[ Music ]
>> Sponsored by the
James Madison Council
and the National
Endowment for the Arts.
>> Jo Livingstone: Hello, and
welcome to the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
I'm Jo Livingstone and now
I'm so excited to be here
with who I can see, Raven
Leilani and Kristen Arnett,
to talk about this books Luster,
that's Raven's wonderful book,
and With Teeth, which is
Kristen's wonderful book.
Pleased to learn more
about our authors,
check out LOC.gov/bookfest.
Before we begin, now that we've
begun, I want to let you know
that we're going to
save the last 10 minutes
of this conversation,
of this event,
to respond to audience
questions.
So you can start submitting
your questions now.
Now, the theme of this year's
festival is open a book,
open the world.
And this is a pretty--
it's a capacious question,
but I'm excited to pose this
to our two authors here today.
So maybe we can start
with Raven.
Open the book, open the world.
How have books opened
the world for you?
>> Raven Leilani: Oh my gosh.
Well for me, I think books
primarily were a form of escape.
I came up in a really
religious context.
And so the first
books that touched me
that books were titillating.
You know, books that felt like
private, exciting experiences.
And they were.
It's a kind of privacy
that I feel like is one
of the first privacies you enjoy
as a child is you
and that story.
And after every book, I always
had this, you know, this feeling
of wanting it to continue.
And that was how
I began writing.
I want to-- I continued
it in my own way.
>> Jo Livingstone: To
continue that privacy almost
with yourself as a reader.
I like that.
I like that.
Kristen, how have books
opened the world for you?
>> Kristen Arnett: I am going
to agree with Raven on this.
I think it's one
of those things.
I grew up in a very evangelical
household as a young,
queer, closeted person.
And books were something
that I felt
like I had to hide all the time.
My parents were very much
in control of the kind
of things that I read.
So when I had like opportunities
or teachers or librarians
to give me material
outside of, you know,
what I was normally allowed to
access, it felt mind-blowing.
It felt like just things
breaking open in ways
that I didn't think
were possible.
And it was also where I first
began to understand my queerness
and who I was as a person and
how I moved through the world.
And there wasn't
something wrong with me?
That it was like I felt
myself there in those books.
So in ways of like escape and
also ways in like just feeling
like known in a way that like
quite often I felt isolated
and like I wasn't
known by anyone.
And books really provided that--
and the people who
gave them to me.
Like those teachers
and librarians.
This way of feeling seen.
Which I think is really
important for everybody.
>> Raven Leilani: I just want
to say like I fully feel you
on like the kind of
resident librarian
that made you, you know?
I definitely had that.
You know, so I want to shout
out the librarians that kind
of see you when you're coming
up and show you this book.
This book, you'll
love this book.
And you discover
yourself through that.
>> Kristen Arnett: Yeah.
It is, it's like the
people that are like, right?
Like the people that are like
let me help you find you.
Which is delightful.
>> Jo Livingstone: Do either
of you remember the title
of any particular books that you
remember, you know, being handed
to you, someone saying I think
you're going to really like this
and then-- any particular
like just spring
to the front of your mind?
>> Kristen Arnett: The
book that I felt like--
like happened like that
for me was Dorothy Allison's
Bastard Out of Carolina.
That was a book that was given
to me in like a library space,
and I took home and read.
And was the first
time I felt like I was
like I see myself here.
It's so much about like--
because it's a book that's
about queerness but it's not
like talked about in that way.
It's like a character who I
felt like deeply resonated with.
And it was so much about place.
And I'm like this is
a person who saw me,
thought of this book, and was
like you're going to like this.
And that was a book that--
that's the book that made
me want to be a writer.
Because I'm always like I
can write about these things.
I didn't think that I could.
It's okay to like write
these kinds of things.
And I was like my
stories are interesting
and there's space for them.
And so that was definitely
the book that was so important
for me and becoming like, not
only who I am as a person,
but who I am as a
writer, I think.
>> Raven Leilani: I think like
in hindsight, perhaps this is
like an inappropriate book
to give a budding reader.
But for me it was like,
I started with Anne Rice.
You know, like those really kind
of sexy vampire texts that like
for me were a safe
place to begin
to explore, you know,
the erotic.
So I think that was
where I started.
Those were the first books.
So it started with Anne Rice
and then Laurell K.
Hamilton and Darren Shan.
And those sort of
magical contexts.
It felt like a safe place
to explore what excited
me on the page.
>> Jo Livingstone:
I love that idea.
I think you both said the word
magic at some point, right?
The kind of special
alchemy that happens
to you when you're alone.
Now for people who
have read your books,
both of your wonderful
novels, will know that both
of them do this-- a fantastic
job I think of focusing
on exactly that moment of
opening up of a domestic
or a home or a private space
that a character perhaps has
never expected to access.
Or somebody comes in who you
never expect to be there.
How-- I feel like I
could just say anything
about writing an intimate,
you know, kind of an intimate,
a domestic space like that.
Is there any like tips to
make a home seem like a home?
I don't know.
That was a bit of a
mess of a question,
but I think you know
what I'm getting at.
>> Raven Leilani: I feel
like as I was writing Luster,
like one of the kind of the
core like motors of the book is
that she's trying to find--
she's trying to cobble
together something that feels
like home enough where she
feels the safety enough
to make things.
And so I think that like
it's a book about art making
and to write about art
making, you have to write
about the place you
feel safe to make art.
And I think that what
ultimately sort of affords her
that space is the, you know,
due to the kind of like systems
that she's working within, the
home she has sort of collapses
and she has to find another
place in order to find
that generative energy.
And in that place, she
finds a sort of mentor.
A person who takes
her seriously.
So I feel like in that context,
and in some personal contexts,
the domestic, making a home,
having one, having that safety
of place to rest, is crucial.
Has been to me.
And is in the book.
It's a crucial kind of
aspect of having the kind
of bandwidth to make art.
>> Kristen Arnett:
I love that so much.
>> Jo Livingstone: A safe place.
>> Kristen Arnett: I am a big
fan, first of all, of Luster.
I think it's an incredible book.
I think it's doing so
much about talking about--
yeah, it's incredible.
I am like a person who is like
obsessed with the domestic.
I think like any time
you're looking for stories,
then families come to mind.
Because so much of
like how families--
whatever that family's
made up of.
Like you know?
Is it like a found community,
is it like parents and children,
is it like siblings,
is it, you know,
like a grandparent and a child?
What does that look like?
The backbone of many
families is like the stories
that are told inside
of the household.
And so much of that to me
is like really interesting
because I think that it
makes it so that everybody
in a household is an
unreliable narrator.
Because everybody's telling
the same stories but like
in different ways because we all
have main character syndrome.
But with With Teeth, I was
really thinking about the idea
of this kind of unreliable
narrator situation.
And I was really
excited to think about--
because I'm less interested
in like the big moments
of like queer family and more
in like the daily
lived experiences.
Stuff like just moving
through the world.
Like being like I'm a queer
mom and I'm, you know,
taking the garbage out.
I'm a queer mom and
I was late to work.
Like I'm a queer mom and
maybe I'm not a very good mom?
Like maybe I'm bad at
this and I don't like it.
And I was like I'm
really interested
in seeing the ways
in which people fail.
And like we can sit
with that failure.
And when I'm thinking about
just like who humans are.
And just like the mass of them
and how they struggle and try
and fail continuously, that's
like a thing I really wanted
to have with this book.
Was like a person who, you
know, is an uncomfortable person
and not a great mother
and she's queer.
And this is like the daily lived
experience and how these kind
of like little ways in which
dysfunction kind of add on top
of each other can like, you
know, the last little piece
like kind of wrecked
a household.
Or like undo a household.
And show how it fails
or can fail.
And that felt important to me.
Because I think the
failures are just
as important as the successes.
And as a queer person,
I want to see the whole
like gradient scale of like,
you know, like the triumphs
and like, you know,
being laid low.
I want to see all those things.
So that felt important to
me to write in the book.
>> Jo Livingstone: Interesting.
Yeah, now that I'm
thinking about it,
there are so many parallels
between both of your novels.
You know, kind of
really neat inversions.
But both of you do this, I
think, as you said really well,
Kristen, do this sitting
with failures within the kind
of traditional, you know,
kind of immediate family unit.
Failures to do with-- and not
like failures like anyone is
to blame, but kind of right,
failures of structure,
failures of narrative going on
between children and parents.
And I felt that the child-parent
relationship, it seems--
it's so difficult to come
up with anything new.
But I think that both
of you really threw new
challenges-- a set of adults.
Especially when it
came to children!
And I like that.
I like that.
How do you feel about
putting characters
that you have made up, you
know, that you have brought
into the world, putting
them through dark
and the difficult experiences?
I've always wondered that.
>> Raven Leilani: I think that--
I mean, I'm of two minds
where I feel like you--
in order to sort of
do-- tell a story well,
you have to have a
certain amount of distance.
Distance enough to be cruel.
But then because I was telling
the story in which there are,
I mean, it is sort of a
pile-on, it is like a kind
of accumulation of pressure.
And I'm writing a story of a
black woman and of her striving,
you know, toward--
trying to make her art,
trying to find intimacy.
It was important that
there be places in between
where that pressure was let out.
Where there'd be moments of joy,
you know, along with the angst.
So for me, I mean,
psychologically writing it,
reading it, and what I owe
the, you know, the characters
that I put there, I wanted
there to be, you know, truth,
because that's always
what you're trying
to do is to tell the truth.
And that's the truth is that
in between like those moments
of human drama, and almost, and
occasionally at the same time,
which is, I found, like a really
absurd kind of part of life.
Is that along with
that, there is joy.
They kind of happen all at once.
And so that, too,
was important to me.
And Kristen, I noticed
that in your book, too,
that like as she's sort
of grappling, you know,
with these sort of
ambivalence around motherhood
and like the sort of overt
and even covert violence
that happens between
her and her child,
like you know, there
is the care.
There's like if I can
quote, there's this moment
where she is aware of like
the heat of this [inaudible].
And is careful.
And then there's the moment
that she bites her child.
I love that those two
moments exist together.
And in between, there's
pleasure.
You know, there's
sex and there's joy.
And there's gratification.
You know, that too, I could
feel that balance in your text.
>> Kristen Arnett: That
is very nice to hear.
Because it is one of those
things, and I completely agree
with you, like the way
that you're talking
about like how you
write those things.
Like right?
Like the idea of having
distance enough from it
that you can be a little cruel.
But I also think like too,
we get to know these characters
more than anyone else does.
We sit with them the longest.
And I think sometimes it
shouldn't be this way.
But I think the people
that we know best,
we can be the cruelest to,
because we know their
weak spots.
And you know, getting to
these characters and things.
I think like the idea of like
having these little levels of--
right?
Because we don't--
emotions don't exist inside
of a vacuum, right?
So like the idea of grief,
or like pain and trauma,
there's like simultaneously
like great joy and also
like humor and things.
Because I mean, we just, we make
these like decisions and move
through life and at
times they're absurd.
And I think that that was a way
that I was thinking about a lot
in writing With Teeth.
Because I was like this is
a book about discomfort.
I started comparing it to that
feeling of sitting at a bar
and you're overhearing something
next to you and you realize it's
like the worst date you've
ever heard somebody be on.
Just a horrible first
date, just the worst.
And you're sitting
there listening to it,
and of course you're
continuing to listen.
But you're like oh my god,
thank god that's not me.
But then at the same
time, you're like, well,
that's been me before.
There's these moments in which
like it's like a relatable thing
to be in a moment of discomfort.
And I think we can
find humor in it.
From being able to be like away?
But I think like with
like any kind of emotion,
there's like ways in
which things are funny.
Especially after the fact.
I know my own life,
it's been like well,
at least that's a story
for later that I can tell.
But it's-- I think it's
one of those things
where they have to
go side-by-side.
Those things happen.
Or like Raven, what
you're saying,
they happen like
simultaneously, right?
Like the joy and the
pleasure and the pain.
They happen sometimes
and they go hand-in-hand.
And that's what's fun
about, I don't know,
like diving into like
the human condition.
It's like, right?
Like kind of scrambling your
fingers around in a brain
and seeing what you pull out.
That's a [inaudible].
>> Jo Livingstone: That
was pretty good metaphor.
Both of you are making me think
of Shirley Jackson's
letters, that I recently read.
It's just come out in
a collective volume.
And she's kind of the queen
of finding the gothic
in the domestic.
Right? And finding the
things that are more spooky
or more frightening because
they're lurking behind the text
of everyday life.
And I loved reading those
letters and thinking
about the kind of
gothic domestic.
Because gothic is all
kind of funny, right?
Like it's all a little
bit absurd
and there's an element of camp.
And there's-- well, like
a large element of camp.
Like going back to
Anne Rice, Raven.
Right? So, I love the
idea of the absurd
and the terrifying occupying
a place inside the home.
Right? And that having
some relationship
to the absurd outside
of the home.
Again, not really a
question, just a feeling.
Now, we have a question
which is actually--
I'm going to go to a little
bit early because it's kind
of a big one, because
I'm really curious.
So I want you to talk about
it for the rest of the time.
So, we had a question
from someone called Jack
who is saying both of your
current books future personal
intimacy in close quarters.
Absolutely, you know, feature of
what we've been talking about.
Are you planning to write
anything out of the pandemic?
[Inaudible] working lockdown
experience, you know,
obviously we're here in
this different context
than we are usually.
But yeah, has it
sparked anything
in your writing practices?
>> Raven Leilani: Well,
I don't-- I haven't--
I haven't and don't think I
will be working on anything
that like sort of directly
relates to the pandemic.
And that is partly because
I really, really struggle
with writing about a thing
when I'm still in a thing.
You know, I feel
like I know writers
who are the exact opposite
and how I envy them deeply.
But for me, it's the
distance thing again.
Like I need distance
and coldness, I think,
to have like real
control over my words
and even have the
language, you know?
I feel like I'm waiting.
I'm waiting for the
language, if it ever comes.
But I will say that because we
had really no choice but to kind
of operate in the sort of
midst of kind of global chaos,
it has changed my practice
in that I have sort
of changed my kind of ideology
around writing through a thing.
Writing is processing.
And so I am working
on a new book now.
And it is the sort of closest
to the bone, I've ever written.
And it is a deeply
uncomfortable experience.
But I feel like from that
moment, I realized sort
of my ability to kind
of lean into it sooner
than I normally could.
>> Jo Livingstone: Interesting.
Okay. So, you, in kind of like
in theory need that coldness
and that distance, but
now that you're actually
like putting your shoulder to
it, right, it's like yielding?
Yeah, I don't know, well, look,
I'm not being interviewed here
so I don't have to say.
Kristen, how about you?
>> Kristen Arnett: Wow.
I completely agree
with you, Raven.
I think I'm a person, too, that
it would-- not saying that I--
I never want to say I don't
want to write about something.
Because first of all, I'm like
such a contradiction in that
as soon as I tell myself no to
something, then the other part
of me goes well now
I'm going to do it.
Like so I'm going to do that.
But it's one of those things
where I do agree that like I--
I feel like I know the
least about something
when I'm the closest to it.
It's like so near
that I can't make
out like what it actually is
or what I think about things.
I need time to ask the
question the right way.
This is like what I think
about a lot in terms
of like librarianship, also.
And I really think it
applies to me for writing
as well is quite often in any
kind of project I'm working on,
but specifically something
book length, it's like a novel,
it's less about like what
the concept is and me trying
to write the book and
trying to figure out how
to ask the question
the right way.
And so I think that takes
a lot of time to get
to like whatever that thing is.
So I think I just would
need more distance from it.
My practice has changed, too.
And some of it is like
myself, as soon as I feel
like I understand anything
about myself, like as a person,
but also as a writer, because
those things are like, right,
inextricably linked with each
other, then that thing changes.
So it's kind of happened
with like every single book
that I've written is
that the practice changes
and how I work daily.
But also like in
terms of operations.
Like Mostly Dead Things was a
different practice and process
than putting together
With Teeth.
And the new projects I've been
working on now, first of all,
I'm so impressed with people
who are even able to work
in any kind of capacity
for like the last year.
It's only with like maybe
the last five months for me
that I've been able to work.
I keep comparing it to like--
I'm really being very beautiful
today with how I'm talking.
I keep comparing it to like
finally being able to throw up.
So it's like I'm like let's
just get it all out right now.
So, and see what it is.
Because I've been so happy
to just be able to write.
Like if-- even if it turns
into not being like the thing--
the right question,
I'm happy enough
to just have a question
out there.
So I think practices
like have changed
for me in that kind of way.
Which is that I'm just
allowing myself to kind
of sit with my word vomit.
Lovely.
>> Jo Livingstone: Good,
I'm so happy for you
that you finally
threw up, Kristen.
That's great.
We have a question from CCA,
I hope I said your name right.
What has it been like-- now
to turn from the process
of composition under these
strange circumstances,
what's it been like, you
know, finishing/releasing,
whatever that timeline was,
your novels into this new
world that we're living in?
This pandemic.
>> Raven Leilani: I would
say, I mean, since I debuted
in that year, I have no--
no other reference points.
It's sort of what the
only thing I know.
And there is a sort of--
like the beauty of it is I
could kind of reach more people.
But I do miss being, you know,
in a room full of people,
that kind of human energy,
that feedback is different.
And I think it will be like in
a few days that I actually read
for the first time here,
you know, in the States
in a room full of people.
And I really look
forward to that.
You know, because I do
think that it is just--
it was one of my
favorite things.
Even when it was me, I was
kind of just attending events.
I really love that feeling of
being in a room and listening
to a person read and
feeling that sort
of communal energy and focus.
But it is-- it was
deeply surreal.
I mean, it was deeply surreal.
And again, what I was
talking about before,
I feel like I'm still
looking for the language
to describe what it was like.
But more than anything, I'm
just grateful that we were able
to find a way to kind
of still connect.
>> Kristen Arnett: Yeah.
It's-- this was-- my first
book was my debut in-person.
And so this was obviously a very
different like-- very different.
But I-- it's so-- as a person
who like I started writing--
like my first book, Mostly Dead
Things came out, I was like 38.
You know? Like I
was like I didn't--
I met a lot of like
writer friends
like online and from Twitter.
And like kind of virtually
kind of meeting people
and like talking about like I
didn't go to an MFA program.
I lived in like central Florida
for like pretty much
my entire life.
So it's like we had
some arts things.
But it's like not
being around like--
so it's like part of me was
like kind of used to this idea
of like we're like writing
and events feel far away
but we're connected
through this kind of medium?
And I love that.
I deeply miss being with people
in person because I love just
like the idea of like,
you know, afterwards kind
of unpacking everything out
of the bar over a drink.
Or over like, you know, just
a basket of like shitty fries
or something and talking
about what that thing was.
And feeling that
kind of connection.
And the human energy that
like Raven was talking about.
Like in a room, even like
attending as like a listener.
And listening to somebody
read or talk about craft
or art in this kind of way.
It's really energizing.
You take that energy out
with you into the world.
I miss that.
But there is something
that's so wonderful
about the accessibility
of being able to be
in a space that's so far away.
To see like a beloved author
and hear them read or talk
with like-- or even just being
able to, like for myself,
begin a conversation with people
that I wouldn't have been able
to do that with previously.
And feeling a connection
in that way.
And having it be
accessible for people
who wouldn't have been able
to go, even if it had been
in their city, you know,
just like, you know,
for people with disabilities.
Or people who don't have
the funds to get some place,
or people have to work
all the time to go
and watch a recording.
And so for me, it's been like,
like I just love the idea
of like at least like marrying
these things in the future
and having them touch.
Because it still is so--
I think it's so important
to be able to have those things.
So that has felt really
good to know that if there's
like an event of mine that
people wouldn't have been able
to come in the past, that they
can definitely just like log in
and show up or even watch
a recording of it later.
And that seems special in a way?
Where it's like a different
kind of specialness.
But I just am greedy and
want to experience both.
>> Jo Livingstone: Right, right.
There's something about the
placelessness of this type
of communication that we're
doing right now as we speak
that has, as you say, this kind
of special quality of its own.
That no place is
equally accessible.
But some place, you know,
can become harder to get to.
And we have a question
here from Anna T
who asks you both
set your novels
where you as authors live.
I don't know if that's
still the case.
How important is place
to you both in writing?
We have two and a half
minutes and what about,
what does place mean
to you, Raven?
>> Raven Leilani: Oh man.
I mean it was sort of just
the way that it came out.
I feel for me, for me,
what is really exciting is
that a-ha moment is that sort of
familiarity that you, you know,
come across in the text.
Like there's nothing
better, well I mean,
maybe there are things
that are better.
But one of my favorite
things is to open a book
and realize I'm standing
on the street
that the book is talking about.
And occasionally that happens.
And in a sort of
less literal sense,
that still feels really good.
And so when I write
place, it is--
it's me sort of trying to
manufacture that feeling
that I love encountering.
Not to-- you know, I also
do like to encounter a place
that I've not encountered and
to feel the strangeness of it.
The newness of it.
For me, I just wrote
towards those details.
You know, I wrote towards
what sort of roots me here.
And so it was here
in New Brooklyn,
it was upstate New York.
And when the book
came out, I, you know,
I grew up in a small
town upstate.
I got letters from people
who grew up in that town
that remembered that
mall, you know?
And that was why-- that was
one of the reasons why I wrote,
you know, toward the kind of
specificity of that place.
Because I do think
that that is like--
it's just a really kind of
juicy thing to kind of--
that recognition is one
of the more exciting
things I feel when I read.
>> Jo Livingstone: Thank you.
Kristen? Come on, you've got
20 seconds to talk about place.
>> Kristen Arnett: I consider
myself to be a place writer.
Specifically about Florida.
And a big part about, and I'll
just kind of condense this,
and make an elevator
pitch about Florida.
I wanted to write about place
through like a sensory
experience of my own
like personal experience moving
through like a lifelong
Floridian of like what that is.
And especially central Florida.
And bring that to people in
a way that they would connect
with it outside of their
preconceived notions of Orlando?
And also to feel that they
might not have been there
but they feel like
they've experienced it
or that they've been
there before.
And that felt important to me.
And I love place writing.
Yay.
>> Jo Livingstone:
Thank you, Florida.
I've only ever visited
through your fiction.
Thank you both so much for
joining us for our time.
Sorry if we didn't
get to your question.
Thank you so much!
This was wonderful.
So lovely to meet you.
And enjoy the rest of your day!
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