Literary Screening: American Fiction with Literary Cleveland

Matt Weinkam (00:00):
I thought you were going to mention the moment where he says like, "I'm a doctor, too," and his brother says, "Okay, we'll call you if we need to revive a sentence."<laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (00:06):
Yes! Revive a sentence.

Michelle Smith (00:07):
I didn't remember that one, but I was like, oh, that was great. Yeah.

Matt Weinkam (00:10):
That's a good one.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:15):
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. All right, listeners, welcome to a new series on page count called Literary Screening, where I invite a guest to watch and chat about a movie focusing on a writer or the writing life. Today, we're joined by Matt Weinkam, Executive Director of Literary Clevland, and Michelle Smith, Programming Director at Literary Cleveland, to discuss the film AMERICAN FICTION as well as the publishing industry, satire, book festivals, Percival Everett, literary community and nonprofits, and a lot more. Matt and Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Matt Weinkam (01:12):
Such an honor.

Michelle Smith (01:13):
Thank you for having us.

Laura Maylene Walter (01:16):
You know, I'm a fan of Literary Cleveland and I've been involved in literary Cleveland for years and we'll get to some questions about your work there a little bit later. But let's start with AMERICAN FICTION. I believe Matt was the one to first suggest we talk about AMERICAN FICTION, which I am delighted to do because it was one of my favorite new movies in recent years. But just some quick background for listeners in case anyone hasn't seen it yet. AMERICAN FICTION is a 2023 film based on the novel ERASURE by Percival Everett, which was published in 2001. The film was written and directed by Cord Jefferson. It surrounds Thelonious Monk Ellison, an academic and an intellectual, if not widely known, novelist, whose latest book is rejected for not being quote- unquote "Black enough" at a book festival. He discovers a splashy new bestseller that is wildly popular despite being, as I think Monk himself would call it, pandering trash. In a fit of late-night, liquor-fueled frustration, Monk writes an over-the-top novel stuffed with reductive stereotypes about Black life, which garners a huge book deal. The film stars Jeffrey Wright as Monk, along with a lot of great actors like Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, John Ortiz, and many others. Okay <laugh>, after that intro, I want to hear from both of you. Maybe the first time you encountered this film, or the book, if you read the book first. But tell us about where and when you saw the film and what you can remember about your initial reaction to it.

Michelle Smith (02:51):
I was thrilled to see it. I can't remember what movie I was in when I saw the preview, but knowing that they were going to make a Percival Everett book into a movie was really exciting. And then to know it was this one, I was intrigued and surprised <laugh> that this was the one. And then Jeffrey Wright I thought was sort of perfectly cast and so I was really excited. So I went with my partner and we were like, you know, front and center and ready to sort of have this sort of, you know, intellectual slash creative adventure and were, I think just like really impressed with how well the adaptation was executed. Also charmed by it because it has this strangely huge heart to it. I think it is a very smart movie, but it is also, it's got a lot of feelings. It's about family and it is about community and about friendship and about loss and about grief. It was really interesting to see how it balanced both things. And so it made this very sort of timely and very incisive cultural commentary and critique, but at the same time told this story, this very human story, and I thought it did a really brilliant job of that. You know, it was like a two thumbs up <laugh>. It's different from the book and I think I was interested to see how it differed from the book and I thought that the choices that were made made a lot of sense. But yeah, I loved it.

Matt Weinkam (04:23):
Yeah, I caught this when it came out and it was sort of in conversation as part of the sort of award season discussion and that made it a really interesting time to view it because so much of the movie as well as the book has to do with judging art <laugh>. And so there was a bit of a hall of mirrors quality to watching at that time. I had not, when I first saw it, read ERASURE, I'd read other Percival Everett, but since have gone back to read the book too. And so going in reverse, although I knew something about the book, was surprised...well, not surprised, I was excited to find the book a little bit wilder of a beast, stranger and sharper and more abrasive in ways that were sort of exciting. And so it reminded me a little bit that in some ways, especially lately, it feels like we've lost the argument that art should provoke and so much more art is comfort now, which in the world we understand <laugh> that maybe we need more comfort and less provoking. But I missed a little bit of that in the movie, even though I think it opens up such great discussions about the representation trap for Black writers. You know, so much I laughed about the world of writers and academia and publishing is just hilarious. So I enjoyed it but I was a little mixed on it and I think I appreciate it more on the rewatch.

Laura Maylene Walter (05:45):
I mean we can talk about the book a bit now in the beginning since you both mentioned it. I also read ERASURE, I mean clearly a film is a different thing. It's so much smaller than a book in a lot of ways. You can't fit everything into a film that you can fit into a book, clearly, and especially Percival Everett's kind of writing. But I was intrigued by two things. One, I think the film really boiled down to the essence of this literary satire and his journey with the book. But also the film softened a lot, especially with the family. I think like Lorraine, the housekeeper, in the film is such a lovely, like warm surrogate mother. The mother has early stage Alzheimer's in the film, but Lorraine is so much harsher <laugh> in the book. And also the sister, how she dies is very different in the book, dying of homicide in the book because she works as a doctor in an abortion clinic or a women's health clinic. I don't know if you want to talk about that. What did you think about that with the sister's death, which happens quite abruptly in the film, she has a heart attack?

Michelle Smith (06:45):
I think it was an update, you know what I mean? I think at the time that he wrote that how the sister died in the book was much more likely. I don't know that that happens as frequently or as regularly as it was happening then. So I think it was sort of an update or it could just be because like you said, it was sort of like two movies and so that feeds much more into that softer, warmer, like you said, more cuddly family drama part of it with the softening of Lorraine and even the softening of Monk. Cause even the later scenes where he is on the jury and they're judging the book and he sort of has the conversation with Issa Rae where he's sort of very subtly confronting her about what he, I think, perceives as the hypocrisy of how she feels about the book that he's written and the book that she's written.

Michelle Smith (07:37):
He isn't taking nearly as hard of a line as he does in the book. In the book. He's really harsh, really critical, really unapologetic and even the way that they depict his writing, how sort of high, you know, highbrow and convoluted. So all of it I think is sort of brought to a place to make it all I think a little bit more accessible, a little bit more understandable. So if you are not of the world of academia, if you're not of the world of publishing, you can still kind of understand what's going on. And I think the book is one where you can get it, but it probably means a little bit more, hits a little bit harder and is even maybe a little bit funnier to you if you are an academic or you are a writer and you have sort of gone through publishing a book and doing the festivals and appearances.

Matt Weinkam (08:30):
I agree with that. And Laura, I think you're right that movies are really short stories and novels are more like limited series where you can go down avenues and directions. And so think about if you were revising ERASURE to be a short story, you'd have to lose a lot to make it work. And so that's sort of the exercise there. And so I understand that like the sister working in an abortion clinic is going to raise a lot of stuff that you're not going to have time to address in a film or in a short story. But it also makes that much less political and much less, again, the sharp edge on contemporary society. And I think that spills over into the book as well. Like the book that he writes in ERASURE, you get like 70 pages of it, it's just dropped in there and you don't see the writing process, you just see the book. And the book is so much more offensive than it's in the movie.

Laura Maylene Walter (09:23):
Yeah. <Laugh>

Matt Weinkam (09:24):
Like outrageously. The version, forgive me, the version in the novel ERASURE is more like 60%, 70% rape. Like it's just so in your face about it. Whereas how it's rendered in the movie is more like a melodramatic scene between <laugh>, a father and son. So like the movie is being a lot kinder to you as a viewer than the book is to you as a reader, I think.

Michelle Smith (09:51):
But it also makes it harder for you to place it in the tradition because if you don't get that novel within the novel, then you can't identify it with NATIVE SON in the way that you can if you read that novel within the novel. Because you can recognize that, right? If you've read NATIVE SON, then you know what you're reading, you know that this is sort of a modern or postmodern or meta modern rendering of that. If you've seen BOYS IN THE HOOD and all those other movies. So there are all these other pieces of art that if you get to actually read MY PAFOLOGY in the book, you can see the threads. And like you said Matt, it's not as apparent, it's boiled down to that one scene about the absent father. It works in the movie because if you think about movie tropes from seeing of Black movies, that's one of the most recognizable movie tropes. But the sort of misogynistic way that the women are treated in the novel that does have a history in writing by men. But like again, it's really hard to play on screen without everything that a novel allows you to do to contextualize it. It would be a whole other movie, maybe not even a movie that anybody would have the balls to make.

Laura Maylene Walter (11:05):
Right. And I think even if the film is sort of a more palatable, it's more toned down, I don't necessarily mean that as a criticism because I think it's really successful at what it does. And and like for example, with the sister dying of homicide in the book, I know someone who had a criticism with that in the film thought it would be so much more interesting if she died that way in the film too. But I feel like that would be such a distraction because then I'd want to follow that thread...it's so big.

Michelle Smith (11:33):
You couldn't have moved past it quickly. And I don't think we would've forgiven it if they had moved past it right. As quickly as they moved past a heart attack, which we just accept that she's a workaholic, she had a heart attack, we kind of just absorbed that we get that, right? Versus then we want a courtroom drama.

Laura Maylene Walter (11:47):
Yeah, exactly. It's a whole different thing. So I saw this first in the theater and I went with my husband and I remember in terms of toning things down or not toning things down, I remember at the beginning with the academics like fighting, like having their little genre wars and their sniping, and then there's the book festival where Monk is on a panel at a book festival where almost no one is there. It's really bleak. And I was like cringing in my seat the whole thing in the beginning I just recognized so much of the writing world and my experiences. And my husband leaned over in the book festival scene and he whispered, "Hey, I've been to book festivals with you where you sat on author panels, and yours were better attended than that <laugh>."

Michelle Smith (12:26):
Like, thank you so much!

Laura Maylene Walter (12:28):
Thank you, that makes me feel better. You're right, you're right.

Michelle Smith (12:31):
That's right.

Laura Maylene Walter (12:31):
Yeah, it's just, for writers, I feel like this movie, there's...oh my gosh.

Michelle Smith (12:36):
I think my favorite thing is when he was like, "Your books are in airport bookstores <laugh>." And that was like an insult. But his colleague was like, outraged. But even in the classroom where, you know, he put the title of the Flannery O'Connor short story up, and the student who had the issue with it was a white student, and she was adamant and she was like, "I am offended." And he was like, "If I could get over it, you can get over it."

Laura Maylene Walter (13:08):
Yeah..."With all due respect, if I got over it, I think you can."

Michelle Smith (13:12):
The fact that like he ended up essentially in the principal's office. As a Black professor I was cracking up because you know, I'm an Xer who's raising a Z, and when I was teaching, when I was adjuncting, I had Ys, and I was like, oh that has definitely <laugh> happened. We've definitely, definitely heard several versions of that. And he's like, "when did they all get so fragile?" <laugh> And so even that part, just that slight little slice of academic life where I felt was like so right on time, so accurate. All of those adults with all those different sensibilities on the stage at one time and how they all sort of process race and how that clash happens in publishing and in academia, right? And how we're all having to deal with it.

Laura Maylene Walter (14:01):
Yeah. And I think opening the film with that scene in the classroom and we'll get to the end later, but you know, and then the representation issue of being a Black author in today's publishing landscape. I also wrote down the line I really liked when his novel, so his actual novel, the one he cares about, is rejected by the latest publisher, and his agent says that they want more of a Black book. And Monk says, "They have a Black book, I'm Black, and it's my book." But of course what the publisher seems to be referring to is...Issa Rae plays Sintara Golden, an author, I love Issa Rae. And her book that he discovers at the festival is so painfully titled, WE'S LIVES IN DA GHETTO. I can't even say that while looking at either of you <laugh>.

Michelle Smith (14:49):
I think the funniest thing is that that the rendering of vernacular is so incorrect.

Laura Maylene Walter (14:56):
<Laugh>Well she's an Oberlin girl, she went to Oberlin.

Michelle Smith (15:00):
Right? So it's how weirdly age historical and acultural it is anyway, because like, there is a grammar to the vernacular. Which is always a dead giveaway if you're a vernacular speaker and somebody's speaking it to you and you're like, you don't speak the vernacular <laugh>. And so like you said, "We's lives in da ghetto" is not how <laugh> it's not, you know...so it's really funny just that little bit of satire is that rendering of vernacular is wrong, and it's the way you would expect somebody outside of the culture to depict that. But they're doing it. They are Black people doing that. So it's like this weird mimicry of your own culture because you're performing it for somebody else. That's how you have to perform it. But I feel like that's accurate. I feel like they're touching on something where it's like even when you're Black performing Blackness, you still have to perform it in a way that's inauthentic because of people's expectations.

Michelle Smith (16:01):
They have these very rigid expectations of what Blackness is. So you have Monk making the choice to be like, this is the type of Black I am, so I'm going to write that. And then you have Sintara, who we learn later is like, "This is what they want. Yeah. And so I'm not going to make it about me, it's really about them. And I will write that in order to have a career in order to make money." And thinking about are these the only two positions? Are there a range of others in between? But just a really interesting kind of debate that they have.

Matt Weinkam (16:37):
This is where I'm wondering if the movie could have updated the book in some ways, because from what I understand, ERASURE was in some ways...you know, MY PAFOLOGY is a sort of satire of PUSH by Sapphire written in vernacular, meant to be full of every kind of trauma that you can imagine. And it's not that white mainstream publishing has moved on from seeking out and consuming and profiting off of Black trauma. It just seems to have shifted the kind that it's interested in that like I don't think we see as much of that kind of novel anymore. Now the contemporary version might be more about microaggressions. Yeah. Like it might be about every kind of lead in a more middle-class professional setting or academic setting that you are slighted and undermined and stereotyped in all those ways, which is a very different kind of trauma than the one that's being described here. Even though, again, publishing is still seeking out and consuming those in the same ways that maybe it was in the past.

Laura Maylene Walter (17:43):
I also appreciate how we're all being very polite and calling the fictional book in this film MY PAFOLOGY instead of ...<Laugh>.

Michelle Smith (17:50):
Yeah. <laugh>

Matt Weinkam (17:52):
What kind of podcast is this, Laura? What kind of podcast are we on?

Laura Maylene Walter (17:54):
That word has been on this podcast before. I could mark it "explicit," but it just seems really weird on this podcast.

Matt Weinkam (18:00):
I remember reading or listening to an interview with Cord Jefferson, the director and person who adapted the book for the movie, that when he adapted the script he sent it around Hollywood with the F word is just the title.

Michelle Smith (18:14):
<Laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (18:15):
Amazing.

Matt Weinkam (18:16):
Because he knew it was more likely to jump out of the pile of scripts they had to read if it was going to be sort of in your face. Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (18:23):
Interesting. Well Michelle, you mentioned the moment with Issa Rae, or Sintara Golden, it's sort of the big, I think one of the big moments of the film when Monk and Sintara get into a confrontation. So I thought we should talk about that moment because I was really fascinated. I read that Cord Jefferson said that when he was writing that scene, and after he wrote that scene between them, when Sintara is arguing, "I'm giving the market what it wants, that's not my problem, like this is what they want," and Monk is arguing that this is pandering and it's wrong and it's bad, that Cord Jefferson said that he wasn't even sure at the end of all that which person's side he was on. Like each could have like a valid argument. So I thought that was really interesting. What did both of you think about that moment and Sintara Golden kind of defending what her book is doing in the world?

Michelle Smith (19:11):
I think that ambivalence that he felt is sort of represented in how that conversation goes. I don't think there's a clear winner, right? I don't think that he tilts it to Monk or Sintara. I remember watching that scene and thinking, okay, this is the point at which we get both kind of philosophies. Because if you go into African American section in any bookstore, me and my friends used to always say there's was this book, I don't know at what point it was out, but it was like Real Men Cry In the Dark, and there was like this man in a tear. Or it would be like My Mom was a Crackhead, or there would be like these books that were of that ilk, and then there'd be like Toni Morrison. <laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (20:04):
<Laugh> Like, wait a minute...

Michelle Smith (20:04):
And as a poet and an English teacher and an English major, I would always be like, I want to be that kind of writer, not that kind of writer. But my dad is a lawyer, and a lover of money, and would always be like, you know what, you need to want to be *that* kind of writer <laugh> not that kind of writer.

Laura Maylene Walter (20:25):
You want to be the airport writer <laugh>.

Michelle Smith (20:27):
Yeah, you want to be the airport. The gift shop writer. You know, my dad would be like, you want to sell books? You know, my dad's argument would be, doesn't it make more sense to write what people can read and understand what does it mean to get the opportunity to write and write books that are puzzles or ciphers, or write books that people back up from, or write books that are only read by grad students? He had a whole thing and I was like, no, you want to write books that are like the canonical, and then they last. And you know, more than anything, I was like, I have to think about what I want my name on. You know, and then my dad was like, write it under another name. <Laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (21:09):
<Laugh> He's really trying to angle for you to...

Michelle Smith (21:11):
<Laugh> I think it is the idea of what are you writing for? Who are you writing for? And it's the idea of, I guess, maybe lineage and heritage and legacy. But it's also the idea of like, if you are writing as a Black person and you do get this opportunity, there are these other obligations you have. If you are in a community, in a family, in a system, in a structure where money is maybe not accessible, not available, and now you can possibly make money, you can have a movie adaptation, you can get a Netflix deal, you can do something like that. And so is Sintara wrong for writing the book that is going to get the Netflix deal, is going to get the movie made, is going to get the money and then bring that money back to who knows, right? Her family, her community. So it's a little bit more complicated than it is depicted in the book. I know as a Black person bringing all the understanding I have about what it means to be a Black person with an opportunity to it, I was like, I get it on either side.

Matt Weinkam (22:13):
There's the that sort of audience you're writing for and the market. The other analogy I loved in the movie is the Johnny Walker Red Label versus, like...there's a choice in whether you're sort of appealing to what people are looking for. You're trying to make something more refined. And there's also the question of like that she's bringing up in that scene of authenticity that she, even though it's not her experience, she did a bunch of research and interviewed people. And so there's a difference between like the work in theory that she put in for her book and him just making stuff up. And maybe one of the things is she's sensing that in authenticity in what he was writing. But then the third thing that she says is like white writers who write this kind of way, I don't get the same kind of blowback, although I would quibble with her choice of Brett Easton Ellis and Charles Bukowski as the example. Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (23:03):
Those were weird choices.

Matt Weinkam (23:04):
Not who I would list for that. I think that point stands is that they're held to a different standard that white writers, they're allowed to write books that aren't representative of the race because there's this assumed universality of their work. But as soon as you're a marginalized writer in any way, you're suddenly writing the Black book or the queer book. And so that point it feels very real and it's like your argument is not with me, it's with the white reading public that is reducing this too. So she does have some good points. I do think about that sellout stuff a lot and it's a very different conversation I think today than it would've been even like 20 years ago where Michelle, you mentioned earlier you're a Gen X person and there's a much bigger like barrier that selling out is the worst thing you can do. And I think a lot of that has also disappeared too. It's like hey, if you can get that next Netflix deal, go for it. You know?

Laura Maylene Walter (23:58):
Right. Take the money and run kind of situation. Exactly.

Matt Weinkam (24:02):
The conversation has changed.

Michelle Smith (24:03):
A lot. Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (24:04):
In rewatching their interaction, it mostly struck me how it was just very tense and uncomfortable for both of them. And also kind of, there's no winners in a way because even though Sintara Golden gets the money and acclaim and all of that, she had to pander with this book, right? Because of the way the structures are set up and the publishing industry is set up, there is kind of no winner. And we get a glimpse of what the editor and the marketing professional I believe at the publishing house on the phone call, which is also like delightfully over the top terrible.

Michelle Smith (24:38):
One of like, oh yeah, we want him with the durag. Oh my God.

Laura Maylene Walter (24:41):
Oh my god, yeah. And also, Michelle, you mentioned like being in bookstores and I just want to say, cause I thought it was so funny, so Monk goes to a bookstore and he is angry that his novels, which I think his novels are what meant to be a lot of like mythology retellings...his novels are shelved in African American history. And so he complains to the young like bookseller, and I noticed he has sunglasses on, but they're clip-on shades as if he's trying to hide from his many fans. And when he reveals who he is, that he's the author, to this kid, he like unclips the sunglasses <laugh> as if anyone's going to recognize him. But I just thought that was hilarious. And of course he tries to move the books and it's just all for naught.

Matt Weinkam (25:25):
Yeah. That kid is also great.

Michelle Smith (25:27):
He's like, I'm just going to put them back when you leave <laugh>.

Matt Weinkam (25:29):
Yeah. No one that works here decides where these books get shelved. Yeah. But then also again, that feels like a good indictment of the way that a particular kind of white mainstream publishing uses Black writers as sort of like education that your novel is meant to teach me something. And so it's sort of fitting that it's in African American Studies.

Michelle Smith (25:53):
How it gets categorized, right?

Matt Weinkam (25:55):
Yeah. That's this is how it is consumed. You're going to buy and read this novel so you can learn something about what it means to be, you know, and whether that's the satire of PUSH or it's whatever the mainstream is telling us to read now feels very appropriate.

Michelle Smith (26:11):
Yeah. It's like, African American "interests" versus like fiction or poetry. Which, you see a little less of that [now], you see a little bit more integration, like you said, now, but you still see "African American interests." It still exists. Yeah.

Matt Weinkam (26:28):
One of my favorite bookstores in Cincinnati still separates out their African American fiction instead of just putting it in Literature as though...I understand they want to make it easier for people to find, but instead it creates this degree of separation. Like here's literature, and then you all get to be over here. That's very strange.

Michelle Smith (26:47):
And even just that wording: Fiction. Literature.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:49):
Yeah. Oh absolutely. Yeah. There's a gulf, right.

Michelle Smith (26:52):
There's a hierarchy in that, you know.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:54):
One is legit...

Michelle Smith (26:55):
And one is...yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:55):
Yeah. I want to hear some of your other favorite moments from the movie. They could be your favorite lines or just favorite scenes. What jumps out at you when you think back on this film of parts that you especially love?

Matt Weinkam (27:09):
You know, we talked about this being a little bit of two films in one. There's this sort of like industry satire and then there's just like really tender family story that is more unique and complicated than I think it might have been in another film. And part of where that meets is a favorite part of mine of just how writers exist in their families and families are just like, "Of course I've never read your books." <laugh>

Michelle Smith (27:33):
Yes. Yes.

Matt Weinkam (27:34):
So some of that stuff felt really good. And actually I think maybe my favorite parts of the movie are just the small moments where as siblings maybe they're just joshing each other and that feels the most real when it veers into the satire of the modern publishing industry, everyone becomes sort of a metaphor. But when it becomes this family drama then they're allowed to be just unique, rounded whole people that have real relationships with each other too. So it takes a movie to be a little flexible to be able to do those things. But those are some of my favorite moments like in the pool scene where monk's girlfriend is meeting his brother and they're just sort of like teasing each other and teasing the way that Monk is replying to how he's getting teased. It's like that stuff warms me so much <laugh>. That's wonderful.

Michelle Smith (28:21):
I think I like how meta it is, because it's a movie about African American representation or Black representation that I think is doing a lot with Black representation because you know, it's this family where there's a lot of like authenticity in how that family is portrayed and depicted. A lot of times with Black families, you get closeness of Black families, you get how tight knit they are, you get how they show up for each other. You get this matriarch who is like wraps her arms around everybody and embraces everybody. You get this strong father who is sort of, you know, a hero and a very like Huxtable kind of thing or you get GOOD TIMES or something like that, or you get the absent father, you get the, you know. So I think this is a very like very realistic family, right where there are, you know, the dad has secrets and like you said, the mom has Alzheimer's and the brother is ending his marriage <laugh> by coming out, and the sister is also divorced, and there's a favorite, a clear favorite, and everybody knows who it is.

Michelle Smith (29:35):
And like you said, Matt, the rivalries and and all of that. And I think that that sort of very layered and authentic and kind of complex representation of family with Black characters is still, you don't get a lot of that because as you said, people, they become types. And so I think there's like a really meta quality to having that happen in this sort of conversation about representation. And then I also like how at the end it's like they're doing the film adaptation and they're picking the ending and the recognition of like each of these endings has a different feel, a different tone makes the story different. And really recognizing like those sort of storytelling decisions, bringing us again back to this idea that storytelling is this very conscious act and we're leaving people with an impression but also making us have to deal with our own tastes and our own preferences. Right? Because it's like, oh that's too pat, that's too ordinary, that's a romcom. And then the one that's the most sort of splashy, spectacular one, they're like, that's the one.

Laura Maylene Walter (30:46):
<Laugh> That's the one the director loved.

Michelle Smith (30:48):
Yeah. And also I think we're implicated in that cause it's like that's also what audience is like.

Laura Maylene Walter (30:53):
I actually wrote down a quote, the director tells monk: "Novels aren't movies. Nuances aren't what put asses in theater seats. We need a big finish." Like it's pretty much just coming out and saying like even on the meta level of AMERICAN FICTION as an adaptation of ERASURE, right?

Matt Weinkam (31:10):
There's not as much but the Hollywood satire on top of the publishing world satire is very fun. Adam Brody is just perfect. Oh my God, their conversation. And then also this is where I think it is more a contemporary like call out in the way that the satire of a book like PUSH feels a little bit dated. Adam Brody's character says that he's really interested in like genre films that have like some social message and they're going to be showing his next movie: Plantation Annihilation.

Michelle Smith (31:42):
<Laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (31:44):
Oh my god, I forgot about that.

Michelle Smith (31:46):
<Laugh> Plantation Annihilation.

Matt Weinkam (31:47):
Because that is what it is. Like that is where a lot of Hollywood, and I would argue a lot of publishing, has gone where it's like we're going to have this deep, you know, social meaning, but it's going to be packaged in this really genre-heavy way.

Michelle Smith (32:02):
I've definitely seen in the last five years at least four movies that are movies that explore slavery through the lens of horror. At least <laugh> at least.

Laura Maylene Walter (32:14):
I also wrote down a few lines I liked just in terms of the writing satire. Monk is talking to his sister who is a doctor at a women's health clinic, and he tells her, "At least what you do is important. All I do is invent little imaginary people in my head and make them have conversations with each other." I agree with that. Completely <laugh>. And also Monk is talking to his agent because you know, he's writing this book under a pseudonym and he's worried, what if I get found out? The author isn't really someone who's in jail. And the agent says, "Fact check? There's barely any money to pay editors anymore." So I just thought those were, they were all a little like too real, you know <laugh>.

Michelle Smith (32:53):
<Laugh>

Matt Weinkam (32:54):
That one made me laugh a lot. I thought you were going to mention the moment where he says, like, "I'm a doctor, too." And his brother says, "Okay, we'll call you if we need to revive a sentence."

Laura Maylene Walter (33:01):
Yes! Revive a sentence.

Michelle Smith (33:02):
Yeah. That was hilarious. I didn't remember that one but I was like, oh that was great.

Matt Weinkam (33:06):
That's a good one.

Laura Maylene Walter (33:08):
And I think also, I mean just the pressure, or not the pressure, but the tension for Monk that he's the only one in his family who isn't a doctor. They're all various doctors of kinds and he's sort of the misfit. And like what you were saying earlier, Michelle, about how the traditional representation of Black families is they're all closely knit, but I mean a running theme in this film is that Monk distances himself. Like he puts himself at a remove from his family.

Michelle Smith (33:33):
And his father was this very removed...he was his father's favorite, but he is also the one that is most like him and he's this very distant, you know, figure. Yeah.

Matt Weinkam (33:43):
I also appreciate that the movie does genuinely engage with the economics of being a writer with a family. And how our medical system and healthcare system puts you in a position where if none of you can pay for it, how do you, and so that causes you to maybe sell out as another. Even if the sort of realism of his career path with this particular book stretches credulity, it like tells you how much his advance is, it tells you how much they're going to give him for the movie rights and how much the monthly cost of the care facility is. Like how many films or movies or TV shows or even books are talking about the real-life challenges of making ends meet in that way. Like, that's great.

Michelle Smith (34:29):
And then the conversation when he is talking to the head of his department and he is like, I'm going to have to be here longer, my mother has to go in....and he's like, can it be a sabbatical? Because then it could get paid. And not a forced leave, because people don't think about that either. Like in academia when things go off the rails, a lot of times it's the same thing if they make you take a leave, if they sit you down or if you go tenure track and you don't get tenure

Laura Maylene Walter (34:55):
Or you're an adjunct, you have nothing. Yeah.

Michelle Smith (34:58):
Oh, and I know that story. People have no idea that there really isn't a safety net. You just kind of fall out it. You know, if you spent, as I did, as we all did, 10 years going to school for English <laugh> and now, what are you supposed to do?

Matt Weinkam (35:14):
In the book, he tries to get an adjunct job, and I think it's set in DC and not in Boston. And so he goes to get like an adjunct job at American University, but he's quoted such a low price, like an adjunct price and he is like, it's not worth it. Like I'm not going to do it. There's even like that stuff which has only gotten worse since 2000.

Laura Maylene Walter (35:34):
A lot worse. Yep.

Matt Weinkam (35:35):
That doesn't make it into the movie, but again, I just appreciate that it's taking all that really seriously as pressures that writers have in the same way that you have a family that you are trying to deal with as you're trying to create art. You also have bills to pay and so all this affects, you know, the kind of work that you do.

Laura Maylene Walter (35:52):
Well, last year, Percival Everett came to Cleveland, and we were all there. Right? You were there, Michelle?

Michelle Smith (35:59):
Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (35:59):
Okay. Do either of you remember anything from the discussion? Percival Everett didn't talk about the film, I don't think he talked about ERASURE, he was there for JAMES, but is there anything that you can recall from his appearance that that really struck you?

Michelle Smith (36:13):
My thing was how he was like, it's not that big of a deal.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:16):
I know! It must be nice.

Michelle Smith (36:18):
<Laugh>Oh yeah. I just remember him being like, writing, it is just not that big of a deal. I remember Professor Johns being like, you're so prolific, and you've written all these novels and how do you manage that? And he was like, you just write, it's not that big of a deal. <Laugh> And all of us sitting there, like how painstaking and it is to get out what we're trying to get out, and him being like, "I just write brilliant stuff and yeah, okay. Whatever." Yeah, that's the thing that stuck with me. I was like, how many novels has he written? It's gotta be 20-plus.

Matt Weinkam (36:54):
No, it's in the thirties.

Michelle Smith (36:56):
In this sort of really contracted, if you think about it, amount of time when you think about what a novel. And you know, I'm a poet, so I'm sure my sense of what it takes to write a novel is probably even more exaggerated. But you know, you're both fiction writers so he was like, yeah, whatever, you know, I'm just Percival Everett.

Matt Weinkam (37:14):
He's also like, you know, a prickly interview. He'll challenge the framing of the question. If he doesn't care about the question, he'll move on. And that's such a great contrast to what the movie helps dramatize, which is the way that authors are sort of expected to play a part. And it's, again, over the top in the movie version where he's going to pretend to be this gangster character who is like on the lamb and you know, but that's an exaggerated version of what every author has to do a version of. Like, you're expected to not just write the book but perform well on stage. If we're being honest, for most of us that write that aren't going to get the six-figure book deal, you make your money by speaking and reading and teaching. And so if you're going to do that, you have to sort of know how to play to institutions. You have to know how to play to crowds. And so the idea that you can just like be a recluse and write and you're going to make money that way...unless you're Pynchon or Cormac McCarthy or you know Don DeLillo, good luck. Like it's just the rest of us have to put on this show. And it might not be as over the top as his character is, but although it's hard to watch, I appreciate that Percival Everett just isn't willing to put on that show.

Michelle Smith (38:29):
It makes you wonder if, in some ways, Monk is a little bit based on him. You know, just some aspects of it, sort of the aversion he has to do in that performance or a little bit of the scorn he has for having to do that. If that's him, it was an opportunity for him to sort of express that.

Matt Weinkam (38:49):
It was fun to revisit that movie knowing that we would talk about it because, yeah, it does raise a lot that's work [talking about].

Michelle Smith (38:56):
Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (38:58):
Yeah. And then it's just really funny. I wrote down a lot of other lines that we didn't have time to get to, but I really love when he is on the phone with his agent and he's like, "The thing is, I don't even believe in race." And his agent is saying, "Yeah, the problem is everyone else does." And while this is happening, the cabby bypasses him to pick up the white man. It's just like...everything is so funny.

Michelle Smith (39:19):
But my favorite character by far is the brother <laugh> Sterling K. Brown is so good.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:24):
I love when Monk thinks he's driving him to the airport, and his brother, Cliff I think, is just...he's pounding the alcohol and he's like, "I'm not driving the effing plane, Monk."

Michelle Smith (39:36):
<Laugh> The most touching one is when he asked his mom about the affairs and she says, "Your father was a genius, and he was very lonely." And she says "You're a genius," but he thinks she knows it's him, but she's talking to Cliff. I was like, oh my God. <Laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:55):
You reminded me of all sorts of moments like when she was dancing with Cliff and then she says that line like, "I always knew you weren't queer." it's like heart wrenching. He just leaves the room.

Michelle Smith (40:08):
Oh, it's just really, really good. My favorite too was when they're doing the ashes.... <Laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:14):
Oh yeah <laugh>. And the guy goes by...

Michelle Smith (40:16):
The neighbor, he was like, "I'll eat your sweater vest for dinner." <laugh>

Matt Weinkam (40:21):
I also loved when he gets offered to be on the jury, and the guy goes out of his way to say like, well, we're trying to be more diverse, so I guess I'm calling you. And he says, "I'm honored you chose me out of all the Black writers you could go to for fear of being racist." And the guy's like, "You're welcome!"

Laura Maylene Walter (40:36):
I wrote that one down too. That was amazing.

Michelle Smith (40:39):
My favorite was when the male writers started to like do the banter, like the weird banter, and the woman was like, "I'm getting off the phone now. Goodbye!" <laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (40:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's like, that's it.

Michelle Smith (40:50):
She was like, good day. Good day, sir.

Laura Maylene Walter (40:53):
It's not subtle, but I don't think it needs to be subtle for satire, when they're deciding which book is going to win the prize. Monk and Sintara don't want his book to win and the white woman's like, "I just think it's really important we listen to Black voices."

Michelle Smith (41:07):
<Laugh>Yeah. The one who's like, well three against two, so it wins.

Laura Maylene Walter (41:09):
So this is what it is, you know, "look at what great allies we're being. We're being so like diverse and inclusive." <laugh> Oh, my god.

Michelle Smith (41:15):
<Laugh>

Michelle Smith (41:18):
They're those, like, visual ones.

Laura Maylene Walter (41:20):
So when they're judging the literary award, they have a whiteboard where they write all the novel titles that are in contention for it. So I wrote them all down. I just want to read them all to you and I want you to tell me what novel, which one would you want to read if you think it exists without knowing anything about it. These are the titles. They're really great: SCATHE. ODD JOB. CAR FULL OF BOSNIANS. FOUR ALARM FIRE. LITTLE LEAGUE. THE DISHWASHERS. BURY ME STANDING. FLESH AND BONE ROBOT. WILLIE AND BENNIE FOREVER.

Matt Weinkam (41:58):
What's the robot one?

Laura Maylene Walter (42:00):
Flesh and Bone Robot <laugh>. I think it has to be that one for me. Flesh and Bone Robot.

Matt Weinkam (42:07):
Bury Me Standing is definitely the best title.

Laura Maylene Walter (42:11):
As a title, Yeah. Oh, so you would go for a book you think is the best one and not the most ridiculous? I might want to read Scathe.

Michelle Smith (42:17):
Yeah, just Scathe.

Matt Weinkam (42:20):
The one I would read is probably The Dishwasher. That's it.

Laura Maylene Walter (42:23):
Are you picturing like a class...

Matt Weinkam (42:26):
I imagine like THE INTUITIONIST, you know like it's society,

Michelle Smith (42:30):
It's an allegory. It's more than just...

Matt Weinkam (42:34):
A secret society of dishwashers to intuitively clean. Yeah.

Michelle Smith (42:38):
<Laugh>. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Laura Maylene Walter (42:41):
Did none of those jump out at you Michelle?

Michelle Smith (42:42):
Odd Job just comes out. I feel like it says "hooker with a heart of gold" to me. I don't know. And maybe that's just because I'm thinking about ANORA <laugh> and like it's like you take this job but it's a little off kilter. I don't know.

Laura Maylene Walter (43:01):
You know what? This is giving me a great idea. The next time I'm doing a Lit Cleveland class that involves a writing exercise, I'm going to give these titles and just have people write...I want to read your "Scathe" stories or your "Flesh and Bone Robot."

Michelle Smith (43:15):
You should be like okay, what's your synopsis? Gimme your elevator pitch. Yeah. Make up a book that has this title.

Matt Weinkam (43:23):
For Car Full of Bosnians, just tell me what that one's about.

Laura Maylene Walter (43:25):
Yeah, exactly. Just go for it.

Michelle Smith (43:27):
Are they clowns? Are they terrorists? <Laugh>? Are they, what are they? Is it a family?

Laura Maylene Walter (43:33):
Yeah, exactly. So I guess now that I'm thinking about that and them judging the literary awards, I mean at Literary Cleveland, sometimes you have to review a lot of applications or pass them on to other people to judge or you know, just in the writing world, we've all submitted our work to be judged in this way and then lost out, most likely. But I don't know, is there anything else you want to say? Like what this film maybe brought up in terms of these kind of awards or selection committees?

Michelle Smith (43:59):
I think it can help people to understand how arbitrary, how subjective, how conceptual those voices can be. I took a class from Poets & Writers about getting published, and there was a, I can't even remember and I'm sure she'll probably be glad once I say this, editor for a journal, a poetry editor, and she was like, "I just picked the ones I like." <laugh>. She made no bones about it. Yeah. She was like, "So if you were at home thinking that there is some kind of like rubric and you're trying to think about how your poem fits into some sort of very, you know, formalistic kind of thing...I just picked the ones I like". So she was like, the best thing to do is to just read a couple of previous issues and see if you have poems that kind of fit into what's been in because that's my taste. And what you're really doing is trying to fit into my taste, which lets you off the hook when you think that you're being judged for how well you write. It just kind of proves that that's maybe never it.

Matt Weinkam (45:06):
Award stuff. Anytime I've been even close to that, it becomes clear how little it is about the writing and how much it is about the politics of whatever that award is supposed to be. Yeah. And so, you know, it's what is this winner going to say about this award more than it is about whatever the writing is. That stuff is pretty tough. I will say when we do almost any of the things that we have to select, you know, people or pieces for something for Literary Cleveland, the thing that I'm always just taking away with is there's always five to 10 times more that are so good and qualify. Yeah. We have our residency program that six people get in, that's two in every genre. There are so many more deserving people.

Laura Maylene Walter (45:49):
I was a mentor for that and I had to pick from the finalists and that was rough. Because there's so many that I would've wanted to work with. Yeah.

Matt Weinkam (45:57):
It's just the degree and amount of excellence that's out there. It's tremendous. And so yeah, it is helpful to know that it's not you, that <laugh> not getting selected doesn't have anything to do with you and the quality of your work.

Michelle Smith (46:08):
And in the end when it's residents or something like that, it's usually who the mentors think they can be most helpful to. It's like who the mentors think that they could actually shape and mold and help to move forward more so than like, like Matt said, who is more talented. There's so much talent. So it's just who's going to sort of gain the most from working with this particular mentor becomes sort of the deciding factor for that.

Matt Weinkam (46:32):
I sort of wish I was bitchier and had like snide things to say and like <laugh> have fun with it but instead just like, I'm just always like dismayed that I can't choose everybody.

Michelle Smith (46:42):
Yeah. That we can't give it to anybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (46:45):
Ah, Cleveland and beyond. We're overflowing with talent. <Laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (46:49):
Well before we run out of time, I want to talk about Lit Cleveland a bit. Earlier, Michelle you just said a few minutes ago that what do you do after you spend 10 years studying English and writing? But I think for both of you, you work at Literary Cleveland. So really quickly, I would love it if you could each share how you got involved with Literary Cleveland, leading to where you are now in your positions. Matt, I do kind of know your story but to share with listeners how you came to Literary Cleveland in the very, very beginning.

Matt Weinkam (47:15):
Sure. I sort of went an academic route and so did a master's and an MFA and had taught adjunct a little bit. And so when we moved to Cleveland, my wife is from the area, I knew that we were going to be here for a long time and I was just desperate to get involved in the literary community and really sort of put down roots. And I, as one does, I did not have a full-time job and I was working lots of part-time jobs and I was freelance writing for a magazine and for greeting cards and all these things and one of those part-time jobs was at the Capitol Theater in Gordon Square where you know, with all these degrees I was sweeping up popcorn and taking tickets <laugh>. And every Thursday, you have to change the marquee for what movies are coming up that weekend, and you get a ladder from the basement to do that, in a definitely haunted basement, but the ladder wasn't there that day. And so we had to go looking for it, and it was in the offices of this new startup nonprofit called Literary Cleveland.

Matt Weinkam (48:09):
I kind of couldn't believe it and so I sent in my resume and said like, hey, I'd love to get involved. I had something that I could help out with right away. And then I was the person that just kept showing up. It was like, hey, do you want to help plan this event? Like I'm there, we need someone to help run a reading series. Like done, I'd love to teach a class. Laura with you, we helped start a literary journal. So it's all I wanted to do. I would do it for free in my spare time after everything else was done. And so I always thought, man, one day, maybe in 10 years, the organization will grow large enough that I could get a job there doing something small on the corners. And then like the next year I was hired full-time and then the year after that I was made director. So you never know how that's going to happen. My philosophy is just like keep showing up. Like if you're the person that cares about stuff, I think it can really make a difference. Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (49:02):
And Michelle, what about you?

Michelle Smith (49:03):
Very similar in the beginning got a BA in English an MA in English, did marketing for a little while and then started to teach and just continued to teach and was adjuncting and extremely tired of teaching a first year composition, and saw that there was this opportunity to teach lit for literary Cleveland. They were starting their reading series and I was really excited. I was like, I'm going to teach a Colson Whitehead class, three novels in three weeks. Not the best <laugh> structure, but we figured out that we will teach three novels in three months. And I moved on, I did Claudia Rankin and I think right from there Toni Morrison passed away, and I did a year of Toni Morrison. We did all 11 [novels]. And right at the end of that, the posting came up for programming associate, and so it was 20 hours a week and part-time and it seemed to me to be like a perfect combination of everything that I'd done writing and teaching marketing and  being in the community.

Michelle Smith (50:04):
And I was like excited and I was like secretly I was like, this is my job <laugh>, please let get this job. And I did get it, and I came on board in 2021 in January. And so as we've grown, the organization has grown, my role has grown and expanded and I became a director of programming beginning of last year in 2024. And so I agree with Matt, if you see something that you're interested in and you're excited about it, even if it seems like it's sort of just a small or you know, like seed of it, just grab onto it because I had no idea. Like Matt said, we were saying, oh you know, you might be able to be full-time within five years and within two years I was. So we couldn't have anticipated how quickly the organization has grown, but it's been so amazing to be able to be a part of it and yeah, very excited for everything that we have done and, and we're going to do,

Laura Maylene Walter (50:57):
Both of you do such good work at Literary Cleveland and we're all, everyone in Cleveland and beyond, we're all so lucky to have you. But you do so much. Like sometimes I just sit around at home thinking about how much work Matt and Michelle and everyone does at Lit Cleveland <laugh>, but you really have a lot going on. But for our listeners, do you want to highlight a few either initiatives or programs or events like coming up in the next few months or so or next year? What would you like to really highlight about what Lit Cleveland is doing right now?

Matt Weinkam (51:25):
Oh gosh. Let me try to give an overview of the kind of things that we do. So part of what we do is try to remove barriers and provide greater access to creative writing opportunities. And so there's free programs every month at the library. There's scholarships for low and limited income writers for all of our classes. So how can you make it so that not only the people that have a bunch of time and money are the people who's writing stories, but the people whose stories we need the most have this kind of opportunity. So there's tons of those sort of things. Northeast Ohio has been home to Toni Morriston and Langston Hughes and Mary Oliver and Rita Dove. And so how do you develop that next great authors that are going to help change how we understand ourselves in America. And so we have a residency program that now has a stipend.

Matt Weinkam (52:10):
So it pays writers, six writers who are working on their debut books to have one-on-one mentorship and spend a full year working on, you know, their novels or poetry collections or memoirs. That's a really important program. And then our Inkubator conferences, maybe the biggest thing that we do that brings together the entire literary community in northeast Ohio and invites people from around the region to, again, invite more people in, make access to high quality talks and workshops and panel discussions and incredible authors, all right at everybody's fingertips. And ideally gets everyone together to the same room so that you can spark off each other and sort of incubate whatever the next big ideas are. So those are sort of the main things. But I think coming up, I'll have Michelle talk a little bit about a poetry festival that we're planning. We've got a reading series that we're running, too, we got a program that I don't think we can talk about yet. That's for next year. So there's a bunch of fun things in the works.

Michelle Smith (53:06):
Big program. Yes. Right now, the thing that's on my plate that I'm very excited about is our poetry festival. This will be the fourth year. It's in April. The main program will be April 27th. It'll be at CMA, the Community Arts Center at Pivot. Our theme is the Body Politics. So we're talking about all the different ways that all of us are beings are sort of relating to each other and relating to sort of the politics of the time, the political landscape, where we all are and how we're all sort of navigating and dealing and coping. So we're looking at how poetry helps with that and how those things that we're experiencing are shaping poetry and how poetry might be able to shape the things that we're experiencing. And we have a new thing that we're doing that Saturday. We are in the process to try to make it happen that Saturday is independent Book Sellers Day, and we are hoping to have a couple of different readings and a couple of different independent sellers in the city. This is a lot of plate spinning, as they say, a lot of logistics, but we are hoping to make that happen. So please, if you are not signed up for our newsletter, go to our website and that first page, you can do that check on our website all the time. We're always, always, always doing something.

Matt Weinkam (54:23):
Can I just give a shout out real quick to you, Laura, to this podcast, which is fantastic. It's so better than it needs to be. You do such a good job with it and talk to so many people across Ohio. The conversations are excellent. Like it's just like the favorite thing that lands in my podcast, you know, app every week.

Laura Maylene Walter (54:39):
Oh, thank you. That's so nice. I really appreciate that. I love that this is just turning into a love fest of Literary Cleveland and all of us individually being amazing. It's fantastic. But no, listeners, if you're in the Cleveland area and have not yet been involved with Lit Cleveland, look into it. If you know someone who wants to write or learn to write or explore writing or reading more, or talking with other book nerds, have them reach out to Lit Cleveland. And even if you're not in Cleveland now, Lit Cleveland does a lot of virtual things too, and online opportunities. So you don't have to be in Cleveland, even though, how could you not be if you're a writer in Ohio, come to Cleveland. This is where it's happening. All right, well, I don't want to keep you too far beyond our time, but I just want to thank you both for talking about AMERICAN FICTION and ERASURE with me, it was super fun, and for all the important work you do at Lit Cleveland. So thank you both so much for being here on Page Count.

Matt Weinkam (55:30):
It was a blast. Thanks Laura.

Michelle Smith (55:31):
Thank you for having us.

Laura Maylene Walter (55:35):
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.