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Episode 241: Carolyn Holbrook and the Indispensable Nature of Writing and Teaching
143 Plays4 years ago
Carolyn Holbrook is the author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify: Essays (University of Minnesota Press).
We talk about how teaching and writing keeps her sane, not giving a rip about winning awards (and winning one anyway!), and how she arrived at linked essays as a way to write what is, in effect, a memoir.
Show notes are at brendanomeara.com and if you want to break out some cash, we've got some amazing goodies at patreon.com/cnfpod.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod.
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Transcript
Podcast Sponsorship
00:00:02
Speaker
Creative Nonfiction Podcast is sponsored by Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry. Each episode is under three minutes long and gives you a shot in the creative arm. You've got a feed full of long pods, like this one. Let Casualty of Words be done in the time that it takes you to brush your teeth about five days a week from my mouth to your brain. You dig it? Oh, let's hit it, baby.
Introduction to Carolyn Holbrook
00:00:35
Speaker
Well, this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Carolyn Holbrook is here. She is the author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify Essays.
00:00:52
Speaker
It's by the University of Minnesota Press. She's the founder of Sassy. It's spelled S-A-S-E like self-addressed stamped envelope. Who remembers those, baby? The right place. She founded that and she now leads more than a single story.
00:01:14
Speaker
She teaches at Hamlin College, which I called Hamline in the interview because I'm a moron and should go out to the woodshed for the night.
00:01:24
Speaker
sleep by the compost tumbler that's getting all kinds of funky. But we'll get to that conversation soon enough. I gotta make sure you're subscribed to this little podcast. I mean, listen, I get it. I know you only have so much time in a day or a week. Adding another podcast to your life is a challenge. I get it.
00:01:46
Speaker
But if you're into true stories, you're in the right spot, man. I try to make this hour or so that you spend with this show as worthwhile as possible.
Supporting the Podcast Financially
00:01:55
Speaker
So you look back on that hour and say, damn, I got to go get some work done. Screw these dishes. What's that, honey? I said, screw these dishes.
00:02:06
Speaker
If you're feeling kind, consider leaving a nice written review on Apple Podcast to help with the show's packaging, if you will. If you're really enrolled and you want to support the show with your, with your wallet, with a few dollars and cents, head over to patreon.com slash CNF pod for 75 cents an episode. If I do my math right, that's like three quarters. You get transcripts, you get exclusive access to the audio magazines going forward. Issue one is always free.
00:02:36
Speaker
And you put money in the war chest to help with the production of the show and hopefully pay writers for their accepted work. I can't say I can pay writers quite yet. I might go into my allowance and pay writers for this next round,
Carolyn Holbrook's Career Highlights
00:02:54
Speaker
maybe upwards of $50 per accepted essay. I think that's fair. For a fairly prominent literary magazine where I wrote a 4,000 word essay,
00:03:06
Speaker
I got paid $50 for that. So I think given $50 for upwards of a 2,000 word audio essay, I think that might be fair, right? Maybe? Think of it this way. If you sign up for that tier one, it ends up being $48 a year. That in theory can pay one writer for her essay.
00:03:27
Speaker
you're supporting the community. And that's what this show has really always been about. Now, I feel like I've wasted more than enough of your time. If you want to hang out at the end of the show for my parting shot, uh, by all means it's there. It's there for you. If you want to hang out a little longer, have a, have a nightcap, if you will.
00:03:48
Speaker
there we can do it follow the show cnf pod across the big three subscribe to the monthly newsletter brendanamare.com hey and just strap in for this lovely chat with the one and the only carolyn holbrook
Importance of Journaling
00:04:15
Speaker
In what way would you say, you know, writing has been some of your writing and teaching has been just indispensable for you over the past year? Indispensable. That's a good word for it because it has been. I think that if I didn't have the writing and the teaching, I'd probably be a little crazier right now or just, you know, feeling just not knowing what to do with myself, you know, and I hear people saying that all the time. People who are not in the arts and don't have
00:04:44
Speaker
that outlet don't have a way to process what's going on. So, you know, I do a lot of encouraging people to journal and to, you know, to just write it out, sing it out, dance it out, whatever you need to do.
00:05:01
Speaker
Absolutely. The journaling as a practice is so so key and I've been lucky in that I've had a journaling practice for many many years and usually in the morning and I've actually taken to doing like I do a page in the morning and actually have started doing a page at night as a way to kind of just
00:05:21
Speaker
I don't know, a way to land the plane in a way that doesn't involve screens or anything. So I wonder for you, what process by which do you sort of employ journaling? Well, it depends. Sometimes I just write crap down, you know, just daily crap. And then other times, are you familiar with Dr. James Pennebaker? He's not. Yeah, he's at University of Texas. He has this process which he discovered
00:05:49
Speaker
because he was going through some stuff, that if you write down what's troubling you for four days, that it tends to, you know, do some sort of magical healing because in the first day you're just, you know, you're just vomiting it out. And then in the second day you start to, you know, try to see things a little bit more clearly. And by the fourth day it's like, oh,
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I can handle this. So, you know, if I'm going through some really heavy duty stuff, I will employ that practice. And it's really good. And then other times I sometimes I just make lists. So it just, you know, I don't have a consistent way of journaling. My only consistency is that I do journal every morning. It's my first thing in the morning with my coffee.
00:06:41
Speaker
But I think I'm going to try what you said, too. I think I'm going to try. I love the idea of also journaling at night, too, as you put it, to land the plane. I love that. So I think I'm going to, you know, we all know people who journal either in the morning or, you know, they have a specific time, some at night to process the day. But I've never thought of doing it in the morning and at night.
Origin of 'Slam Granny'
00:07:05
Speaker
I got to ask you, Carolyn, so you've got the nickname Slam Granny. Where does that come from? Where does that come from? Well, in addition to writing and teaching, I tend to start small arts organizations. And I started one in 1993. And it was so crazy. I had, are you familiar with the loft? The loft later in Minneapolis?
00:07:35
Speaker
I am. I had Annika Fajardo on the show a couple of years ago, and she's a good friend of the show and a great writer. So that's how I came to know it. Yeah. Well, I was their first person of color to be a program director. It drove me crazy. But anyway, that's another story. But I worked there for five years as program director, and I decided because it was so traumatic
00:08:03
Speaker
that I was never gonna do this stuff again, ever, ever, ever again. And so the day after I left, all of my energy came back. And I hope you're okay with me rambling, because it's sort of, it's getting to the slam granny. You know, the day after I left all my energy came back and people had been asking me when they found out that I was leaving, you know, am I gonna start another organization because I had had a smaller one before I came to the loft. And I kept telling them, no, I am so done with this stuff.
00:08:33
Speaker
But when I got my energy back, I decided, you know what? Maybe I do want to try this again. So I called a bunch of people together, people from different ages, different communities, different ethnic groups, different genres and all that. And a friend of mine who does ideation sessions invited us to come down to his place and he would lead a session to look at what another organization besides the loft would look like. And we came up with this group
00:09:02
Speaker
with the name called S-A-S-E, the right place. And, you know, because you know what the S-A-S-E is, and if you get it back, it means you lost. So we just did a, we did a play on that word and called it Sassy. So that, which meant that everybody wins. And, you know, I think it was around, oh, a couple of years later, some people who had been doing poetry slams wanted to bring
00:09:32
Speaker
the National Poetry Slam to Minneapolis. And they asked me if Sassy would be willing to host it. And I said, yeah, of course we will. So we ended up going to Chicago like three years in a row to try to convince them that Minneapolis was a good place to do the National Poetry Slam. And somewhere in those three years, somebody called me Slam Granny and it stuck. I haven't been to a slam since I don't know when, but I'm still Slam Granny.
00:10:00
Speaker
So in what way did writing sort of choose you, Carolyn,
Writing as Communication
00:10:06
Speaker
in a sense? And it's something that you, you know, probably was baked into your bones in a lot of ways. Yeah, I come from a family that's, you know, they're kind of loud. And I was the quiet one, and the middle child and, you know, sort of the invisible one. I felt invisible anyway, you know, but
00:10:29
Speaker
writing always appealed to me because I could write stuff. I could, you know, write, you know, childish poems and all that. And, you know, they would listen. They meaning the poems and the paper and the pen or pencil or whatever I used would listen to me. And I felt like I like I like like writing was a real, you know, entity, a real friend, you know. And so I guess it did choose me. Yeah, because it was the way that I could communicate.
00:11:01
Speaker
and feel like I was being heard. Yeah. Well, yeah. And for someone who felt invisible, this was a medium that was not going to judge you in any way. Yeah. Yeah. I love early in your book, too, where you write, most writers are familiar with the muse who helps us with our writing and the internal critic who tries to put roadblocks in our path. But for me, the muse and the critic are the voices of my maternal aunts, both
00:11:30
Speaker
both who have been in the ancestral realm for many years and I highlighted that I just I love that passage that that's where you know that's where the juice is coming from for you yep yeah and um yeah there's still I feel like they're still around me you know one of them encouraging me and the other one you know telling me to stop shut up you know don't talk don't tell that stuff
00:12:01
Speaker
And so that in and of itself, that could be a voice that would be stifling to you as a creative person or as a writer. But ultimately, you know, you do have you are putting these things down. So where do you find the for lack of a better term, maybe like the courage to just surrender to that and get these stories down? I think part of it is from the aunt that encourages me, because she was always you know, she's been dead for a very long time.
00:12:30
Speaker
But there was just something about her. She had this way about her that was, you know, she was a gutsy woman. She lived in San Francisco. She lived here when we were little, but then she moved to San Francisco. And when we would go visit her, she always had a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other, was dressed in, you know, really gorgeous, you know, clothing, and was just, you know, ready for the world. And the world was ready for her.
00:12:57
Speaker
And I would, you know, as the quiet one in the family, I would observe her and she just fascinated me. And I felt like, you know, I can do anything just from observing my, you know, my gutsy aunt. I think a lot of it comes from that and thinking about, you know, things that she did with her life that just, you know, makes me feel like, yeah, I can do this stuff.
00:13:24
Speaker
You know, and as you were, as you were growing up, of course, like, you know, you've, you know, you've been dealt a lot of a lot of adversity, you know, you had your first child when you were
Overcoming Early Challenges
00:13:34
Speaker
17. And I believe it was Stevie and he was, you know, you know, you know, put until you turned 18 was
00:13:42
Speaker
I don't know, a ward of the state, I imagine. And then you had to essentially prove that you could then take him on. And you're doing this at such a young age. So how did you not let that early adversity get you down and it kept your eyes upward, as it were? I did let it get me down, but there was also something else. In addition to my aunt, you probably read about my eighth grade English teacher when I was
00:14:10
Speaker
I was just not a model teenager at all. I was the worst nightmare of a teenager. But my eighth grade English teacher saw beyond the stuff that I presented and she saw something else there and she welcomed me and she encouraged me. And I think it's really true that with kids, sometimes it only takes one person to accept them.
00:14:40
Speaker
You know, she always stayed in the back of my mind. And I don't know what my aunt thought of me. I honestly don't, other than to, you know, to give me the courage to do what I wanted to do. But I don't recall ever having a real conversation with her. She was just someone I observed. But my English teacher, I interacted with her. And she always, you know, she looked at me and she saw me. And, you know, no matter what adversity I went through that you read in my book for the next
00:15:08
Speaker
20, 30 years, her voice was always there somewhere in the back of my mind that, you know, I am a worthy person. I can do what I came here to do. It's just amazing to me that, you know, the influence, that her influence stayed with me in such a powerfully positive way for so many years while I was undergoing, you know, other things that were just not very positive or pleasant.
00:15:39
Speaker
I hope I'm making sense here.
00:15:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, of course. What do you think she saw in you, given that you put off probably a vibe that probably sensed you didn't want to maybe put in the effort or learn, and yet she still saw something in you. So what do you think it was that she saw that allowed her to be like, I can tell there's something in Carolina. I'm going to keep trying to see her and let her be seen.
00:16:11
Speaker
You know, in a weird way, I think it was more about her than it was about me. Her ability to see and to care, you know, I would say mostly her ability to see because I mean, what did she see in me? She must have seen, you know, someone who had or was a lot more, that there was more behind my exterior than most people saw. So, you know, I really do think that she just had
00:16:42
Speaker
the ability to see or to, you know, and the empathy, the compassion and all that kind of stuff, you know, to look beyond the surface of, you know, what some surly little kid, you know, presented in the classroom. And, you know, I remember I wrote a poem in her class that that maybe that's what it was. It was just a, you know,
00:17:09
Speaker
A poem that an eighth grade kid would write was, you know, an awful poem. But, you know, I think there was something so inviting about her that I was willing to just show it to her. And, you know, there was as much bravado as I tried to show. I was really a shy kid. So I remember sort of, you know, sidling up to her desk after all the kids had left the classroom so I could show it to her.
00:17:38
Speaker
there must have been something that she was presenting, you know, that made me feel that I could trust her. I would come from the principal's office to her classroom from my class before hers, you know, because I was always in the principal's office, but she always welcomed me no matter what. And it's something that, you know, that I just carried with me when I started teaching in community college and I saw so many kids that, um,
00:18:06
Speaker
they come into the classroom the way that I did. Well, that's right. A lot of the students that you worked with there were trying to finish their high school degree or diploma and had a similar bravado that I think you probably recognized in yourself when you were that age and yet occasionally you would
00:18:33
Speaker
you had given your experience and given your experience with your English teacher, you were able to be like, okay, I see the sort of vibe that's being put off, but I know there's something else beneath the surface here. You know, you just made me wonder, what if she came from a background similar to mine? Maybe that's why she could see me. I'll never know. Right? Yeah, very well could be. And that's just a way of the dots connecting themselves in that very special way.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah. Hmm. Well, with this with this book, you know, it's, you know, on the cover, of course, you know, it's it's it says essays, but it's very much it's kind of like linked essays, very memoiristic.
Memoir Writing Style
00:19:19
Speaker
It feels they feels like they belong together. But but it's not how you would define a memoir in a sense where it really feels like, you know, it's this one contagious story, if you will. But it
00:19:33
Speaker
So when you were sitting down to compose these pieces, what was the motivation behind how to structure this and use it more as sort of a fragmented memoir instead of one that feels beginning to end like it's this one sort of a continuous thing, if that makes any sense? Totally makes sense. And I thought about that a lot. And it just, how can what I'm doing become
00:20:03
Speaker
you know, a memoir that you pick up and read from beginning to end. And it just wasn't working that way. And I couldn't figure out how to make it fit, you know, because I had been working on these essays for a long time, way before I met my publisher. I started working on them when my kids were teenagers because I needed to stay sane. Another wonderful tribute to writing itself, you know, because it can keep you sane.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, I just kept writing them over, you know, a good number of years and I couldn't figure out, you know, I thought that it was going to be a memoir and it just wasn't working that way. So I talked with my editor and I asked him, you know, what the heck is this thing? And he says, I think it is a memoir in connected essays. And that just struck the right chord. That's exactly what it is. And, you know,
00:21:01
Speaker
the way that it's structured does allow the reader to pick up my book at any point and read any of the essays and not lose the thread that would happen if it was a beginning to end type of contiguous memoir.
00:21:16
Speaker
That must have been a very sort of liberating moment if you were like, oh, wow, this is like, oh, I can I'm sort of freed from the pressure of having to like have this like page one to 250 be this kind of continuous thing. I can actually make it. I can chop it up into digestible pieces and then worry about stitching them together later. So yeah, what what was that moment like? It was very liberating. And then, you know, having him, I have I have a wonderful editor.
00:21:46
Speaker
Eric Anderson is his name, to have him help me shape the damn thing and try to figure out what order makes sense with all these essays and how some of the ones that I wrote a long time ago were still important to me. But I had to take another look at them for how do I see this situation today, which is different than I saw it while it was happening 20, 30 years ago.
00:22:17
Speaker
And so there was also that process of taking a second look or third or fourth or fifth look, you know, at some of the older ones and trying to make sense out of how I see it now. And we were able to work together to make that, to make them, to make those essays work.
00:22:38
Speaker
And so early on in the book, you were a small child when your parents divorced. And so you moved from Michigan to Minneapolis, and your father moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. And over the course of your, certainly your young life and young adult life, I think you even went from South Carolina,
00:23:00
Speaker
Massachusetts and, you know, back to Minneapolis. So it was, you know, very, you know, nomadic in a lot of ways. And so in what ways was that, you know, difficult for you to, you know, wrestle with as you were looking to sort of, you know, find find your roots and kind of find your voice as a as an artist, but also as a young woman, you know, raising children. Yeah, it was very difficult. You know, when I left Minneapolis with my little little boy,
00:23:26
Speaker
you know, my intention was to, as so many young people, to go to New York and become a famous actor. I didn't realize that I was too shy to be a good actress, although a lot of them are shy people. So there was that. And then, you know, meeting the guy that I married in Boston, and he was a musician, we were involved in a group together of, you know, artists from, you know,
00:23:57
Speaker
lots of different disciplines. And, you know, and then he lived, he was from North Carolina. So we moved down there, you know, and then coming back home with, by then, you know, I had all the kids and, you know, trying to figure out, okay, now what? How am I going to manage this?
00:24:22
Speaker
You have this very entrepreneurial nature about yourself that I think you took from your father and the people that were close to you because you started your own secretarial business and recruited your kids to help you too with that.
00:24:43
Speaker
So it probably stems from needing you just needing to find ways to survive and thrive. But where does that come from for you? Well, yeah, there was the need to survive and thrive. But there, as you pointed out, were also the influences of my parents, my mom and my stepfather, my mother and my grandmother. I never met either of my grandparents. They all died before
00:25:12
Speaker
I was born, but I knew who they were and what they did. And it seems like the women in my ancestry, a lot of them were entrepreneurial type of women. So I think it's in my blood somewhere. And it was just important to me to show my kids that even though we were poor and we were poor, that's not all life was about, that they could become much more than
00:25:40
Speaker
you know, the life that we were living when they were growing up. So, you know, I think having the entrepreneurial spirit in me, which allowed me to start this little secretarial service that I had at home was really useful for me and for my kids, because I think it did show them that, you know, this isn't the only way to live, that, you know, being poor and living in this
00:26:07
Speaker
that the type of place we were living in and all that is not the only way to live. Yeah, I would say it was the influence that I observed from my mom especially and my grandmother that I knew about. I knew what they had done. And then my aunt Dorothy as well, who I mentioned earlier.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's your, I'm blanking on which, you know, which one of your daughters, but she, I suspect that the influence that you had, you know, on, on your daughters and specifically the one whose name I'm blanking on, but like, yeah, I think someone at school say, no, you should apply to, you know, University of Minnesota and go there. But when she had the, yeah, and, you know, it was,
00:26:59
Speaker
at some point or another, it was like, no, you can dream bigger and go bigger. And she applies to Vassar and gets in, which is this, you know, great women's college in upstate New York, I believe. So it's, I don't know, I imagine the example you set was something, you know, made that kind of possible for, you know, for her and others. Right. Yeah. And then, you know, with that, there was also a counselor at school who had her interest at heart.
00:27:27
Speaker
He wasn't her counselor, but he was aware of her because my daughter carries this, I don't know, how can you say it? You notice her. And, you know, he was always there to encourage him. When we were there one night for student teacher conferences, I always took my kids to student teacher conferences with me because, you know, sometimes if when I went alone, the teachers would tell me one thing and the kid would tell me something else. I said, nope, that ain't gonna happen again. They're going, we're going together.
00:27:56
Speaker
just to stop this shit right now. And so Tanya and I were at school for a conference and Mr. whatever his name is, his name is in the book, the counselor, he's the one who says, so where are you going to college? She said, well, I guess I'm probably going to go to the EU. And he says, well, why don't you try, you know, try some other colleges? Why don't you try Wellesley or Vassar or, and we looked at each other like, duh, of course.
00:28:24
Speaker
The worst that will happen is that she won't get in, but if you don't try, for sure you won't get in. And it's interesting that she applied to all these Ivy League colleges and she applied to a hotshot college here in Minnesota, and that's the one she did not get into. So we ended up choosing Vassar, and it was great.
00:28:42
Speaker
I love, too, this passage about halfway through the book, too, where you write that at the time of this writing, I've been teaching two to three courses per year at Hamline for nearly 25 years. I was the first adjunct professor to win the Exemplary Teacher Award, which I won in 2014.
00:29:02
Speaker
I've learned to use my non-traditional background, both to my advantage and the advantage of others. And I kind of loved that this reference to your non-traditional background and non-traditional education and upbringing. And so many people bring that to the table. They bring their own histories with them. And you used it in such a...
00:29:23
Speaker
in a way that empowered you and empowered your students. So in what ways, maybe you can speak to that, that you were able to use your nontraditional background as a way to reach the people you were trying to reach. Well, I think for me, it's like, let me see, how can I say this? I think that having a nontraditional background has worked to my advantage because I am not stuck on, you know, the traditional ways of teaching. I'm more interested in
00:29:55
Speaker
What can I say? Developing the student from wherever they are, that's really important to me rather than standing in front of the classroom and saying, I'm the one, you know? I had a man come and visit my class some years ago. It's Hamlin, not Hamline, Hamlin. And he was writing a book on teaching. Man, he said to me, you will never win a teaching award, but you will, the students are getting so much from you.
00:30:25
Speaker
that he said, I don't know why more people don't teach like this. And I started thinking, you know, it's probably because they're after the awards. I don't give a rip about the awards. You know, I just want to work with these kids. You know, a couple of times a year, I'll get a love letter from a student that I might have had 10 or 15 years ago. This one, most recent one was from a kid who said, I bet you thought I wasn't listening.
00:30:56
Speaker
That's what he said. I said, what? He said, but I heard every word you said. And, you know, he was a little white kid from some rural towns from somewhere. And, you know, he was kind of fidgety, I think, you know, I don't know if he had ADD or whatever, but he was just a fidgety kid. And, you know, he probably heard a lot of teachers throughout his life telling settle down, listen,
00:31:24
Speaker
But I could tell just from the way that he that I mean, first of all, he was always the first one to arrive in the classroom. And, you know, his classroom, his comments in the classroom, and even in small groups, I could hear were very insightful. I knew he was listening. But he thought probably because of what he's heard all his life, that I didn't think he was listening. So he just had to let me know. And I thought that was so amazing now. So he told me all about his
00:31:51
Speaker
his new wife and family and stuff. And it was just, you know, I just love when shit like that happens. Sorry, that's one of my favorite words. So I have to say it every now and then. And yeah, and I think that, you know, if I had a more traditional background, then, you know, my teaching would probably be more traditional too. And the students would come away with a great education, period. Am I making any sense?
00:32:20
Speaker
I think that, yeah, because I have a different way of being, that they come away with an education plus, you know, I don't know, maybe more confidence or more of a view of what you can do. That's not necessarily in the textbook.
00:32:40
Speaker
You know, this is really hard for me, Brendan, because I don't know how to, I don't even know how to express this stuff. I just do it. If someone were to ask me to write down what is my method of teaching, I don't know if I could.
00:32:53
Speaker
Right. I was actually going to ask you, like, what, like, what is that method that is that is not, you know, by the by the book and not what would quote unquote, like win, win awards? Because, you know, that doesn't matter. All that matters is, you know, connecting. Yeah. And interestingly, I did win an award. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And even as an adjunct professor and man, that was really that was really something.
00:33:22
Speaker
But I don't know. I've heard students tell me in these love letters or if I run into them somewhere, you know, he says, they will say things like, when I was in your class, I didn't really understand what was going on. But it wasn't until a year or two later that all of a sudden it hit me. And I don't know. I honestly do not know how to explain what I do that's
00:33:53
Speaker
But I don't know, I guess it works. At least for some students. For sure. I mean, sometimes what makes it special is it's something that it just emanates from who you are as a person in your life. And if you could probably easily define it, it would probably take away some of the magic of what you do away, you know.
00:34:18
Speaker
There's one essay in the book too, which must have been a challenging and maybe even not rewarding, but like a challenging in a good way, experience of writing an essay with your son, Stevie, and it's titled The
Healing through Writing Letters
00:34:37
Speaker
Bank Robbery. I was wondering maybe you can talk a little bit about that chapter and what it was like to collaborate with your son on this particular essay. Wow, that was amazing.
00:34:48
Speaker
When he decided to rob this bank, it was right after 9-11. No judge in the world was going to have any kind of sympathy for a kid that did something like that right after 9-11. No way. So the timing was really off, really bad. You know, I mean, it's not, it wouldn't have been cool to rob a bank no matter what. But right then, you know, like, come on, kid. And so.
00:35:19
Speaker
So soon as he, and in the federal system, I learned that they can send you anywhere in the country, anywhere. So he was not in Minnesota. They sent him first to, I want to say Colorado. He wrote me a letter and it just said, mom, why did my life turn out like this? And, you know, my first thought was, well, I could just answer him and say, because you screwed up. But there's a lot more to that. There was a very searching question. He wanted to know.
00:35:48
Speaker
And so I suggested that we start writing letters back and forth that touched on all types of topics, you know? And I knew that there'd be some things I didn't want to hear about, you know, some of the mistakes I made as a mom, but there was also, it was just really important, I felt, for him, for us, not just for him, but for us to be able to discuss these things in, you know, very real terms
00:36:18
Speaker
And so we started writing these letters back and forth. And it went on for like three or four years, because he was in the joint for 10 years. They sent him to Colorado. Then they sent him somewhere else. And every few years, it seemed like they send them somewhere else if you have a long federal sentence. And in between these letters, he would call me, because I couldn't call him. They have to call you. And you have a certain amount of time that you can talk. And then it just hangs up.
00:36:48
Speaker
So we would, you know, these letters would just spark amazing conversations as well. And, you know, after a while, you know, my son had been, you know, he had been in and out of the juvenile system for so long as well. And I didn't really know my son. So through this, I got to know my kid. And one of the things I learned about him was that he was a good writer. Yeah. And so it just occurred to me after doing this for several years that
00:37:18
Speaker
You know, I think there's something here that that's worth trying to publish at least trying to publish. And so, you know, I talked to a couple of people, and they liked it. And so it was, you know, first, it's been published several times now in several different places, and ended up now finally in my book. But when Stevie was released from prison, he's been out now what
00:37:45
Speaker
I don't even know how long he was able to vote for the first time in his life in 2016. No, he didn't vote for the thing that just left Washington. But yeah, I mean, it was just so, we were talking early on, Brendan, when we first started talking about the healing power of writing and journaling and just how healing it is and to get this stuff out of your body, out of your mind, onto the paper.
00:38:15
Speaker
And he's a true testament to the healing power of writing because that kid has not been in trouble since, period, at all. Yeah, and he'd spent, I mean, from the time he was 13 until he did this bank robbery in 2011, he'd been in and out of the juvie system and then as an adult as well.
00:38:45
Speaker
You know, he's just being able to take that deep look with me and for me to be able to do it with him as well was healing for both of us.
00:38:57
Speaker
That's amazing that you learned so much about your son through these letters, basically as pen pals from this horrible situation that just had him locked away for so long. And this is what allowed you to kind of grow together. It's just kind of a really touching experience. It's sad that it had to play out that way, but it did. And you're still able to make something of it. Yeah.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, in some ways, I don't feel like it was sad, because I don't know if it could have happened any other way. That's a great point. Yeah. People have people, you know, all across the country, it seems like they have prison writing workshops, we have some here in Minnesota as well. And it's just so amazing what can happen to the inmates, men, women, juvenile people, just being able to
00:39:54
Speaker
Write this stuff down and have somebody who really genuinely hears you. And then all the more when it's, you know, you and your parent. You know, when I visited some of the prison writing workshops, one in particular, there was this young man. He couldn't look at me. He just couldn't, you know. It just, it was like, you know, his whole being was just so full of shame.
00:40:24
Speaker
It just made me so sad to observe this kid when he couldn't look at me. He asked me something like, well, he didn't ask me, he told me. He said, I think my life would be different too if I could talk to my mom like your son talks to you in this, you know, this piece that you're referring to. And, you know, his life was so unbelievably horrific, I couldn't believe it. And he just had this longing to be able to,
00:40:53
Speaker
you know, to communicate with his mother like he saw me and Stevie communicate in this piece.
Empowerment as a Black Woman
00:41:01
Speaker
And the final essay of the book too was, you know, particularly strong. And I love this passage towards the end where you write, you know, for black women loving ourselves and passing that self-love down to our daughters and our granddaughters is a difficult task.
00:41:18
Speaker
Centuries of negation often make us feel like we need to adopt a hard protective shell, which is either praised as strength or dismissed as hostility. In short, we turn ourselves into stone. And that was just such a strong, just evocative passage. I loved it and marked it up. And in what ways, how did you arrive at that? And in what ways have you avoided turning into stone?
00:41:48
Speaker
I don't know that I have avoided it. I think there have been times in my life and situations that I've faced where I probably, you know, came off like that. I don't know. And maybe I don't know. Maybe I haven't turned myself into stone because if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to write this stuff. I'd probably just be living a very sad life. But it is really hard because we are often, so often misunderstood.
00:42:19
Speaker
And, you know, the whole trauma that we have gone through that has, you know, some people, many people just don't even think about what we've gone through to get where we are. You know, I don't know, how have I kept from turning myself into stone? I don't know, maybe it's that same thing that we were talking about that my eighth grade teacher saw in me and that my daughter is
00:42:47
Speaker
you know, high school counselor saw in her, it was just really important for me to do all I could to make my daughters and my sons feel like, you know, they were important people, worthy of managing around this, whatever types of racism that they had to face that we have to face nearly every day. Again, I'm having a real hard time trying to explain
00:43:19
Speaker
you know, trying to give you a straight answer. Yeah, when I saw, you know, things like, like that one daughter, Tanya, you know, when she took her acceptance letter to school, and, you know, all the white women, especially counselors, just
00:43:40
Speaker
you know, told her, well, you know, I don't know who you think, who do you think you are, type of thing, you know, and she came home just completely dejected. And, you know, my other two daughters have had situations that have been horrific as well, that, you know, people just completely negating them and making them feel like they're worthless little, you know, pieces of crap. And, you know, it's been really, really important
00:44:09
Speaker
for me to try to lift them back up and not let them turn themselves into bitter women mad at the world, which can be really, really hard when you're facing stuff all the time, every day.
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah, I can't imagine because then what that does is it just further negatively reinforces that negative feedback where it's already a perception that you're dealing with. And then if they then start to harden because you're being treated like shit and then it's just like, well,
00:44:53
Speaker
There you, there you have it. How can I treat you otherwise when you're acting like this? And it's just like, Oh my God. It's like, how do you? Yeah. It's like, it never, yeah. Who are, who are some great writers, you know, keep inspiring you and bringing you back to the ledger. Well, Isabel Wilkerson, for sure. Um, Tony Cade Bumbara back in the, um, she was, you know, in the sixties and seventies.
00:45:20
Speaker
I used to keep Isabel Allende's memoir, Paula, next to my computer because of something I heard her say on NPR. Somebody asked her how she manages to write about her, the political stuff that went on in Chile while she was growing up, how she manages to do it so seamlessly when she's writing fiction or memoir or whatever.
00:45:50
Speaker
And she says, I don't think about it. I just tell my story. And for me, that's what it's that that's where it's at. You know, I mean, instead of trying to, you know, sort of force things in so that it because you feel like you should, like I'm getting a lot of essays now, because I'm guest editor of an anthology that our college is putting out. And I'm getting all these beautiful nature essays and stuff, but they feel like they have to throw something in about
00:46:19
Speaker
George Floyd's murder, and it comes off just like that, you know? That, oh yeah, I guess I better say something about George Floyd, even though I'm writing about Sequoia trees in California. So I was like, oh, you know, don't, just don't do that shit.
00:46:38
Speaker
Um, you know, um, when you're writing from a point where it doesn't sound like you're being didactic or lecturing when you just lay out the story, like that's, that's the juice. That's the truth to actually inject the information you want to get across. It's like, just tell the story and it will, it will get in there. Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, Octavia Butler, I really love her work. Um,
00:47:09
Speaker
Colson Whitehead, my writing buddy who's a Dakota Indian person, Native person, she just came out with a novel called The Seed Keeper. I love her work as well. And she wrote a memoir, historically researched memoir about her tribal people, some time ago called Spirit Car, which is also inspiring to me because I was able to see
00:47:38
Speaker
again, what what Isabel Allende was talking about, because she does it really seamlessly. James Baldwin. Oh, my God. Yeah. They are some of those are some of my influences, Toni Morris and the you know, the usuals, but then there's also people like Tommy Orange, Annika Fajardo, that, you know, their their voices in there. They just really turn me on. I just love
00:48:09
Speaker
as you do books. And I like the way sometimes that fiction can influence my way of writing nonfiction and vice versa. I'm working on a novel right now. Yeah, there's just so, so many books, so many wonderful books and so many voices out there that are, you know, that need to be heard.
00:48:32
Speaker
So, well, at this point, I want to be mindful of your time, Carolyn. So, um, but, you know, thank you so much for jumping on the show and, and, and talking about your, your, your book and your, and your work. And, uh, so, uh, where can, where can people, you know, get more familiar with you and your work online? Um, my website is Carolyn Lee Holbrook.com. And then the website for my little organization that I'm running now more than a single story.
00:49:00
Speaker
is the same more than a single story.com. Fantastic. Well, it was great talking to you, Carolyn. Thanks again for coming on the podcast. You're welcome, and thanks for inviting me. Man, I wish my name was Slam Granny.
00:49:20
Speaker
Thanks to Carolyn Holbrook for the time and the insights and the delightful conversation. And thanks to UCNFers for making it to this week's jam session. Always nice when we can spend this time together. Pro tip, make sure when you're doing the dishes that you get the outside of the bowl too. And it might seem obvious, but make sure your sponge is clean, otherwise you're just spreading muck around. Speaking from experience.
00:49:48
Speaker
you know the social channels at cnf pod across the big three say hello consider leaving a kind review on apple podcast i often take a screenshot and then share that across networks to let the world know how freaking cool you are we're at 101 ratings and reviews and there's a lot of written reviews given that
00:50:08
Speaker
You know, most most shows don't have as many written reviews per total ratings. So it's pretty great that most of the reviews or significant chunk are written. So tell you what, I'm going to do this. The next nine written reviewers, written reviewers will get a 30 minute coaching call with me. That's like a $50 value. Pretty much for you just taking a couple of minutes to write a con review on Apple podcasts.
00:50:33
Speaker
I will stop this offer once you hit a hundred ten but email me a screenshot of your review creative nonfiction podcast at gmail.com and once it posts officially posts then we'll proceed from there. Sound good? I think that's fair. Give it a shot. Why not? What's to lose?
00:50:54
Speaker
couple things, not to lose, but just a couple more things. I need to beat a few things to death here. Uh, one deadline for the summer themed issue of the CNF bot audio magazine is fast approaching March 21st. I hope you're hard at work on your essays because deadlines are real, man. They are real. Submission guidelines are at the top of the homepage of BrendanMayer.com. Hey, hey,
00:51:22
Speaker
Two, the audio magazine will be exclusive to Patreon members at that community. Issue one on isolation is free. It's in the normal podcast feed, but issue two and more and beyond are for the paid Patreon community. Your contribution will make it possible for me to afford you all sorts of cool goodies, the pay writers for their work as well.
00:51:51
Speaker
for what amounts to $48 a year you help the production of 64 interviews and two blockbuster audio magazines a year that will hopefully be three then four and you get transcripts too just at that tier one and then there's other sort of exclusive like things that i just post randomly on the patreon community page that is only available to the
00:52:16
Speaker
to the Patreon community. I don't put it on my website. I just put it right there. So you get some extra, extra goodies, a little extra seasoning here and there. So I hope you consider joining the growing community. It is growing slowly, but it is. And I just want to, you want to keep the lights on here at CNF Pod HQ. Oh, excuse me. Big yard. Oh man.
00:52:42
Speaker
Well, not much to say this week. I've been in one of those modes where I'm just eating everything in sight. I'm eating peanut butter like it's yogurt. I can't seem to stop eating and that's bad because I'm an endomorph, which basically means every single fucking calorie I eat gets stored on my body in very unflattering ways. Take this 19.2 ounce Tallboy IPA I'm drinking right now. Straight to the love handles, man. And it's like I'm powerless to stop.
00:53:12
Speaker
I had some good habits working lately and I've been falling off the rails. I'm trying to bring some order to this life. I wear sweatpants so often that when I put jeans on, I 100% forget to zip my fly up 100% of the time because sweatpants don't have flies, baby. Just a forgivable waistband that practically invites me to eat more pasta. This is madness. It's gotta stop, man.
00:53:41
Speaker
I'm the type of eater that if I see a sleeve of Oreos sitting around, instead of like having two or three a day over the course of several days, like a normal person, I'll see like, oh, there's 12 left? Better eat them now and get them out of here. Then the bloat kicks in and the shame cycle starts. Then I record a podcast about telling true stories and tell you poor suckas about my unhealthy relationship to food and drink.
00:54:08
Speaker
And you're like, oh boy, here we go again. And I'm like, well, at least I put this at the end of the show where the stragglers hang out. And this is the after party, right? Everybody's all been drunk on the conversation and most of the party left at a reasonable hour. But you're still here with me. And you know what we're going to do? We're going to order up some calzones. Who's with me?
00:54:32
Speaker
Stay cool, CNFers. Get home safe, alright? Stay cool forever. See ya.
00:55:30
Speaker
you