Brooke Obie Featured on VerySmartBrothas
After a not-really-all-that-brief-at-all hiatus, The Writing Ass Chick We Love series returns with the homie Brooke Obie.
We’ve known each other since we worked together at EBONY.com, and I’ve read and admired your work in the past. But, in preparing for this feature, I visited your personal site (brookeobie.com) for the first time, and read your bio, and holy fucking shit! Why are you writing novels and not like, I don’t know, running for President or starting a colony on Mars? Do you introduce yourself to people by saying “Hi, I’m Brooke, and my bio will kick your bio’s ass?” Because I totally would if I were you.
Ha! Well, I will, now, thank you! My Twitter feed would disqualify me from the presidency; I don’t have Trump’s rich White maleness as a shield. I also have zero patience for politics, especially after this election year. This “lesser of two evils” scenario gives me less hope that any sort of revolutionary and lasting change can happen through the political process. That’s why I write fiction! I can upend entire systems with words. But that colony on Mars is not a bad idea…I told my 11-year-old nephew that I’d write a book for him to star in where Black people escape to another planet and are safe from racist/sexist/queerphobic harm. Like ‘Black World’ on In Living Color, or something.
Shit, can we join him? I mean, I’ll miss quite a bit about Earth — particularly the NBA League Pass and the bacon-wrapped bacon strips I made this morning — but the idea of an actual Black Planet is sounding better and better now.
I’m saying! So, I’m working on that, too, but I’m coming off of a 15-stop international tour for BOOK OF ADDIS, and people are already asking for the second and third books in the series so I’m writing these next two books first. In BOOK OF ADDIS, Addis is a 17-year-old magical Black girl who kills her enslaver, the first president of the country, and starts a revolution. It’s all about revolution for oppressed people; it’s a way for me to reimagine American history at the foundation of the country so this trash year 2016 we’re living in right now never comes to be.
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