On Friday, Jan. 12, acclaimed author and storyteller Ibi Zoboi visited Kingswood Oxford as the
41st annual Baird English Symposium Author. Students in the Senior Symposium class spent the fall semester exploring and celebrating her works and enjoyed a private dinner and masterclass with Zoboi during her two-day visit. Senior KO News editors and Symposium students Ashley Buckingham, Emma Barringer, and Ava Cashman sat down with Ms. Zoboi to learn more about her inspirations, interests, and creative process.
What’s your typical writing process like? What inspires you?
I write everywhere around my house. Sometimes I write in the kitchen with my laptop on the kitchen counter. And I go for like five to 10 minutes and then I do something else. It’s pretty chaotic. I find it harder and harder to sit down at a desk right in the middle of the day, but my favorite times to do that are early morning and late evening.
If you could co-write a book with any author who would it be and why?
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican writer. I really want to tell a story that unites our island. She’s Dominican, I’m Haitian, and we share an island. There’s a lot of tension between Haitians and Dominicans, and the history is fraught with a lot of conflict. I would love to write a story of the Haitian perspective, the Dominican perspective, and the border and the cultures that divide the two people. To tell a story that would possibly unify the island through a book – a YA book maybe. That’s one person I’d love to write with.
What celebrity, historical figure, or fictional character would you want to be best friends with and why?
I want to be friends with Oprah just to hang out at her house and have her chef cook for me, that’s all. She’s done so much for literature and books. I’d love to sit on her couch with a blanket and some tea, and just ask her “What’s it really like to be you?” And I would want her to code switch and be like “Yeah, girl, let me tell you all this tea.” So that’s a contemporary. I don’t want to think of a time when she would not be with us anymore. But I think that’s one person I would want to be in the same room with because I’ve been watching her almost my entire life.
We really enjoyed hearing about your experience with journalism last night at the dinner and being part of your school’s newspaper. Can you talk a little bit about how your journalism experience has influenced your career as an author today?
So I changed my name. And I first used a pen name for my college newspaper because I didn’t want to get in trouble. My college was very political; the students were advocating for a lot of things in the world. But I didn’t want it to have an impact on how my professors viewed me. And I had a column where it was like my own little Twitter column on social media. And I said some pretty passionate things. I don’t think they would get me in trouble, but it did impact me separating my writer self from my students. So I don’t know how it would have been different if I used my own name. But that pen name ended up becoming my legal name now.
Through everything you’ve spoken about, and also what we’ve read in your texts, we’ve understood your deep connection to music. If you could have a walk-up song play every time you walk into a room, which song would you choose to be your soundtrack?
It would be different all the time! What’s that song? “We Are Young” by fun. and Janelle Monáe. That would be my walk-up song for walking into a gym full of high school students–to remind myself that I was once young, and I can’t mess this up.
What inspired you specifically to pursue a career in writing, and were there any other career interests that you had over the course of your life that you were considering pursuing?
I wanted to be an editor or journalist, but I didn’t like the turnaround time. There was something called the lead. The first stressful job I had was as a reporter and they sent me out to do human interest stories where you go interview somebody who’s like dying of cancer, unfortunately, and it would be these sad things where you would go to their house. I was on the street, trying to interview people for a quote about something happening with housing. It was hard work. And I loved being there with a steno notepad and a pen asking “Hi, can I interview you?” and all the processes of journalism, but then you’d have to write it and send it out really quickly. And it’s always digging for something, you’re digging for the tea. It didn’t appeal to me after a while because I wanted to look for the truth. And then I share a birthday with Octavia Butler, who’s a writer, but I also share a birthday with a pioneering dancer called Katherine Dunham. So there was a time where I wanted to take dance classes and be in dance companies, but I didn’t follow up on that at all. And a teacher. I wanted to be an English teacher and then I wanted to be an English professor. So most of the stuff has always had something to do with being a writer.
What do you think is one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about the life of being an author?
I think some people think that an author comes up with an idea, writes it, and it becomes successful. As I said earlier in my talk, there’s the business of writing too. You may write something that’s your heart’s passion, but it doesn’t sell if it doesn’t resonate with most people. Some people feel like their life story will make a good book, but that’s not always true. So sometimes you have to write what sells. Or, you have to make a decision between writing what sells or writing to your heart’s desire.
That’s wonderful. And then our final question is looking back on your mission to write for young adult readers and speak to the children of today. We were curious, what is a piece of advice you would share with your high school self if you could go back and talk to her?
Oh, man. High school was so traumatizing. I would have told her to leave St. Francis Prep after 10th grade. That it would have been okay to transfer out and start fresh, and recreate yourself: that you can always recreate yourself. It would have been so badass to just disappear after 10th grade. You know? Like, “What happened to her?!” New life, public school, and just being the new kid somewhere else and not having a history. You know, like maybe something happened in ninth grade or something happened in 10th grade, you can just leave it all behind. This was before social media, where it wouldn’t follow you. I probably would have had a different experience had I transferred, and I wish I followed through with it. I wish I had the idea like, “Oh wait, I can transfer out!” because I didn’t like my school.
What is your advice to aspiring young writers today?
Everything that I said in my talk – you’ve got to care about something. And I think not to pity other people. If you are from a place of privilege, to learn about the world, yourself, and other people from reading. And to turn the lens on you, turn the mirror on you first, to self-examine. Write about yourself first, but read about other people. And make those connections between self and the world.
