Anissa M. Bouziane ’87 was born in Tennessee, the daughter of a Moroccan father and a French mother. She grew up in Morocco, but returned to the United States to attend Wellesley College, and went on to earn an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University and a Certificate in Film from NYU. Currently, Anissa works and teaches in Paris, as she works to finish a PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Warwick in the UK. Dune Song is her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter: @AnissaBouziane.

Wellesley Underground’s Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels ’10 (who also got her MFA in writing from Columbia, albeit in creative nonfiction), had the chance to chat with Anissa via email about Dune Song, doing research, publishing in translation, forming a writing community, and catching up on reading while in quarantine. E.B. is especially grateful to Anissa for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series while we are in the middle of a global pandemic.

And if you like the interview and want to hear more from Anissa, you can attend her virtual talk at The American Library tomorrow (Tuesday, May 26, 2020) at 17h00 (Central European Time). RSVP here.

EB: First, thank you for being part of this series! I loved getting to read Dune Song, especially right now with everything going on. I loved getting to escape into Jeehan’s worlds, though sort of depressing to think of post-9/11-NYC as a “simpler time” to escape to. My first question is: Reading your biography, I know that you, much like Jeehan, have moved back and forth between the United States and Morocco––born in the U.S.A., grew up in Morocco, and then back to the U.S.A. for college. You’ve also mentioned elsewhere that this book was rooted in your own experience of witnessing the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. How much of your own life story inspired Dune Song?

AMB: Indeed, Dune Song is rooted in my own experience of witnessing the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. As a New Yorker, who experienced the tragedy of that now infamous Tuesday in September almost 19 years ago, I would not have chosen the collapse of the World Trade Center as the inciting incident of my novel had I not lived through those events myself. So yes, much of what Jeehan, Dune Song’s protagonist, goes through in NYC is rooted in my own life experience. Nonetheless the book is not an autobiography — I would consider it more of an auto-fiction, that is a fiction with deep roots in the author’s experience. The New York passages speak of the difficulties of coming to terms with the tragedy that was 9/11 — out of principle, I would not have chosen 9/11 as the inciting incident of my novel if I did not have first hand experience of the trauma which I recount. 

EB: Thanks for saying that. I feel like there is a whole genre of 9/11 novels out there now and a lot of them make me uncomfortable because it feels like they are exploiting a tragedy. Dune Song did not feel that way to me. It felt genuine, like it was written by someone who had lived through it.

AMB: As for the desert passage that take place in Morocco, though I am extremely familiar with the Moroccan desert — and have traveled extensively from the dunes of Merzouga to the oasis of Zagora — this portion of the novel is totally fictional. That being said, I am one of those writers who rides the line between fiction and reality very closely, so if you ask me if I would ever let myself be buried up to my neck in a dune, the answer would be: yes. 

EB: How did the rest of the story come about? When and how did you decide to contrast the stories of the aftermath of 9/11 with human trafficking in the Moroccan desert?

AMB: Less than six months after 9/11, in March of 2002 I was invited back to Morocco by the Al Akhawayn University, an international university in the Atlas Mountains near the city of Fez. There I gave a talk which would ultimately provide me with the core of Dune Song: the chapter that takes place in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where following a mass in commemoration of the victims of the 9/11 attacks, an Imam from a Mosque in Queens was asked to recite a few verses from the Holy Quran. The Moroccan artists and academics present that day were deeply moved by my talk (which in fact simply recounted my lived experience); they told me that I should turn my talk into a novel. I thought the idea interesting and began to write, but within a year the Iraq War was launched and suddenly a story promoting dialogue and mutual understanding between the Islamic World and the West seemed to interest few, so I moved on to other things. Nonetheless, the core of Dune Song stayed with me.

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Go to Wellesley Underground for the complete conversation!

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Patrice Caldwell ’15 is the founder & fundraising chair of People of Color in Publishing – a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. Born and raised in Texas, Patrice was a children’s book editor before shifting to be a literary agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

In 2018, she was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and featured on The Writer’s Digest podcast and Bustle’s inaugural “Lit List” as one of ten women changing the book world.

Her anthology, A Phoenix First Must Burn – 16 stories of Black girl magic, resistance, and hope – is out March 10, 2020 from Viking Books for Young Readers/Penguin Teen in the US/Canada and Hot Key Books in the UK! Visit Patrice online at patricecaldwell.com, Twitter @whimsicallyours, and Instagram @whimsicalaquarian.

Wellesley Underground’s Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels ’10, had the chance to converse with Patrice via email about publishing, reading, and writing. E.B. is grateful to Patrice for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series, even with everything else she has going on!

EB: When did you first become interested in going into writing and publishing? Did something at Wellesley spark that interest?

PC: For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved writing. It’s how I best express myself. That love pretty naturally grew into creating stories. I’ve always had a very vivid imagination. I’ve also always been pretty aware that publishers exist. I remember at a young age noticing the logos on the spines of books (notating the imprint/publisher), so by the time I was a teen I could recall which publishers published my favorite books (served me very well in interviews, haha) and was curious about that process. But I was a theater kid, intensely, that’s what I thought I would do, but then I decided to go to Wellesley and majored in political science (especially theory—I took ever class Professor Grattan, she’s brilliant) but then dabbled in a bunch of other subjects, including English. I think English courses definitely strengthened my critical thinking, but I absolutely do not think you have to be an English or creative writing major in order to work in publishing or be a writer. My theater background is just as helpful as is my political theory one. (I have friends who are best-selling authors who did MFA programs and others who never went to college.)

Wellesley was my safe space. I came back to myself while at Wellesley. I wrote three (unpublished) manuscripts during my time there, starting the summer after my first year, and I held publishing and writing related internships. I also took a fantastic children’s literature course taught by Susan Meyer (who’s a children’s author herself!) that changed my world. I highly recommend it. We studied children’s literature, got to talk to an author and a literary agent, and we wrote our own stories. I later did a creative writing independent study with her, and I truly thank Professor Meyer for expanding my interest in writing and publishing.

EB: How did People in Color Publishing come about? What goals do you have for the organization? What would you like people to know about it?

PC: I founded People of Color in Publishing in August 2016 to allow people of color clearer access into the book publishing industry, better support networks, and professional development opportunities. It really is about sending the elevator back down for others after climbing (& maybe even assembling) the stairs.

We’re currently working towards nonprofit status. You can learn more about us and our initiatives at https://www.pocinpublishing.com/ and sign up for our newsletter, which is incredibly well done. As you’ll see when you visit the site, the organization really is a team effort. I don’t and couldn’t do this alone; I’ve had an amazing team with me from day one. We each play to our strengths and work really well together. (The org is very active on Instagram and Twitter, too!)

EB: I am really excited about your collection A Phoenix First Must Burn, coming out from Penguin Random House on March 10, 2020. What inspired you to put together that anthology? What was challenging about the process of compiling the anthology, and what was rewarding about it?

PC: Thank you; I’m so excited for it as well. I talk about this more in the book’s introduction, but I was inspired by my eternal love for Octavia Butler—the title even comes from a passage in Parable of the Talents—as well as similar adult market anthologies like Sheree R. Thomas’s Dark Matter, and wondering what one for teens would look like. The answer is power and imagination like I’ve never before seen, in the form of a kick-ass, #BlackGirlMagic anthology that’s hella queer—I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Before I became a literary agent, I was a children’s book editor. The editing of these stories was the easy part. It was super fun. The hard part was wrangling of everyone, haha. Thankfully they were amazing to work with and I wasn’t doing it alone—my then editor Kendra Levin also has a fantastic editorial eye.

As for what was rewarding, my younger self needed this. Like I said, it’s Black and queer. Since Toni Morrison passed, a day hasn’t gone by in which I’ve thought, about how she wrote for Black people, especially Black women, unapologetically. I feel that deeply. I got to work with some of my favorite writers writing today. How often does someone get to say that, you know. And, I grew a lot as a writer. I never thought I could write a short story, but I did. We’ve been getting some really great early reviews (like this beautifully-written starred review from Kirkus, OMG!) But going back to how my younger self needed this, the most rewarding thing has been the people who’ve reached out how excited they are to read it and how much they’ve been craving a book like this. It’s a dream come true. A dream I strategized to reach, worked my butt off on, and so yeah, I’m over the moon.

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Go to Wellesley Underground for the complete conversation!

The post Wellesley Writes It: Patrice Caldwell appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Cinelle Barnes is a memoirist, essayist, and educator from Manila, Philippines, and is the author of Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir (Little A, 2018) and Malaya: Essays on Freedom (Little A, 2019), and the editor of a forthcoming anthology of essays about the American South (Hub City Press, 2020). She earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Converse College. Her writing has appeared in Buzzfeed Reader, Catapult, Literary Hub, Hyphen, Panorama: A Journal of Intelligent Travel, and South 85, among others. Her work has received fellowships and grants from VONA, Kundiman, the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund, and the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant. Her debut memoir was listed as a Best Nonfiction Book of 2018 by Bustle and nominated for the 2018 Reading Women Nonfiction Award. Barnes was a WILLA: Women Writing the American West Awards screener and a 2018-19 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards juror, and is the 2018-19 writer-in-residence at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC, where she and her family live.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Cinelle Barnes appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the memoir In the Dream House and the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. Machado’s essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, VQR, Conjunctions, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Michener-Copernicus Foundation, Elizabeth George Foundation, CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Machado is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

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