Dear Black Woman Writer

Dear Black Woman With A Pen,

You say you want to be a writer. Here is how.

Write.

That is it. Writers write. 

You want to be a writer. You write.

You are not stealing time. It may feel like there are more important things. There are children to feed; partners to tend to; elder parents to care for; laundry to be folded; this or that church/sorority/club project to lead. Protests to plan. You have obligations. Responsibilities. And right now, the threat of The Reaper seems constant. Killer viruses. Killer cops. 

These things are exactly why you must write. Because for most women like us, responsibilities are many. Because life is fleeting. It needs joy and creativity to sustain it. You need joy and creativity to thrive. 

Commit to 30 minutes a month. Or 1,000 words a week. One sentence a day.

Just write, Black woman, write.

Write true.

I add Black feminist womanhood to my writing with a heavy hand. There is a dash of up-South Midwestern in there–some Rust Belt. Perhaps there is a soupçon of grown-up smarty pants. That is my authentic voice. When my writing is good, it is good because of that. Because it is mine and true. 

You may hear that editors don’t have a palate for a lot of Blackness–that the publishing industry is predominately white. They will tell you to adjust your words and over-explain your experiences or your writing will never find a place. 

“They” told Toni Morrison (Toni Morrison!) the same thing. “As though our lives have no meaning and no depth without the white gaze,” she said. “I have spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.”

I am liberated by writing from a Black femme gaze. Your unique point of view is not a deficit to your writing; it is a super power. Put that super power in your work.

Put your queerness in it. Put your hood chick in it. Put your ‘Bama or your Boogie Down. Put your Blackness in it. It won’t be good if you don’t.

My sister, nobody likes unseasoned writing.

Read.

Writing is a craft. Good writers study the written word. 

Read and study the literary greats. Zora Neale Hurston. Alice Walker. Maya Angelou. Octavia Butler. Lorraine Hansberry. Toni Cade Bambara. Audre Lorde. Lucille Clifton. Nikki Giovanni. Phillis Wheatley. 

Find everything Nobel Laureate and veteran editor Toni Morrison had to say about craft, like her 1980 interview about writing with the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, where she explained the joy of rewriting a thing. 

“It’s not that you’re changing it,” she said. “You’re doing it better, hitting a higher note or a deeper tone or a different color. The revision for me is the exciting part; it’s the part that I can’t wait for—getting the whole dumb thing done so that I can do the real work, which is making it better and better and better.”

Read the new greats, too. Honoree Jeffers. Tayari Jones. Dr. Brittney Cooper. Jesmyn Ward. N.K. Jemisin.

Read Deesha Philyaw, who, in her multiple-award-winning short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, describes the art of making a good Southern peach cobbler so beautifully that you can taste the sweet peaches and delicate crust on your tongue.

Study how writers write. How they tell the truth. How they craft sentences and unfold narratives. How the best of us can tell a whole story with a single sentence–sometimes a single word. Seek out fellow Black femme writers; keep company and learn from them.

Also, read for pleasure. Reading is fun.  

Publish.

It’s okay to write something just for yourself. Some things may be too personal or too raw to share with the masses. That is fine. But I urge you, Black Woman, to share your creativity and voice with the world. 

People do not hear enough of Black women (Mostly because they do not listen). But there is not a thing the world can understand–about its past or present–without knowing us. Now, I am not urging you to publish your work in order to save the world. Lord knows Black women get called to do that too often. But I long for the day when Black women can  see ourselves reflected–in all the ways we show up in the world–across literature, in journalism, in academic journals, TV scripts…every damn where. If that day is to be a reality, Black women must publish their writing.

Get smart about publishing. Read Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers and Publishers Weekly. Take a workshop on how to pitch stories or structure your novel. Find out how to get a literary agent. Learn the difference between traditional and self-publishing. I have asked you to invest time in your writing; you must invest equal time in learning the business of writing to be a successful published writer.

And grow a thick skin, because when you start pitching your articles, essays and books, you will be rejected again and again and again. And, girlllllllll, you will begin to wonder whether you are really a writer at all.

You are a writer.

But, Black woman, understand this–many people want to have written. That is–they want a byline or a book to wave to friends and add to LinkedIn. They want the attention that sometimes comes with having your name printed somewhere.

Far fewer people want to be writers. Writing is hard and time-consuming and sometimes punishing. Writing is work. But is it beautiful, rewarding and important work. And I tell you this–the sisters who do this work are some of the best, most generous, creative, revolutionary spirits I have known. It is a beautiful sisterhood.

Join us.

Write.

Love–Another Black woman with a pen,

Tamara Winfrey-Harris

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About the Author 

Tamara Winfrey-Harris is the author of the just-released Dear Black Girl: Letters from Your Sisters on Stepping into Your Power and The Sisters Are Alright, which won several awards, including the Harlem Book Fair’s Phillis Wheatley Award. Her work also appears in the books The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery and The Lemonade Reader: Beyoncé, Black Feminism and Spirituality, as well as in publications such as the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine, Ebony, the American Prospect, and Ms. magazine. She is also vice president of community leadership and effective philanthropy at the Central Indiana Community Foundation.

Twitter : @whattamisaid

Website: https://www.tamarawinfreyharris.com/

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About Dear Black Girl

“Dear Dope Black Girl, You don’t know me, but I know you. I know you because I am you! We are magic, light, and stars in the universe.” So begins a letter that Tamara Winfrey Harris received as part of her Letters to Black Girls project, where she asked black women to write honest, open, and inspiring letters of support to young black girls aged thirteen to twenty-one. Her call went viral, resulting in a hundred personal letters from black women around the globe that cover topics such as identity, self-love, parents, violence, grief, mental health, sex, and sexuality.

In Dear Black Girl, Winfrey Harris organizes a selection of these letters, providing “a balm for the wounds of anti-black-girlness” and modeling how black women can nurture future generations. Each chapter ends with a prompt encouraging girls to write a letter to themselves, teaching the art of self-love and self-nurturing. Winfrey Harris’s The Sisters Are Alright explores how black women must often fight and stumble their way into alrightness after adulthood. Dear Black Girl continues this work by delivering pro-black, feminist, LGBTQ+ positive, and body positive messages for black women-to-be–and for the girl who still lives inside every black woman who still needs reminding sometimes that she is alright.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing