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Native New Yorker Tonya Bolden is an award-winning author of more than 20 books for young people and adults.
A talented researcher and gifted storyteller, she is appreciated as one who turns the past into stories that move, challenge, and inspire.
Her books on African-American heroes and the African-American experience have received national accolades.
Ms. Bolden's latest book, Finding Family, is a historical coming of age story set in Charleston, West Virginia.
Finding Family made it into Kirkus' list of Best Children's Books of 2010,
and Ms. Bolden came to the Headquarters Library on February 7th to talk about the creative journey of writing this book.
So begins my novel, Finding Family, a story of a girl in search of her voice, her identity, herself.
Her story grew out of my collection of antique photographs. Then I said "ok, she's from a family of means."
I'm not saying that a person who was poor couldn't borrow clothing, but generally the people, when you look at these photos,
you can kind of tell some people said "only people of means had the extra cash to spend on photographs."
Not always, but generally. And I just looked at her and said "she just looks like she's got some really good food," you know,
healthy food, and has a warm place to live.
And in part because of where I was, although I will always continue in fiction and in non-fiction to write about the have-nots,
sometimes I wanted to write about the haves. I wanted to write about the black middle class, I think when we look back in time,
the black middle class is often very ignored, even though they were small. I mean, we'll know the history makers, so we'll know Booker T.
We'll know Carter G. Woodson and those people. But we forget: who did those people affiliate with?
You know, there was always this small black middle class, these thriving people. So I said "Okay....
Delana, she's middle class, Charleston, West Virginia, 1904," and I didn't start with plot; I still went to the photographs.
The first line that came to me was "When Aunt Tilley said I had a spacious mind, I started to cry.
I thought it was a way of calling me 'fool,' 'dumb,' something else bad." That's the first voice I had of Delana.
And I said "okay. She's weak. She's meek." So I went in search of Aunt Tilley.
And all of these details as I'm looking at the photos--I'm looking at them and deciding "this is your character."
That's why the book has a disclaimer saying "If this is your grandmother, this is all fictional and I mean no offense." [laughter]
When I dated the photograph, because that's probably 1870, 1880, I realized that can't be her aunt, that's going to be her great Aunt.
So then the question comes, "where's her parents?" So this is how I'm finding my story, by saying "Aunt Tilley's raising her,
her great aunt's raising her, and grandpa. She's being raised by a great aunt and a grandpa. So where are her parents?"
And I have no idea. But I still want to have a story, right?
I think what I was concerned about was that my people come from the Carolinas
and I really don't know anything about West Virginia.
And I didn't want to do a kind of mountain/ Appalachian hokey Hatfield/McCoy.
And I often found, especially with Southern language,
that I always think "it's not the dialect, it's the way people phrase things that's different."
So I would say things like "fixing to" and it would try to create a language that would be believeable.
Because I don't really know how anyone spoke in 1904 in West Virginia or anywhere else.
But I think I honestly do have an ear for language and what's believable.
My editor said "Grandpa always drops 'I'; he doesn't use 'I.'"
And I didn't realize when I was creating his language
that I was creating certain ways that he spoke and certain words that he didn't use.
And she said "Can we put an 'I' in every once in awhile?, like 'I feel that--'? You know?" [laughter]
But it's those things, like you say, in speech--in my speech, you know you drop the "that" in certain places, and you mess up subject-verb agreement.
You know, sometimes when you speak you can't get it out right.
You know, it's that thing Toni Morrison said, that we only have 26 letters of the alphabet.
I don't have color, I don't have music, I have to use language to make music, to make color.
And to me, that is what writing is: painting with words.
There is a spiritual dimension to it.
You know you hear writers say the characters spoke to them? Well that really does happen.
The characters saying "oh, I don't want to do that"--those things really do happen,
and I don't think it's so much magic; I think it's that whatever we are creating,
it's based on something deep. I became aware when Grandpa was being my father and my friend.
But there are certain other things like Ambertine's character, I later realized "oh, that's Cousin So-and-so,"
but not until later.
So I believe what I was putting into certain characters may have been things I observed when I was six. Or five.
I mean, there is so much in our brains and in our hearts.
We've seen so much and experienced so much, and tasted and stuff,
that I think all of your life goes into writing, so it's not like it comes from outer space,
but it comes from within us, in places we don't even know, things that we remember, we don't even know that we remember.
It's always an outsider, [inaudible] punishment or something, and all I did was write stories and poetry, just writing, writing, writing.
I look back at some of it-- some of it I've lost and some of it I have-- and I look back at some of it
and it's like "Oh my God, this is godawful." But it was my way.
It's just like all my sister's drawings. It's always been my way, so I would say one thing is to preserve the work.
Let the person know that this is special, so have special cases and special places that you keep this.
Honor it so that she knows it's valuable, because at one point-- I think I must have been a teen--
and I don't know what I was going through, but I threw away a lot of stuff and I really regret it.
Encourage different kinds of reading, and-- this is my thing--encourage the study of foreign languages.
I think as a writer, too, I think my study of Russian and knowledge of Latin and French and all these things--
it's like you have the whole world available to you, all these rhythms.
And then I grew up in Spanish Harlem, so I have Puerto Rican, Trinidadian, Viet [inaudible]
so I would just say for writers, you have the whole world.
That's what you draw on. Everybody's rhythm can be yours.
The dragonflies were still doing a dance with me keeping top-eye open should they swarm nearer to the house.
The screen door shut. Grandpa had gone inside. To the sitting room, I guessed. To play checkers with himself.
Aunt Tilley didn't seem to notice Grandpa had left. "Other children," she mumled, face all frantic and scratching her head.
"Lawdamercy ... names on the run."
After a long silence, Aunt Tilley asked, "Picked what you'll stitch next?"
like needlework had been the course of conversation all along.
"No'm." I knew she'd pick no matter what I thought.
--"Pink primrose be nice." "Yes'm." When I glanced again at the hydrangea, I saw the dragonflies hover up, then dart away.
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This program has been brought to you by The Friends of the Alachua County Library.
For more information about Tonya Bolden, please visist tonyaboldenbooks.com.
To see a complete list of Ms. Bolden's books available at the library, visit the eBranch at www.aclib.us