Natasha Tarpley: Being an African-American has shaped my writing in a number of different ways. First, it has provided me with a wealth a material to draw from for story ideas and inspiration. The history and the culture of African-Americans is so rich and layered. And there are so many stories that have not been told, or haven't been told with the degree of complexity that they deserve.
Second, I was born and raised in Chicago, IL, in a large African-American family. We lived on the South Side of the city, in predominantly African-American communities. My parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents all loved to entertain, so we'd have big family gatherings, especially when I was younger. I was fascinated by the grown folks. I would sit as close to them as I could without drawing attention to myself, so that I could listen to them talk, watch them dance, play cards. I should mention here that my family, like many black families in Chicago, can trace our roots back to the South --- to Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas. Chicago was a popular destination during the Great Migration, when many blacks migrated from the South to the North seeking better lives. Chicago, in general, I feel, is still a very southern influenced city, particularly within the black community. So I grew up hearing the South in the voices of members of my family, in their creative use of language, seeing the mannerisms, the very deliberate way my grandmothers and aunts and uncles had of doing things, eating the food.
This made quite an impression on me, and became a very important influence in my work, particularly in my use of lyrical language, the pacing of my stories, the rhythm of the words, the settings of my stories-which are often urban black communities which maintain southern influences. Also, my parents tried to expose my sisters and brother to as many different things as possible. So when I write, I look back to many of these experiences from my childhood and to African-American history, exploring the ways the past and present echo and reflect one another.
William Jelani Cobb: I write a lot about black people and issues that affect black people, so obviously there some sense of community and continuity of struggle that animates my writing. But I also think that black writers get "particularized" as if the ONLY things we're supposed to write about are those that directly affect black people. So being a descendant of people who migrated from the South to escape Jim Crow and growing up in the culture that they brought with them and transplanted into New York where I grew up is important. But at the same time, I write as a New Yorker on the opening cusp of a new century, as a male, as a father, as a lapsed Catholic. We can list the particulars forever, but really, what we're supposed to after is explaining the relationship of our particular to the broader universal.
Raymond A. Winbush: I have always felt that the telling of the African experience in the U. S. is the special province of the African-American. There are simply unique experiences related to us that need "us" to voice the tales of our struggle in this country. As an educator and a writer (they are really the same in my book), I was always frustrated that the vast majority of textbooks, articles, etc., seem to discuss us as "objects" rather than "subjects" of our own destiny. I write because I "effect" what I experience as a Black man in the United States as well as being affected by it.
Tonya Bolden: Were I not African-American I probably would not be so passionate about producing books that educate and enlighten on the black experience. Like other writers I write about what I know and what I am most curious about. All earnest writing is, at base, about the search for self and understanding-and an expression of self. Inevitably, I write out of my cultural rhythms and traditions.
Phyllis Y. Harris: My writing is influenced more by the tangible experiences of my life, which flow with a rhythm that is part of the creative process. Writing is defined by neither my race, being black, nor my gender, being a woman. There is an inherent freedom in writing because you love it, not because you are a woman, black, heterosexual, or anything else.
Monique Morris: My writing is significantly shaped by my experiences as a woman of African descent. Everything that I do is shaped by that experience, particularly because of the particular way that slavery was manifested in America and the legacy it left in the collective African-American community and consciousness.
Kim McLarin: Being Black (I have no problem with the term African-American but generally I still use black because I'm of the "Say It Loud" generation) has shaped my writing in the same way it has shaped my life: namely, it is one of the prisms though which I view the world. And for whatever reason I'm very interested in race and racial identity as subjects to explore.
Kayla Perrin: I am an African-American; it's hard not to include my experiences and views in my stories.
Michael Datcher: My experience as an African American has created in me an intense desire to aggressively address all forms of injustice, whether they be international or internal. Once you've felt the sting of not having your humanity respected, you want to fight to make sure no once else feels that pain.
Michele Andrea Bowen: My experiences fuel my writing. I grew up in a traditional working class black community. I went to all black schools until I went to college and was very active in my church. I grew up nurtured by all of the many nuances of black urban life during the 1960s and 70s. My work reflects that culture, reflects my rearing, and my experiences in so many ways.
Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant: Life shapes what authors write about, and everything in an author's life influences her work. We share the experience of being both African American and female, and those two facts have been, and will continue to be, inseparable and sometimes indistinguishable influences on what we write. The music our characters dance to, the language they use, the neighborhoods where they live and their reception in the workplace are just a few of the factors that are influenced by being African American. Within that framework, however, we can come up with as many points of view for our characters as there are stars in the sky based on a character's home life, location, the period of time in which they grew up and their differing personalities.
Mat Johnson: All my stories are based on some experience, but nothing exactly. It’s kind of like a dream, you recognize the places, people, and some of the actions, but everything is scrambled up into something new. Copying reality is a great way to bring truth to your work. With DROP, my first novel, pieces of it seem so familiar I’ve almost convinced myself it happened, but of course none of it did.
Francis Ray: I love to read, but because I didn't see many African-Americans in mainstream fiction and if I did see them they weren't portrayed in a positive way, I wanted to see people who looked like me on the page and dispel the stereotype too often seen in the media or publications and show us as we really are. We fall in love, raise families, work hard and live satisfying lives just like other people.
Jabari Asim: I find that my blackness influences my writing even when I don't particularly want it to. It is so inseparable from my sense of who I am that it inevitably affects how I choose to express myself. My love of reading is what led me to become a writer, and I felt so strongly that certain books by African-American writers spoke directly to me. My first serious attempts at writing stemmed from efforts to "talk back" to those books.
Afi Scruggs: I grew up in the '60s, when African Americans were demanding justice, equality and recognition. Early on, I learned that the official version of history wasn't the only version and that the experiences of so-called marginal people were often ignored. Therefore I seek to expose the untold story.
Alexs Pate: When you grow up as an African-American boy in a Philadelphia inner city there is no way to explore my imagination without dealing with the experiences I've had and the observations I've made. Besides I came of age during the Black Arts Movement and was heavily influenced by the notion that art, particularly literature, was one of the essential elements in the struggle for black people to achieve equality, power and agency. I love being a black writer. There is so much purpose built into that identity. So much implicit responsibility. I welcome and relish that.
Marissa Monteilh: I believe that my life experiences have shaped my ability to write stories from the heart that deal with issues of relationships, family, self-love, achieving career goals, raising children and maintaining a quality level of spiritual awareness that is a necessity for every woman. As an African-American woman, I cannot say that I have experienced deeper or more challenging life experiences than non-African-American writers, however, I do bring some of the cultural nuances of my heritage to my writing. Overall, I consider myself a writer who happens to be African-American.
Myles Pinkney and Sandra Pinkney: Being black has helped us, especially for our first book, SHADES OF BLACK, being it deals directly with the many variations in skin color, eye color and hair texture of being black. Having been teased as a child for our skin color, it was important for children to feel positive about how they look.
Maryann Reid: My experiences as a young woman in general has shaped my writing. My stories usually include Black men and women in everyday situations, despite race. I try not to write about "black" issues, but try to focus on people as a whole. My latest book, SEX AND THE SINGLE SISTER featured five Black American women going through situations women of any other culture/race could relate to.
Steven Barnes: The sense of exclusion was an important motivator, also the sense that white America was generating and broadcasting image systems that elevated all things Northern European to the detriment of all else. The fact that reality was somewhat different from that promoted in media and history books taught me to doubt everything.
