>> In memory of Dick Robinson,
and sponsored by the Institute
of Museum and Library Services.
>> Monica Valentine:
Good afternoon.
I'm Monica Valentine, Program
Specialist of the Library
of Congress, and I'm here
today with Derrick Barnes.
Good afternoon, Derek, and
welcome to the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
>> Derrick Barnes: Hey, hey.
Good afternoon.
How you doing?
>> Monica Valentine:
I'm doing great.
Looking forward to our
conversation today.
For our audience, welcome.
You can check out our
video-on-demand sessions,
particularly the one
with Derrick Barnes
at loc.gov/bookfest.
This time is primarily for
you and your questions.
We have up to 30 minutes.
I have a few questions
for Derek to start us off,
but it's really your time.
We'll go as long as we can to
answer all of your questions.
All right, so Derek, if
you're ready, we can begin.
>> Derrick Barnes: Great.
>> Monica Valentine: All right,
so in the video you recorded
earlier for the festival,
you mentioned a retail ad
that you thought sent the
wrong message about black boys.
You said that it inspired
I Am Every Good Thing,
and all of your books seem
to have a really positive
message about black boys.
Can you tell us why
that's important to you?
>> Derrick Barnes: Yeah.
That ad was a clothing ad,
and it was a international ad.
I don't even think
it ran in The States,
but it was from the company
H&M, and they have boys
of different nationalities
and the little African boy,
I think he was maybe around
10, maybe 10 years of age,
his shirt said the coolest
monkey in the jungle,
and I always try to
explain to children
when I do school visits, you
know, when you study the history
of this country in regards to,
you know, marketing, literature,
you know, it was very --
you know, we have a very dark
history in regards to, you know,
the racial, you know,
epitats and stereotypes,
and one of the very, you
know, derogatory names
that black people
were called were apes,
monkeys, you know, simian.
So, in this modern day
age, you know, in this --
for that huge cooperation, to
not have anybody in the room
to squash that idea, was
just crazy, you know?
I thought about my sons.
I have four beautiful
black boys.
Ezra is 20.
Solo is 17.
Silas, who's the cover boy for
Crown is 15, and Nnamdi is 10,
four totally different
personalities.
I put so -- you know, my wife
and I have put so much love
and energy into these boys to
go out into the world to be,
you know, not only productive
citizens, but it's a term we use
in the house, you know, to be a
difference maker, and it's one
of the terms I use in the book.
So, you know, if
someone is not, you know,
doesn't have the luxury
or is not blessed enough
to have a black boy in
their immediate environment,
they are probably more apt to
go off of these stereotypes,
you know, and that's one
thing that we have to squash,
and I feel like, my job as
not only a black male author,
but a father, black husband,
a black son, a black brother,
as a artist, I have
a obligation.
If I'm making books for black
children, it shouldn't have
to be this way, but it is what
it is, you know what I mean.
I have a obligation to make sure
that every time I write a book
or I create a character,
or I tell a story,
that I'm putting black children,
black and brown children
in the most positive
light that I possibly can
to counter these negative
images that we still have
in American pop culture,
and even, you know,
international pop culture.
>> Monica Valentine:
Right, right.
So you just mentioned your sons
and that leads me to a question,
do the mighty Barnes brothers
ever review your drafts
when you write and
what role do they play
in your writing process, if any?
>> Derrick Barnes:
Most definitely.
You know, as they've
gotten older,
I'm writing more middle grade
novels and graphic novels.
The books I'm probably most
famous for are, you know,
picture books, which are really
just poems that, you know,
have been condensed
and of course added this
beautiful illustrations
from Vanessa Brantley
Newton and Gordon James
who did I Am Every Good Thing
and he illustrated Crown.
Shout out to Gordon.
So when they were younger, it
was a little bit easier for me
to get a thumbs up from
them, but you know,
as long as they've been alive,
that's the only thing they know
me as, as a author, as a writer,
poet, so now that I'm
writing for older children,
they give me a thumbs up
in regards to the language,
in regards to the dialogue,
which is so important, you know,
not in regards to slang or
keeping up with the, you know,
current dialogue that kids are
using, but it's very important
that the dialogue between
characters are, you know,
really believable, and real,
and it really helps to have a 15
and a 17 year old in the house
that I can bounce my
characters off of,
bounce my dialogue off
of, and my wife kind
of helps me now with the poetry.
You know, she reads
everything that I may finish,
partly because I just
love hearing her voice,
and I love hearing her
read my work, you know,
so this is like a cooperation
we got here, you know?
This is a family
business in a sense,
and I'm so grateful [inaudible].
>> Monica Valentine: Yeah,
I love to hear the
whole family's involved,
so you talked a little
bit about dialogue.
Maria M. has a question
about illustrations.
She says the illustrations
in your book are gorgeous.
What is your process working
with your illustrator?
Do you have much input
in creating them?
>> Derrick Barnes: You know,
when you first start out,
you don't have a lot of input.
The publishing company actually
picks who the illustrators are,
but once you've had a little
bit of success, you get a say
so in you may want to
work with and, you know,
the whole process is you
don't really interact
with the illustrator.
They give the illustrator
the manuscript,
and the illustrator does their
own interpretation of the text
and of the story, but now that
I have a little bit of clout,
I don't really work like that.
I'm a very personable
person, so as soon as I --
as soon as we've landed a
deal for a picture book,
I already have in my mind
who I want to work with,
what I want the images to look
like, and as soon as we're able
to land that illustrator, I
want to give them a phone call,
and I want to have
a conversation
with them about what I see.
Now, they may use
everything that I give them,
or they may not use anything
that I tell them, you know,
at all but, I'm not
just an author.
I see myself -- I mean, you
know, I like to see myself work
through the whole
creative process.
Like, I have an idea about how
I want the characters to look,
certain scenes in the book
I wish to be illustrated,
and I'm not a bossy
kind of author,
but I think it's important.
I also think it's helpful
to get that information
to the illustrator early on,
and then I just leave them alone
and let them do their thing.
Now there's some illustrators
who want that input,
and there are some illustrators
who don't want to hear
from the author at all.
They just want to do their
own thing, but again,
I don't really work like that.
You may not want to hear from
me, but you're going to hear
from me, and I think
it can't do anything
but help the illustrator just
as long as I'm not impeding
on their, you know,
creative process,
which I never want to do.
>> Monica Valentine:
Right, right.
So I see like to be involved
with the whole concept
from the beginning to the end.
>> Derrick Barnes: Yes, yes.
>> Monica Valentine: All
right, so interesting.
We have a question
from Maria M. She says
that her six year old daughter
actually has the question
for you.
Who is your hero?
>> Derrick Barnes: Oh,
man, my heroes are my sons.
You know, it's something.
You see these little
people enter into the world,
and you have to do everything
for them, fend for them,
feed them, clothe
and bathe them,
and then one day they
become their own person,
and they start accomplishing
things and achieving things
that either you could have
never seen yourself, you know,
accomplish, and they
go places and,
and places that you've
never gone before,
and they've achieved things that
you've never achieved before,
and it's [inaudible], you know,
I want to impress them as much
as I'm sure they
want to impress,
you know, my wife and I.
Their opinions me a lot
to me, so does my wife.
I want them to be proud of me.
I want my sons to be just as
proud of me as I am of them.
I want my wife to be
proud to be married
to me, you know what I mean?
So I guess it's my family, but
most of all, my sons, you know,
just see these guys launch,
to see my 20 year old go
out into the world
and, you know,
become a mechanical engineer
and my second eldest boy,
he's one of the best football
players in this entire state,
and he has business, you
know, aspirations and my,
the cover boy, the
Crown, Nestle Snipes.
We call him Nestle Snipes.
His name is Silas, but he wants
to become a respiratory surgeon
and Nnamdi, you know, he's
doing great things now,
excellent student and he's
glad he's back in school,
and you know, these
guys motivating me
to be a better father
and a better person,
and they always lift me up just
by just being who they are,
and I'm always get, you
know, kind of emotional
when I talk about my sons.
I'm just extremely
proud of them.
>> Monica Valentine: Oh, no, no,
it's fine for you
to get emotional.
That's a lovely answer.
You have mentioned that
Langston Hughes is one
of your literary heroes, and --
>> Derrick Barnes: Yes.
>> Monica Valentine: --
I'm wondering if you'd want
to talk a little bit about him
as a hero to you, and then
also, are there other writers
or non-writers that have been
influential in your work?
>> Derrick Barnes: Yeah,
Langston, I was proud of one
of my homeboys because
he's from Missouri.
You know, we're both
from Missouri.
I'm from Kansas City,
and he was the first poet
that I think I fell
in love with his work.
I fell in love mostly, first of
all, I think in the fifth grade.
My teacher Ms. Shelby
introduced me to his work
because I was really
falling in love
with hip hop music at the time.
That was in the mid-'80s, so
I was listening to LL Cool J,
Run DMC, EPMD, Eric
B. and Rakim,
and those guys were poets to me.
Again, I come from a
very musical household.
My mother had a huge, you
know, album collection.
So some of the first
writers I fell in love
with were songwriters.
Stevie Wonder lyrics, I used
to copy down his lyrics,
and I got them out the
album and all the lyrics are
on the liner notes, and she
saw how much I was very much
so interested in poetry,
which is all hip hop is
and song lyrics is, you
know, especially from Stevie,
so she introduced me to Countee
Cullen and Langston Hughes,
and I just gravitated more
towards his work because it --
because of the dialogue,
again, going back to dialogue,
I fell in love with a character
of his named, Jesse B. Simple,
and this was about
a guy in the 1940s,
in Harlem, 1950s in Harlem.
He was always down on his luck.
He couldn't keep a woman.
He couldn't pay his rent, and he
was always trying to hustle just
to make ends meet, and
it was just a dialogue
that this character had
with the beautiful people
that lived in Harlem, you know?
And I was maybe 10, 11 years
old, and just started collecting
as much of his work
that I possibly could,
but you asked about
other heroes.
Again, I'm a big music fan.
I'm a big jazz fan.
Being from Kansas
City, you know,
Charlie Parker is a huge hero.
There is a big bust of
Charlie Parker on 18th and Vine
in Kansas City for everybody,
anybody who's never been there.
18th and Vine is where all the
hep cats used to be like back
in the '50s, and '60s, you
know, Miles Davis, you know,
Cab Calloway, they used to
come to 18th and Vine and play
in all the jazz places, so
now they have a jazz museum
and a Negro Leagues
Baseball Museum.
There's a huge, like I want
to say like a 12, 13-foot bust
of Charlie Parker, and every
time I go home, I sit at a bench
in front of that bust,
and I talk to the bust.
I may look crazy.
It's mostly nighttime when I sit
out and talk to Charlie Parker,
but I just want to let him
know that I appreciate him
and I appreciate
all the ancestors,
all the creative ancestors,
including Langston Hughes,
including -- who are some
of my favorite writers?
Derek Walcott, he's
from St. Lucia,
one of my favorite
poets of all time.
Who's also my favorite writers?
Gwendolyn Brooks, they're all
pretty much poets, you know?
So when I sit and talk to that
bust, I tell him thank you,
and I am trying to hold it down
and I'm trying to you know,
take that baton and take
everything that they set
up for her -- I mean for us,
and take it to the next level,
and I want Charlie and all
the great jazz musicians --
I'm a big john Coltrane fan,
and I feel like I am doing
their work, that I am, you know,
continuing their great, you
know, legacy that they set
for not only me, but for
other black artists, you know,
musicians, other writers,
poets, and playwrights, actors.
Again, we have a huge
responsibility and we standing
on some large shoulders and I
appreciate that and I recognize
that so yeah, those
are some of my heroes.
>> Monica Valentine: Thank you.
Okay.
>> Derrick Barnes: I'm
sorry for the monologue.
>> Monica Valentine:
That's where you're at.
So Theresa, first notes
that she likes your t-shirt.
She says it's cool, but then
also she wants to know --
>> Derrick Barnes: Thank you.
>> Monica Valentine: --
how you became interested
in being a children's writer.
>> Derrick Barnes: You know,
I kind of fell into it.
I am a 1999 graduate of
Jackson State University,
the greatest historically
black college in the land.
I have a bachelor's
degree in marketing.
Met my beautiful wife there, met
and we were just like 20, 21,
and my first paid writing gig,
I wrote for the Blue
and White Flash.
I worked -- I wrote
for the newspaper.
I wrote a advice column
called Brown Sugar,
and everybody called me
Hershey Brown on campus,
so that was my first writing
gig, and because of that column,
which we won the Best HBC
newspaper in my senior year,
I landed a job at
Hallmark Cards.
I was the first black man in
the history of Hallmark Cards --
they're a greeting card giant
-- to be hired as a copywriter,
a creative copywriter, and that
was a great job, and I mean,
I felt like I was
in graduate school.
There was so many
talented painters,
so many talented writers there.
I learned a lot about
finding my voice.
I learned a lot about
the editorial process,
and that's where the
real magic happens.
Like I'm finishing up a novel
right now, and I can't wait
to get to the whole
editorial part because that's
where things are moved around
and things are made
more beautiful,
and while I was there,
I met Gordon James.
We've been friends
for over 20 years.
He was a illustrator there.
He's the illustrator of again,
Crown and I Am Every Good Thing,
two beautiful books,
and he introduced me
to his literary agent,
Miss Regina Brooks.
Love that lady, been
with her since 2003.
She's been my literary
agent for a long time now,
and the first project
she brought to me was
for to early reader books
entitled, Stop, Drop, and Chill
and The Low-Down Bad-Day Blues.
Those were my first two
books that came out,
and they were early reader
books, and every other project
that he brought to me
after those two books,
were all children's books.
You know, before I signed a
deal with her, I saw myself
as being this great
short story writer,
somebody that writes these
beautiful, you know, novellas
but it seemed like every
time we had a child,
I landed a new book deal
for children's books,
every single time, so
I was like, you know,
I might as well stick with this.
There's a lot of opportunity in
our children's books, and now,
you know, I realize it is
so important that I stay
in this genre because, you
know, for many children,
it's their first introduction
to, you know, literature, and,
you know, we're responsible for
creating the next, you know,
generation of book lovers, the
next generation of avid readers,
and, again, I take
that responsibility very
serious, so, I love it.
Even though my children
are getting older,
I don't really see myself
doing anything else.
I might want to do
some, you know, audio,
or some biographical pieces
on my favorite jazz musicians
one day, but until then,
I think, until I
finish, you know,
until I can't write
anymore, I'm always going
to write children's books, and
just again, highlight the beauty
and the brilliance
of black children.
>> Monica Valentine:
That's good to hear.
We're looking forward
to what comes next.
>> Derrick Barnes:
Black nerd [inaudible]
>> Monica Valentine: We have
a question from Stacy --
>> Derrick Barnes: Yeah.
>> Monica Valentine: We have a
question from Stacy who wants
to know, who helped
you as a young writer
to improve your writing?
Do you have any advice for
kids who might feel nervous
about sharing their
writing with other people?
>> Monica Valentine: Yeah,
I have so many people
that I can thank.
You know, my mother just
has a high school education
but she was my biggest fan.
She always took me to libraries,
always took me to bookstores.
She always made sure I
had something to read
and she recognized
that I enjoy writing.
I started writing when I was 10,
so she has always been
a advocate of my work
and I don't -- she
may not be watching,
but if she is, I love you, Mom.
Mrs. Shelby, I think
I talked about her,
she was my fifth grade teacher.
She made sure that we, you
know, that we had material
and there was once upon a
time -- I mean, you know,
things have come a long
way in this industry.
There was a time when
there weren't any books
that featured black children,
if they weren't, you know,
athletes, you know,
runaway slaves
in the civil rights movement,
but just children being
children, but she gave us
as many classic books
as she possibly could.
Some of them were adult poetry
books, where she made sure that,
you know, we had material and I
think that sparked my love for,
you know, the written word, but
my favorite teacher of all time,
and this -- Mrs. Mary Rogers.
She was my freshman
high school teacher,
and she was my English teacher,
and she was also my
creative writing teacher
when I was a senior, and
I was 14 at the time,
and I was not ashamed to
tell people that I was --
that I wrote poetry because
I also wrote hip hop.
I was trying to be a hip hop
artist at the time, but I --
that was something that I did
well, so I felt very confident
that I did something that I
knew my peers couldn't do,
but Miss Rogers, it
didn't matter what I wrote,
or what I turned in, it
was all Pulitzer-worthy,
and she thought everything
I wrote was amazing,
and obviously, I'm pretty sure
it was not, but to get that love
from her, to get
that encouragement,
it's just really spurned
me on to really grow
and to be a better writer,
and I am Facebook friends
with her now, and I thank her
every single chance that I get.
I think it's so important
for educators, parents,
adults period, to, you know,
really support young people
who have an interest, and not
just writing, but just anything,
you know, productive, anything
positive, anything creative.
Yeah, that little bit of
encouragement, you know,
can go a long way, can really
launch an amazing career,
you know?
It's been a long road
for me, but, you know,
there wasn't a day that I
didn't think about, you know,
Mary Rogers, or I didn't think
about my mom and the sacrifices,
you know, that she made,
and, you know, Mrs. Shelby,
all the people who've
always encouraged me.
So, yeah, if I just shout
out to all the educators
that may be watching
right now, I love you all.
I know, this past 19 months
has not been easy on you all,
and you've -- you're
doing a great job,
whether it be virtually
or you be in-person,
and you just keep
educating the babies
and keep encouraging them,
because you just never know
who these kids may turn
out to be, you know?
I'm sure Miss Rogers
knew I would grow
up to be a award-winning
children's book author.
I couldn't see it at
the time, but she did,
and maybe she didn't but just
her being positive is one
of the reasons I'm here today.
So, love you Miss Rogers.
>> Monica Valentine:
I love your answer,
because it is amazing what one
or two interested adults
can do for a kid's life.
Thank you for that.
So let's come back to today,
and let's talk about --
talk to your young audience
who might be curious
about what your writing
process is like.
Can you tell us what
a day in the life
of Derrick Barnes
as a writer is like?
>> Derrick Barnes: I am not a
very organized person, you know,
and in my mind, I think about
how I want my day to play out,
so I might even write it down,
but it almost never
goes that way.
I try to drop Nnamdi off, my
10 year old off at school,
and I say I'm going to come back
and work out for about an hour,
but if I'm working on something,
it's really hard for me to kind
of focus on working out when I'm
thinking about the next chapter,
or the next scene in a book,
so after I drop Nnamdi off,
I usually go and get my favorite
drink if I don't have it,
which is I try to drink
as much water as I can,
but I also drink
Diet Mountain Dew,
and that's my caffeine
of choice.
I come back in my office,
in my beautiful office,
and I'm so grateful for
this space, you know,
that I have to write in,
and I write from maybe nine
to one o'clock, and then I'll
stop and I'll get some lunch
and I work again until it's time
to go get him, and he's going
to start riding the bus soon, so
I don't have to stop and start
but I try to write maybe
8 to 12 hours a day
if I'm actually working
on something.
And just having my own space
to write in now and sometimes
like especially during last
year when everyone was at home
and they were learning
virtually, it was kind of tough,
not that they were loud.
Having four, five other people
in the house is, you know,
very distracting, and
so sometimes I will go
to a hotel that's around
the corner and I stay there
for three days when I'm
actually working with something,
especially but I just
need to clear my head
and I have deadlines to turn in,
I will go somewhere
for like three days.
There's a pond too
far from here.
Sometimes I type in my van.
I type in the car.
I sit in the backseat
and work on something.
I sit on benches outside, but
this is my favorite space,
you know, is in my office and I
try to type 8 to 12 hours a day.
>> Monica Valentine: Wow.
Okay. Well, we have another
question from Theresa,
who asks what role have
libraries played in your life?
>> Derrick Barnes: Man.
They play different roles
in different stages
of my life, you know?
My mother used to take
me to the library.
She's used to pull me in this
Radio Flyer, this red wagon.
I was like four or
five years old,
and taken to the library
on Saturday mornings.
That's one of the only days that
she was off during the week.
My mother worked
two jobs sometimes.
She was a LPN, so she worked in
nursing homes, but on Saturdays,
she would take me to the
library, and we'd fill
up that library -- and
we'd fill up that wagon
and bring those books home,
and I would sit in my closet
with a flashlight tied to a
shoestring and sitting there
with pillows, you
know, and read.
To be able to be around so much,
you know, to be in, you know,
close proximity, to be
able to run your hand
across all these
different binds,
all these different
characters and stories,
and these books took me
to a different place.
You know, we grew up -- I
grew up poor, grew up, again,
in a single-parent household,
me and my brother Anthony,
so books helped me to just
escape my neighborhood,
which was a beautiful
neighborhood,
but I grew up in a very
small house, very --
a small two-bedroom house.
There was a lot of violence,
you know, in my neighborhood,
but it wasn't shocking
when it did happen.
You know what I mean?
So not really having a lot of
money to travel, you know, go,
you know, summer vacations,
rode a lot of Greyhound buses
down to Mississippi
and Tennessee
and see my family members, so
books was a way for me to travel
across the Atlantic, across
the Pacific, to go back into,
you know, time machine, so to
be able to sit in a library
and live these different
lives was, you know,
an amazing influence on me,
and when I became a adult,
I think after like my
sixth book, after Ruby
and the Booker Boys came out,
I worked at the Kansas
City Public Library
in the outreach department.
I really thought
my career was over.
I couldn't land a book
deal to save my life.
I think this was around 2011.
This was after We Could Be
Brothers came out, and I did --
I've had so many
odd jobs, you all.
You all can't imagine.
If you name it and it's
legal, I probably did it.
You know, I'm talking about
during the course of me trying
to become a successful
children's book author and man,
and one of my favorite
jobs working was working
for the Kansas City
Public Library.
I did outreach, and I read all
across the city of Kansas City.
We went to, you know,
juvenile detention centers,
and I did creative
writing exercises for them.
I met some very brilliant
young men,
you know, inside those walls.
I went to daycare centers.
We went to kindergarten
classes, went to high schools,
and I learned a lot
about myself.
I learned a lot about humility.
I learned a lot about my
audience, my future audience,
people that were really
going to buy my books,
and it really helped
me to kind of key
in on my primary audience,
going around and doing these.
We just did storytime.
I did readings, you know?
And I'm so grateful
for that period.
You know, most times you go
through these phases and go
through these periods in your
life, it doesn't feel good,
but afterwards, you look
at it, and you look at it
and realize how grateful
you are, or you were to go
through that period,
so I'm so grateful
for all the little
jobs that I had.
They really helped me to
become the person I am today
and working for the Kansas
City Public Library was --
I saw the library from a
different angle from when I did
when I was a child, but it was
one of the most pivotal moments
in my, you know,
maturation as a man
and as a children's book author.
>> Monica Valentine: Wow, that's
cool that you have that kind
of history and connection
to libraries,
and that you can see how it's
influenced your writing today.
>> Derrick Barnes: Yeah.
>> Monica Valentine:
Well, unfortunately,
that's all the questions
we have time for.
You have been listening to
author Derrick Barnes talk
about his book I Am
Every Good Thing.
Thank you again, Derrick, for
joining us at the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
It's been a pleasure, and once
again, thanks to our audience,
please continue to
enjoy the festival.
>> Derrick Barnes: Thank you.
Take care, you all.