Category: Community Love

STAY TRUE TO YOUR VISION and keep writing!

1/23/2022

A sIT down with Contest winner and kitchen table member kathryn m. sharon featuring the story "Solomon's choice" (2ND ANNUNAL SPRING MICRO-FICTION CONTEST winner)

A conversation with Kathryn M. Sharon about her story, “Solomon’s Choices,” her writing journey, and how she self-designed an "MFA program" to develop her creative voice.

Q: The global pandemic created turmoil the world over, and the "George Floyd Summer/Breonna Taylor Summer" reflected a broader response to racial inequity and state-sanctioned violence than ever before. As a writer, how did you handle the challenges of being an artist and professional with everything that was/is going on? What challenges or opportunities did the pandemic create or open up for you in your writing?

A: When the pandemic first hit in early 2020, I found it frightening and destabilizing. Equally triggering was the racial and social upheaval that resulted from the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020. During this time of great tumult, it was hard for me to write. I felt numb, unfocused, dispirited. My focus was on getting through the day and staying healthy. I was in self-protection and self-preservation mode; But a few months into the pandemic, I felt this tug to get back to writing. What kept coming for me is the Toni Morrison quote: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."

So, I gathered myself and registered for Kitchen Table Literary Arts’ s Learn ‘Em, Break ‘Em five-week fiction course, where I was put through the rigor of writing and revising a series of short stories. Taking the course helped me stay on track with my writing practice. I must say, I was proud of myself for pushing through during a very difficult time.

"Sometimes we need to check ourselves, examine our values and responsibility to our community, and
make difficult choices."

As far as opportunities during the pandemic, a lot writing conferences, book tours, and other literary events that would have typically been held onsite and in person, were held virtually. And this afforded me the opportunity to attend countless literary events that I normally would not have had an opportunity to attend, either due to their location, costs, and a limited number of vacation days. But in 2020 and 2021, my calendar stayed booked.

Q: What tips or advice do you have for fellow writers?

A: Take advantage of the plethora of writing resources out there such as writing communities (e.g., Kitchen Table Literary Arts and Association of Writers & Writing Programs) and podcasts (e.g., the Manuscript Academy and The Shit No One Tells You About Writing). Get to know the bookstagram community, read voraciously, and most importantly stay true to your creative vision and keep writing.

Q: What do you hope readers taken away from the story, “Solomon’s Choice”?

A: A key takeaway is that sometimes we need to check ourselves, examine our values and responsibility to our community, and make difficult choices. That is, if one is in the position to do so. In the case of the protagonist in “Solomon’s Choice,” it was her cousin who checked her.

"Stay true to your creative vision and keep writing."

Q: What encouraged you to submit your story to our Spring Micro-Fiction contest?

A: I had never submitted my work in a writing contest and I wanted to see how I would fare. But more importantly, this 750-word micro-fiction contest presented me with the challenge of distilling my short story down to its essence, down to the core critical elements. And for me, this was an invaluable creative exercise.

Q: What can we expect from you in the future?

A: The great Toni Morrison famously said, “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it". So, that is what I have set out to do. I’m currently working on my debut fiction novel set in the mid-20th century about a Black woman navigating life in the American South. I just finished my first draft, and plan to start querying in the latter half of this year.

CONGRATULATIONS again to our 2nd Annual Spring Micro-Fiction Contest Winner Kathryn M. Sharon.

sOLOMON'S CHOICE BY Kathryn m. sharon

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Brooklyn-native, Kathryn M. Sharon is a writer whose work has been published in the Word Works poetry Anthology, the Bronx Press Review, and Streeterville News. She was a former stringer for The New York Times. Kathryn earned masters' degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Peace and Conflict Studies program, where she studied structural violence in Black communities. She’s currently working on her debut novel.

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You Never Know What Can Happen

6/23/2020

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A conversation with our first writing contest winner bRYANNA sANDERS.
fEATURING THE STORY "fIRST LOVE" (sPRING MICRO-FICTION Contest)

When I think of why Kitchen Table Literary Arts was founded, I think of writers like our Spring Micro-Fiction contest winner, Bryanna Sanders.

In April, Kitchen Table Literary Arts center hosted our first writing contest, exclusively for Creative Writing Society members. The Creative Writing Society is an online platform established to provide a safe environment for Black women and women of color writers to meet and engage through online literary courses, submission calls, writing challenges, and more.

I had the pleasure to sit and talk with our first contest winner Bryanna Sanders on her writing journey, her thoughts on writing communities, and the inspiration behind her winning story, "First Love," which can be read at the end of the interview.

Q: Was this your first contest?

A: Yes, my first contest and the first short story I wrote.

Q: Many writers including myself fear submitting even to smaller publications and contests. What encouraged you to submit to our Spring Micro-Fiction contest?

A: I am a really anxious person and I overthink things like a lot. It’s going to sound weird but the thing that encouraged me to submit was that I had never done this before. And so, I was like, you know what? I am not going to win this at all. I have no confidence in myself. So, we are going to submit because who cares, and in the end it will be good practice. The thing that encouraged me was not expecting anything at all.

Q: What advice would you give to other Black women and Women of Color writers looking to take the next steps in their writing journey in the form of submitting?

A: Like Nike say, just do it! Because you never know how it is going to come out. Like, I said I get real bad anxiety over my work and I have this inferiority complex and nothing is ever good enough. So, I understand the anxiety that is associated with submitting but at the end of the day you never know what is going to happen. I went into this with no expectations at all; and now I am here doing this interview like a real writer.

It is important to believe in your work, and in yourself. Understand you do have something to say and something worthwhile to put out there. We need to hear more of our voices! Submit, if for nothing else but for the next Black woman to come along who might read your work and be inspired by it. If you can’t submit it for you, submit it for that person who it can possibly affect in a positive way.

Q: Why do you believe it is important to have a writing community, especially for Black women and women of color?

A: It is imperative to have these spaces. I went to a HBCU, but I didn't grow up around a lot of people that look like me. As I get older I see that there aren’t a lot of places for us. This is a healing space for me, I feel safe here.

I wrote a poem about George Floyd and everything that has been happening for centuries in our community, and the Kitchen Table Creative Writing Society was a safe place where I could share it. There are not a lot of places where I can express my anger, frustrations, and emotions. Sometimes I am afraid to express emotions and be vulnerable because of the perceptions people have about Black women and People of Color. This place is everything to me. We need places where we can speak freely amongst ourselves. And, getting that encouragement from everyone in the writing community!

Writing is hard. Putting yourself out there, sharing personal pieces. It’s not a lot of places I feel comfortable doing that, but this is one of them. I am beyond appreciative of it! I need this space.

“I am grateful for this space, for all the women in the space, and everyone who read the story. Thank you." - Bryanna Sanders

Q: What was the inspiration for your micro-fiction story, “First Love”?

A: OH GOSH! I am southern but I am not from Louisiana but I have always really loved New Orleans and Louisiana. It’s beautiful, so that’s my backdrop. I am also bisexual. Yes, I love me some women! I wrote about someone I had a crush on. We weren’t childhood friends or anything, and I tried to image what it might have been like if we were in this situation, then the one we were in when I met her; you feel me? I drew from my own childhood experiences with crushes then along with her as a person and went from there. That was my inspiration. So, love, Spanish moss and New Orleans!

Q: What can we expect from you in the future? Are you working on any current writing projects?

A: During National Poetry Month, those 30 days of writing was the most I have written in my life! I have a lot of pieces just sitting in my drive, so I am currently working on a poetry collection. I also started working on a romance themed novel because I am a romantic at heart. I just finished the first chapter and by the end of this year I am hoping to have at least three more chapters finished.

I enjoyed my conversation with Bryanna Sanders as much as I enjoyed reading her story "First Love" and her poetry. Her poem, “Mixed Bags” was featured on Kitchen Table Literary Arts Instagram during National Poetry Month. To read more work by Bryanna Sanders please visit her instragram: @bry_yourself8

First lOVE BY Bryanna Sanders

Bryanna Sanders is a writer hailing from Charlotte, NC. She holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Savannah State University. She typically explores topics related to love, trauma, and family legacy. Bryanna has been performing spoken word in and around Tampa, FL since 2019 and joined the Kitchen Table Literary Arts Creative Writing Society in March 2020. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and her first novel. Her favorite authors include Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Roxane Gay.

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In the arms of a sister

3/13/2019

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welcoming valerie boyd, sheree renee thomas, and shay youngblood TO THE KITCHEN TABLE LITERARY ARTS ADVISORY BOARD

Valerie Boyd and I at Zora Fest 2019

I've been waiting to make this announcement for months, and I'm not entirely sure why. That's a lie. I do know why. I wanted the announcement to be grand, a supersized press release that put fireworks, somersaults, and a twelve-hour parade in word form.

I wanted to start off with how reading Wrapped in Rainbows before I decided to attend graduate school for writing--leaving my family for the first time and shunning a corporate career--made me feel possible. I had planned this mini-essay recalling how Zora Neale Hurston's Florida helped this Wisconsin girl make sense of Tampa Bay and how Valerie Boyd's research and writing and careful loving attention to fact, fiction, and the in-between made everything about my own writing journey, with its starts and stops, disappointments and discoveries, an exercise in trusting the divinely mysterious plan that promises to lead you right where you're supposed to be. I have a photo with Valerie Boyd from nearly every writing conference I've attended since graduating with my MFA nine years ago, and I just saw her again at Zora Fest in January. Something about seeing her is like a cosmic nod that I'm on the right track.

Sheree and Sheree at AWP 2017, Washington D.C.

There's more. I wanted to write a four-page letter of gratitude to Sheree Renee Thomas, telling her how Dark Matter was the first time I truly lost myself in magic and terror and fantasy and future. The letter would detail how emerging from stories by Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Nisi Shawl, and Samuel R. Delaney, inspiration and imagination ran so hot in my blood it blistered my skin. I was also going to talk about how I felt cheated at first, betrayed by the world of books I loved so much. The years of reading my sister's Koontz, King, and Bradbury hand-me-downs were fine, but reading each story in both Dark Matter anthologies exploded my world. I got over it, that cheated-missing-out-where-you-been feeling and realized that Sheree's work of creating and holding space for Black speculative fiction was an altar call, and though I didn't know how or when or where, I knew I wanted to be in this thing for real--not just writing, but exploring the limitless landscape that is Black imagination, and not just for myself, but for and with others. I also planned to mention, as I closed the letter, how our shared name gives me a thrill every time, all the time.

The press release-turned-love-letter would become a photo-essay/journal entry that reflected on my trip to Paris in 2014 to walk the streets Baldwin, Wright, Himes, and Baker walked. The journal entry would explore how that dream of that trip began as a flickering flame of "Could I?" after reading Black Girl in Paris, which I read twice before finally taking the leap to craft a writing life in 2005. I would tell Shay Youngblood that, even though we have yet to meet, her writing called my name from the shelves of the Yaddo Library last year and that reading her plays encouraged me to walk the woods slowly, breathing deep and casting spells, challenged me to write courageously, breathing deep and telling the truth.

I had all these grand plans, all these dreams about how I wanted it to feel, how I wanted the announcement to be. But there is no way to make this moment any more perfect. Right here. Right now. This is the dream.

Thank you Valerie, Sheree, and Shay for sharing your work and sharing yourselves. Your guidance and support mean the absolute world to me.

Welcome.

In gratitude, community, and sisterhood,

Sheree L. Greer

rEAD BIOS FOR VALERIE bOYD, SHEREE RENEE THOMAS, AND SHAY YOUNGBLOOD HERE

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Kitchen Table Literary Arts covers book experiences, book recommendations, publishing and writerly news, and other randomly beautiful, provocative things that inspire us! We also feature guest bloggers! Wanna write for us? Shout us out!

STAY TRUE TO YOUR VISION and keep writing!

A sIT down with Contest winner and kitchen table member kathryn m. sharon featuring the story "Solomon's choice" (2ND ANNUNAL SPRING MICRO-FICTION CONTEST winner)

sOLOMON'S CHOICE BY Kathryn m. sharon

You Never Know What Can Happen

A conversation with our first writing contest winner bRYANNA sANDERS.
fEATURING THE STORY "fIRST LOVE" (sPRING MICRO-FICTION Contest)

First lOVE BY Bryanna Sanders

In the arms of a sister

welcoming valerie boyd, sheree renee thomas, and shay youngblood TO THE KITCHEN TABLE LITERARY ARTS ADVISORY BOARD

rEAD BIOS FOR VALERIE bOYD, SHEREE RENEE THOMAS, AND SHAY YOUNGBLOOD HERE

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STAY TRUE TO YOUR VISION and keep writing!

A sIT down with Contest winner and kitchen table member kathryn m. sharon featuring the story "Solomon's choice" (2ND ANNUNAL SPRING MICRO-FICTION CONTEST winner)

sOLOMON'S CHOICE BY Kathryn m. sharon

You Never Know What Can Happen

A conversation with our first writing contest winner bRYANNA sANDERS. ​fEATURING THE STORY "fIRST LOVE" (sPRING MICRO-FICTION Contest)

First lOVE BY Bryanna Sanders

In the arms of a sister

welcoming valerie boyd, sheree renee thomas, and shay youngblood TO THE KITCHEN TABLE LITERARY ARTS ADVISORY BOARD

rEAD BIOS FOR VALERIE bOYD, SHEREE RENEE THOMAS, AND SHAY YOUNGBLOOD HERE

Categories

Author

Archives

Categories

want to keep up with all our updates, programs, and initiatives? ​gRAB A SEAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE... JOIN OUR MAILING LIST!

A conversation with our first writing contest winner bRYANNA sANDERS.
fEATURING THE STORY "fIRST LOVE" (sPRING MICRO-FICTION Contest)

want to keep up with all our updates, programs, and initiatives?
gRAB A SEAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE... JOIN OUR MAILING LIST!