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NK Jemisin Transcript * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * * >> Good evening from New York City. Thank you for being with us. I am the curator of the moving image and recorded sound division at the Center of Color and Black Culture. A research center at the New York public library dedicated to the collection, preservation and interpretation of materials focused on the global black experiences. We collect what the founding curator and collector named the vindicating evidences of black history and culture. I am a documentary filmmaker and a 2016 member of the academy motion picture and sciences whose work have been collected by the library. I have the distinct pleasure of introducing tonight's conversation with three time Hugo award winning author N.K. Jemisin and her cousin, K. Kamau Bell. The reason we are here tonight in conversation is the newest book "The City we Became" the first of a new trilogy series in New York City. The book is available for purchase through the library's shop. Not only will you purchasing one of the best books of 2020 but proceeds from your purchase go to benefit the New York public library. The other reason we are here is Nora's book "The Fifth Season" the first book in her previous trilogy is on our list of the 1125 books we love. That list which we released earlier this year celebrates the library's 125th anniversary by honoring titles from the past 125 years that made us fall in love with reading. It is her voice through her work that we celebrate tonight. So when Nora asks how long until black future month? I say the time is now for us to not only imagine the black future but to reimagine the present and the past. It is time to be afro futuristic. Shake off old stereotypes and comfortable tropes around race and for all of us to do the work and boldly bridge the remaining 2/5 divide for us, and with black people. So we can fully experience in the law at work and in our daily lives, equality and without fear. The vindicating evidences that our voices are there from the past present or looking into the future, the work, your work, our work is to engage them and listen. The good news is the library offers the tools through the items collected by the Schomburg Center and other libraries here and the books of course written by N.K. Jemison. Before I bring Nora and Kamau on, a couple of quick notes and then I will get out of the way. The event is being cast on Zoom and YouTube. If you are in the Zoom event please note it is being recorded. Not you, only the event itself. Nora will be glad to answer your questions at the end of the conversation and you can type them into the Q&A box at the bottom of the Zoom app. She will get to as many of them as she can. At the end of the event we will be sharing a short two question survey with you and we would love your feedback if you have a second. We will post a link to it towards the end of the event in the chat on Zoom and comments on YouTube. Lastly the library has a lot of great online events coming up including a short series on the history of pride and the celebration of Juneteenth. If you learn about these events and everything else the library is doing during this time despite the pandemic, visit NYPL.org/connect where you can sign up for our news letter and access the resources we are making available during this time. Thank you so much. Now let's bring on our featured guests to be in conversation. >> W. KAMAU BELL: Hello. >> Hang on a second. >> W. KAMAU BELL: Hi so for the hundreds of people on Zoom and how many people on YouTube, although now that it is on YouTube I feel scared but I will get through it, we will talk about the book. We have allocated a lot of time for questions but I don't get to talk to my cousin so I am going to use the opportunity to talk to my cousin. We are real cousins can you confirm that? >> Yes we are. We get that question every five minutes on twitter and we answer it and no one pays attention. >> W. KAMAU BELL: I think it is black people saying cousin that means a lot of things. >> We are technically once or twice removed? I can't remove ‑‑ >> W. KAMAU BELL: Wikipedia layered it out. Your mom is my first cousin because that is how the south works. It works. Importantly, it means something because we did spend significant time as kids hanging out together. Specifically as little kids. And I wrote about it in my book and you have talked about it before. We were two kids in our grandmother's house. The two weirdos ‑‑ mobile Alabama weird ‑‑ not New York City weirdos or Bay Area. >> Yes we were two nerdy black kids that liked to sit around and make up weird games. I remember we did not have Legos but he had the empty spools and we built things with the empty spools because whatever same difference. And I mostly did a lot of reading and ‑‑ had I started writing? I guess I had? >> W. KAMAU BELL: My earliest memories of you. We did a lot of things. Ran around and got dirty. >> 9000 mosquito bites. >> W. KAMAU BELL: I remember us working on things together but certainly as you became an adult and you were writing I was like that makes sense. >> I remember us talking about like T.V. shows and stuff and then sometimes, we would change ideas where you had a super hero you were trying to draw. >> W. KAMAU BELL: I wanted to be a comic book artist and we all got what we thought we would be. >> NK. JEMISIN: We were two nerdy kids that liked to bounce the ideas off each other and it had been effect. That was the end result. >> W. KAMAU BELL: So sitting now in space where you are now ‑‑ I think the question I am going to ask is the question I think about for myself. We were two kids with big impossible sounds dreams. Mine was comic book artist. Kungfu movie star and standup comedian. It was all over the place but I got one of them. How much of your life was like, this is what I expected and how much is like this is nothing I could imagine. Three time Hugo award winner you did not know what that was at the time. But yay you won what does it feel like to win. >> NK. JEMISIN: I knew what Hugos were because when I went to the library and the librarians would try to help the poor child like give me the science fiction, they would look for the Hugo list and go done the list and they would give me the books from that. So I had a vague idea that Hugo meant the books the library liked and that is kind of true. So you know it worked. When I was little I did not expect to become a writer. You know? Basically I had kind of assumed that there was no future for me in writing science fiction. That this was a fun thing to read and a fun thing to do. But it was not a thing that black women did. I was vague on the fact that black women became writers until I met your mom. I remember at one point she came to visit. Mom told me Aunt Janet was a writer and it was like automatically, what? And so, basically when aunt Janet showed up I was hovering with my hand made book made with two pieces of cardboard I made with construction paper and bound with yarn. And I was hovering in the background and I was like I have to show her the book but what if she doesn't like it? Complete conniptions. She was so patient. She looked through the book and said it was good and gave me her books and talked about writing. I had no idea the questions to ask but that was a formative experience. Probably one day, maybe a couple of hours and I pestered the poor woman to death. But it was a formative experience. I met an actual living black woman who wrote books. Who said I could write and that opened up a lot of doors for me. I did not try to become a writer for ages it was kind of like, I don't think I can make a living at this so let me become a psychologists that is exciting. You can make a lot of money in psychology. So you know, I needed that sort of early formative stuff. So thanks aunt J. >> W. KAMAU BELL: She is on there. >> NK. JEMISIN: Is she? >> W. KAMAU BELL: I should text her to make sure. There is so much nothing going on she might have for gotten? Are you watching me and Nora? She will get back to me. I would imagine my mom say in you herself.
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