between hers and mine is that the stories are interconnected. So the characters know each other. And in my case, the characters don’t. And I think for me, what makes it a triptych as opposed to like a collection of novellas or a collection of long, short stories is that I think their shared subjectivity for me, it was really important, right? Like, there’s not a lot of representation of characters with albinism and literature right now, when they do appeared, you know, the representation is sometimes a little narrow, sometimes it’s problematic, depending on you know, who you’re reading, and, you know, and how the characters interact with some of the main characters. But for these women, I wanted to offer like a range of subjectivities. But I didn’t feel like it was really necessary for them to interact with each other. One of the great myths about, like people with albinism, that I’ve encountered so many times in my life, is that we all know each other, and that we’re all part of the sort of family of people who look like it’s deeply problematic.

Traci Thomas 4:49
Have you heard to people so weird, it’s like the real question.

Destiny O. Birdsong 4:54
I, the little kid and me just really wishes that get well i I feel like there’s more of this happening right now. But when I was growing up, I think people were just really overwhelmed by difference. And this really overwhelmed by someone who did not fit into a neat category of people that they previously encountered. So it’s like they tried to sort of put they tried, they would try to put me very quickly into some categories like, oh, well, I know another person who looks like you, you too, must be connected. Yeah, so it was important for me, for the women to have their own narratives that weren’t sort of bogged down by that stuff. And there are references, you know, they just wanted people to references to each other throughout the book.

Traci Thomas 5:37
The one where Mrs. Hamilton calls maple, Agnes, I, as soon as the next story started, I was like, Who is this Agnes? And how is she connected? Like, I loved the little moment of like, why did she say Agnes?

Destiny O. Birdsong 5:50
Yeah, I mean, well, it is it. I mean, it’s a small city. So you know, that there, there are some moments where they, they’re sort of running into people who who know, you know, the other main characters. So I thought that was I thought that was a really cool way to connect them. But I really just feel like their shared subjectivity. I wanted it to end there because I wanted them to be three drastically different people. And I wanted their narratives to be shaped by who they were individually as as black woman with albinism, but also as these like, you know, hopefully really interesting. Definitely super complicated women.

Traci Thomas 6:31
Okay, I have a lot of questions for you. And I think I want to start here, because this is the thing that I am the least interested in. But I think that people will probably be the most interested in and probably the most boring questions for you. So forgive me for being boring. But I want to start with albinism, because you have, you are a person with albinism, and as are the three characters in the book, and I’m wondering, like how much responsibility you felt or feel in telling these stories, because so few people, as you sort of mentioned, know, people with albinism, and so like, there’s this representation of like destiny, you must carry the weight of our people on your shoulders. And like in your acknowledgments, I’m just going to read what you said, because I’m the person who loves to read acknowledgments and gets to quote them in interviews, like a real like, asshole. This is real pretentious, but you say, you’re thinking God is who do you think first and you say, thank you for this journey, which has helped me better understand myself and women like me in ways I didn’t know, I was not understanding. So I guess the first part of the question is like, what’s the responsibility you feel? And then the second part of the question, which is what I’m more interested in, is, what were you not understanding that you’ve come to understand?

Destiny O. Birdsong 7:41
That’s a great question. Also, I am totally the person who flips to the acknowledgments. I want to know who you know,

Traci Thomas 7:47
I love it. Like, yeah, I like to save it for the end. I’m like, as soon as I finished the book, I’m, like, get so excited to read the acknowledgments. I want to know who helped you, I want to know who inspired you. I want to know who you love most in your life, especially with a debut, because I feel like you think more people I feel like when people get to their like sixth book, it’s like, thank you to my mailman. And I’m like, Okay, your mom’s probably mad at you.

Destiny O. Birdsong 8:11
But yeah, they do get shorter. I mean, this is my second book.

Traci Thomas 8:13
So second, but your first novel? Yeah. First columns.

Destiny O. Birdsong 8:18
Yeah, yeah. And the acknowledgments are way shorter than I think there’s like four or five pages in the budget collection. Like I’m not doing that this time. I do feel like they get progressively shorter. But you know, so there’s a sense of responsibility. So there’s another part in the acknowledgments where I talk a little bit about this, about the fact that like, you know, in spite of the fact that I deeply understood that this was important work, like I knew that I couldn’t tell every story like I can’t like that. Like, that’s just not possible. albinism happens in every racial category in the world, right? And even if I were to sort of just like try to stick to my own little corner of like, black women living in this house, I still can’t, like, yeah, I still can’t tell the whole story. Um, but what I did feel responsible for doing was creating characters, like I said, who are complex and who I hope are interesting, whose lives are certainly impacted by their condition, but it’s not limited to that because that’s the thing that often disappointed me when I saw characters with albinism and literature. It’s like their condition was like, first and foremost. Right. And like, that dictated what the narrator had to say about them. It dictated what the what the character said to them, how the characters treated them. And yes, like that is a part of these triptychs. But it’s not the only thing there. So what I wanted what I felt responsible for offering was nuance. I also, you know, because people are really, people’s reactions to Agnes are interesting. I you know, Agnes isn’t a very likable person. Sure, and I didn’t like her when I was writing her but she interested me. And so I kept going. And I’m glad that she’s not perfect. Because that kind of cultural work. I mean, it certainly has happened in black American literature like, you know, since the narratives of enslaved people, right, that you had to sort of do this work of humanizing yourself to a reader, like, Yes, I’m a person, I’m good, you know, I’m reliable, I’m responsible. I’m God fearing, I think that’s important work. But I didn’t want to have to sacrifice nuance for that. Right. So I felt Yeah. And so that became a responsibility. I can’t say I started off that way. Because again, I didn’t like Agnes ease. I was like, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this character who keeps talking to me. But yeah, but that sort of became a part of what I wanted to achieve. And in terms of my own, not understanding, it was really important for me to also portray characters who were like desirable, and who other characters desired, who were sexual, who thought about their own beauty and sort of like, expressed it in different ways. But also were sort of discovering their own beauty in the process, and in a couple of the narratives. And I think that is one of the things that I’m still working to understand is like, Where does my beauty fit into the larger conversations about beauty about like, physical beauty, I don’t think that’s the only important thing. You know, I like I don’t want to sort of like make it seem like, it’s really important for me to be seen as beautiful, but it’s important for me to understand my own beauty. And so that’s what I wasn’t. Yeah, that’s what I wasn’t always understanding. And I’m still working to understand if I’m being honest. And so that’s the thing that comes to mind, when when I think of the first part of my acknowledgments is just sort of coming into a better understanding of my own like, aesthetic wholeness. Right?

Traci Thomas 11:55
I love that so much. Thank you. So this is sort of more about just like Black Writing about black women generally. Because what I fucking loved about this book was you captured dialogue and conversation and like, the way that it feels to be black and talking, I feel like so I know that sounds like very basic, but I read so many books, and not just books by black authors. But just in general, like dialogue seems to be very hard. And people don’t always get it. And it doesn’t always feel natural. And like from the jump, your dialogue was just like, I was like, I get it. I know where I am. I know who these people are. So I’m wondering how you approach writing dialogue? And if it’s something that’s easy for you, or if that’s like one of the harder parts for you, and actually writing your work?

Destiny O. Birdsong 12:50
Well, I think dialogue comes easy for me, but it’s, it’s an earned easiness. So talking is my love language. Yes, I’m a marathon talker. One of my close friends and I used to talk, she lived in upstate New York for a long time, it was like really isolating, and like one day, we had this eight hour phone conversation. And I have no memory of, of the length of the conversation. I remember the conversation was really good. I had no idea it lasted that long. Because that’s just yeah, that’s my thing. I you know, I was in heaven, talking to my buddy. So I think that, that that’s been a kind of training for me is sort of like being in conversation with people I love and sort of like, always being in the presence of the kind of rhythm of like black language and at all levels, right, because my friends grew up all over the country and in some places, in some cases in different parts of the world. And so just the rhythm of language, I think I’m steeped in it, you know, because I’m surrounded by people whose love language is also talking. So, dialogue, to me comes comes fairly easy, but I think it’s still a thing that I pay great attention to, because like you, I feel like I’m kind of a snob with it. Like, like, if I read your dialogue and it doesn’t feel authentic. i It’s a turn off for me as a reader for a little bit. So I do yeah, I’m very careful with it. I read it over and over again. Sometimes I read it aloud. It’s really important for me to sort of capture a rhythm that my ears accustomed to but also that feels natural on the page like in that text.

Traci Thomas 14:31
And are you thinking about your characters voices differently? Like are you imagining them like when you’re right I don’t write so I never really understand how people write I still don’t even know I’ve been talking to writers for four years. I just I don’t get how you guys do this. But are you thinking like, are you hearing Suzette voice and it sounds a certain way in your head and you’re just writing it out or like I don’t know what the other option would be. But I just I don’t know. How does it cut? Do you know that like Donnie sounds right or Agnes sounds right.

Destiny O. Birdsong 15:00
Yeah, well, I actually don’t know how it’s done either to be honest with you, like, I know how I do it.

And one of the ways I do it, which is probably really kooky, and kind of weird is, is thinking about my characters as real people. Sure, you know, and they are often the amalgamation of people I’ve known, you know, like, like, not in whole, but sort of like, like, like when I visualized Donnie, I can see what he looks like. But I also sort of know his backstory, and I know the places he’s lived in and worked in. And so that’s going to influence how he says a thing. I also think he’s sort of like smart in these really, like unexpected ways. And so like, that also influences his language. So for me, I think it’s some character building, but the characters do talk to me. Yeah, when I was writing, Suzanne, it’s part of the triptych. I was trying to hear her tell the story, right? Like how Suzette gonna tell this story. And the way she tells the story is influenced by her being an only child, it’s influenced by her growing up around older, Southern black people, it’s influenced by her like time on the internet. And so I’m sort of thinking about those things as I’m crafting speech. And as I’m also as I’m crafting, like, the narrative and so but I think it’s easier when I when I think of the characters is like fully fleshed out people, I can know what they look like, know how they wear their hair, I know what their clothes are like. And so that for me, kind of makes it a little easier to sort of, you know, determine like, how Danny’s gonna sound or Suzanne or me or who’s like been the college, but it’s also like, you know, yeah, yeah.

Traci Thomas 16:41
I love maple. We’re going to talk about me. I should have started with this maybe, but like, how do the ideas for the stories come to you? Because I feel like oftentimes, like when people write their first novel, it’s a lot of themselves, isn’t it? But you have these three very different women. So I’m going to make an assumption that you’re probably in each of them in different ways. But like, how did you come up with the actual stories? Because they’re so different from each other?

Destiny O. Birdsong 17:07
Yeah, well, yeah, I think you’re right, that there’s sort of a little piece of me and all of them. So the first story that came was agonises part of the novel. And it came because I like Agnes was like working was like grading high school exams. And it just came as a joke. Like I told someone like, oh, you know, it would be, I wonder what would happen if someone just like, lost their shit in here and started like throwing things? Because it’s a really austere and very quiet space, like the reading room. And so I just wondered, like, you know, what would happen if someone introduced some chaos. And so they sometimes happen like that sort of like ideas. Sometimes I’ll start off with a very clear sense of what I want to write. And but I’ll tell you, it almost never goes the way I planned. So for instance, for Suzette tryptic, I started off with the idea that I would have this character who had albinism, but and who was capitalizing on these myths about people with albinism, like having special powers and like, you know, but but she’s a charlatan, like she’s using these superstitions to like, you know, to like make money off people. But somehow, it just evolved into a really sort of sheltered woman who, it who has sort of, like benefited from these superstitions, but not in the ways that I had intended, right. Yeah, so for me sometimes it’s just sort of an idea that’s like born out of an interest in a specific topics like for Maple, her original story was supposed to be about her just like getting laid, like like, she hasn’t had sex in a long time. And she’s because she’s, she’s gonna figure out how to do it. When she’s gonna find someone to do it. She’s gonna she’s gonna get it done. But it was supposed to be sort of like a comedy of errors. And I started writing the first I wrote the first scene of bottled water and like, then, shortly after, I was like, cooking dinner, and and like a very small voice said to me, Oh, the mother supposed to be dead. And I was like, what? But I decided to sort of follow that impulse. And I was like, Okay, well, the next time I sit down to write about maple, I’m gonna write as if the mother’s dead. If it works great. If it doesn’t, I’m just gonna go back to my original idea. Because in the story is also there’s also going to be a mother who is like her daughter’s best friend and sort of like helping her along in the, in the quest. So yeah, so they so they come as ideas that I’ll play around with and if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, that’s okay. And but I’m also deeply aware that like, my characters in the stories that I’m telling are sometimes just smarter than I am, or smarter than my original plan. And so I’m totally open to like letting them evolve. Write like I try not to put yeah, like I try not to put too much pressure on what I had in mind. Which Yeah, which is a practice I’m much better at on the page than like in my life

Traci Thomas 20:12
seems impossible in life. Let’s be honest. Do you have a favorite of the three women or of the three stories?

Destiny O. Birdsong 20:20
People ask this often? And I feel like, well, I, I genuinely do not have a favorite. But if I did, I’m like, I’m not gonna tell you because I want you to read all of them.

Traci Thomas 20:30
You don’t have to tell us, but I’m going to tell you which one was my favorite. I loved Maplestory. So much. I think for me, and I’ve talked about this a lot on the show, I am obsessed with grief right now, I think a lot of people are living with it. And maybe they don’t know that that’s what they’re experiencing. I lost a parent about 10 years ago. And ever since then, I think about grief all the time, not in like a sad, depressing way. But just like it’s something that I think about because I don’t think we’re taught about it. And what I loved about this story, is how maple was experiencing grief. And people were talking to her about it. And she sort of was like, unable to understand or hear a lot of what was being said to her about grief, which I just think is like one of the most realistic depictions of grief that I’ve ever read. And like you have these a few lines, like there’s one line where I think someone to something like, you know, when someone dies unexpectedly or early, it’s just like, all of a sudden, everything is set in stone, like with your relationship with them, you know, and like that you can go back and have that conversation. And then there’s another line where someone says that the person died before you were done loving them. Another moment that I just like was like I get I’m getting chills right now just talking about it. And so for me, not that I loved maple more than any of the other women but just I loved what you as the author were talking to us about and how you were talking about grief because you weren’t like, oh, this person is sad and crying every day. Like, you know, Maple had all sorts of emotional reactions are non reactions or behaviors that were like weird, and you’re like, What the fuck? What are you doing? And so I’m wondering, like, sort of how you are thinking about grief, how you were thinking about maple, you know, without spoiling anything, but just sort of how you came to want to write about grief.

Destiny O. Birdsong 22:27
Yeah, whoo. I think that this may be a weird place to start. But I have long been like a crime TV junkie.

Traci Thomas 22:38
Okay, so same.

Destiny O. Birdsong 22:40
I, and the cases that often were the most perplexing for me, were the ones where a detective decides to focus on a particular suspect, because they, they would say something like, oh, well, this person wasn’t grieving properly. And I was just like, what does that mean? Right? That, like, the grieving process is different for each of us, like, and I grew up in a family where there were like, a couple of years, where like three or four people like passed away. And my mom’s reaction to it. I mean, in hindsight, it’s heartbreaking to think about as a kid, I was just sort of bewildered and kind of confused, and maybe a little scared, but like, I think that the culture She was raised in and you know, by default, I was also raised in sort of treats grief as this thing that you sort of, like, move past, right, and you should do it very quickly. Because to sit in it is dangerous, and potentially is sort of like the suggests a lack of faith, that God can comfort you and that you will be okay. And that was all a part of a divine plan. I think that she really struggled with that. And the struggle is just sort of like it mapped itself out in some really interesting ways. And I think that those are the two things that really could have brought me to an interest in grief. But like, I’ve, you know, I haven’t yet last, like in my adult life loss, you know, a close loved one, like a parent or a spouse or a child. But I have grieved some losses, you know, sometimes people leave your life and they’re still living. But it’s done. Yeah. And there is no going back to that relationship. It’s there’s no having that conversation. So I’ve also been interested in that because I have had those losses in the past few years. And and those two are grieving processes that people seem to have various sort of, like, you know, very clear ideas about you know, how one day move through them. And those ideas are often really off the mark, at least for me anyway. It’s like no, I don’t, I don’t know how to grieve that way. And actually it feels pain. In full and violent to do that. And so I think all of those things for me are at play in Maplestory.

Traci Thomas 25:07
Yeah, I think I think a lot of people, I mean, just given the pandemic and everything, even if you didn’t lose someone to death, like, I think a lot of people are grieving right now and again, like don’t really know or understand what they’re feeling like grieving a way of life or like grieving a future that they thought perhaps they might have. Like, I know, for me, personally, I had, I had twins in December 2019. And I had visions, all these things that our life’s our life was going to be and like, they just haven’t been those things. And that’s been really, really hard, because I’m also like a planner type person. And at first I like could not figure out why I was so sad because I was like, everyone I know is healthy. We’ve not had Coronavirus, like all this stuff. And then eventually I was like, oh my god, I’m grieving all these things that I thought that I would get to do and show my kids by now and like my family that I you know, all of that stuff. But the other thing, I think that’s really interesting that you said about sort of like, having faith around grief, because I think that religion sometimes really complicates how people grieve because there is and not just religion, but just like sort of generally toxic positivity, like, you know, happens for a reason, or like, we’re all gonna get through it and all this stuff. It’s like, you know, what, someone just died, or like, a million people are dying around me, like, I don’t actually need you to tell me things are gonna get better, like, this is pretty fucking bad. And I just want to feel it. And it’s not an indication about like the quality of human I am or the quality of Divine Spirit that God may or may not be like, I just find it also interesting. So I just, I just loved maple, I loved her story. And I loved what you did with it. Because I think in other hands, it could have been a really a story that I hated. Like, I think, I think handled differently. It could have just been yucky for me. I want to talk a little bit to you about the world of publishing. Because you’ve written this like what I would assume? Well, let me ask you, I guess let me start here. Did you receive any pushback about an audience or an interest level for a book about people with albinism, and specifically black women with albinism? Was there any like difficulty selling this book for you?

Destiny O. Birdsong 27:20
So this is the first book I sold in the way it was sold, right? So sort of like the traditional way, like my poetry collection sold in a slightly different way. Okay, like without an agent, so I can’t necessarily gauge in my opinion, it sold fairly quickly, I think, on submission at the end of July, the beginning of August and 2020. And it was sold by September, which I think is Yeah. I mean, it felt fast. I don’t know if that’s, you know, I think it sort of depends on one’s experiences. But you know, my agent really liked it. And the editors who were interested in it liked it in different ways. The editor who eventually bought it, just really, you know, if she had qualms of any kind, like, I never saw them, like, she really, like, love the book. And the thing that made her stand out among the editors was that she loved she wanted the women to stay together, you know, like so because some, some had suggested like, oh, you know, maybe we should break it up and, you know, do like short novels. And so she loved the whole book, and seemed very confident that it would find its audiences. So I didn’t really get a lot of that. I mean, that of course, you know, I, you know, as a writer, you know, there’s, there’s all kinds of stuff that happens behind the scenes, but I am not privy to and in some cases, I’m glad I’m not. But yeah, but I’ve no one at my agency or the press, like, voiced any of those qualms. Everybody was excited about it, and has has championed it, like, I think, pretty hearty ly good for lack of a better word.

Traci Thomas 29:18
I love that because I think it’s a really good book, but I feel like I’ve heard so many stories of people talking about how like, oh, it was hard to sell or whatever, because it’s like a niche topic or like, and also I think the women not not that I think that it’s nice, but like, you know, how publishing is you hear these stories of like, you know, I think de Shafilea talks about how like nobody wanted to publish a book about black church women. I’m like, it’s like not even niche that’s just like a ton of people. Right? But like that’s sort of like how, you know so like, that’s sort of how like black stories are are handled is like, Oh, this is not universal or whatever. Not that anything’s universal, etc, etc. And I found your characters to be so unapologetically black and southern and like so so Pacific in a way that I just like, ate up. And so I was wondering if any of that, like specificity if people were who were in the process of making the book, have you got pushback, but it sounds like you didn’t and so that it makes me very happy. Would you talk a little bit about Shreveport as a character or as like, sort of this fourth woman in your in your stories, because I definitely felt like Shreveport was there. Maybe not a woman, maybe just a place is probably I don’t need to gender is a place. No, I

Destiny O. Birdsong 30:29
think I actually didn’t think about the places like is like being gendered I like I’m okay with her being a woman. I think that, um, yeah, so it’s, you know, I was lucky to grow up there, which is not something that was clear to me as a kid. As a boy, like, oh, my gosh, I’m gonna go to Six Flags anywhere, but here. But it’s an interesting place, because it really sits at this, like, crossroads in the South. Right. So it’s like really close to Texas. So you know, there’s like Southwestern influence. And it is also, you know, a city in Louisiana, which has its own very distinct southern culture, the French and Spanish influenced, and again, French Canadian influenced, and so it has some of that, and then it’s also a city in the Deep South, you know, but it is also a city that is close to the Mid South. Like, I want to say that, Shreveport might be slightly closer to Memphis than it is to New Orleans. Oh, yeah. So like, so it’s, it really was a confluence of cultures, you know, and I don’t think I appreciated that as a kid. But as an adult, putting these women in that place, like worked really well. And, you know, I wish I could take credit for it. But it was really just a matter of like, Where will they be safe? Right? As representations of black women with albinism, right, like so you know. And that’s a place filled with people I love. And for them, it’s a place filled with people who love them. And so like, it felt like the right thing to do. But in the process of writing the book, the city sort of lent itself into the stories and in some really profound ways because of the kind of city it is.

Traci Thomas 32:24
I love it. It’s time to talk process. My This is my favorite section of these interviews. How do you like to write? Where are you is their music? Or their snacks and beverages? How often? Rituals kind of set the scene for your writing? Oh, and if it’s different when you’re writing poetry versus writing prose?

Destiny O. Birdsong 32:54
Um, no, it’s not, you know, I was working on this book, while also finishing up edits for negotiations, which is the poetry collection. And often what I do is just sort of like trade off. So it’s like, if I have like a three hour block of writing, so I’ll say upfront that like, I typically don’t write for more than a few hours a day, because at some point I think it was a philosophy student and philosophy grad student that I was going to school with said that after our for the quality of the work goes down, so you may have the energy to produce the work. But after hour for like that intense work that’s happening in your brain just starts to diminish. And so you’re not getting, you’re getting pages, but you’re not getting quality pages. And I found that to be true. I, I felt like it was true, or after she said it because it gave me permission to do less. But I often sort of wake it up, like I might spend an hour working on a poem and then an hour writing prose, and then sometimes an hour, like doing research or just sort of like just doing something else that’s writing related, but not necessarily like yeah, you know, fingers to keyboard. So yeah, I can do the same. You know, I can in one sitting I can write in several genres. But I also I am not a coffee shop writer, and that was such a thing in grad school, people would sort of go and hang out. I cannot do that. I have to be it has to be complete quiet. I often write late at night. I’m a night owl. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. Because it’s just I feel very, like it’s like I’m the only person awake. I know that’s not true. But it’s sort of I just feel like I feel like I feel like I’m I’m getting the jump on something while everyone is sleeping. So I’m usually very late at night at home. It’s very quiet. I have to be very warm. So I will have like blankets on my ear. Yes. I may have blankets over my legs, I have these booties that are a white rice field and I can put them in the cave.

Traci Thomas 35:06
I have a neck thing like that. Yeah,

Destiny O. Birdsong 35:09
I love it. That’s one of my favorite things. And then maybe some tea or something or water. I’m not usually like eating or anything. I just, I’m not a person who does well with distractions. So yeah, I really just has to be me in a quiet and very warm place, with with my laptop. And sometimes I don’t I don’t write things out by hand anymore. But sometimes if I feel like I need to, or with my phone like I do great. I’ve written a few poems in my notes app. It’s great.

Traci Thomas 35:39
I love my notes app. That’s how I do my reading. That’s where I take notes for this show, like quickly as i reading because I hate to get distracted from the moment but I often need to like, jot down a line or like whatever. If you’re drinking tea, what kind of tea are you drinking?

Destiny O. Birdsong 35:58
I’m usually something caffeine free. I my body does not work well with caffeine. It feels like I’m on like, I mean, I don’t know what it feels like from experience, but I imagine it’s like, what my body might feel like like on amphetamines. It’s like I’m jittery. And I can’t really focus but I also can’t sleep. It’s yeah, it’s a mess. So definitely something Yeah. Something decaf. I don’t think this tea is decaffeinated. But I have fallen in love with Thai tea.

Traci Thomas 36:28
No, caffeine, for sure. Is the Yeah,

Destiny O. Birdsong 36:31
I don’t drink that at night. But I have kind of fallen in love with it during the day. And and I have because I’m dairy, lactose sensitive. So I have like lactose free, sweetened condensed milk. Got it because I’m a sugar. I am a sugar Holic.

Traci Thomas 36:48
And now you’re speaking great. We are struggling because all I like is caffeine and milk. And so I was starting to get a little nervous that we weren’t gonna be able to bond but sugar I’m here for sure.

Destiny O. Birdsong 36:59
Yes, that I think that I mean, the tea itself is great. It has this really this full bodied flavor. And I do love that. But it’s the sweetened condensed milk for me. I wouldn’t drink it if I couldn’t put it in. Sometimes I’ll sub it out. Yeah, sometimes I said that I was like oat milk and, and like honey or something like that. Like if I don’t want it as sweet. Sometimes I’ll do that. And that works. But yeah, it’s the sugar. Really.

Traci Thomas 37:24
I love that this podcast is really just turned into me finding out what everyone else is eating and drinking and like taking notes about that. It’s like all a cover for my curiosity about what everyone else can do.

Destiny O. Birdsong 37:36
Now it’s good. You know, sometimes it’s good. I get good snack ideas from people. So

Traci Thomas 37:41
Sam, I am I love a snack idea. How do you sort of? Or how are you sort of preserving and or tapping into your creativity these days,

Destiny O. Birdsong 37:53
I used to write pretty consistently maybe like five or six days a week. And part of that was because I was finishing things. I was finishing this book. I was finishing negotiations. I haven’t been doing that as much lately. But I’m also wondering if it’s, I’m wondering if I should start again. I am my happiest when I’m writing or when I’m working on something. But I also don’t like the idea of pushing out. Books that don’t feel ready. Right. So yeah, so I feel like I’ve been trying to pace myself, but I haven’t I haven’t been writing as much. And I miss it. I miss that time with my brain. And you know, with my ideas, but what I have been doing and it actually feels therapeutic because it feels like very low stakes as I’ve been doing like these like small arts and crafts projects. Oh, so yeah, so my friend and I went thrifting a couple of weekends ago and I bought like a shelf. I’ve been like, I’m not like super handy. Like I can’t take it apart and put it back together again. But I can fix the NICS on it. Okay, put some nice, you know, put some nice contact paper in it or something, you know, like so. So, yes, we like sprucing up little things around the house framing stuff that I like that maybe I’ve had for a while. Yeah, that that feels like a way for me to be creative, but it doesn’t feel like I’m under the pressure to do things. And I do feel like that’s important. Right? So I don’t Yeah, yeah, it’s important for me to make stuff that’s just for me, you know, that I that I just want to see on the wall or or you know, next to my bed or whatever. I love the idea of that and also it helps me create a space that feels like my own that I love and I’m very much a homebody and my home space is really important. You know, I get anxious when it’s like when you know things are like cluttered or like clean because it really is conducive to my creativity. When I feel like it’s clean. It’s it feels safe it you know, there are things around me that I like and that bring me joy And so that’s been a way lately that I’ve been kind of preserving it and just try not to put a lot of pressure on, on production because I do feel like, uh, you know, I feel like the the power of my first two books and part lies in the fact that like, nobody was looking for them. And nobody was asking for them. Yeah, so I could just do what I wanted. I didn’t feel like I had to write toward an audience or anything. I just, you know, it’s just me doing my thing. And so I like to preserve that. And I would like to preserve that energy for the next project. So I do try to sort of make sure I’m not trying to sort of rush to the finish line.

Traci Thomas 40:34
No, that makes so much sense. I think people forget that, like, creative people, people who create things for work, whether you’re an author or a podcast, or whatever, that usually those kinds of people are creative, generally by nature. And so and so finding ways to be creative that aren’t, that isn’t work, I think is really important for creatives, just like in my experience and the people that I know and stuff. But I don’t think people always, I don’t think other creatives always understand that about themselves. Like they think, Oh, I’m a writer. So I write, like, I’m a podcaster. But I also like to cook a lot and that feels really nice. Like, and I like being creative in the kitchen. You know? Are you when your birthday? I want to know what your sign is.

Destiny O. Birdsong 41:18
I’m a Capricorn, and my birthday is December 31.

Traci Thomas 41:23
Oh, last year of the year, baby.

Destiny O. Birdsong 41:27
Love them. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, I was thinking about that when we were talking about like, how I like to write if I was born at 1028 at night. Wow. My friends always sort of joke like, oh, yeah, like, that’s why you. That’s your time of day. That’s what you do your thing.

Traci Thomas 41:45
You’re like, ready? Ready to go?

Destiny O. Birdsong 41:47
Yes. I love Yes. Yes.

Traci Thomas 41:49
Oh, my gosh, I didn’t ask you this before. But I am sort of curious. Because you brought up audience. Did you have an audience in mind when you were writing nobody’s magic?

Destiny O. Birdsong 41:57
So I have a friend who repeated a question that someone asked her in a workshop. And the question is, Who are you loving when you write? And for me the answers, always black women. But I’m also particularly with a book like this, like, I’m also deeply interested in, like, introducing people to subjectivities that that they aren’t familiar with, right. So like, so I mean, so yeah, I feel like my audience is pretty broad. But when I, when I’m thinking about the impact of my work, I am asking myself, How does this work? Speak to black women? Like how does it speak about the experience of being a black woman? Like, what is it add to the conversation? So So yeah, yeah,

Traci Thomas 42:55
I like that a lot. I like that framing. Who are you loving? Okay, this is very important. You had a PhD? So this record or this answer will go on your permanent record. What’s the word you can never spell correctly on the first try?

Destiny O. Birdsong 43:10
Sometimes it’s like, really simple words, because I’m so used to like AutoCorrect. Sometimes committee gets me like too many M’s to me how many T’s how many? But also, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, that also kind of tripped me up when I’ve because I live in Tennessee. And so for a while, that was kind of like, but now I know, it’s like two ends, two S’s, two E’s. Like, I have a mnemonic device for it now. But usually words like that, when there’s sort of like an unspecified or sort of unpronounceable number of letters that are the same.

Traci Thomas 43:50
yeah, that’s how I the the multiples always get me. But recently, someone said occasionally, and now I refuse to look it up, because I want to try to spell it correctly. But I know that I cannot. And so it’s just sort of been sitting on the front of my brain occasionally. I’m like, there’s multiple somewhere, but not everywhere, I think. I don’t know.

Destiny O. Birdsong 44:09
Yeah, I can’t remember how many S’s are in it now that you brought it up?

Traci Thomas 44:13
Yeah. It’s a hard Well, that’s a really your books been out in the world for like a month. I think like today, actually, the day we’re recording, who’s the coolest person to express interest in your book? Or who’s the coolest person you’ve heard from about your book? Tonda

Destiny O. Birdsong 44:33
Hopa, who is a South African black woman with albinism, like Komodo and the human rights advocate, lawyer, she does all the things. But she reached out and was like, you know, I’m really excited about your book. And I really appreciate the ways I think the thing that really I’m of course, I’m happy that she’s excited about it, but I think the thing that really struck me was that she said something to the effect of The way that this book is being presented to the world feels right. Right. So it’s not being presented as sort of like a gimmicky thing. I mean, that’s not what she said. But like, that’s what it made me think about is that, oh, you know, like the way that my press and the publicity team has handled, the rollout of this book feels authentic to other black women with albinism. And so that I think that was the part of her message that just like, it’s like, it made me emotional.

Traci Thomas 45:32
And they gave you just like, truly, or maybe you help them create the most beautiful cover. I mean, the book is just so beautifully packaged. Do you love the cover? And don’t you think it’s beautiful? Yeah.

Destiny O. Birdsong 45:44
Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I was speechless when I first saw it. Because one of the things I was concerned about when we were talking about the cover, was that, you know, if there was going to be a person on the cover, that her body was not sort of exotic sized in the ways that some representation some visual representations of people with albinism are I want her to be beautiful. I wanted her to look comfortable in her skin and wanted, you know, and yeah, there was some specific things I wanted, I wanted her to have earrings. I was like, I was like, give her big air. And I think that the cover just nails all of that stuff. You know, like it does all of the things that I wanted it to do. And it’s also a really beautiful cover that people really respond well to. So I do love it. But i i Yeah, but it feels it’s still feels a little surreal to look at it because it’s so beautiful. I’m like this book is this. Really? It’s so gorgeous.

Traci Thomas 46:49
It really, really is. I just have a few quick questions for you. One is that for people who love nobodies magic, what are other books that you might recommend to them that are in conversation in some way with your work?

Destiny O. Birdsong 47:03
Mm hmm. That’s a great question. I mean, the books that I’ve read recently that I love, I mean, of course, I love the Secret Lives of church ladies. I really often when people talk to me about sex scenes, I often think back to Sula, I think to Toni Morrison which I know everybody’s read, but I love that I love the sex scenes between Sula and Ajax. I think around the time I started thinking about this book, I was reading the short story collection, what it means when a man falls from the sky. Lesley Nneka. Reema, I think, and I love that book I loved. There was one short story where one of the characters was a little girl. And she was so I think it’s like someone had dared her to like, check to see if one of her classmates was actually wearing a bra. Because, you know, like, there was like, rumors that like she wasn’t as fully developed as she was telling people. And I often think of her when I think of like maple. She’s sort of irreverent. And, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, I’m definitely mentioned Terry Jones earlier. I absolutely love. I know, many people love an American marriage. But I loved silver Sparrow, which is also a book that sort of like, it toggles back and forth between narrators. But they, they’re sisters. They know. And they eventually meet each other. And so yeah, I’ll just just, you know, it’s interesting, because when I finish with a book, oftentimes, I find that there are like, remnants of books I’ve read that I wasn’t even thinking about when I wrote when I was writing, you know, it’s, you find those little kernels and you’re like, oh, you know what that reminds me of? Like, oh, wow, like, I did read that. I did love that. It did speak to me in some way. So. Yeah, super random. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a laundry list of books.

Traci Thomas 49:03
Yes, I’ve made this impossible. I definitely thought of church leaders a lot while I was reading your book for sure. What do you hope that folks will keep in mind as they read your book,

Destiny O. Birdsong 49:16
um, the blog experience is vast. It is as nuanced as like, the individuals who are living it, right that like it can’t be contained. And one description or like, you know, it makes me think of the Lucille Clifton epigraph, epigraph that like, it’s about like sort of telling the story with one thin tone that there are just so many ways of existing in the world as a black person. And these are a few of them. They aren’t the only ones but I just hope that sort of widens the scope a little bit.

Traci Thomas 49:57
Yeah. Okay, here’s my last one. If you could have one person dead or alive, read this book, who would you want it to be?

Destiny O. Birdsong 50:06
Oh, that’s a great question. Goodness. I mean, so I think the ancestors are like with me all the time. So I think that like, I feel like the people in my family that I lost are like always here and like they are sentient, perhaps in ways that like, you know, we are not privy to so like, maybe they have already read the book. But I do think of like my grandmother and my aunt, my aunt Mary, who passed away when I was, I think, maybe like nine or 10. But goodness, somebody who I don’t know. Amana go with Harriet Jacobs. Because I feel like this is particularly true for negotiations. But I feel like when I’m thinking about my literary ancestry for me, it really starts with her. Right? It really starts with the narrative of her, like sexual abuse and her her real determination to escape and like, PTSD, you know, which, I presume didn’t have a name in her time. But like, all of the parts of her narrative, like speak to my lived experience, and sort of like, yeah, and I am, I hope I am doing it justice, but I feel like I’m writing in a tradition that she started in many ways.

Traci Thomas 51:29
I love that that’s a great place to to wrap up today. Everyone at home, go out and get nobody’s Magic by destiny. Oh, birdsong. You can get it wherever you get your books. You can it has an audio book, it has a physical book, you can get it from your library, you should do it with your book club. If you live in my neighborhood, you might find a bonus copy in my little free library. You know, there’s it’s everywhere. It’s out there. Destiny. Thank you so much for being here.

Destiny O. Birdsong 51:58
It was such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Traci Thomas 52:00
Thank you and everyone else, we will see you in the stacks.

All right, that does it for us today. Thank you all so much for listening and thank you to destiny for being my guest. Remember the Stacks book club pick for March is a mercy by Toni Morrison and we will be discussing the book on Wednesday, March 30. With Imani Perry. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Megan Caballero
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