Ep. 319 The Vulnerability Is the Point with Carvell Wallace

Written By Cherie Marquez

Writer and podcaster Carvell Wallace joins us to discuss their debut memoir Another Word for Love. Carvell describes the challenge of writing a trauma memoir without making it all about the trauma, and reveals how they thought about connecting with their audience. We also talk about how Carvell's past as an actor impacts the way they think about writing stories. 

The Stacks Book Club selection for May is No Name in the Street by James Baldwin. We will discuss the book on May 29th with Yahdon Israel.

 
 

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

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Traci Thomas and today I am joined by New York Times bestselling author writer and podcaster Carvell Wallace. Carvell is the author of Another Word for Love, which is a gripping and insightful memoir about growing up black and queer in America. It is full of incredible poetic storytelling about humanity, love and struggle. I have been a fan of Carville's work since they co-wrote the memoir The Sixth Man along with basketball star and warriors legend Andre Iguodala. Today Carvell and I talk about how their background as an actor has influenced their ability to tell stories about how they framed a trauma memoir to make it not feel so much like a trauma memoir. And we share a bunch of our opinions about hip hop and women's basketball. Remember, our May book club selection is No Name in the Street by James Baldwin. We will discuss this book on Wednesday May 29th with Yahdon Israel. Everything we talked about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. Alright, now it's time for my conversation with Carvell Wallace.

All right, everybody. I am very excited. I'm gonna give you a quick rundown about this book and how it came into my world. So a few years ago, many of you know I read Andre Iguodala his book, and I fucking loved it. I didn't want to read it. And it was one of the greatest books I've ever read one of the best sports memoirs ever. And then, last the end of last year, my lovely sister in law, Sarah was like, Do you know Carvell Wallace? And I was like, I don't think so. And she was like, they wrote in his book. And I was like, Bitch, what? Let's get him on the show. I immediately reached out to your team. I was like, I need this book. I will read whatever that person writes again. They sent the book and I have to tell you Carvell, it is so much better than what I had imagined. This book is fantastic. I love memoir. And it is a special memoir. It is in conversation with so many of my favorite memoirs. And I am just thrilled that you are here. So welcome to The Stacks.

Carvell Wallace 3:06
Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. I'm already getting teary.

Traci Thomas 3:10
Oh my gosh, please cry away. I made someone cry on last week's episode. So let's see, we could do it two, two in a row. For people who are not familiar with the book who haven't read it yet, can you tell us in about 30 seconds. And I know that's hard because there's a lot in this book, about 30 seconds or so what the book is broadly about.

Carvell Wallace 3:28
Another word for love is a book about trauma and recovery from trauma. And the idea is that in the early in the book, I kind of like go over the traumas that the main character who just so happens to be me experience. And then the rest of the book is about all the different ways in which that person seeks to recover from that trauma. And it turns out that the sight of that recovery is quite often in spaces of love, whether that's intimate relationship, love with self love with nature, love and sexual contexts love in like contexts of making amends for prior harms. That's what it's about. And so it becomes a meditation on all of the elements and sort of pieces of life that comprise and fall under the definition of love.

Traci Thomas 4:20
I love I love hearing you say that because this was one of those books that I read that I was thinking like, what where I started felt very different from where we end, right like in the bookstores, and it feels like like a pretty traditional memoir, right? It's like you're just telling us these stories are sort of in essays, and then sort of in the middle, something shifted, but I wasn't sure what I was sort of like okay, yeah, and also just to be really transparent. I actually put the book down because I had to read something in two days on deadline. So right I finished part one and then read parts two and three A few days later. So it really felt like when I came back to it I was like This feels really different than what I remember.

Carvell Wallace 4:57
Did they change the book? Did they send me a different book when I wasn't looking?

Traci Thomas 5:02
Yeah. And then by the end of the book by the middle end of part three, I was like, Oh, this is a totally different book. And so I'm wondering for you, can you explain how you were thinking about the three sections and like what you were trying to do with them?

Carvell Wallace 5:19
Yeah, I mean, I think that I was really motivated to sort of break the bonds of the traditional trauma memoir. But the problem that I had with that is that I had to write about trauma. And so I was like, I was aware that this was going to be a challenge of some type. And so I was like, Well, what breaks a story out of how can we talk about our trauma without making it about our trauma without pimping our trauma without selling our trauma? And I think a lot of a conversation I had, you know, I wrote for The New York Times Magazine for a while, and I interviewed various writers and celebrities, and I did an interview with Tarell, Alvin McCraney, and we got to talking about sort of, I mean, I asked him, I was like, Do you ever feel like you're basically selling black trauma for rent money? Because I feel that way sometimes. So how do you deal with that? And, you know, he said, a thing that was sort of like, well, yes, but we have to ask ourselves why we have the trauma to begin with. Kind of gagged me there.

Traci Thomas 6:17
Like okay, okay it was just a question. You didn't have to call me out.

Carvell Wallace 6:20
Really, bro, like, and so. And so I really sat with that that was a really informative, like exchange for me. And I thought a lot about that. And so, for me, the question of how to transcend trauma as like an end, in and of itself, was also a political question. Because it was like, I believe that, and I've written this before that, like, black trauma is like, like marketing content in a lot of ways, right? That really supports our current system of power. Because it's like, well, if black people are always traumatized, and always suffering and always, like, telling stories about how terrible things are for us, then that maintains a certain power, like a status power, like we're downtrodden. And then the good people help us and the bad people that are the reason we're downtrodden. And I just was like, I don't want to have to do with any of that. And yet, I do have to write about my trauma. So for me, the solution was, let's focus on the recovery. Let's make this about the recovery from trauma. And so part one is like kind of like a laundry list of the terrible things that happened to me. And then part two, actually ends up being I started, it's really meditations on God. I mean, this story is, it's called stories about God. But it's just three little stories that are about spiritual encounters that maybe don't look and feel like spiritual encounters. And I was inspired. I mean, I've always felt that way about spirituality. But definitely Joy Williams wrote a book called Stories of God or 100 stories of God, or somebody that can't remember. And that book was, it helped me understand that you can write about God without writing about God. And you can write that God exists in the spaces between us and one another. God exists in the spaces between us in the moon, us in the ocean. And so we can write about these things. And so I just had this little for me, from a character standpoint, that is a turning point for this character, that it's sort of like, you know, in Hollywood writing, they call it the, the dark night of the soul. And so it's the moment when things all looks lost. And then the character gets a glimmer of hope, in some way that that sort of like, leads them into act three, and now they're ready to like, confront whatever it is. And so that's what happened in this, like, those three little stories about God are the character like sort of like having a turning point where they encounter some hope. And then the rest of the book, which actually is the majority of the book, like pacing wise, this would not work. This is not screenplay pacing, because it's like act one is like 20 pages, Act Two is like 10 pages, and then act three is like 190 pages, but I'm exaggerating, but it's like way long, it's like wait, disordered, but, um, there's always a screenwriter in my head being like, that's not right. But I ignored that person when I'm writing. But um, so then the last part of the book, part three is about this person trying to recover and put into practice these lessons, and trying to return to their sense of wholeness and humanity so they can be fully present in their lives, and therefore fully present in the lives of others.

Traci Thomas 9:18
I'm, like, obsessed with hearing your talk about this book already. Because I, it's interesting to hear some of the things you're saying. I'm like, Yes, of course, I totally got that. And then some of the things you're saying, I'm like, wow, I missed that. I didn't know about when you started working on this book, and how much it's changed since you set out to write it. It sort of to me feels like it's one of those books that maybe has changed a lot. Like you had to find the right form. But I'm curious if that is an accurate read or not, or what what happened for you process wise?

Carvell Wallace 9:51
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I tend to be like a right first ask questions later kind of approach to things and so the way I think of it and actually I learned this in ETW. This is something that I took away because I spent four years at ETW.

Traci Thomas 10:04
We should say, ETW is a studio at NYU. And I discovered that we both went to NYU and studied theater there. And we had some overlap with teachers. And he did ETW for four years. And I did it for one semester, one lonely semester.

Carvell Wallace 10:17
And I did it for four lonely years. But, but, but one of the things I learned, it's an experimental theater program where there's a lot of self writing itself, scripting and creating of your own work. And so I think one of the things I got from that is it taught me about myself as an artist, because I had some artistic freedom to create things from scratch, like, here's a blank stage, here's a blackbox, go do something. And so what I learned is that I tend to create first and ask questions later, or I like to, and so the creative mode. And the reason that's important for me is because the creative mode is a mode in which I actually can't really afford to understand what I'm doing. Okay, I have to be present, to receive and transmit. And then I mean, that sounds obnoxious, sort of what happens, and, and so and then I get stuffed down. And then I then have to take off that hat and put on this kind of critic hat, not like a reviewer, but like, what is this work of art about? Like, as if I were analyzing someone else's work? Well, what are the themes? And what are the like, length? Sort of, like organizations? And what is, you know, and what is it missing? And what does it need more of? And then, once I have that, then I go back into revisions. And now I have an idea of what I'm weaving together. So I think with this book, I started writing the proposal in fall of 2018. Wow. And I sort of undertook it it is as a kind of spiritual thing. Like I was like, I like my friend has this, like, the her mom has this land up in Bodega Bay. And so I was like, she was like, well come up here. And you can write in, so I went up there, and there was like, there were animals and birds. And it was just like, really beautiful. And the moon was out. And we were pulling tarot cards, which I had never done before. And something just clicked where I was like, oh, in order for me to do this, I have to let the veil be thin between this world and the next I need to like, experience the night time, like the abject pneus of it, the the sense of wonder, and perhaps fear, so that I can like pull from deeper places. So I began writing just out of that space. And originally, the idea for the book was that I was going to do like magazine style profiles of people in my life. Oh, and that's actually the book that I sold. Oh, and, and then pandemic happened, okay. And it was not possible for a few months for me to like, fly. And that was right around the time was like, time to get going. And it was not possible for me to fly around interviewing people and doing these, like long things, you know, for a while, especially because there were elders involved and you know, people who are immunocompromised. And so I was like, in the meantime, I, I started to think about this other idea, which I actually had had a long time ago, which is, what if you just could document someone's recovery from trauma by first listing all the traumas, and then every single chapter after that first chapter would be a day in which there was a turning point in their recovery. And so you just did each chapter as like, the day that this happened that day that this happened, and they could be five years apart, that could be two, two days apart, they could be 20 years apart. So that's what it ended up being was I wasn't quite sure that that's what it was until the end, I was like, Oh, wait, I did that thing, that first thing from back in, like 2016. And so that's kind of how the book evolved. But I will say that, you know, that right, first ask questions later thing, that's also how I, internally approach each essay. And so I will just start writing about what's on my mind what's on my heart. And I believe that whatever is on my head is like, some kind of has some kind of value. And so if I'm describing a bird, if I'm like, writing about a pair of shoes, I'm just going to write it. And then at some point, I'm going to be like, Well, what why the hell am I? What is this even about? And then I'm going to start looking for what are the metaphors and imageries and connective tissues? And what is the emotional truth that underlies this whole thing? And let's draw that out. So that this makes some kind of sense.

Traci Thomas 14:14
Do you have a preference of which you enjoy more the writing part or the asking questions, editing, reevaluating part, or I guess the third part, which is like actually shaping the thing?

Carvell Wallace 14:26
I sort of like another part that is unnamed yet, which is when I'm just walking around with an idea and I think it's going to be the greatest idea. And I'm doing my dishes and I'm like, talking to people about it, and I can't stop like researching it. I like that part. That's my favorite. That's all the possibility. Yeah, with none of the disappointment.

Traci Thomas 14:44
None of the like, the like limitations or like That's right, or like, that's right, formal constraints or whatever.

Carvell Wallace 14:51
Because you're like, Oh, this is gonna be great. And then you start writing it and you're like, What am I even doing? This is trash. I'm gonna be laughed out of the industry with this like, and that Parts of it are uncomfortable. I do not like that part. But I know I've done enough writing. Now to know that you have to sit through that part if you want to get to the end.

Traci Thomas 15:07
Yeah, that's true. The other idea that you originally sold the profiles of people in your life, you allude to that, and one of the later essays about your aunt, right? Yes. Yes, that's the one I was going to ask you about. I was like, What's this other project? But no, I don't. Okay, thank you. You heard it here. First people. It's not gonna be a thing. Do you think ever?

Carvell Wallace 15:26
I don't know if it'll ever be a thing? I don't know. You know, one reviewer, book person said quite plainly that they thought that that was like kind of a cop out from the real book that actually, there's a profile book, they're glad that I left that behind, because this book actually is like, close to the bone. And that one was a little bit circular, like a little bit, like, avoiding the truth. And I, I somewhat related to that. I was like, I think this person might be right about that. So. But I still think it's a compelling idea, specifically, because it's not just anyone in my life, it's particularly people who hurt me. That's what it's about. Okay. And so it's about how everyone who hurts me like it's about the way we pass trauma from one to another. And so if we find other people's stories and tell them, then we can understand, it's like that, like, our sort of connection is the harm that they caused me either intentionally or accidentally. But that that, that just becomes the starting point, the investigation is who are they? And why are they the way that they were? Right?

Traci Thomas 16:28
I liked the idea. I do hear what that person saying like because it's a way for you to sort of like be a little bit removed from the thing. But I think knowing what I know about the two books I've read of yours and the articles, I read a verse, I feel that you have a very sharp sense of what is important to get into a story to feel connected to the reader. So I trust that you wouldn't make a book that wasn't doing the things that you want it to do. So that person maybe needs to have a little more faith in you. But I do I do hear that. And I do think that sometimes certain people do run the risk of being like, Oh, well, I'm going to talk about other people themselves out of it. But I don't I don't think he would do that. I think maybe it might start there. But then eventually, I think you'd ask the questions.

Carvell Wallace 17:14
To get into it. At some point, I'd be like, This is not this isn't touching the page. That's the phrase that always comes to mind. It's like the words are above the page. They're not on the page yet. I love it. So sometimes I think about how do I pull them down to the page so that they're right there the ink is in the paper?

Traci Thomas 17:30
Well, that's my question about vulnerability, because this book is extremely vulnerable, not just the trauma stuff, which is like, I think maybe sometimes can be easier to write because that's the expected thing. I think the healing stuff is what felt really vulnerable to me, because that stuff felt fresh and new. And like you were working through ideas and thinking about things and sort of opening yourself up. And I mean, there are some essays that are about, you know, like, sexual intimacy, which is a thing that feels like, vulnerable, just by the nature of it. But there's, there's one about apologies and amends that like, really, I mean, like, took my breath away, I read it, like, there's a paragraph that I, I go to underline, you know, and I was like, Okay, let me underline this. And then it's just the whole paragraphs underlined, like, like, I'm like, Okay, well, I could have just put a bracket anyways. So I'm wondering, like, how, and this is such a hard and stupid question, because the question does not fully get at the thing I'm trying to get out. Because words are annoying sometimes. But like, how do you get vulnerable like that? On the page? Like, how do you know when you've shared enough? Do you ever feel like you've gone too far? And you have to pull back? Like, how are you negotiating? doing the things that are that feel good to you as a writer, and then also remembering that there's people that you don't know who are going to have access to this part of you? And like, do you have to protect yourself, etc?

Carvell Wallace 18:57
Yeah, well, okay, so starting with that last question. First, I, this is my first memoir. And so, I and yet, I'm old enough to know that I probably have mistakenly revealed too much. You know, and so I won't have a good answer to that question until after this whole process. You know, I mean, I always feel like you don't know what a book. You don't really understand your book until after you've spent six weeks talking about it with everyone. Yeah. Okay. You know, having it in the world and reading the reviews and having people ask questions, it's like, you don't you're not done with the book yet. You're still in it, you're still writing it effectively. So I don't know, it may turn out that you know, someone wants someone said about this book that it's going to make people expect access to you in ways that are going to be both exciting and also really annoying. And that's a person who's written a lot of books and so I trust that insight, and I, you know, I feel fairly old enough and my boundaries are in place enough that I feel like I can probably navigate through that. So I don't know yet how How to tell if I've revealed too much. But the earlier part of the question, which is like, how does one get vulnerable? There's two things that I always think about. One is that the vulnerability is necessary for the story. And so I have to be guided by what works for the story, not necessarily by what works for me. And people disagree with that. And I'm not like insane with it. But I'm like, I am a writer. And my adherence to the written is just like the craft of writing for me, which is about how you must be present in the story in order for this story to work, especially in memoir. So sometimes when I'm like, Gee, I don't know. But then I'm like, But this story actually needs this. So it's like, Okay, we'll do it because the story needs it because I'm here to serve the story. Like I'm not, you know. So that's the one thing that the

Traci Thomas 20:51
That's such an actor answer, by the way, really, because I talk to writers all the time about memoir, and they don't ever talk about serving the story. And that is like such an actor thing to say.

Carvell Wallace 21:01
You're so right about that. And actually, yeah, I think a lot of what the way I approach the work is definitely related to my long, really long history as an actor, or early and it wasn't long. In years, it was like, I started when I was like, 14, and went till I was like 25, or 26. But they were really formative years for me, obviously. And I studied, like, trained professionally, pretty much that whole time. So, you know, it's really embedded into the way that I approach anything. So and so the second thing is that the vulnerability actually is the point the, the, in order to recover, I think the book suggests and has been my experience, one has to be willing to investigate and examine the self in a way that is somewhat fearless and thorough. And that can be hard. But it's also necessary in order to have the the level of insight that is necessary that is, like needed in order to become a caring, loving person in the world and to dismantle the harmful things that are within you. So every time I pull back from a kind of intimacy on the page, I'm not just thinking about the story, I also sort of this voice in my head goes, but then are you really doing the work now? Or are you protecting yourself? Because you know, there's a saying, you can't save your butt? I said, you can't save your face in your ass at the same time.

Traci Thomas 22:26
I've never heard that. But yeah, that sounds true, I believe it.

Carvell Wallace 22:30
And so the attempts to save face maybe are not helpful to our attempts to actually recover and be better. And so I'm willing to lose face in order to recover is kind of like what I've learned over the years. So yeah, the vulnerability is kind of the point. And I one thing about this book that I think I've learned after talking a lot of people is that the book isn't about the recovery, it actually is the recovery. Like it's, it's ever it's like it is the work of recovery. It's still I don't sit down and explain, like in a TED talk, these are the top five ways we've recovered from, you know what I mean? It's like it is it is it is a real show, don't tell kind of situation.

Traci Thomas 23:07
Well, if you ever get asked to do a TED talk, now, you know, you can do you can just take some of these chapters. This is what I did. Here. Are you talking about like Book Two are actually had written down for you? Are you prepared to talk about all of this stuff as the book goes out into the world? And I think I will follow up with you once it's out because we're recording this before the book is published, when people hear it, the book will have just come out, but I will be checking in. Because there are authors that I know who have written you, I would say that this book is certainly in conversation with heavy by KSA layman. And he and I have talked extensively about what that experience was like for him and the ways that people feel entitled to parts of you. And his book is a lot. I mean, you've read it. Yeah. And his book is a lot about his physical body. And so the ways that people felt entitled to his body, yeah, is really interesting. And so I will be very curious to know about how what your experience is, and and hopefully is different in positive ways, and different in other ways, I guess, too. I want to talk about words. And I want to read what you wrote. And then we'll talk about it. So you say you say speaking of obnoxious, I also heard that the jazz composer Charles Mingus would write notes for instruments that were outside of the instruments range. So for a tenor sax, let's say what a concert pitch goes from, I don't know how to read this A B, two, two e five. Yeah, a flat to C sharp. And he might write a melody with an F sharp in it. And when the tenor plays in his orchestra would read the charts and point out that there was no way they could play the note as written Mangus would reply. I know that, but the sound of you trying is what I'm going for. This is what words are to me the sound of us trying.

Carvell Wallace 24:54
So I mean, I have been thinking a lot especially As I talk more and more about the book about about the fact that words are both a really poor, limited container for the human experience. And so, that's why Writing is hard and frustrating, because you're always like, the word I need the words, but they're what we have in the realm of writing. They're not all we have in the world, but they're what we have in the realm of writing. And on the, on the flip side, as much as that's frustrating. That's also to me a really inviting challenge. Because I have found that if you put you can put words in a row and tell and communicate a thought. But you can also put words in a different order and communicate an emotion or a feeling, almost transmit, not even communicate. And this is what poetry does. Right. So like when we, you know, whatever, like, you ate the plums, it's like, that's not a story about eating the fucking plums. That's a story about love and loss and hope. And, you know, and so and so what great poetry does is it allows It arranges the words in a way that can invoke something way bigger than the words. And I find that a really magical process. And so that's what I tried to do with this work here. Sometimes, it's hard to do it sustain that for like, 200 and odd pages of prose. Sometimes you just gotta write like a sentence, you're just like, he opened the door.

Traci Thomas 26:26
But I try just about a fucking door.

Carvell Wallace 26:28
It's just the door, guys leave it alone, but but I do try to I do like that, the process of trying to do something bigger than can be done by the form. And I, I think I liken that to a spiritual pursuit. Because I think that our attempts to understand God or understand our worth, and our meaning or understand the universe, and to connect with and express the love, the full body of love for that is also a pursuit that, like, pushes us larger than the container, but the attempt to get there is what is beautiful, and for me, and I think that even earlier in the thing, I was talking about people putting like oranges on like the, on the altar, or put pouring a little like liquid out or making some incense. And if there is a God that has like a human emotions, which for literary purposes, let's just say there are because that's kind of a cool story, then that God wasn't pleased because like, oh, man, I fucking love these oranges. Like, I'm so glad you brought me an orange, like, I'm gonna have infinite oranges. It's the attempt to transcend that is something to me, one of the most beautiful aspects of the human spirit. So I, I think that that's what that's about for me.

Traci Thomas 27:49
I love it. There are two things that we have to talk about. I will let you decide the order in which we talk about other one is I want to talk about the title of this book, because it comes up at least four times directly in one time with some variations, but I think I might have stopped underlining it. And then the other thing is Andre Iguodala. So you can decide how you want to do it. But those are the two most important things that we have to talk about. I have other things too, but I got to do both.

Carvell Wallace 28:19
I'm really curious about Andre Iguodala. Let's start with that. Because I feel like not enough. People have asked me about that.

Traci Thomas 28:24
Okay. Oh, my God, really. I saw, okay. I was like, before I read the book, I was like, I cannot wait to talk about Ebola. And then I get to the part in the book where the book is mentioned. And it is like a fragment of a sentence. It's like, and then I wrote a book for an NBA guy. And I was like, what a man I was like, like, so I can't ask him about it. Because probably he's doesn't wanna talk about it, because I'm not in the book. Man, I'm from Oakland. I love AG. I actually ate at Qatada down here in LA and 213. At the same time as him and him and his, his partner and his kid right next to us. And me, and my husband and my best friend were all like, because we just gone to the game. It was a playoff game. And then they were all at dinner up anyways. I love the Warriors. I personally love AG. And I love that book. And that's what I really want to talk about, which is like you, and he worked together. I want to know how you guys work together. How how much of it is like you crafting the story, him just giving you information, whatever. But also like, I want to know how you feel about basketball. And like if that's something you're interested in and excited about, or was this just like sort of an assignment that you dove into and did a great job?

Carvell Wallace 29:31
Oh, that's a great question. That second one is a great question. So I'll start with the first one, which is that we the way we did it is that it was like lots of interviews. And so the goal for me was to interview him in such a way as to get him to write the story without him having to actually touch the keyboard. You know what I mean? And so and that's what it is. So I didn't I don't think I did like a tremendous amount with that. I think, if anything, my contribution is like maybe the arrangements of some words and Just like the way I ask questions and the way I follow up on them, but it's his story, and he told it As historian and I learned sort of over, let me it was the first time I ever did that. So I think the first run I took at it was kind of trash. And then we had to back up and like, but I was sort of learning on the job. And so as he because I don't think he'd ever done that before. And so, you know, I think after a while, we sort of got a rhythm going, where it's like, okay, if I asked you, you know, what was it like draft night? And he says, Because athletes aren't writers, for the most part, although sometimes they are, but often they aren't. And so, I'll say what was like draft night, he'll be like, it was really exciting. And then I'll be like, Oh, I get it. I have to get I have to, like, now get him to talk about what the feelings were that night. And he's, he's willing to do that. But he just needs that prompt that and went in after he got it. I mean, it he's incredibly smart person. So it didn't take him a long time to put two and two together Oh, that this is how this how this particular sport works. And so then it was a lot easier as we went on, he would like delve into the emotions, the feelings, putting putting the reader in the moment inside his POV in the moment. And so to me, that was like, it was not difficult to get that material out of him.

Traci Thomas 31:08
And then the second part, what's your relationship to basketball?

Carvell Wallace 31:12
I do love basketball. It's like I literally just like last night was watching the playoff. I was watching the Lakers game, I came in at the end of the Philadelphia game, but I watch the entire Lakers Denver game. And yeah, I mean, like, I find basketball. Interesting and literary. Like, it's just it's fun to watch. And it's once you I mean, I, you know, have come over the years to understand the game well enough that I can actually understand the stories, you know, through understanding that the technical aspects of the game, some of which is because I spent so much time with Andre and just other you know, I did a Steph Curry piece for The New York Times mag, I mean for the New Yorker. And so I got to you know, and I've just like been able to pick up on the game and understand Oh, this interesting this defense Oh, look, why was he positioned over here? Oh, this why did they run the screen and this thing they really should have, you know, done at the top of the key, like, you just start to see things unfold. So I love it. And the other thing I love about basketball, which I find is partially true in football, too. I grew up as a football person because my years in southwestern Pennsylvania that's what it is like people like basketball what it's like football, football. But the thing I love about basketball is that you can you can see the emotional changes in teams throughout a game. Yes, you can see you can just tell when a team is like defeated, or when they are when they go they go, we've got this you just you can watch that change. And it's it's just incredible to see, you know, a group of people like go through that together. I just find it endlessly beautiful.

Traci Thomas 32:45
I so agree. I feel like it's the most clear and NCAA Tournament of all those games, you're literally doesn't matter men's or women. It does not matter. I think it's the age, right? It's like being on this huge stage. And feeling like all you have are the people on your team with you. And feeling like the momentum shift or the energy shift. The way I mean you in game two of of the Lakers, Denver just a few nights ago. Yeah. When you call the one with Jamal Murray, which they called the Hail Mary, which I will Yeah, that's pretty good. I'm like, okay, it should have been a half court shot if you want to call it a Hail Mary. But whatever. I love the word play. It's pretty good. Pretty good. It's it's eight out of 10. Um, but that game? Yeah, you could see it. And I kept being like, because, you know, I'm a warriors fan. So I've been on the losing end of a lot of those kinds of games for the course of my basketball fandom. And you if you love if you've loved illusory team, which I have since the 90s Right? You can see it even more like loving a winner. It's harder because you're like, we always could come back I don't care what my eyes are telling me but loving a loser.

Carvell Wallace 33:57
Like it's such an interesting time. And this may be get cut because now we're into sports talk but it's such an interesting time in the Warriors story and and in basketball in general. Because what I was thinking when I saw I mean, we see this in the bay that like I'm sorry, it's I don't want to say it's over. But it might be over. That might be over and I remember in that Steph Curry a piece I wrote something about the all the winners lose at some point and time passes and people get old and knee injuries don't get returned from and everything the sunsets on all of this and I think it's we're at a point in warriors history where it feels like that, but also I think basketball wise in general like, like LeBron James and Anthony Davis and the Lakers were just there outmatched. They're outplayed last night by your kitchen and the nuggets and you're like, Oh, we're watching the sunset on an era Kevin Durant. Steph Curry, Lebron James. Always you were in your mind you're like, well, obviously it's LeBron. He's gonna come back obvious. The Kevin Durant is not going to, you know what I mean? But like, you're like, oh, it's the sun is setting and a new crop of people is coming up. And it's like really exciting. Yeah. But, you know, there's always something literary and beautiful about that moment of transition.

Traci Thomas 35:13
It's so funny because I think for me personally, like I am of the age of I'm between LeBron and Steph and age, right? So like, these are my them getting old is unfortunately, me getting old. Right? Obviously, the work that I do doesn't rely on my physical body to be strong enough. Like, I don't think I'm out of my prime yet. But it's, it's hard to like, look at the younger players and like, feel the same kind of feelings that I feel for. For my generation of basketball players. Yeah. Which I feel like, you know, happens for every sports fan at some point. So like, I remember being little and going to Where's games, I mean, like, he's 15 years older than me, and then being like, we graduated the same year, and then being like, I'm older than staff. And now I'm like, oh, when these guys go, like, John Moran could be my child, like,

Carvell Wallace 36:06
that's what it is, like I have, I'm just gonna say the next iteration of that is like, that child is like, the same age as my family. And he just scored 54. Yeah, at max and Square Garden. I'm like, so what's going on?

Traci Thomas 36:19
So I'm old enough to be the grandparent of a good basketball? Like it's just like getting older. I mean, I'll find obviously, we'll find a way and I found a way in at three. So I'm sure at 43 I'll be fine or whatever. But yeah, it's just funny. To like, the literary nature of sports, I think is what I love so much about sports. And we talk about sports on this podcast. I'm sure people are rolling their eyes at this point, because this wasn't a sports book, but I snuck it in. I did it check. But I do I wish more people watched and loved sports because I do find so much parallel to what I love about about books, right? Like the storytelling and like the comp, like the relationships between the players, and hopefully, like the relationships between authors and who blurbs who and oh, now this person's like, I don't know, there's all of that drama is in it for me in sports. And it's funny because I grew up my whole life as a sports person. So everyone in my life, my personal life, my not work life, our sports people. Now, I'm in the world of books, where so many people aren't that I'm like, wait, you know? Yeah, like, you don't want to? Yeah, you don't want to watch the game like you guys know, watch the National Book Awards, where like, we bet there's like a football game on.

Carvell Wallace 37:29
Well, that's part of what's so exciting about the about what's happening in NCAA College, women's basketball in the last year or so, because people are in there is that people are able to find their way into the sport that just were unable to because they're like, it's a bunch of dudes. But you know what I mean? Like, I'm not I'm just I don't fuck with it. But like, now that you know, I still I think that the real power, like the WNBA, I think is we'll see if it's if that energy is able to carry over, but definitely the last few years in the NCAA with Angel Reese, and Caitlin Clark, and pacemakers and all this stuff. To me, it feels like that allows so many people to be like, Wait, this is amazing. Yeah, these kids are out here trying to ball oh my god, that was a foul. What the hell, you know, oh, my god, she came back. She did three at the end of that half to put them up like this is amazing. I know. I want yeah, I want people to be able to experience that. Without, you know, I want more people to be able to experience that and to feel comfortable experiencing that. So I'm like, really into the rise of the women's game.

Traci Thomas 38:30
Me too. It reminds me also of the rise of like, women's rap women rappers right now. Women rappers are the ones who are the most fun. They're the ones doing the most innovative shit. They're like out here dancing, they're free. They're joyous. Their music is fun to dance to like, it's exciting. And we've been told that like hip hop and rap are for men. And then you look at the men's game and it's like the men's college basketball, but you're like, Who are these sad boys? And why is the only one I know using a hologram of Tupac. What's happening like the whole like, sad boy rap beef that's happening. I'm just like, You guys are all great. All three of you are lovely. like Kanye go home. Like it's just so it's just interesting because my whole life. I only liked men's rappers, right? Like, Kim here or like Eve there. But it's like men, men men. Yeah. And same with basketball, the NCAA men's tournament was all I ever cared about. And then now I'm like, wait, the women are amazing. Yeah, women are fun. And they're tapping into all the things that I actually like about basketball and all the things I actually like about rap. And like, I've been told that they're less than and like, it's all the internalized shit, but like, these games are more fun. These characters are more fun. Art is more fun. Yeah, the energy is more for the coaches aren't like the whole thing is better over here. But I've been told this lie that women are not as good because they can't dunk or whatever.

Carvell Wallace 39:56
You know, well, part of that too. I think both in rap and in basketball, especially Swa is that because too many of us have strayed from the core tenets. And because of a whole host of factors, the NCAA women's game is at the core tenets of college basketball, they're in there for three or four years. Yeah. which never happens. And you know, that and they're playing fundamental basketball with like, with actual shapes on the court and passing and, you know, in, in defense, and so on and so forth. And like a court vision, and I think the same thing is kind of happening in hip hop like that, like, you know, this the idea that like hip hop is specifically about just having the most devastating rapidi rap in which you like insult the most people in the most devastating way. That's been sort of a thing but that's not been the core tenant, the core tenant is to fucking move the crowd. Yeah, that's what MC that I'm old enough to be like, I remember when MC, which was massive ceremonies, but like, then was back renamed and to to move the crowd. Let's, I mean, so if you put this shit on, and the crowd isn't moving, I don't care how much rapidly wrap you have going on. You're missing. You're straight. you've strayed from one of the core tenets, which is you're free to do. But I think in both like the women's game, rap game, the core tenants are like very much in effect, and that we're seeing how people are responding to that.

Traci Thomas 41:12
Oh, my God, okay, this was I had, this was not on my bingo card for today's conversation. But honestly, this is the bat, this is my favorite thing in the world. I feel like you've mentioned that in the book, or like, I love asking questions that neither of us could see coming. Yes, I do, too. I underline that also. But this was one of those. So everyone who came here to hear more about trauma and things. Sorry, we have to do fun. So I had questions about boyhood and sexuality and addiction. But you know what, that's in the book, you can't get rap and women's basketball in the book. It's not there. That's, that's gonna be in another book. But let's do the title. Another word for love. It comes up in my notes, the first time on page 78, which I believe is at the end of part one. This is the paragraph it says this is why I don't want to write about the people who have hurt me. They are among the dying, I am among the dying, you are among the dying to be among the dying and to know it the feeling that gives you that is another word for love. And so you kind of drop these sections, these things in similar to that in different parts where you explain a thing and then you say like, this is another word for love. When did you know that that was going to be this refrain? When did you know that it was going to be the title wasn't always the title.

Carvell Wallace 42:24
It was not always the title. And it didn't become the refrain until until after it became the title. I was a little bit giggled about it because I kept thinking of this Family Guy joke where it was like, it's a cutaway, where someone's like, this is more exciting than when they say the name of the movie in the movie. And it just cuts to someone being like, you know, whatever. And that's why this is cold justice.

Traci Thomas 42:52
That's how I feel whenever I see a title in a book. I'm like, oh, highlight.

Carvell Wallace 42:56
So every time I did it, I kind of giggled because I thought this is a little bit goofy, but but I felt justified. The title actually was gifted to me by a writer, a local writer named Nina Renata Aaron, who wrote a book called Good morning destroyer of men souls, which is a tremendous memoir of addiction and codependency. And we were just like talking about it. And she was like a well, how's your book going? I was like, Oh, this and that. And she just said, you should call it another word for love. And I was like, huh, like it just landed. And after she said that I don't think I ever looked back. I think it was so obvious to me that that's what it should be called. And then, as I was writing it, because I think at that point, I'd written maybe like two thirds of the first draft. Or maybe it was in revisions. I don't remember the exact point. But it started to become clear to me that if the book is positing that the practice of love is a recovery from both personal and political trauma, then it would be necessary to define the terms of love. And since like bell hooks, and many others have so like usefully and completely defined terms in the dictionary sense. Then I felt as like a writer as like, kind of a lyrical, kind of like creative nonfiction, just storyteller. My job was then to tell stories. That would be love. And so, sometimes I just wanted to help the reader put that together by being like, and that was another another word for that.

Traci Thomas 44:33
Yeah, I need that. I need that. Yeah. Because I also there's like, there's so many like little lessons in the book. I feel like like, we don't have enough time to talk about all the boyhood stuff, but I think like a lot of that's really interesting of like, boy, like being a black boy, what the fear is like, like, there's this early essay about fog, which I'm from Oakland, so you know, The fog is very important to like, I'm like, Oh, I know that. I know that fear. Like I remember being little and having the fear of like driving in the fog with my family like, like so like, you know, but also like a lot of stuff about like, kids taking responsibility for adults and like, kids, what kids take away from moments, right? Because in the story about the fog, your mom is like, No, you need to go through the fog. And as you're going, you're sort of like, it was always in front of you and always behind you. But you never were like, in Yeah, like you never felt like the fog had taken you over. Right. And like that you that you learned. And I think the lesson at the end, though, is like you learned that you were going to have to do some things alone. Yeah. And and so I don't know, there's not a question there. But I do think like to the point of like you telling us the title, like there's so many lessons in the book, that I just like resonated with that it was helpful to have that flag of like, this is another word for love. If you're taking notes, and I'd be like, Okay, I am taking notes. Okay, like I actually really liked it. Because like I said, at the beginning, there are so many parts of this book, depending on who you are, as a reader, that will resonate that will land that will feel important and like a lesson for you or like something to meditate on deeper than having you tell me what you're thinking about very directly felt like a real gift. And, and, and maybe this circles back to the audience or to the actor thing. But I'm obsessed with audience, I'm obsessed with authors, and how they relate to their readers and theater makers who relate to their audience and basketball players who know when they hit the shot. And then they turned to the 4k camera. I'm like, Nate, you understood the assignment. And so I don't know how you were thinking about audience in this book. But I would love to know how you were thinking about audience in this book.

Carvell Wallace 46:49
Yeah, I think I mean, it's interesting because the, that you use the word meditation just now. And I think that that that actually is a lot of what this book does around love is it's a meditation on on what, unlike on what different things comprise love. And, you know, what do we do with meditation, we sit with something we don't necessarily answer or resolve we sit with. And so I think I was interested in like, whenever I accidentally wrote something that I felt like, oh, you could probably sit with that, or someone could probably sit with that for a long time, myself included, then I was like, I sort of flagged it with that's another word for love. And one of my favorite ones of those is to feel everything. And to become nothing taken together. These two are perhaps another word for love, or whatever. And so this and so the idea of like, this gets to the audience thing, because what I'm thinking when I'm writing this is that I'm going to empty out the contents of my brain, and, and all the things that I've meditated on, and I'm gonna be like, discovering some things as I write, like, I don't, I didn't know that going into that sentence. I wrote that sentence, and then was like, Oh, wait, oh, this is, uh, you know, because now because I know what the title is, and what the book is doing. I'm like, attune to these things. And so I think that the audience is, everyone is going to, like, be like, freaking out about this part, but then read some other part. And they're going to be like, My mind is blown. Yes, I will be sitting with this for the rest of my fucking life. And the reason I have a sense of that is because that is my experience going through the world anyway. Is that I will just be spittin, like saying what is true, and people just be looking at me like, I'm crazy. And then, and then all of a sudden, someone will be like, holy shit, that's the deepest that I've never heard that. And for me, I'm not, I don't take that as any kind of thing. Because I'm not coming up with any of this shit. I'm just synthesizing stuff that has been around me my whole life and lessons that I've learned and things that teachers have said to me and putting two and two together and sharing that. And so I think of myself as someone who's just who's like an interpreter of information, spiritual and personal, and perhaps emotional information. And the I have a method of doing that right now, which is through telling stories. And so that's my offering. And so I think that the audience will be there'll be people who don't who are mad at this book and don't like it for sure. And it's not really for them. Sorry, people. It's for people who I mean, it's for people who are interested in like sitting and meditating on like, the questions of the human experience, love, justice, liberation, et cetera.

Traci Thomas 49:35
Yeah. We're gonna hard shift to the most important questions of this episode, which are my favorite questions, which is one how do you like to write Where are you how many hours a day how often music or not snacks or beverages TV set the scene?

Carvell Wallace 49:52
Oh, God. The problem the problem I have is that I don't really like to write. Writing is the most uncomfortable part of being A writer, everything else is kind of cool. So I tend to, it depends on how close I am to deadline is an honest answer. When I'm far away from deadline, I'm not writing shit. I'm out here, I'm wandering through the woods. I'm going to the beach with my friends. I'm like cleaning out. I'm like vacuuming the corner of my closet. I'm trying out new recipes, I'm just bullshitting. And all that is, like, I've come to either convince myself or believe that all that is gestation time, you know, it's like thought processing time, when I when it is time to fucking write, because someone's going to be mad at me if I don't finish writing, which is pretty much the only thing that ever motivates me, is fear of others being disappointed in me, then I have a desk here at home, I'm sitting right now in my closet office, my office, and you can see the jackets behind me. But this is, you know, it's it's a nice little setup, I've spent more money on my office chair that I've spent on any piece of furniture in my life. Okay, one day that came to me to do because I knew I was going to be sitting down. And actually, it's funny because it really did change the writing of the book for me, when I'd made that decision to do that. And, and so I spend a lot of time in this thing I used to early in my career, right at night, I was I was a late night all night or writer, I'm too old for that shit, now. I write when the sun is up, when I'm done. That doesn't matter what I did during the day, if I'm done, I'm done. Like, if it's 6pm, I'm out, screw you, I'm making dinner, and I'm watching basketball or reading or whatever. And so that is where I mostly do the writing is here. I do write in cafes sometimes. And I have like friends that are like my co working buddies. Not all of whom were even writers. One of them is a human rights attorney. And they'll just be working on a brief and I'll be working on the thing. And it's I just love that dialogue that we'll have when we take breaks, you know? And, and so there's that. And then what do you order at a cafe for writing? Not a lot. I mean, I don't coffee. And sometimes I just like lie in dough or anything. I try sneaking the back in, because I'm already too caffeinated. And I can't focus if I'm too caffeinated. So I just had my little water bottle. And then the other thing I do sometimes is I will go away to write. Like I mentioned that my friend mom has a house up in Bodega Bay. And I did, I wrote the proposal there and a good chunk of this book there. And I can only do that for like two or three days. But those two or three days tend to be I am very lonely. And I get lonely enough that I have no choice but to write. That is what is necessary sometimes for me, because if if, if I'm not lonely enough, I'll just be texting people and scrolling Instagram. Laughing at memes. And you know what I mean? And so I have to sort of get lonely enough and bored enough that there's no choice other than to write.

Traci Thomas 52:48
You talk about that a little bit in the book that you used to write in solitude and now you rank community. What's the word you can never spell correctly on the first try?

Carvell Wallace 52:56
Privilege? Oh, so hard beating my ass.

Traci Thomas 53:00
I think there should be a D. I've added a D to privilege.

Carvell Wallace 53:05
Like autocorrect is like bro, I've talked we've talked about this and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Traci Thomas 53:09
I'm correct. No. AutoCorrect I have no respect for that. I just I don't know and it's gonna be wrong every time sorry. Yeah, sorry to you. This is your job. Please do it. No judgment.

Carvell Wallace 53:18
And weirdly Columbus lately because I've had because I'm doing I'm doing a book stop in Columbus and I realized, bro, you don't know how to spell Columbus, do you? Because does it have a u or not? It's got to see you don't even have the out here like five. I believe it has a U but I think it has an O I think like I always write it with an O and then it's always like, What are you talking about?

Traci Thomas 53:37
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're doing an event with me. Right?

Carvell Wallace 53:39
I am doing an event with Hanif.

Traci Thomas 53:42
So great. Okay, last few questions. I don't know if you have an answer yet. Because the book hasn't come out into the world but has who has been the coolest person to express interest in this book?

Carvell Wallace 53:54
No name just DMed me yesterday. That's that's a no brainer. Holton, no Grandad? No Name DM me yesterday to say hey, I read your book. I loved it. We're considering it for the book club. I don't know if it'll happen. But that in and of itself, I was like, I'm done. Thank you. That's all I needed. That's all I needed.

Traci Thomas 54:10
Okay, for people who love another word for love, what are some other books you might recommend that are in conversation with it? I already said heavy.

Carvell Wallace 54:19
Yeah, heavy for sure. Actually, one book that I don't hear enough people talking about that was a huge influence for me is Braiding Sweetgrass.

Traci Thomas 54:31
That's a huge Stacks Pack favorite. Everyone loves that book.

Carvell Wallace 54:34
It's so fun. Actually, yeah. Robin wall. Kimmerer Yeah, it was it. I think if you read it, I almost don't even want to tell people to read it because then they'll be like, This guy just stole everything. He didn't come up with none of this shit. But but no I that. I would say that's probably the main one that I go to when people ask me that question. And it's funny because I thought because I live in Oakland. So everyone and their mother is always talking about that book for, you know, when it was how everyone was just all over it. And then I remember being on the East Coast and talking about it to various New York literary people. And they were like The what now? Yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, that's right.

Traci Thomas 55:10
This is funny. You guys don't know. They don't know. They don't mean nine.

Carvell Wallace 55:15
I would say, Oh, I don't know how many you want me to do. You can do more. Yeah, like Joy Williams 100 stories of God, I think is what it's called. I'll link to it in the show. 59 stories of God. I can't remember the exact one. That one that's a weird experimental book. And I really like it. Another one that I hadn't read before I wrote this book, but I'm reading after and I'm like, Oh, shit, we're really there's there's a lot of overlap here is the disordered cosmos. Oh, by Weinstein. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that one? And so saying, Yeah, interesting. And like the book is, I mean, the, I think the overlap is that it's, it's it, it is a spiritual overlap, like not and then certainly material one, like the book is obviously a lot about particle physics. And there's a lot of details and you learn stuff. And it's great, because I feel like I'm keeping track, which I used to never be able to do with stuff like that. But I was I was interested. But also John does work on queerness. And this stuff about time and the stuff about the the sort of cosmic nature of African indigeneity. And the diaspora is stuff that I feel like is really woven throughout this book for me and I, it's it was really, there's as that feeling of like, reading this and being like, oh, there's other people who were thinking about this stuff the same way I am. I latch on as another one who's when you ask, like who's been interested in the book that has been so cool, like, Chanda has like, like, reposted my stuff. And I've just been like, Oh, my God, I can't believe they even know who I am.

Traci Thomas 56:37
I was just with her this past weekend. And I wish that I had known that she'd read it. I would have talked to her about it.

Carvell Wallace 56:42
I don't know if she even read it. I mean, because I don't know that I sent her one or that we sent one out yet. I just know that. She just like posted like when I posted the cover. She just reposted it.

Traci Thomas 56:51
Maybe she likes the Iggy book.

Carvell Wallace 56:52
I was like, Yo, yeah, maybe?

Traci Thomas 56:54
I don't know. I've never heard her talking about basketball. But you know, Chanda contains multitudes.

Carvell Wallace 57:00
Quite literally. Journey to Dark Matters.

Traci Thomas 57:03
Yeah, exactly. She did the show. We love to wander around here. And you know who else? I mean, we'd mentioned him. But honey, I think you're sure the writing styles, like the greeting conversation. And I know that he loved this book, because when I told him I was starting it, he was like, Oh, I loved that one. And I was like, Okay, well, now I have to read it. That's so cool. Yeah. Okay, last question. If you could have one person dead or alive, read this book. Who would you want it to be?

Carvell Wallace 57:29
Wow, I was not prepared for that. Sorry. My mom. I mean, that's, that's kind of a boring answer. No, it's so good. Read the book, it makes a lot of sense. I feel like it's that thing where like, when you ask like a politician whose favorite women are, and he's like, I love women. My mom, my girlfriend, daughter, daughter is a woman, you know, but so I feel like, I don't want to come off like that. But no, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of obvious. Because she was such a huge supporter of my creativity. Yeah. And I often feel like I'm living out her dreams, in multiple ways, just being alive and happy is like, I think one of them being able, she, unlike most parents, who are like, you'll go into arts Over my dead body, she was always like, you're an artist, you're going to, you're going to do it. That's, that's what you're going to do. We're going to you know, she just was with it from the beginning. Like, she got it. And I think she got it because she was an artist, and she couldn't actually manifest as an artist because of all of the circumstances of her life. And so I think she saw that I had that same thing, and she was 100% for it. And people often would call her irresponsible for that, or they would sort of act like she's not really, you know, like that she you know, I say this in the book, but that, you know, people like acted like, she wasn't like, she wasn't serious enough. She was an unserious woman in the way people talked about her but to my you know, like, to my horror I you know, took some of that as truth when I was growing up and was like, yeah, like, why don't we have any money and like, How come you never you know, that kind of thing, but like, as I've grown older, and she can be like really annoying too. That's probably didn't help but but but as I've grown older, I've come to just really look back and be like, Oh my God, this woman like was right or die for me like for my true self. And I don't think I understood that at the time that she all we all any of us ever want, I believe is to be seen authentically and loved at the same time that I see the whole you and I love the whole you and I now understand the tremendous extent to which she did that. And it just makes me feel so grateful for her and so I think she would be so happy. She would be moved to tears to read this book. And she would just be so proud.

Traci Thomas 59:55
I'm like moved to tears. Listen, you talked about it. Okay, well on not beautiful, beautiful note. That's basically what the book is like people in case you couldn't tell this whole conversation is just basically you hearing what the book is like without actually hearing any or reading any of the book. Another word for love it is out now as you're listening wherever you get your books, do you read the audiobook? I do read the audiobook. Okay. Caravelle reads audiobook, I think I'm gonna have to reread it with the audio. But go get this book, guys. This is a this is one of the books I love this year. This is a book that will be very high on my list. I'm about 50 books in this year, and it's definitely in that top echelon. It's just if you love a memoir, and you want to read a memoir that's doing things to the genre and doing things to the reader like this is one of those so thank you so much for being here. Carvell, thank you so much for being here.

Carvell Wallace 1:00:43
This was so great. I loved it.

Traci Thomas 1:00:47
I'm so happy. And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you again to Carvell Wallace for being my guest. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Stephen Weil for helping to make this conversation possible. Remember, the stacks book club pick for May is no name in the street by James Baldwin. We will be discussing that book on Wednesday May 29. With Yahdon Israel. If you love this show and you want inside access to it head to patreon.com/thestacks and join the Stacks Pack and check out my substack Tracithomas.substack.com. 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 threads and tiktok and thestackspod underscore on Twitter and you can 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.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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