Celebrating James Baldwin with Quartez Harris

Quartez Harris (00:00):
The younger me is just like, how come no one told you that this could be your future? That words could be your future. No one told me that.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:10):
Welcome to Page Count, presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. This podcast celebrates authors, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, literary advocates, and readers in and from the state of Ohio. I'm your host, Laura Maylene Walter, the Ohio Center for the Book Fellow and author of the novel BODY OF STARS. Today, we're joined by Quartez Harris, the author of GO TELL IT: HOW JAMES BALDWIN BECAME A WRITER, a new picture book illustrated by Gordon C. James that was just released January 7th. We're going to talk about James Baldwin, the writing process, poetry, and a lot more. Quartez, welcome to the podcast and thanks so much for being here.

Quartez Harris (00:52):
Yes, I'm so full of glee, full of so much glee.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:57):
Well, we're really thrilled to have you with this new book that just came out recently. So usually here on Page Count, I ask my guest first about their Ohio connection. So for our listeners who don't yet know you, can you please tell everyone where you're from and how Ohio factors into your life?

Quartez Harris (01:15):
Yes. So I am from a very small town called Springfield, Ohio, and I was born there, raised there, and then I transitioned to Columbus and I essentially spent the rest of my high school time in Columbus and went to college in Columbus. So yeah, and then I did some work in Columbus after I graduated and I sort of ran off to Cleveland to be in closer proximity with my son.

Laura Maylene Walter (01:40):
So this is a big question, but how did you become a writer? What did that journey of finding your voice or desire to be a writer, what did that look like for you?

Quartez Harris (01:50):
I feel like sort of my emergent into writing was very non-linear. I've never regarded or cited myself as a writer up until high school. I mean, prior to that, writing was very difficult. In fact, I had a learning disability and poor reading comprehension and poor writing expression. So writing was in a sense, a point of contention for me. Then I took a William Shakespeare class and that's when I discovered that actually like poem don't have to make sense. They can actually be nonsensical. So there goes my comprehension. I'm like, oh, I don't have to actually comprehend every single line. Then also it occurred to me that poetry was also playful. I love the interplay of imagery and visuals and I don't know, I was just like, language, okay, it belongs to me now. In fact, I was just telling my wife the other day, I said, you know, I had such a hard time, I had to become a poet because I became very sensitive to the possibilities of language in my own life. After all, everyone was saying I couldn't use language, so I had to figure out a way to use language and poetry pretty much opened up this door and I was like, oh, I'm here now. I'm going to make it a home. And it's been a home ever since.

Laura Maylene Walter (02:56):
I love that and I think it's so powerful that you say writing was originally a point of contention for you. You know, we often hear about writers who, oh, I was reading since, you know, I was four years old and I was always obsessed with books. But that's not always the case for all writers. So I think that's really fantastic that you came to it in that way. But you know, Shakespeare, the insults, the word play, the invented words and phrases, I could see that for you as a young poet that's striking a nerve.

Quartez Harris (03:23):
I mean, it was a poetry class. I can't recall. Maybe I had to take the class. I don't know. I don't even know if it was a unit. I don't know. I just, I knew that Shakespeare for me was like the passage of playfulness with language. I knew that, okay, this is fun. This is something that I'm very vested in. So yeah, that was sort of like my doorway into all the many possibilities of writing for my life. So.

Laura Maylene Walter (03:48):
Well, I'll ask a little bit more about your writing at large later in the interview, but I really want to talk about GO TELL IT, which is your first picture book and it is about James Baldwin. And so I'd love to hear about how this book came to be. In the book's end matter you discuss a bit about why you thought a book like this might be necessary based on some of your experiences as a teacher. So I was wondering if you could share that with our listeners. How did you first come upon the idea of working on a picture book about James Baldwin and why did you know that this was a necessary thing for kids?

Quartez Harris (04:23):
I had been reading Baldwin voraciously before I even sort of set out to write this lyrical picture book biography that chronicles a life and legacy of Baldwin. I lived in his novels. I lived in GO TELL IT, but it didn't occur to me that there were no picture book biographies on Baldwin...not until, I mean, I guess I knew intuitively as a educator because I knew like there were picture books on, you know, Harriet Tubman, Dr. King, Rosa Park, Ruby Ridges, Thurgood Marshall. But there were no picture books on Baldwin. Why not Baldwin? But actually a friend of mine, Alicia D Williams, who was just long-listed for the National Book Award for her middle grade novel. And she said, you know, I was going back and forth with my agent on a novel that I, that was in progress. And you know, we were just sort of going back and forth with sort of in the sort of editorial direction.

Quartez Harris (05:14):
We had essentially two different editorial sort of views on the novel, so. And also I was learning how to write a novel. I mean, I'm a poet so I love the economy of language. So writing an extended narrative, it was a bit challenging. So there was lots I needed to learn and I'm still learning. So my friend was like, you know, you should write a picture biography on James Baldwin. It hasn't done yet. I said a what, for who? She said, James Baldwin. So of course I did some digging and it occurred to me that there were no picture book biographies at the time on Baldwin. None whatsoever. And I'm like, wow, you know, this is interesting. And you know, I'm always trying to educate my kids about literary figures. And then after that I remember sharing Baldwin to my students, my second graders and also feeling very like unnerved that there were no picture books that I could reference.

Quartez Harris (06:03):
I was referencing like a video on YouTube. And then that really sort of like, I guess you say, mobilized me to really head in that direction of sort of writing a picture book and tribute to Baldwin. But here's the thing about Baldwin, something that I find fascinating is everyone knows the Baldwin, the adult, you know, there's two Baldwins, there's Baldwin, the adult, there's Baldwin the child. And Baldwin, you know, he has this sort of this autobiographical style of writing. He always referenced his childhood and I'm like, you know what? I want to focus on Baldwin, Jimmy the child, right? The becoming of Baldwin, the kid from Harlem that glittered with letters, right? So sort of the book really centers around Baldwin's childhood. In fact, I stopped intentionally when he makes it to Paris. And that was all intentional and we could talk more about that.

Laura Maylene Walter (06:52):
Yeah, I love that. And I think for kids that can be really powerful and important for them to see this grand literary figure. Like he was a kid, he was a kid who loved to read books, but he was also a kid who had a rough time at home sometimes with his stepfather. A kid who needed to go find his own place in the world and find a, a place where he could have peace. A kid who got made fun of by his classmates for a period of time. So I think that was all really an incredible thing to be able to put in this picture book to show other kids. If I may, I want to just read the very first line of the book. I just think it's so beautiful.

Laura Maylene Walter (07:27):
"The first time James Baldwin read a book, the words clung to him like glitter."

Laura Maylene Walter (07:33):
And glitter is sort of a refrain in the book. Do you want to talk about that a bit? About using glitter as as sort of a cohesive theme?

Quartez Harris (07:42):
Glitter is very much a control metaphor throughout the piece. I'm driven by metaphors. So I wanted to find a metaphor that encapsulates the essence of Baldwin, particularly when I learned about how Baldwin, he would tend to his siblings with one hand and have a book other. He was a voracious reader. In fact, he would read so much, particularly his favorite book, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. He would read it so much that his mom in fact hid the book from him because she was afraid that he would strain his eyes. So when you hear stories about sort of his enchantment with language, it's like, okay, I really need to capture this, but I don't want to have like a straightforward description. You know? Also when I thought about glitter, I thought about a metaphor for his queer identity. You know, I was telling my wife the other day, I said, you know, if a boy comes to school, you know, with glitter on his face, you know, unfortunately that's going to be considered like a non-normative gender expression, right?

Quartez Harris (08:34):
So I wanted to pay homage to his queer identity, his boundless love, right? So I felt like it was a way for me to sort of bend in or sort of include or weave in all of Baldwin's many identities, you know, his identity as a literary kid, but also his identity as a queer person. Also trying to process, you know, his identity of love at a very young age. So yeah, glitter for me when I came up up with that line, I was like, this is it. Also, you know, this picture book is a very poetic picture book. It's a very lyrical picture book. It's intentional...lyrically detailing his life. And I did that intentionally because one, my natural pension is visual writing, but also I learned that Baldwin will use poetry to work out his prose. Baldwin consider himself as a poet, although he was more known as essayist. His writing is very much musical. So glitter is sort of a tribute to Baldwin's love of the poetics of language, but also the magic of language.

Laura Maylene Walter (09:25):
There's such energy on the page with him out in the city and just seeing words like flowing everywhere. I love that. That was really beautiful. And it is, yes, it's a picture book about James Baldwin to teach kids a bit about him, but it is so sophisticated and lyrical and poetic and you can really see how he became the figure he ended up becoming through his young years. Yeah. But the book also touches on some harder moments and so I'm curious what your experience was like framing that for children, for example, when he is beaten by police on the street. And his stepfather, he had a very contentious relationship with his stepfather who only wanted him to read or write about the Bible and nothing else. So how did you do the work of trying to depict the realities and being honest about some of his challenges, but in a picture book that could be accessible for children?

Quartez Harris (10:15):
Yeah, it was a hard endeavor. I'm going to start, begin with his father. In some light I felt like Baldwin's father remind me of my own father. Sort of the anguish that I felt was projected on me. So in that sense I felt like I had so much empathy for Baldwin's sort of sensitivity towards his father's indifference. So that part I felt like just sort of working through my own lived experience and to make peace with it, I had to sort of like really, really connect with that difficult moment on Baldwin's life. And that's the thing, I was trying to figure out how to like contextualize it because Baldwin, very much his father had this rage towards Baldwin's literary interests. And I had a hard time understanding like why, why, I mean all he wanted do was read. And it made me think like this thing is important because it's going to allow or give kids the space to ask hard critical questions.

Quartez Harris (11:11):
Like why would Baldwin's stepfather have so much anger towards Jimmy for wanting to read? Right? I was also fascinated with Baldwin's persistence to keep reading, which in my mind I felt like that persistence will empower young readers to stand up for their passions or their interests for books. When that came across, I had to really figure out a way to paint it so that kids could sort of like live in the emotion but also be sort of transformed in that emotion. And that can be done through empathy. And also you mentioned Baldwin's confrontation with law enforcement. I felt like that has sort of been the relationship between officers and, and you know, the Black community has been a very contentious relationship. For me, it really fascinated me that this is something that Baldwin was sort of wrestling with in that time period. And when I was doing research I was like trying to cross reference and trying to figure out like this actually happened to Baldwin? And the more digging I did, I'm like actually he was assaulted by the police and I didn't want to believe that it was true. I didn't want to believe that young Jimmy sort of was antagonized by law enforcement. It was just a frightening sort of thought, you know? But also I knew that if children read that they'll be deeply hurt, but that scene alone will be instrumental in preparing children to fully participate in social change in this century. So I felt like I had to sort of tell the hard truth because I knew that if I tell the hard truth, young people will ask hard questions and all was all about, you know, the quest of asking questions.

Laura Maylene Walter (12:37):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And there's a line after that moment, I didn't mark it down, but basically that was the first time he understood he could be harmed based on the color of his skin. And I think that is necessary to show him his sort of coming of age as a Black boy at that time or at any time and how that informs his work. Like if you're going to read Baldwin and to understand where he came from as a child and that experience is a formative one. So I thought that was really powerful. And I think also with persistence in the end matter, you have a longer note about Baldwin to provide more context and more information and you talk about his queerness and also about GIOVANNI'S ROOM and how persistent he had to be to publish that novel with queer themes because publishers were worried it would hurt his career. So do you want to talk about that a bit? About the, the end note, his sexuality, and his continued persistence? Because I think that brought it into kind of a fuller picture of him.

Quartez Harris (13:35):
You know, it makes me think about how Baldwin was sort of attacked on many fronts. Baldwin the queer person, Baldwin the Black boy, and all these intersections even GO TELL IT ON A MOUNTAIN is very much wrestling with his queer identity, right? And GIOVANNI'S ROOM is a little bit more explicit. So I felt like I had to write this book in a way where one Baldwin's sort of love for his friends was very central. There was no way I could write this book without alluding to it. So I definitely wanted to make sure that I mentioned in a back matter a little bit more on the nose about like his queerness. But also his queerness is an act of love, right? I knew young people identify with Baldwin's identity and I wanted people to understand like, yeah, Baldwin in a lot of ways he was paving the way for many people who has boundless love. And I knew that GIOVANNI'S ROOM is a representation of that. People in the community always reference Baldwin particularly always referenced, you know, GIOVANNI'S ROOM and it's transformation for a lot of queer people. So I wanted to make sure that young people when they read that they understand that Baldwin is liberating. You love who you love, that articulation is true and it's liberating within itself.

Laura Maylene Walter (14:50):
Well speaking of love, we just talked about a lot of his challenges when he was a boy, but he had some support, a lot of support from his mother. You describe her actually as his first literary advocate, which I really liked. We actually in our intro here at Page Count we say, "for literary advocates" and someone recently asked, did you mean to say literacy advocates? I'm like, well we support that as well of course. But I meant literary advocate, <laugh>. And so, but she definitely was, she supported his reading, she encouraged him to go to the library. What else would you like to say about his relationship with his mother or just the importance of him having some source of support at that young time in his life?

Quartez Harris (15:34):
I've been thinking about this, you know, Baldwin's childhood story is a story of war building and creation, but it's also a story of how none of these things would have been possible without the love and support from his mom. Love and support from his teachers, like Countee Cullen, you know, the love and support of his friends, a friend who introduced him to Beauford Delaney. And Baldwin also said that writing for him was a way for him to be loved. It was all about love. Baldwin talks about how love has never been a popular movement and the love and passion of very few people is what holds this world together. If everyone loved each other, then they would treat children differently. So I think his whole compass is always centered in love and I like to believe that, you know, when I think about the wrath of his father, what really got Baldwin through was his mother's abiding love.

Quartez Harris (16:21):
She knew Baldwin how to write, she knew Baldwin how to write in order to be loved. When a teacher, you know, Bill Miller, who invited you know him into the world of sort of galleries and film, you know, and she knew that was an act of love. And that's why his stepfather had a lot of reservations towards that. But it was Baldwin's mom and Mrs. Berdis Jones who released Baldwin into love. And I think that it's very critical to know that like we know Baldwin. We have a hundred years of Baldwin because of all the love that was poured into him. And honestly as we commemorate his centennial, I feel like Baldwin will be happier of all sort of the love that's being poured into him. Baldwin's very much alive because love is alive and I just love that you know, again, that he had his mother love. I know life was very difficult for Baldwin. Baldwin, you know, suffered in sort of the teeth of racial turbulence. But it was love that got him over and it was love that got him to that mountain.

Laura Maylene Walter (17:22):
What about you, as much as you're open to sharing, who have some of your literary advocates been along the way?

Quartez Harris (17:30):
Wow, so Baldwin, of course <laugh> and let me say one more thing about Baldwin and this is in relation to him being sort of my literary advocate. For me growing up in church was terrifying. I felt like for me it sort of was an experience of fear. And I remember just always being afraid in the church and when I read GO TELL IT, it was like, wow. Like all of this, all of this, all of my many experiences in the church, all of my fears, it can be turned into something. And sort of Baldwin made poems out of all his fears and all of his sort of confrontation. So I feel like Baldwin is my hero because he allowed me to sort of face life in all its many forms. So I definitely want to just highlight that. And another writer that I truly believe is my literary hero is Sharon Draper.

Quartez Harris (18:23):
Honestly, it's, it's her. She entrusted me and she holds me accountable to demanding the best level of my writing. She critiques me in this business. You know, you need people who's going to hold you accountable to your best self as a writer. And she always challenged me to choose my words carefully and to detail my words. I love that I have someone who could offer tough love as it relates to sort of my craft of trying to write language in the world. And my wife, you know, my wife is someone who I champion. I also credit her for expanding my range of reading options. There's a bookcase behind me, it's virtually most of her books and she's always telling me, you know, read this, read that. And so I feel like she expanded sort of my vivid imagery just through all the different suggestions. And it really sort of speaks to the value of practice, reading as practice to sort of shape my writing. So I want to give her the credit. And also my son, my son gives me a lot of like joy as it comes to writing because he likes reading my writing and he also likes giving feedback, which I think is really funny. And I also see that he's sort of mirroring me and he's starting to have an enchantment for words too. And you know, I have a very broad literary ecosystem and I'm grateful for them. We don't have enough time or space to include all the things...

Laura Maylene Walter (19:38):
And you'll be worried you left someone out I'm sure so

Quartez Harris (19:41):
Right. Yeah. But my middle grade novel comes out, the acknowledgement sort of note will be expansive, put it that way.

Laura Maylene Walter (19:48):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And your wife Kortney Morrow also a writer with a picture book coming out, what is it, next year?

Quartez Harris (19:55):
From Penguin Random House.

Laura Maylene Walter (19:57):
Very exciting. But I also wanted to ask about libraries because you mentioned in the book that Baldwin as a child would go to the public library and be able to read and find refuge there. So I'm also curious if you want to talk more about his relationship with libraries and also what your own relationship or connection to libraries has been in your life.

Quartez Harris (20:18):
The library, the 135th Street library was Baldwin's safe haven. In fact, he was encouraged by his teachers to go to the library because they realized by the time he was 12 they realized he had a pension for research and writing. And Baldwin in his words, would go to the library at least three to four times a week. And, and he reports reading every book in our Harlem library. And I think this is fascinating because you know, I think this book also, if anything, anything it will highlight sort of the historical significance of a public library. You know, when I think of a library, I think of the librarian being responsible for the flowering of so many different writers, right? Specifically 135th Street Library, which is in New York. It was actually founded in 1905. And over the span of 10 years during the Great Migration, Black people will actually start visiting sort of this library as a place of refuge.

Quartez Harris (21:14):
And the thing about that is that library in particularly was the first library in New York to integrate a Black staff. And that library was considered sort of like the place to be. They had theater, they had musicals, they had plays, exhibits, art exhibits. And so Baldwin pretty much was part of the continuation of sort of the influence, the esteemed influence of that library. Yeah and I believe his papers were donated in the 135th Street Library. I love the spread of Baldwin sort of plucking stories from the shelves of the library. And I imagine that after young kids are exposed to that, that they too would like to like spend more time in a library to exist in a library to live life in a library. So I'm, I was excited that that made it into the book because the library was very central to the development in the orientation of James Bond's literary mind.

Quartez Harris (22:00):
In terms of my relationship with the library, I love the library. I'm actually at the library probably like three or four days out of the week. I'm lucky because my son's school is right across the street from a library. So I'm there before he gets out of school. And when I pick him up he's like, daddy, let's go to the library! And it's so nostalgic because when he was a kid I always took him to the library, carried him to the library and that's where he met a lot of his friends to this day. And yeah, he's a bookish kid and he likes to spend time in the library. Now the thing is he's a little cool now, so you think he's too cool for books. And the other day at the library, South Euclid-Lyndhurst Library, which is my favorite library because they have The Writing...

Laura Maylene Walter (22:36):
The Writing Center. Yes.

Quartez Harris (22:37):
I'm sure you're familiar with. like wandering aimlessly throughout the library, like he doesn't like literature. And I'm saying you know, you can pick a book from the shelf, right? I know you don't see anybody reading but you can read. And then I was back into The Writing Center, I came back out and he was reading out in the open.

Laura Maylene Walter (22:51):
Nice.

Quartez Harris (22:52):
And I'm like, well wow, wow, wow. But yeah, so writing during my middle school years it was intimidating because again, writing was a point of suffering for me. But once I began to see myself in language and I began to recognize that I too could write poems into the world, library certainly became sort of my second bedroom. So I would spend time in the library pulling books from shelves, reading all the time, checking out books. Now I go to the library just to write. I don't generally check out books as much as I should. I typically buy them. I'm always supporting local bookstores, but it's getting a little expensive. So <laugh> my agent's like you know, it's okay to go check out book at the library. I know because I feel like my bookshelves and my book's sort of reflects my instinct.

Laura Maylene Walter (23:37):
Yeah.

Quartez Harris (23:37):
And reflects where I'm headed.

Laura Maylene Walter (23:38):
Yeah. I always tell people as an author I'm like, you can check my book or any book out of the library because library sales are sales for authors too. Right? And support your library. But yes, it's nice to to own the books and support indie bookstores as well. So I would like to hear about the research process for this book. It sounds like you've done a lot of research. Are there particular biographies or other sources that were most helpful to you when you were working on this and what did your research process look like?

Quartez Harris (24:06):
I was telling my students, because I provide instructional support at Cleveland School of Arts...five days a week for three and a half hours a day. Best time of my life. I love doing it. And I said, you know, yes this book has words. Yes I wrote the book. But I felt like sort of the experience was very much research based. It was very heavily involved with sort of like peeling away at so many biographies. I've essentially read every book Baldwin has written, I believe it's like 22. One of my great sources was the official biography by David Lemming, which is essentially Baldwin's official biography. And he basically was the one who set out and followed Baldwin. And Baldwin basically gifted him sort of the honor, bestowed him the honor of writing his biography. It felt like very much like a primary source because Baldwin granted him like the license really write his life story, his legacy.

Quartez Harris (25:01):
But yeah, a lot of it was very much just reading a lot of his own works and a lot of different books that covered Baldwin. I dug into so many books, in fact actually I call it empirical evidence, meaning like I actually went to the place that Baldwin resided. Me and my wife flew all the way to Paris, believe it or not. We went to some of the cafes he spent some time in, we went to Nice, you know, the cobblestone castle where he, I think he lived his last 10 years and purchased his first property. So we actually saw his dictionary. There's like sort of an exhibit where it's his dictionary, his typewriter and it's in the backyard of Nice, off the Mediterranean Sea. Heard stories of people, much older now, but Baldwin have sort of like these dinner parties in the village. It was like a tiny little villa. We saw his villa. But yeah, a lot of biographies, a lot of primary sources reading his own words, a lot of online searching. So it was very much heavily involved. And also, you know, I watched a lot of videos of Baldwin. It's so funny 'cause now when I'm on YouTube and I'm like looking up all the videos from Baldwin or looking for a video of Baldwin, I've seen them all.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:02):
You're the expert. You are. Yeah.

Quartez Harris (26:03):
But the thing is is like I wrote a picture book about Baldwin but the research doesn't end. I'm still learning about Baldwin. I just learned that Baldwin played a guitar when he was a young person. I did not know that. Right? I learned a little bit more about, I wish I would've included this in the book more. Sort of his time writing book reviews. Almost like his first career. You know, there are some gaps in the book but particularly that time period where, yeah he was working odd jobs but there's also a period where he was writing, he was basically writing reviews of books or sort of articulating like the blight of the Black experience and being challenged to articulate the books you were reading. I wish I would've spent a little bit more time researching that. But yeah, I'm, there's so much I'm learning, I'm continue to learn and it's been fascinating

Laura Maylene Walter (26:47):
And you know, man, the best parts of being a writer, not always the most realistic but the best if you, you know, have to go to Paris and Nice to do research. So I'm really glad you were able to do that. That is amazing. What an experience to see where he was.

Quartez Harris (27:00):
Right. And one more thing I have to share that I learned after the book was published. So I mean I guess I knew it vaguely based on my research, but like the details that Baldwin wrote, he was I think 12 years old when he saw himself in a publication. His first publication was in a church newspaper and he wrote about the Spanish Revolutionary War. Right. And it was censored by someone in church who was upset about it. And it made me realize because Baldwin's favorite book was TALE OF TWO CITIES and UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. And UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, during the 20th century, it actually was, I think, it was like the second most popular book outside the Bible. And the thing that Baldwin was reading that at like 12...11. So it makes sense when you think about sort of like Baldwin's sort of social political style of writing and his social sort of construct and how he's able to articulate, you know, racial turbulence and racial tension. And he was doing it at a very young age and he was always debating about sort of racial related issues. And it's like, oh it formed his writing practice. So I'm excited that there's still so much to learn about Baldwin.

Laura Maylene Walter (28:06):
And it's just so fascinating that that was always in him in a way, right? And ready for him to develop it through his readings. Well you mentioned earlier that it takes a long time for a book to be born, which is very true. So this is your first picture book. So what can you tell us about the writing process? What surprised you about it or what challenged you? What was your process for working on this book?

Quartez Harris (28:28):
You know, the process for me was trying to write a lyrical picture book but also trying to balance it with pockets for interpretation. You're writing this sort of visual book but you also want to make sure that the story of Baldwin is clear, right? And you want to make sure it's also accessible for young people, right. Because there are a number of turn of phrases. So the pulse is very much poetic, but I wanted to make sure like I have points of anchor knowing when to use more of a straightforward sentence and knowing when to sort of like twist that sentence, you know. So that was hard because the early draft was very much more lyrical...lyrically sort of driven then the final draft. Yeah so that part for me was very challenging. Trying to sort of write a simple sentence. Because you know, I'm, I'm reading biographies and generally they're very decorative, they're very straightforward.

Quartez Harris (29:23):
But I also trust children's imagination. You know when I talk to children they're so poetic and I'm like I'm just going to just trust children that if they come across a lyrical line that seems a little bit ambiguous, that's an opportunity for them to sort of imagine. Have an experience of glitter in their mind. Not just necessarily feel like they have to understand...to come to this book and I have to understand line by line but that they actually can see Harlem, that they can see glitter, they can see the church, you know, they can see the cop cars and the police lights. You know, that they can see through their own view. Right. So that was challenging but I think I did okay because I have a four-star review. <laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (30:05):
<Laugh>. You did wonderfully, yeah. And by the way, listeners we're recording this before the book has officially come out. It will air after the book is out and by the time this airs, everyone will already know how amazing and how well reviewed it is. What was your revision process like or the editing process? Did you work really closely with the editor over time? What was that like for this book?

Quartez Harris (30:26):
Oh yeah, this book's very much in tandem with my editor at Little, Brown. My editorial letter, it was like 14 pages. I'm like wait, wait a minute, for a picture book? A baby book. You know, my editor had this reframe and the reframe was, I'm just making it a better version than it already is. And certainly she helped me to make it a better version than it already is. It was very heavily edited. My editor offered a lot of suggestions, conceptual making sure sort of like the beats were in a very more a succinct order. Making sure that I'm fleshing out certain scenes that was a little bit too abstract, right. Really also helping me to that point of trying to figure out how to write a lyrical picture book that is also a bit decorative tooo. She helped me to work through that. That was a very, very difficult process for me.

Quartez Harris (31:16):
One thing I found that was part of the editorial process for me was trying to figure out how much I should share about his dad. I didn't want to make the book bleak, but Baldwin tend to reference sort of that period in his life and he talks about how I wrote so much about my father and not enough. So I was trying to find a balance of like the tension and the love and I feel like the dad, stepfather, and mom, you know, it was like this dichotomy and I had to figure out a way they can sort of like balance each other. They helped me to do that. And they also helped me to sort of like place the concept this controlled metaphor of glitter. Am I using too much glitter? Like when should I actually allow glitter to have an identity on the page?

Quartez Harris (31:57):
So it was very conceptual, very extensive long line editing process which took forever. I thought when we came to completion I was done but then I kept getting like feedback from the copy editor like, are you sure about this? Can you consider this change? You know, so it was a bit surprising the editorial process because it was very rigorous. When I see books now I chuckle a little bit. Like I know the process now <laugh>. But that makes sense why this book has so many different acknowledgements! Because many people's hands and eyes exist on the page.

Laura Maylene Walter (32:27):
Yeah, I'm glad you shared all that because a lot of people who aren't writers or who don't know, they assume a picture book would be easy to write because it has few words but that is far from the case. When you have so few words and you're trying to paint this full picture of a famous figure's life and do it justice but also be something that kids want to engage with. I mean that is hard. That is really tough.

Quartez Harris (32:50):
I'm asking myself this question like how, how do you take a figure who is as esteemed and grand as Baldwin and distill it down to like a 15, 16 page spread? You know, like how do you fold someone as great as Baldwin into like a book, right? So I've made peace with the fact that there is a lot of points, moments in Baldwin's life that I wasn't able to make into the book, right? But I felt like I captured the essence. But trying to sort of capture the essence requires an editorial campaign, almost like an editorial team to ensure that Baldwin is being highlighted and the best of Baldwin is being highlighted in this picture book so that young people can fully experience the vibrancy of Baldwin's legacy.

Laura Maylene Walter (33:34):
Well said. So let's talk about the art a little bit. The art is by Gordon C. James. And I know as an author of a picture book you don't necessarily have any input on the art or that's not, it's not really a collaboration where you're going back and forth with the artists. The publishers tend to keep the artists and the writers separate. But I'm curious what this experience was like for you when you first saw the art, how did you react? It's a gorgeous book. So what was it like for you to see your words being brought to life through the illustration or the paintings? I believe they were oil on board is what the art is.

Quartez Harris (34:07):
Let me first try to describe my first reaction. When I found out that Gordon C. James, the acclaimed, award-winning, real fine artist was interest in painting Baldwin in color. It was a dream. One of the things I would do as a classroom teacher is this concept called interactive read aloud where I began a day with a picture book and you know, I would read a book in advance and then sort of compose these questions and I had these like pre composed questions and then asked questions. I would ground in the text to sort of prompt kids to think critically about what we were reading. But we were always reading Gordon's work and rereading Gordon's work. You know, I AM EVERY GOOD THING. CROWN. Right? Like those two books were like affirmations for my classroom. And it never occurred to me that in my future Gordon C. James will be my illustrator.

Quartez Harris (34:57):
It never occurred to me that one day in my lifetime that my pencil and my words will come together with Gordon's paintbrush to ensure that Baldwin has reflected in the canon of children's literature. So when I found out that he wanted to paint Baldwin for me <laugh> and paint my words, it was just a dream come true. In terms of sort of my input, you are right. I had very little input but also trust Gordon. The thing is, when I completed the book or was working towards completion, my editor sent me a list of 10 prospective illustrators and there were debut illustrators and there were seasoned illustrators. And I knew that I wanted Gordon's paint his impressionism because thing about Gordon, his paint feels nostalgic. You can see the texture of Gordon's paint. And I felt like, okay, if I can get Gordon, we can take a time travel like we will go back to the 20th century and experience Baldwin and exist in Harlem, the grittiness of Harlem.

Quartez Harris (35:56):
We will see the things Baldwin saw, we will hear the things, Baldwin will hear: the church, the libraries, you know. And I knew that Gordon could do that. His painting looks very archival and I knew like this would be a timeless text. So I was just waiting to see the sketches and then I saw sketches...and it's interesting because there's a contrast between the sketches and the paint. You know, you have a sketch in your head of how it's going to look based on the sketches, but then when he coats it with paint and it's like wait this is two different books. It was cool to see like the evolution. I think he did a phenomenal job. Honestly, I'm looking at this book right now and I'm like, I couldn't have gotten a better illustrator.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:35):
Yeah, it is amazing. Yeah, his painting it, it gives movement almost to every page. Yeah. It's really special. This is a dream project, man. You get to write about Baldwin and have Gordon C. James do the artwork for it. What a, what a dream.

Quartez Harris (36:48):
I'm lucky <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:49):
So this is a fairly big question, but what do you hope when the book comes out, what do you hope kids will take from it? And also what do you think your child self might have thought of this book if it landed in your hands?

Quartez Harris (37:03):
Wow. You know, I'm always thinking what would it be like by the time young people leave elementary, they know who Baldwin is. I think far too long, so many young people went to school and flipped through pages of picture books and never saw Baldwin's face. So I think this is long overdue. There still isn't enough Baldwin picture books. There's two minds and another, and I know because the life that people celebrate generally the adult Baldwin. But I know children will celebrate his childhood. Baldwin had a difficult childhood, but Baldwin also had a bookish childhood. And I think Baldwin represents the possibilities and the power of literature. Baldwin didn't go to college, Baldwin went to books. He lived and breathed through books and you know, not every kid's going to go to college. But that does not mean that they don't have an opportunity to develop their facility with language.

Quartez Harris (37:59):
That does not mean that language doesn't belong to them. Language is for them too, whether they go to college or not. And it's so funny because people assume and they think of sort of his intellectual mind. They, they always assume he went to college. But I'm like, he went to the library. He went to the library. So I believe that when kids really dive and and explore this picture book, they would develop a similar relationship with words. The words that clung to Baldwin will certainly clinging to them. I think that they'll develop more of a love for language and I truly, truly believe that, words would be cool. It'll be considered cool. Because if you think about this famous acclaimed world renowned writer, his life is only possible through books. He was born through language and he still exists in language and his voice still reverberates and he's still present through his letters.

Quartez Harris (38:49):
And like I've been telling myself, and I'm going to be telling the world when I go on tour that you know, we have a hundred years of Baldwin and that means we have a hundred years of his letters and his letters are still changing the world. In terms of the, the younger me, the younger me is still baffled. The younger me is a little confused. The younger me is sort of surprised. The younger me is very tearful because again, like I don't think people understand sort of the scope of the stigmatism that I experienced. Having a learning disability, being self-contained, being in all non-standardized classrooms. The only classroom I would exist in that I felt was normal was art, was gym, was music, was specials and I was considered special. But the type of special that gets sort of, you know, ridiculed, right? It never occurred to me that one day my life will function through words.

Quartez Harris (39:39):
And now that I'm functioning through language, you know, I'm grounded in gratitude because my life doesn't make sense. But then again it does, right? Two things can be true at once. The younger me is just like, how come no one told you that this could be your future? That words could be your future. No one told me that. In fact, people told me I will never be able to function through language. So the younger me is like proud. But he is also surprised and shocked and confused, right? This book is giving me peace because I, you know, I, I carry that baggage of having a learning disability for a long time. And it still sometime makes the writing process a little challenging because every time I write a poem, I write a new body of work, I'm like, can I do it again? Will my brain let me do it again? But I think what has happened and it gives me peace. And I feel like I can rest in my brain now that I can do it again. And that's why I have two more books in progress, <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:28):
Yes. And that's a perfect segue into my next question, which is, you mentioned the middle grade novel that is in progress, but what would you like to tell us about your future projects in the works?

Quartez Harris (40:37):
Yeah, you know, Baldwin, and I'm going to make this connection to Baldwin, then I'm going to bring it back. Baldwin said, in order for him to write another novel, he had to write GIOVANNI'S ROOM. He didn't say that about GO TELL IT. He was working on GO TELL IT for 10 years. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUTAIN for 10 years. But he said that about GGIOVANNI'S ROOM because that novel became sort of his source of being centered in his own life. And I know for me, in order for me to write any book at all, I have to write this novel. So this novel, it spells out all the themes and all the sort of complications I mentioned that I experienced being an IEP kid. And its about a kid, you know, who essentially has learning disability. I'm not going to go into like the details of it, but it's loosely based on my life. But also it sort of encompasses a lot of kids who have IEPs and how they deal with astigmatism and how they get to a place where they realize that having divergent mind means you have a gifted mind. So that book will be a tribute to that. And then I have another picture book that's in progress. Right now the developing theme is all about the excitement of having a classroom that feels different and embracing a real classroom. So yeah, we'll see.

Laura Maylene Walter (41:41):
Congratulations on those upcoming books and on GO TELL IT. It's just all very exciting. And here in Cleveland, we're all thrilled for you. Do you have a certain bookstore you like to recommend people purchase GO TELL IT?

Quartez Harris (41:55):
Oh yeah. Mac's Backs my friends, I love them. In fact, Mac's Backs, they've been rocking with me before I discovered that I actually could write because when I was writing I didn't think I could write. No, I think I'm okay <laugh>. You know, before I even, it occurred to me that I have a literary future. When I go to Mac's Backs, I feel like I'm going to a friend's house and the ThirdSpace Reading Room. Now it's filled with this lush, you know, decorum, but before that it was just white walls. And now I get to see that it's beautiful, vibrant, space with books and sort of silk furniture and it's an amazing place to be. So if you haven't been there, please check out ThirdSpace Reading Room. It's great.

Laura Maylene Walter (42:28):
Good recommendation for our listeners. Well, you're also a poet, of course. Your collection, we made it to school alive. And so I thought it might be nice for us to end with some poetry today. So you said you've prepared a poem that you would like to read for us, so please take it away.

Quartez Harris (42:47):
So I'm going to read a few poems. Okay, so I'm going to read a poem entitled "Brief":

Quartez Harris (42:53):
Sending my son off to school is like untangling my clothes from his. And even now as he grows older, like memories stepping further into the fog, it doesn't get any easier. And there is so much to be afraid of and thankful for. And when I pick him up from the fringe of school, even that is some kind of miracle. And the point is, once my son said goodbye before exiting the backseat of my dented car. And I was scared to watch him walk into school. And I looked ahead as a cleft of rain slowly dotted the windshield and I drove quietly to the gym and a father with a bright gum smile, held up his phone in a warm wet locker room to someone I did not know. And he said, this is my son. And it was a good time, good time. And that someone asked the blush faced father, will he see him again? And he said, absolutely. Absolutely. And I thought we are the same. And I only have this one lifeline to love my son. And our brief car ride to school became so much sweeter.

Quartez Harris (44:04):
And I have a poem entitled "Alive":

Quartez Harris (44:08):
Shoes sprawled across the floor. Stefan blows bubbles across the classroom. They disperse into glitter. Children dive into bean bags as if they are plastic pools. Marshawn stands on his desk, he tries to grab a cloud or two. Michelle, Cadence play hide and seek under their desk. My God, my Black students are alive.

Quartez Harris (44:34):
And one of my favorite poems entitled "Butterfly in the Flesh":

Quartez Harris (44:38):
Somewhere a butterfly settles near a herd of boys flowering. They draw closer, the butterfly doesn't flutter, they raise their hands to prove they're unarmed. Hundreds of mahogany colored butterflies burst out of them like lightning joining hands with fireworks. Only God seemed to notice this glitz because in the beginning he said, let there be light. And a butterfly boy as Black as beginning appeared in the flesh.

Quartez Harris (45:09):
Thank you guys for listening.

Laura Maylene Walter (45:12):
Quartez, thank you so much for sharing your poems with us. And I love how the second one had glitter in it, right? We're bringing it right back to the glitter of Baldwin.

Quartez Harris (45:20):
Yes!

Laura Maylene Walter (45:21):
Thank you so much for taking the time today to speak with us. Thank you for such a thoughtful, dare I say glittery conversation and discussion about Baldwin and your work. And of course, GO TELL IT, your new picture book, which we're also excited for. So listeners go read, go tell it. And Quartez, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Quartez Harris (45:41):
Thank you all for listening to my story and Jane Baldwin story too, <laugh>. Thank you!

Laura Maylene Walter (45:55):
Page Count is presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review for Page Count wherever you get your podcast. Learn more online or find a transcript of this episode at ohiocenterforthebook.org, follow us on Instagram @ohiocenterforthebook or find us on Facebook. If you'd like to get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org and put 'podcast' in the subject line. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks for another chapter of Page Count.