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#ItsPersonal III 83. Lamar Giles shares his family history, past schooling and Black nerds
10 Plays4 years ago
Lamar Giles writes for teens and adults across multiple genres, with work appearing on numerous Best Of lists each and every year. He is the author of the acclaimed novels Fake ID, Endangered, Overturned, Spin, The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Last Mirror on the Left as well as numerous pieces of short fiction. He is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books and resides in Virginia with his wife.
On this podcast, Lamar chats in detail about his grandparents (specifically) his grandfather. He talks about fixing washing machines, watching old TV shows, and reading to him at an early age. Lamar also shares, how a 7-year-old kid gets a 55-year-old best friend.
Halfway through this podcast, Lamar talks about the Black community and how we were often influenced to play sports, and follow more traditional paths in education. He speaks about the "what if's" we focused on literacy and arts more. "What if" those kids had more opportunities to see these as a way of life?
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LRGiles
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lamargiles
Website: https://www.lamargiles.com/
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Transcript
Introduction of the Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of It's Personal. The last book I wrote is heavy. All right. Hey, Gary, this is DVD to boy. My name is Randy Rebine. My name is Jared Krizovska. I don't think I'm a person that curses a little hard to scrub out to anybody. I'm excited. Hi. All right. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of It's Personal.
00:00:24
Speaker
Today I have another author that I just love and enjoy listening to, not only about books, just about life in general. He is connected to so many other authors based on the work that he's been doing in the industry. Can you please introduce yourself?
Lamar's Journey as an Author
00:00:42
Speaker
Yes, I am Lamar Giles. I am a children's author. I write young adult, all sorts of stuff, mystery, contemporary. I write middle grade fantasy. I've written short stories that range from everything to science fiction or I just always enjoy telling stories. I'm lucky enough to be able to do it for a living. And I'm happy to be on the podcast. I'm excited to have you. And I think one of the things
00:01:07
Speaker
that I'm super interested in is just how do you become so versatile as a writer? And on top of that, be really good at it. Well, here's the truth of it. I don't often feel that I'm that good. I'm happy when people enjoy the stories, but I deal with a lot of doubt and a lot of insecurity when I tell these stories. I guess the reason I'm able to write things across many genres, I read a lot. I just have always from
00:01:37
Speaker
As long as I can remember, early childhood, I'm an avid reader of anything I can get my hands on, reading well above what people thought a five-year-old should be reading. By the time I was eight, I've been reading full adult books and have never stopped. And so I've been exposed to so much. I often feel very comfortable going into different genres. Though there are genres I don't feel well equipped to tackle. For example, romance. I just felt like I haven't read enough romance
00:02:07
Speaker
to be as good at that as I am at some other things. Though, I am hopefully gonna rectify that, read more romance, or maybe I can do some of that sometime too competently. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I would love that. And I think all of that in itself is a testament to the work that you do. And I guess a good segue into the next question is just that, like, what did your early childhood look like? And where did those books come from? Were there, was it people just putting them in your hands, or was it you?
00:02:36
Speaker
kind of going out and finding those books on your own?
Influence of Family and Early Life
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, early childhood, I grew up in a very small factory town called Vocal Virginia. And my mom was a plant worker. She worked in one of the industrial plants. And our town made chemicals, we made tires, and my mom worked in a factory that made like industrial film. And people may not even recognize what it is, but it's like the stuff that
00:03:03
Speaker
things are packaged in. So like potato chip bags will have the substance that my mom's plant produce. And I bring that up because it was long grueling hours. It was those jobs were the better paying jobs in that area. So for my mom to be on in one of those plants was to have the quote unquote good job. However, working at those hours and being a single parent, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, but specifically my grandfather. And
00:03:31
Speaker
My grandfather couldn't see very well. By the time he was in his early fifties, I think he was almost considered legally blind. And so he still enjoyed books, newspapers and things. And it fell on me to read things to him at one point. He just couldn't do it himself. Like with the strongest glasses, the thickest lenses he could find, he still couldn't do it. And so I ended up reading things to him.
00:03:58
Speaker
And then it became a thing where because I like to read, I would want to read stories I enjoyed to him and he would entertain me and listen. And being such a strong reader at a young age, my mom just saw something there that she thought might be a way to help me avoid the fate of being a plant worker because as good as those jobs were, she always told me she didn't want me to do it because she felt like it was breaking down her body. It's the sort of thing she felt
00:04:27
Speaker
And it's funny because I just tell this story in speeches and people will laugh at it. My mom didn't necessarily encourage me to go into arts. She always used to say, I just want you to have a job where you can have air conditioning in the summer. Wow. And so, again, being my grandfather, being basically his eyes, learning to read very early and then enjoying reading, my mom has always figured if this kid likes books,
00:04:53
Speaker
books may be a way for him to get out of this cycle of heart, physical labor that our family's gone through. Wow. Wow. I love hearing that because I know for myself, at least growing up, books was, it wasn't something that
00:05:11
Speaker
like at least in my family or even in my community, something that we thought of as a way out. We never heard the words, you should read, you should look at literature, you should read this person, et cetera. So hearing that in itself gives me a sense of hope because it happens, right? It is something that allows people to find different avenues for different ways of life. And I appreciate that story. Can we talk a little bit about your grandparents? Sure.
00:05:41
Speaker
black grandparents. Like tell me about that experience growing up with them and then the influence that your grandfather had for you. So you know it's interesting because my grandfather was my primary caretaker when my mom was at work and my grandmother was a lot but their relationship was strange and it's something I never understood and no one in the family talks about but
00:06:10
Speaker
they didn't talk much. Like they were the type of grandparents that had separate bedrooms, which I mean, you know, and I, I don't, I don't know, I've heard other people in our community talk about having that situation where they might have grandparents that sleep in separate rooms, but I haven't heard it a lot.
00:06:26
Speaker
And so I don't know how frequent that sort of thing actually is. But like, by the time I can remember, when I was standing my grandparents, they had separate bedrooms, they barely spoke. And when I would stay there, my grandmother was often gone somewhere, I had no clue where. And me and my grandfather, he was, even though he had trouble seeing, he could still do his primary job, which was being a handyman.
00:06:51
Speaker
And so people around our town would call him to come and fix their appliances. And so our time together would be during the day. I will call it going on jobs with them.
00:07:02
Speaker
and he couldn't drive himself so he had a buddy who was also a handyman and so it'd be me and these two old dudes going around town fixing washing machines. I'm like seven you know what I'm saying and like so you know and I'm in there like you know hand me hand me the pliers hand me the phillips head screwdriver so I'm that's that's the day if I'm not in school if it's summer and in the evenings we're watching like Magnum PI and MacGyver and I'm reading to him and I
00:07:30
Speaker
I was with him so much when my mom was working that for a time I was confused. Like I thought he was my dad and I didn't understand how he was my dad and my mom was his daughter. And they had to kind of explain this to me when I was like six or seven because I just assumed that this man who was around me all the time must be my father, even though I knew I had a father who also lived in the same town.
00:07:56
Speaker
And it was just one of those things where I latched on to him. He's probably my best friend for a long time. So that's a seven-year-old kid with a 55-year-old best friend.
00:08:09
Speaker
And that's just, and I saw nothing wrong with that. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like I was sitting here angry or like, I wasn't mad at my dad for not being more involved. I knew him. I saw him actually quite a bit because we all live in the same town and I would go visit my other set of grandparents, which was his parents, you know? And I think for the time he did the best he could. He just wasn't equipped to be that, be around all the time type of father then, you know?
Writing as a Coping Mechanism
00:08:36
Speaker
And I love hearing the story about him. I find that
00:08:43
Speaker
all grandparents, and I don't want to say all, but I know at least for me, I'll speak for myself, like grandparents always have their grandchildren working for them no matter what. No matter what it is, you are always working for them. And I love that. I love that they feel that it is your, like you are here and you're going to do work for me. I really really love that.
00:09:06
Speaker
I mean, even if we weren't on jobs, it would be the whole thing of like, there weren't remote controls really back then. So it would be like, you could be in a separate room and they'll be right in front of the TV and they'll call you out of the room to come change the channel. You know, it'd be that sort of thing with the bar. Come change it to channel eight. And so you got to run like across the house to change the channel.
00:09:24
Speaker
I love it. I love hearing stories about grandparents. They are special people. Lamar, can you tell us a little bit about your schooling? What did it look like growing up? Where did you go to school, I guess? And what did it look like for you growing up in elementary, middle school, and high school?
00:09:43
Speaker
All right. So in Hopewell at the time, I think it was five elementary schools that fed into a single middle school that fed into a single high school. And so the elementary school that I went to was called DuPont Elementary. And it was named after the, I think the DuPonts would eventually went on to make form like chemical companies and make paints. I think they had one of the plants in town and
00:10:08
Speaker
When I was going there initially, I was in classes with children from my neighborhood, so a lot of Black kids. And I remember kindergarten and first grade, like just being super close to the kids in my neighborhood or my grandparents' neighborhood, because essentially their house was my address. And at some point, maybe it was second grade, I don't know what happened.
00:10:32
Speaker
I don't know if it was actually something where I took a test and excelled or my mom pushed for me to be in quote unquote gifted classes, but I can recall being in class with my neighborhood friends at a very young age with someone coming to get me and walking me to a different classroom and saying, this is your class. And when I got in that classroom, I was maybe one of three black kids.
00:11:00
Speaker
And that was the way in which I remember being upset because I wanted to be with my friends. And there was nothing to be done to change this fate. And I remember it being like that all the way through the end of elementary school. And then when I went to middle school and all the schools in the city are feeding into this one place, I'm no longer with all these white kids I was in class with for the last couple of years. And I'm no longer as close to the neighborhood kids
00:11:29
Speaker
that I was friends with before and so middle school was horrendous because when I showed up in class and it's a much more diverse dynamic in each of those classes and you're with different kids every class period like I was immediately awkward isolated and I'm bullied. The way I answer questions the way I knew the answers to questions being a strong reader walking around with books
00:11:57
Speaker
other kids from other parts of the city immediately saw me as this other thing and made it clear that, you know, the terminology back then, no one was claiming nerd was a cool thing back then, you know? And that's what I was. Black nerd. You talk like you want to be a white boy. Why are you reading those white books? Because I was a big Stephen King fan. I found middle school to be fairly miserable.
00:12:22
Speaker
to the point that I didn't want to go. And it just freaked my mom out because up to then I liked school. And I don't know if that's really like an
Pursuing Writing Professionally
00:12:31
Speaker
uncommon thing for children at one point to enjoy going to school and seeing their teachers. And then all of a sudden be miserable if they're not among like the social top tier, you know? So middle school was a complete struggle. Just three years of misery. And
00:12:51
Speaker
freshman year of high school started out similarly, compounded by the fact that's the year my grandfather died. So at that point, I'm just like, I'm destroyed. But also something is coming out of the wreckage that's that's
00:13:11
Speaker
going to last me the rest of my life because my grandfather died. I was still a strong reader. And without him being there, for some reason I got in this idea I want to write a book about my grandfather or write a book that he would enjoy because I already started playing with story. And so after his death, I started writing the very first novel I ever wrote. But I also started to like have this fractured personality. Like I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how to interact with my peers. One of my best friends was now dead, you know,
00:13:41
Speaker
And saving grace was my older cousins because I was 14. And so one of my cousins who I worship, I thought he was a guy. He's a tall basketball player, super cool, always had these really pretty girlfriends, sort of took me under his wing. I don't think it's usual for a 20-year-old to let a 14-year-old hang around them the way he did. And sort of became a social mentor to me.
00:14:11
Speaker
And I don't know, like, I'm thinking back, like, if I had a child that was 14, I'd be maybe a little wary that you're hanging with 20-year-olds, you know? But these are my cousins that my mom has known since childhood, and we're not getting in trouble. I'm walking over to his house and playing video games. They're talking to me about what they're going to do on the weekends, the girls' phone numbers they got at the mall, how to talk to a girl. And so that interaction helped me start to adjust in high school.
00:14:41
Speaker
And I was able to I wasn't really being myself. I was more emulating them. But emulating them was acceptable to my peers. And so I began to be able to navigate social circles much better than I had when my knowledge was that of a 55 year old handyman. You know, yeah, yeah. So and I think I think that's why that's it. I guess my question. No, you go ahead. You go ahead. I have a question. I want you to go ahead because you'll probably answer it. Go ahead.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I was gonna say like at that point I started to do much better in school all around. Grades are better, socializing better. By the time I finished high school, I'm writing for the school paper. Like everybody knows me as the guy that writes for the school paper. And they know me beyond that too. They see me out and about. So like I've sort of formed this identity as a budding writer who's also kind of cool. People like me. I like people and I'm able to go away to school
00:15:40
Speaker
and basically grow. And the struggle that is what exactly I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Because at that point, I don't know that writing is a career path. Wow. Wow. And what what got you over that hump to say like, you know what, I am going to do this writing thing. Well, what happened was when I went to college. You know, like anybody else, my parents are like or my mom is like,
00:16:09
Speaker
Try to figure out what you want to do with your life. You got to make a living. I knew that. I knew I was going to have to go out and get a job. And the things I like to do, writing being paramount, people always told me that's not really a career you can follow. So now I'm trying to think of the backup. What is it that I can actually do? I'm a fan of technology. I'm a fan of mechanics because I learned how to fix things. But as I look at the majors that lean towards that tech engineering, the math component terrifies me because it's my worst subject.
00:16:37
Speaker
Like, I'm fairly certain I cannot pass any math class that is required to get one of these degrees. And that scared me off. And I ended up majoring in communications with an emphasis on mass media, because then I'm thinking like, well, maybe there's something I can do in television, film or whatever, because I still like those things. And by the time I get ready to graduate, I absolutely have no job prospects. I end up getting a job
00:17:03
Speaker
with a company that does a boring thing I'm not going to bother you with. You're sitting in a cubicle crunching numbers in a spreadsheet. And I knew that was something I wasn't going to love doing the rest of my life. And because it was very hard to go into that office every day and sit in that cubicle, I'm like, look, I'm not going to put all my energy into this thing I don't love. I want to write.
00:17:23
Speaker
I've always wanted to write. I've been trying to get around it for years. Now I'm going to put energy into that every day. And if I just don't make it, I don't make it. But I'm not going to sit here and put my best energy into this cubicle. And that was the time I decided trying to go pro. And I just worked on it for like 10 years before I sold my first novel. Wow. Talk about resilience. Like you had every opportunity to stop. Like every opportunity.
00:17:51
Speaker
whether it's friends, family, the outside world, you not getting exactly what you want right away. Like you had every opportunity to stop. And I guess my next question is like, what exactly made you not? Was it the passion that you had for the craft and the writing and the stories? Sure. Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
First and foremost, I enjoyed writing. So it was almost like a break from just the everyday humdrum stuff I didn't love. If I didn't love storytelling, I wouldn't keep doing it. And it's something I kind of stress to younger writers. I teach sometimes. And I always say like, hey, I mean, I want you to enjoy what you're doing and understand you don't have to do this. Like, I'm not here to tell you and boss you around and make you write things that make you miserable.
00:18:48
Speaker
And if you're miserable doing this, you may want to think about what you actually want to do, you know, because there's no there's no guarantee this industry is ever going to let you in. And I don't say that to be discouraging. You're going to have to fight through that no matter what. But if you find you really don't like doing it, I want you to find what you're passionate about. I just happen to be passionate about the right. That's all it is. That's it right there, right? And I think
00:19:11
Speaker
It's so nice, it's just so refreshing to hear those kinds of stories, specifically with writers, because again, as you mentioned, you don't often hear a lot of people saying like you can be a writer for a living, like that's something you can think about doing.
Cultural Shifts and Staying Connected
00:19:27
Speaker
And especially for me, I'll go back to like my community, like for
00:19:31
Speaker
for kids to see people like you as a writer, a black male, black woman, et cetera. And I think that is so encouraging because we are often told all the time that that's not secure. It's something you shouldn't do. You need something that's going to nine to five, et cetera, like a regular schedule. So I think those stories are so important to hear.
00:19:58
Speaker
Let me ask you something. Yeah. Let me ask you something. What was encouraged in your community? Like, I obviously were encouraged to go for the nine to five, the steady job. But like, were there other things in your community that were encouraged? And I'm asking this because, and hope will, it was sports above everything. It was always sports. Yeah. Yeah. And it always kind of, it's mind boggling to me. Like I've gone back several times and talked to students and it's always mind boggling to me that
00:20:26
Speaker
adults will push the sports as a potential out while sometimes discouraging arts. And I'm like, you might have a better chance at the art, you know? More than likely, statistics show. It was always so strange to me that you'll put NBA dreams in a kid's head. And I say, you shouldn't if they're good. But at the same time, if that kid says, you know, yeah, I'm good in basketball, but I also pay.
00:20:54
Speaker
the pain will be discouraged and it's like there's probably more window of opportunity in the art if they're good at that too. I 100% agree like I think I
00:21:04
Speaker
for the most part, was lucky in a sense for my family did like, I loved art growing up. And I did art all the way through elementary, middle school, high school, and then almost went to art school as well. But sports within the community was just like you needed to play basketball. Like that was like, if you don't play basketball, like you are not cool. Like that's kind of how it was. And that was that was from
00:21:32
Speaker
Every family, it was like preached all the time and you would never hear of people, I think not until recently, people going off to university because of them wanting to do like a business degree or like they wanted to get into literature or they wanted to get into engineering or being a doctor. Like that stuff just was never preached or never talked about.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I wonder why, like I wonder what that what how that cycle started, I guess, and I'm even more curious now of how it's starting to shift and why it's starting to shift. But yeah, I think.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really hard thing to watch because you also think about friends, you think about family members who would have had those other opportunities or pushed towards something, not even like you said, not even just basketball, but also include the other things. You wonder what could have came out of that. So yeah, I totally agree with you.
00:22:39
Speaker
I have just a couple more questions for you, and I think your story is so interesting. Can you talk a little bit about family? And not just what it means to you, but how do you build a strong family during these times when things are just
00:23:07
Speaker
really tough, like what are some things that are keeping you guys together? Yeah, that's an interesting question. Yeah, because right now, like, you know, we're going into almost a year of having, I'm married, so I live with my wife, so we see each other daily. But we have parents, I have siblings, and I could probably count on one hand how many times I've seen all of them in the last year. And I don't think that's an uncommon story.
00:23:35
Speaker
And the thing that we found has been nice, and you and I talked a little bit about this before we got on, it's like the technology we have allows us to bridge that gap somewhat because we have FaceTime and we have Zoom and we have speakerphone.
00:23:54
Speaker
my wife talks to her parents probably nightly and I will talk I will hop on and speak to them whenever she's on if I'm doing something I'll talk to them the next day and then me and my mother and my sister will get on a phone twice a week.
00:24:08
Speaker
And if something happens, whether that's something funny or something dire that we need to know about, we'll alter that schedule. But ultimately, we get on and talk two times a week, a couple times a month, we'll hop on faith times so we can see each other. And that's been the way we stay connected when
00:24:27
Speaker
when we can't physically be around each other. But I also recognize that that's a small segment of larger family, like there are family members I haven't seen or spoken to at all in the last year. I think I may have spoken to my dad twice, though we'll text from time to time. I have other siblings, like half brothers and sisters. I have my older half sisters, I don't know that I've talked to her at all.
00:24:55
Speaker
And as I'm rattling this off, I'm making a list of people I need to reach out to because time's so fluid and it gets away from you. And I don't, you know, the world we live in, you don't want to have regrets. I 100% agree. And I ask that question because, yes, the times that we're in and the people just out there, I think,
00:25:18
Speaker
asking the question themselves, like how do you continue to stay connected when there's so many things happening in the world that are making you isolate? I mean, to the point of the biweekly call of my wife's nightly calling me, I think it has to become a priority like you put on your calendar almost, at least for us. You have to make that note, I'm going to call
00:25:44
Speaker
and check on so and so. Text messaging is a godsend because I probably am better at texting friends than I am at calling them. I have several individual texts and group texts going all day every day. And that keeps those groups, I think, fairly close. Yeah, I agree, making it a priority for sure. Lamara, I want to thank you so much for just hanging out and sharing your story with me today. Where can people find you online?
Conclusion and Book Promotion
00:26:12
Speaker
The easiest place to find me is my website. It's my name, lamarjows.com. And from there, you have access to all the social media. I enjoy Twitter most, but I'm also on Instagram and Facebook. And I love to hear from anybody that wants to reach out. I love it. I love it. And can you just share with us? You have a lot of books out, but can you just share with the audience your latest book, which I love?
00:26:39
Speaker
The latest book out is called The Last Mirror on the Left, and it's book two in my legendary Austin Boy's middle grade fantasy series. And in this book, my heroes who I love, Otto and she, cross through a mirror into another world to chase a fugitive. But as they go on this wacky hunt, they have to consider whether they're actually serving justice or helping to corrupt it. Amazing, amazing. All right, thank you so much, man. Oh, no, thank you, thank you. Dude, yeah, this is so much fun.