In a collaborative event between Africana Studies and the English Department, Drew hosted fiction writer, poet and essayist Tiphanie Yanique at the first Writer’s at Drew event of the year. This past Monday’s event found a large audience, as students and faculty of multiple disciplines filled Founders Room in Mead Hall for the reading and Q&A.
Tami Navarro, department chair of Pan-African studies, welcomed and introduced Yanique. A former Drew professor, Yanique is an award-winning Caribbean-American writer and professor at Emory University with works including “Monster in the Middle,” “Land of Love and Drowning,” “Wife” and “How to Escape from a Leper Colony.”
Yanique read a chapter from the middle of her novel, “Monster in the Middle,” which she described as “a book about falling in love…and about what it’s like to be an American.” Yanique captivated her audience with a unique cadence and voice; she explored themes of leaving home, sickness, loss and family.
Following the reading, Courtney Zoffness, department chair of Drew’s creative writing program, led a discussion with Yanique, where a multitude of creative insights were shared with the audience.
Zoffness began with a question about Yanique’s relationship to genre as a multi-hyphenate writer. Yanique, who has published novels, short fiction, poetry and essays, said, “The world will want you to decide a genre” and it “likes putting us in boxes that we have to stick to” as a writer, personally and politically. However, she finds it important to “resist that at all times both personally and professionally” and to “reject the idea that [she has] to be one thing.”
Yanique then provided wisdom on writing characters that exist outside of the writer’s lived experience. Each chapter of “Monster in the Middle” is from a different character’s perspective. In her Emory class, Yanique first advises students, “Don’t fucking do that. I go through all the reasons you should not and why it’s problematic especially when you’re in the position of power…Don’t do it. However, you have to do it.”
“You’re going to mess it up, but you have to do it. It’s called bravery. And then to be humble when you do mess it up,” said Yanique.
Yanique explains that to write characters of different backgrounds, you have to connect with, emphasize and love different people. “Change your life,” said Yanique.
Photo courtesy of Dee Cohen.
Yanique also emphasized the importance of reading.
“To write a good Black character, you have to read good Black characters by Black authors to learn from that craft,” said Yanique. “Read broadly, don’t give yourself excuses.”
Zoffness opened the floor for the audience to ask questions. One student asked Yanique how she recommends writing fiction from history that doesn’t become historical fiction.
“Do an incredible amount of research, so much so that it becomes banal to you,” said Yanique. “Then you can let go of the big historical stuff and get to the intimate stories, you can move to the personal…get to the flavor and reality.”
In response to another student’s question on how to start reading literature on characters with different backgrounds, Yanique advised students to use their “professors here who can give you lists” and that students should “take classes with them and let them mentor you.”
Discussing literary imitation and influences, Yanique said, “At this point in your writing life, being influenced is what you need to be.”
“The only way to surpass the masters is to know what they’re doing,” said Yanique. “To be compared to my masters is an honor. And I chose my masters.”
Navarro then asked two questions, on writing the Black diaspora and on archival erasure, which Yanique answered together.
“The work of contemporary Blackness, contemporary diaspora, is speculative. Filling holes that cannot be filled otherwise destroyed from the archive,” said Yanique. She asks the question: “Where are the stories that have not been told and how can we tell them?”
Following a student question, Yanique offered some final advice for student writers.
“Part of your job as a student is to hold on to your aesthetic but also learn at the same time,” said Yanique. “Poetry is supposed to be changing lives; the way to do that is to change hearts.”
Katie Carmichael is a junior majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing, and is minoring in education.
Featured image courtesy of Dee Cohen.
