Zetta Elliott writes stories that centre Black characters and confront systemic racism
Ryan B. Patrick | | Posted: February 25, 2021 6:50 PM | Last Updated: February 25, 2021
Zetta Elliott is a Black feminist writer of poetry, plays, essays, novels and stories for children.
Elliott was born in Ajax, Ont., and has lived in the United States for the past 20 years. Her work includes Dragons in a Bag and The Dragon Thief, a middle-grade fantasy book series set in Brooklyn that features Jax, a young black boy who sets out on an adventure with mythical creatures.
She is also the author of poetry books including Say Her Name, inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, and A Place Inside of Me, a longform poem of affirmation that won a 2021 Caldecott Honor Book award.
Elliott spoke with CBC Books about her writing life and career — and why she is committed to storytelling that highlights Black characters, culture and community.
Congrats on winning a Caldecott Award for A Place Inside of Me. What was the idea behind making this book?
I had moved to Ohio a couple of days after 9/11. It was a difficult time emotionally. I was previously living New York and I was supposed to be writing my dissertation on lynching, rape and racial violence. It was pretty heavy material, on top of the added traumatic effect of 9/11.
I had watched something on television about Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. I wrote an extremely angry poem in response and it was to be published in an adult poetry collection.
But then I also wrote about it for children. That was therapeutic for me, to try to make sense of this difficult material in a way that didn't destroy children's faith in humanity.
It became a way of allowing children to honour all the emotions they're feeling right now.
I wrote A Place Inside of Me and envisioned it as a calendar. There would be a stanza for each emotion and then there would be a gorgeous illustration next to it. I didn't necessarily envision it as a narrative. Then, when we finally found a publisher, it was decided it would be a great idea to create a protest narrative and have the illustrations reflect the family going to a rally.
I was a little wary of that at first. But then the more we talked about it, we rearranged some of the stanzas and then it became more of a story. It became a way of allowing children to honour all the emotions they're feeling right now. I hope adults do the same. I know I've been on a roller coaster. I have good days, I have bad days. But since the pandemic, it feels like you have good hours and bad hours!
It's really important to honour how you feel, and to not have shame on any of your emotions. That's important for everybody.
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
Storytelling had always been important to me, from an early age. My report card from preschool says that I got in trouble for telling stories for the other children.
When I was around eight or nine, it was a very pivotal time for me because my parents got divorced and my adopted older brother was returned to his birth family in the Caribbean.
Storytelling had always been important to me, from an early age. My report card from preschool says that I got in trouble for telling stories for the other children.
We had to move from Pickering, Ont., where my mother had been a teacher at the school I attended. Suddenly I was in Scarborough, Ont., in a new school with very few Black students.
My whole sense of who I was began changing. Storytelling became a way of always having an audience and making sense of so many random acts that I had no control over. Writing for school was fun, but telling stories in the schoolyard was much more fun.
You recently spoke with The Next Chapter about the idea of "decolonizing your mind." What do you mean by that?
When I left Canada and the United States, I was angry at myself and I was disappointed with the education I had received. I went to the states and started to become familiar with the Black American literary traditions. I felt like I was so behind. I felt like I had to do another degree; I had to start over.
It was a part of my practice of decentering whiteness for me. I took a class about post-colonial theory and all of a sudden, I understood my father better. He was a Caribbean immigrant who had grown up as a British subject.
It became a way of understanding why I liked what I liked, and why I sounded the way I sounded. I remember the first time I showed a story to a friend in graduate school at NYU and she read it and said "Oh my God, you sound so British."
Decolonizing your imagination means recognizing how power operates, even in the realm of dreams.
I didn't want to write like Dickens, I wanted to sound like Alice Walker. But I didn't have that history. It was about how I could create an identity in a voice that is authentic and that reflects my own experiences.
I was discovering Black intellectual works in order to mine my experience and to understand that my experience was adequate — and also worthy of being represented in fiction.
Decolonizing your imagination means recognizing how power operates, even in the realm of dreams. For so many people, we just accept what we're given — but I'm encouraging parents at this point to talk to their kids about how books are produced. Books were magical for me as a child, but books do not just magically appear — there is a whole system of curators and gatekeepers.
There weren't a lot of Black books when I was growing up, which had a lot to do with anti-Black racism.
Who do you write for, particularly when you write books such as Dragons in a Bag and The Dragon Thief?
There are a number of conventions within the fantasy fiction genre that are problematic. When I sit down to write fantasy, I am deliberately tackling traditional conventions.
Black people do have their own magical traditions and we have our own ways of passing down knowledge — and that is what I'm going to centre in the narrative.
When I'm writing, particularly for children, I'm looking for the person who has not been centred and who has not been given an opportunity to have the adventure narrative.
There are a number of conventions within the fantasy fiction genre that are problematic.
I'm not trying to speak for people who haven't had a chance to speak. But when I was growing up, if I saw a Black character on television, they were light skinned or mixed race.
I do have mixed race characters in my stories — it's a great opportunity to talk about colourism and privilege — but my younger sister has darker skin and it was important to me that she had stories about dark skin Black girls.
We have to be intentional about the representation of all Black people — and this includes Black people who are visibly queer or have disabilities. It is important to think about who has been excluded and then to have a more inclusive vision.
What inspires and motivates you as a Black writer?
I will always write. It is what keeps me sane and balanced. My goal is to serve my community. As long as I feel like my books are serving my community, then I'm going to continue to do that.
When I quit my job as a professor six years ago, I knew I was not going to be able to live off of book sales. My royalties are not going to be able to pay my rent. I have earned a living doing workshops and giving talks on campuses and libraries. It's very much about people and communicating to people how to become an author.
My goal is to serve my community. As long as I feel like my books are serving my community, then I'm going to continue to do that.
It's about being able to connect with school kids — and let them know that I grew up reading books that had no Black children in them. That made me feel invisible, and now I'm doing something about it.
And when I get the "thumbs down" from an editor, I make the book myself. And they can do it too.
That keeps me motivated. We find a way — and then when we do that, we embody possibilities so that someone else can.
Zetta Elliott's comments have been edited for length and clarity.