First Draft Episode #262: Kim Johnson
July 28, 2020
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Kim Johnson, college administrator and mentor of student activists, on her debut author of This is My America, out now!
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Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni. This week I'm talking to Kimberly Johnson, debut author of This Is My America out today. I loved hearing Kim talk about her passion for working with young adults as a college administrator and mentor to Black student activists, and how that translated into writing for kids. And I loved what Kim had to say about writing racial justice into mystery and crime stories, and her tips for finding a routine as a working parent who just turned her writing hobby into a second career.
Everything Kim and I talk about on today's show can be found in the show notes @firstdraftpod.com. First Draft participates in affiliate programs, specifically bookshop.org. So that means that if you go to the show notes, or anywhere on the website, and click a link to buy a book, it will help support the show and independent bookstores at no additional cost to you. If you'd like to donate to First Draft either on a one-time or monthly basis, you can do that at paypal.me/FirstDraftPod.
If you're an aspiring writer with questions about the business, or a seasoned vet who still has questions about the business, you should definitely be listening to Track Changes. It's the podcast series that's been appearing in your First Draft feed for the last few months. And the next episode is this Thursday, it's a Bonus Episode getting into Inequality in Publishing. What are the inflection points in the publishing process that have perpetuated inequality? How bad has it gotten and what can we do about it?
I've also created the Track Changes newsletter where every Thursday I share more of the information that I gathered in researching for this project. It's all about giving people more context for this industry that they're a participant in and information so that they can more confidently move forward in a writing career. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of the newsletter and learn more about both Track Changes projects @FirstDraftPod.com/TrackChanges.
Okay. Now please sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Kimberly Johnson.
Sarah Enni: So hi Kim, how are you today?
Kim Johnson: I'm doing good. Launch is coming very, very soon. So, yeah, all the nerves and all the excitement and feeling all those feelings.
Sarah Enni: Well, we're meeting over zoom as well as for the podcast and I can see you have your book over your shoulder, so you're already ahead of the game. You got it down. I like to start my conversations with authors, getting a little bit of background about you. So I go all the way back to where were you born and raised?
Kim Johnson: I actually was born in Lusaka Zambia, which is in Africa. My mom is African and my dad is American and I really don't have any memories of it. I moved to the U.S. when I was five-years-old and so I really only know America. So yeah, that's where I was born. And so I was raised in Eugene, Oregon.
Sarah Enni: Oh, okay. I was gonna say where in America?
Kim Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. And how was reading and writing a part of growing up for you?
Kim Johnson: It was a big piece of my life. Not necessarily writing, but the reading part. My mom was really adamant to get us in the library every single weekend. So me, I have two sisters, we would all just jump in the car and come back with loads and loads of books. And so I've always been an avid reader, a very, very fast reader. And often I like fast paced stories because I can read them so quickly and I'm so into it.
And then I never really felt like I was a writer. It wasn't something that was necessarily encouraged or supported in terms of having teachers or adults say like, "Oh, you should try this more. You should do this more." So, really I've always been a reader, but it's been later in life that I became a writer.
Sarah Enni: Well, we're definitely gonna get into that. But I read somewhere that you, like you just said, you like the fast-paced books cause you could kind of fly through them. And I read that you were really into mysteries, like Nancy Drew and crime novels.
Kim Johnson: Yeah, since I was super little. I think the first book that I ever really recall reading is Encyclopedia Brown and just like turning the book over and being like, "Yes! I got it right." There was so much satisfaction to me as a young kid. And then even just the stuff I would watch, when I was super young, like eight-years-old, watching Unsolved Mysteries, very creepy, very, scary at the time.
I think a lot of my stories have someone missing. Because during the era when I was growing up, that was like the big thing, was that people were missing or kidnapped. And that was, for me as a kid, was super scary, even though I was obsessed still and reading and watching it. And my big one was Nancy Drew. There's not a lot about me that's similar to Nancy Drew, but there was something about just discovering and going out on your own and being the one to figure things out.
And so I have always loved mystery. And I drive my husband wild because we'll be watching a show and I'll either say the next line before someone says it, or I'll be like, "Oh, let's not even bother watching it. It's totally this person." You know? And he's like, "No! Why'd you say it? Don't ruin it." And then we'll be watching and he'll be like, "Oh man." Because I'll be right. And he gets so much satisfaction where he'll be like, "Oh, bet you didn't see that coming?" If I'm wrong. So I've always loved it.
And that's really actually what brought me back to reading again was when, about 10 years ago, when YA just continued to really blossom and grow as an actual genre, or category. And I started jumping into these young adult characters who were into mysteries and sort of like taking things on themselves.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I do want to ask about that. That's so interesting. You had a bit of a reading drought for a while?
Kim Johnson: Yeah, once I hit high school I really stopped reading for pleasure. A lot of it was because of lack of representation, you know? I mean up until college, I actually don't even recall reading a book that was written by a Black author. I just don't recall. I really don't think I did. It might've been Zora Neale Hurston (author of Their Eyes Are Watching God). I might have read her in high school, but I know for sure I read her in college, and so I just really wasn't into it anymore. I felt like I was forcing myself a lot, and just got tired of not feeling like I was into the story anymore.
Where before, when I was younger, it was the mystery. I could jump into the mystery and it wasn't necessarily about me feeling like I could be that character. It was more of like, "I'm discovering, along with this character, so I'm a part of it." And so I started reading again, well, I had my son when I was like 28 or 29 and I had a little bit more time. And my husband got me an iPad and a Kindle. And it was so easy then to pick up a book while I was like taking care of my kids and going to work and stuff. And that sort of sparked my love of like, I forgot how much I loved reading and then I just haven't stopped since.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I had a similar experience of at least coming back to young adult literature. After college, reading so much dry stuff that you were like, "Oh, is reading supposed to feel like work? I always loved it when I was a kid." And then YA kind of exploded, as you say. And it was like, "Oh yeah!" Plot driven stories, stories that are sort of, I don't know, just satisfying in this other way.
I do want to ask about your history specifically, about activism in your life. I understand from reading a little bit about you, that activism was a part of your life from a very early age. Do you mind talking about the origin of your activist life?
Kim Johnson: Yeah, so growing up in Oregon, especially in the town that I grew up in, it is a college town. It's actually the place that I now have moved back to. It was just not diverse at all. And in growing up, even through elementary, I usually was the only person of color. Not just the only Black person but the only person of color in my classes. And so there was a really early sense for me, at a super young age, I can even remember some moments of fifth grade where I was using my voice to address something that was wrong. And then it sort of started more in middle school.
So my older sister and cousin, they were very active, involved in like diversity organizations. And so I started joining clubs and going to talks, and really just around all diversity. So I'm 41 now, at the time LGBT rights were really challenging to even have it. And Oregon has been actually a very progressive state in that way earlier than I think a lot of states. And I just even remember like fifth grade wearing a pin that said "Straight But Not Narrow", you know?
And it wasn't like I knew a lot about anything really. I just felt like someone doesn't have equal rights or it's not fair. Like, "Why can't they?" And I've always had this sort of strong sense of justice. But my true involvement really, when I think about activism, started in high school. I was involved with the NAACP youth chapter. I was a youth chapter president working on various local issues, but also there's a national agenda with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. President of my multicultural club, when I went on to college, I was co-director in my BSU, lots of activism around the lack of representation of faculty.
So I've always been engaged in that. And when I graduated college, I started to realize that I had this gift of problem solving and being able to resolve and understand. And I think it's because I've been able code switch and navigate my life in a lot of different environments. And so I sort of understood how things worked. And then for me, once you know how things work, and that's a lot of activism, once you know how things work, you actually know how to break how that works, so you can fix it again or address it.
And so when I graduated college, I really started to think about, you know, I wanted to continue to be an activist, or I call myself more an organizer or civically engaged. I think that's a more accurate description now of the work that I do. And I decided I wanted to work in higher ed because access to me is so important. And I knew that if I could be a part of providing a safe environment, an environment where underrepresented students, diverse students, could actually thrive. You can do a lot in order to break our financial wage gap or college-going gap.
And I just love that energy. I love young people. That's why I write YA. I love the energy there. And now every year we have a new flock of students that come, and I've worked at five different higher ed institutions, and they come in with a new idea about what they want to do. And I tend to connect more with student leaders, especially now in my role, I'm more of a senior administrator, high-level administrator, so I don't have as much student contact. But I'm really engaged with my student community. I serve as an advisor and a lot of different things.
And so a lot of my storytelling is me thinking about my students. And not specifically even at the university I work at now, I think that's just sort of the history of the different students that I've worked with and the kinds of things that they question when they get to college. And I think the biggest one, especially around thinking about Black Lives Matter and my book in particular, is a lot of students when they come in as freshmen or transfer students, they feel cheated that they didn't actually get a chance to learn about all the things that they now have access to when they're in college.
And that's where my advocacy, I think, really started in thinking about, "What can I do with my YA writing," that I was doing that was on mysteries and thrillers, "What can I do to actually add a mechanism, add a space, for young people who actually do care about these things at a younger age?" So yeah, that's my long-winded way of telling you about my activism.
Sarah Enni: I love it. You touched on so many things I had in my question sheet here, so you're doing a great job.
Kim Johnson: I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler. Just real me in!
Sarah Enni: I love it. You're doing a great job. I just have to point out, I thought that it was so interesting, that way of framing activism as kind of problem solving or mystery solving, that just really stands out that you would think it that way. Obviously, that's been a passion for you forever. Looking at something and breaking it down into its parts and putting it back together. I love that.
I want to lead into when you do get back to discovering reading and then how that leads to writing. You're in these environments that are so full of passion, and young people, and ideas, and optimism, right? That's a lot of what it is to read about, and write for, young people. What was it that brought you back to not only reading, but deciding to take the leap into writing?
Kim Johnson: So at the time I was working at UC Berkeley, and I was there for about nine years, and the college that I was working in was an environmental college. And the students that I was mostly surrounded by we're working on social justice and addressing environmental issues with the lens of racism and the impacts of racism. And Berkeley is an amazing place. My campus where I work at now is amazing too, but Berkeley is particularly amazing because activism is such at the core of the institution.
You see it with staff and faculty and I saw so much of it with students. And students come in with just so much hope and they come in with whatever their lived experiences, whether it was incredibly challenging or completely privileged, they come in with a sense of something big that they want to do and they work towards achieving it. And I started continuing to just, I was advising my students and we're talking about their goals and aspirations. And there was so much ambition that was there.
And it really just started to have me think about like, "I love my career. I love what I'm doing, but I always have felt like there's a larger platform. I'm supposed to be doing something else." And I had a dream that was very vivid, and I do have very vivid dreams that I've never actually written down. And they're full-fledged stories that are happening. And I've always been a daydreamer, a storyteller, just verbally, oral storytelling. I used to do it a lot with my sisters growing up, just make up stories and tell them rather than reading books to them.
And then I started writing on my iPad. So it was right when iPads came out, my husband got me one and I had just had a little baby and I needed to get away. And I was like, "I'm gonna go to the bookstore and I want to write." And my husband, he's used to me having these grand scheme ideas like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, whatever. Okay. Do your thing." And I started writing and it was such an escape for me. It was so fulfilling.
When people talk to me about self-care and those other kinds of things, because I'm so involved, it's not just work and writing I'm very involved in several different community organizations. And they're like, "How do you care for yourself?" I'm like "Writing, actually, even though it's stressful, it actually has so much care for me." And then that's really how I started writing. I was so into YA at the time, I was so inspired by my students and their ambitions. And I just had this sense of like I was reliving by my youth again, by telling these stories that were sort of like creating a spark inside, you know? Like just a lively new spark that I think a lot of young people have that sometimes as you get older, it gets beaten down. Beaten down and doesn't believe in possibilities. You're just thinking about bills and responsibilities.
And that's really what got me writing. And it was a mess, my first manuscript was a total mess. I had an editor look at it and realize like, "I don't even know what I'm doing here." But I learned. I'm a learner. I'm always constantly learning. I'm always trying to improve. And so, for me, it actually was just a new challenge for me. So teaching myself how to write, how to take criticism, how to slow down. Because I think for a writer to be so detail oriented, and I'm a very big-picture person, I don't get bogged down in details. I'm not gonna be someone who catches errors, I'm just moving so fast. And in some ways writing really taught me how to slow down in a lot of pieces of my life, not just writing. But just the way I process things, and do things, is that there is value in slowing down.
Sarah Enni: Interesting. I really love that. It definitely will force you to do that. At some point, once you get copy edited, you're like, "Oh my gosh! What are sentences?" I'm so intrigued that you started by writing a dream. I also have really vivid dreams and many years ago, my first attempt at a book, I won't even call it a book, even though I got to the end. But it was propelled by that.
So I think that's so interesting that obviously your imagination was kind of raring to go. I think, if I read correctly, that This Is My America is your third book?
Kim Johnson: Mm-hm.
Sarah Enni: So what were the other projects like and how long were you taking to kind of get through them? And were you always thinking about publication as the ultimate goal?
Kim Johnson: Yeah, so I started writing, I think it was the end of 2011, beginning of 2012. And it took me a little over a year to write my rough, messy draft. And that book, I think, was just my testing ground book. It was based in a town that I'm from, it had a girl who was kidnapped, which is very from my youth when I was obsessed with unsolved mysteries. And, for me, it was actually learning how to write characters. It was also right around the time that We Need Diverse Books was becoming a movement, was becoming something that was very vocal.
And I just was so immersed in what was happening there and trying to understand, "Well, who am I writing for? What am I writing? I want to write diverse characters." And I butchered a lot of my writing cause when you don't have diverse representation for so long and you're reading works by non-diverse people writing about diverse people, you sort of have to retrain yourself. Even for someone like me, I'm entrenched in diversity work, that's the work that I actually do in my full-time position that's not writing related. And so, I was really retraining myself.
But it was mystery. It was straight mystery. Because I had a completely diverse cast, there were components of addressing microaggression and addressing racism that occurred with the main character. But that was definitely more of the lived experience of people, rather than maybe looking at systemic issues, like my third book.
And then my second book, which I still love and I definitely think one day will be published, cause I think that book is super special, was a psychological thriller and dual POV. Again, it has moments of being a first generation person, being a diverse person, and how they're navigating their life. But it's definitely on-the-edge thriller, you know, thriller elements. And just going back to my first book when I was writing, I actually thought I'd be self-published. At the time indie publishing, there was tons of stuff that was free, there still is on Amazon, but it was super big. At the time it was just beginning.
And I started just to read a bunch of stuff that was free or 99 cents on Amazon. If it was 99 cents I was buying it. And I thought that that was the route I wanted to go to. And then I went to a conference, like a local conference, and I was really inspired. There was agents there and editors, and I started learning like, "Oh, maybe I can query an agent." And then I did pitches there. And then as I started writing and I improve my writing, and this kind of took like two to three years to really work on that first manuscript, I realized that I wanted to try to be traditionally published. And I stopped querying my first book cause it wasn't getting much attention. I queried like 150 people, you know, anyone and everyone!
And then finally, when I figured out how to write, I'd already ran out of people to query. So then I started writing my second book and my second book I flew through, it was much easier to write because I learned so many fundamentals. I was starting to think about This Is My America and plotting and outlining it. But I sort of like would touch This Is My America, but then go back and then work on that other book. So it was a journey. It took longer at first, but then the more I write, it doesn't take us long to write those books. And I really started to believe, as I started getting more agents interested in looking at my work, I thought, "Yeah, I could be traditionally published."
And there were moments that small imprints that you could, without an agent you could submit, had some interest. And I actually almost went that route with my other books and I'm glad I waited because I needed to learn more. And I think for me, when I started really getting into This Is My America, I knew that it was the book. It fit everything of who I am. It fit my love of activism, my love of looking at current issues, my love of YA. My love of a teen girl solving and helping and doing all these amazing things. And I was glad that I actually didn't pursue further because I think I finally found my voice and it was ready.
Sarah Enni: Well, I'll ask a little bit more about the traditional publishing experience, but I appreciate you speaking to that. I don't know a ton about indie publishing and it's always interesting to hear people when they're deciding which way to go on that. So obviously I'm glad that you decided to go this route that led to this book coming out in this way, which is great.
I read that with This Is My America, you kind of led us up to coming up with that idea and pursuing that project. I read that you felt like there was a spirit who moved you to write this story. That this story felt like kind of a lightning bolt story. Do you mind telling us the genesis of the plot?
Kim Johnson: So I've always sort of paid attention to signs. People can call it their gut, people call it a lot of different things. I am someone who believes that, you know, I live a purpose-driven life. There's a purpose for the things that I'm doing. There were things that were happening around me that were basically like good signs that I'm on the right track. And just the flow of the way that the story, certain
issues, that probably would be too complicated to tell in a story in the way that I did. There were things that just sort of kept happening, or I'd read an article or there'd be something on the news and I'd be like, "Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was writing about!" Or like, "Yeah, that's so important. I need to do this!" Or I'd have a conversation with one of my students and it would just get me thinking.
And so, I really felt like there was this other voice, person, thing, high-being, whatever you want to call it that was really moving me along. And I think it's one of those woo-woo things that some people don't believe in it. And I talked to my agent, actually, about my woo-woo beliefs. Even at the point when we were gonna go on another round of revisions, and I was telling her a little bit about my woo-woo-ness, that I'm like, "No, I actually think right now, we don't need to go on another revision. I feel like we need to close this out and do this." And it actually was like, there's so many different signs that were happening that to me, in our current environment, that was like, "This is so important. We really need to get this out. I feel like it's my time."
And I was telling my agent that, and she really respected that. And a month later we went on submission. And so that's what was sort of drawing me. And I think for me the actual inspiration was because I'm very aware of systemic issues that have impacted Black people in our country since its beginning. And I always just felt as my background, having been someone who studied ethnic studies and diversity and history, that it's something that always is sort of a surprise to a lot of people. Not all people, obviously, but to a lot of people to not really connect the thread. And to me, I think it's the educator in me is that when I started writing This Is My America, I wanted to connect the systemic thread.
I wanted to break down that easy response that I was starting to see in media, especially around talking about police brutality. Was that the conversation, for those that didn't believe in police brutality, would always shift to this like, "Well look at Chicago. Look at crime in Chicago. Don't you care about what's happening? Black on Black crime?" And to me, it was just such a big space of ignorance of where the issue came from. And I wanted to address it from a systemic way and to be able to tell a story with a cycle. And so that really was what inspired me to broaden out the topic and have these two intersecting stories between a father and a son sort of going through this cycle. Because it's so systemic, it's so present in our society. It's the story of America, really. The negative story of America. And so that's really what was pulling me.
Sarah Enni: And before we get into more specific questions about the book itself, do you mind pitching This Is My America for us?
Kim Johnson: Yeah! So I'm working on my pitch. I'll get it there eventually, someday. But basically, This Is My America, it's a young adult story about Tracy Beaumont who's a 17-year-old girl who has been writing letters to Innocence X to help free her wrongfully incarcerated father. And in his last year of him being in his death sentence, her brother actually was accused, or suspected, of killing a white girl in their town. And he runs and he flees. And so, it's basically a journey about her trying to help her father and free her brother from being a suspect, in the story. And it's a raw, gripping story, but it's also a hopeful story. So I think that that's just really important to share. It's one where there's a young girl at the helm of figuring things out.
Sarah Enni: Thank you. I think you did a great job. I think you've got it down pretty well. Everything that you're telling me about loving mystery stories and thriller, psychological thriller, stories... because This Is My America is about systemic injustice, but it is also Tracy problem-solving. And it's sort of shades of Nancy Drew in a way. And it just struck me with you explaining your motivations for writing this story, that it's so important to have a story like this, where it is a young Black woman.
It's giving readers the chance to say, "Well, what would it be like to be a Nancy Drew who is dealing with systemic racism? What if you could not work within the system in the way that we're used to seeing portrayed in TV and movies and in books that have been featured in crime drama since the beginning of time?" Is that how you were thinking about it? Or how do you think about your work in the context of the larger genre of crime and mystery?
Kim Johnson: That's definitely how I see my work. I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I wanted to be Veronica Mars? When I'm into those, I really just felt like that was something that I wanted to be represented in. And it really isn't present and definitely not really in YA. And I won't say completely not, but I think the kind of storytelling that I want to be able to do, sort of where I see myself. And for me as, as someone who works with so many young people, envisioning your possibilities without their actual having that true representation there, it becomes really hard to do.
And when I was younger, I actually really wanted to be an FBI investigator or a lawyer growing up. Those were the two things. A psychological profiler to be exact because I was into some weird stuff as a kid. I was very curious, I could have broken down the profile of a serial killer. And so for me, I just felt like I'm sort of reliving that life that I didn't get to live.
I love crime stories. I think people approach the criminal, not thinking about the issues with the criminal justice system, but the concept of criminal justice in America, or resolving crime. Often, it's coming from a perspective of, "Let's get the bad guy." And what I'm approaching thinking about, why I'm so obsessed or interested within crime, is the lens of crime and equity.
Because often there is a lens that has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people and poor people to be pushed into this cycle of expecting that they're involved in more crime. Or, if you look at like criminal sentencing and those other kinds of things that impact communities, it is disproportionate. If you have, like Brian Stevens says, if you have the capital, then you don't get the punishment. But in lieu of that, then you actually aren't able to defend yourself.
And so for me, always very young being a justice seeker, right and wrong, my lens was around equity. What's right and wrong? And I think so much of the thought about criminal justice has not included equity, has not included that it has taken away the civil rights of people. And how it's sort of been justified in terms of when you look at, if you look at police brutality as a very specific example, when we see footage or when we hear about scenarios that have impacted Black men and women and Black trans people, you're looking at their background. Like, "Well, they've been stopped before." Or, you know, "It's easy to consider that maybe that they were scared of them." Or even thinking of very young boys, very young boys, Black boys, where looking at police reports where it says something like, "I was scared for my life."
And those, to me, are the things that for someone who wants to write stories on crime, that's who I'm speaking to, is that particular injustice. And hope that it actually inspires people to look at their lens a little bit differently about like, "Wow, would we really think or say the same things if that person was white?" You know? "Who do we actually care about based on the color of their skin? Do we have a different sort of perspective?" And I think that to me is my long-winded way of saying, how I look at my stories is that, "How can I balance all of my interests in creating something newer, newish, more of, I don't know. More of this kind of storytelling and hopefully inspiring young people to think about how they might want to engage in the world when they get older.
Sarah Enni: And I think it's an important, you know, I'm a podcast fan too, right? And there's a lot of true crime podcasts. And there's a lot of important reflection going on with people who are interested in these kinds of stories about like, "Well, how can we be more realistic in looking at how we are portraying law enforcement in this country?" And it's not, not fascinating. It's always a fascinating topic. So how can we engage with it in ways that are better and more equitable, as you say.
What really stood out to me in This Is My America, is Tracy's story is, you know, there's so much empowerment with a young woman deciding to find out for herself and picking up her own mantle and being self-directed. There's also so much grief with realizing that the adults are not going to do the right thing and that you can't trust the system. How did you think about portraying that? It's a very emotional story as well.
Kim Johnson: Yeah. You know, how I approached it was I wanted there to be a very honest representation of the lived experiences of Black people in this country. I've tried not to read reviews, but in reading a couple reviews and there's some tone where there's a sort of thinking of, "Yes, there are so many black people who are incarcerated and I'm so glad that they all have these stories to tell." And that's not exactly what I was trying to write with my story.
I wanted to open up the issue that it actually does impact millions of people in this country. But I think that, you know, someone who hasn't had that particular background who's Black, they can still see themselves in this story because of the, not necessarily trusting that they will have a strong representation experience, or that they would never be a suspect.
You know, those were the kinds of things that you know that at the drop of the hat, or one day stepping outside and driving in your car or going to the store, your life could actually change very quickly. And who's going to believe you? And we saw that in Central Park more recently, all these cases of like someone else's opinion or voice might matter more because they're white.
And I really wanted that to be part of the story, to be able to say, "Hey, just because someone says these things happened..." Or, "Just because you feel like you've lost." Right? So her father is in his last year. He's saying like, "I want you to get used to..." Her father is saying, "I want you to get used to the fact that I'm not gonna be around much longer." And so she even questions her father, like "No! No way. We're not going to let this happen."
I really wanted to represent that and I think that it transcends just this issue. I think that it puts it in front of just young people in general, who are interested in environmental issues, are interested in issues that impact the LGBTQIA community. Is that there are things that people identify as like, "We should be better." Just because the law says this, just because adults say this, authority figures say this, they still get to question.
And I think that's really a lot of what Tracy's doing is that she's questioning. And not only is she questioning, but she's acting. And that's sort of the reality of a lot of underrepresented people, is that you have to fight for things, simple things sometimes. Hers obviously was much more complicated, but simple things, and that it's okay. It's important for you to do it, to be the person who's right or striving for right. You know, justice, whatever it is.
Sarah Enni: I love that answer. I mean, do you feel like that is intrinsically hopeful? I mean, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this too, about this generation, especially as we're having this conversation right now about schools reopening or not, and people sort of talking over the heads of kids who are in the middle of this. And as an educator I'm sure you're in the middle of all these conversations. But it's just one of those moments where I'm just like, "This generation is just getting, um, they're getting cold leftovers right now." Like, "We are not showing them a lot of respect." And it's kind of breaking my heart.
Kim Johnson: I tend to be hopeful. I'm always that person who looks at the glass half full. And I think that there's been so much evidence, in so many different communities, who have survived through incredible things. You think about the Holocaust, you think about slavery, I mean, there's so many different experiences. And for me, you have to hang onto the hope because if you don't, then what's the reason? What's the purpose?
I think it's about finding a way. So when it's terrible, when it's horrible, when it's disastrous, which is really how I feel, I feel all of those things. I felt that more heavily in the past four years of my life than I have in any other moment in my life, it has been really crappy, in a polite way to say it. But I know that this isn't the only time in history, and not just U.S. history, just around the world that people have suffered, people have had hardships. And part of that then is figuring out how to survive, how to live.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, and I asked about hope because I did feel in This Is My America a hopefulness. It's a complex story and there's mystery elements and there's love, and there's kind of a little bit of everything, but at the end, I was so grateful to feel a sense of beating hope throughout. Which was really... I really enjoyed it. I really loved it. So I appreciated that.
I read a quote from you where you said, I'm gonna throw this question out there and tell me, you can answer to whatever degree you feel comfortable. But I read an article where you said that when you went on submission with This Is My America, you had at least one editor pass because they said it wasn't going to be bigger than The Hate You Give. And your quote was, "Can you imagine that the biggest top-selling book that sold millions of copies is the standard for a Black writer? Is that the expectation they will always hold for a Black writer?"
I'm interested in what that experience was, and to whatever degree you can speak to, what your experience has been like coming out with this book about being Black in America, in this publishing industry, which of course is built with the same kind of systemic injustices.
Kim Johnson: And I think it's because there has always been a filter for what people think is sell-able. There's been this inaccuracy with thinking about, "Do Black books sell?" And even this very racist thought that Black people don't read. When actually the data shows, and especially when you're looking at Black women, read more than any demographic. Reading has been the foundation, or education has been the foundation within the Black community since even before reconstruction. There always has been this sort of sense of trying to strive towards education and story. And even how you think about story in terms of even not just actually writing a story, but oratory thinking about storytelling that's passed down from generations. And so that's been the problem with publishing.
It's a problem in a lot of different areas. And I'll talk about that in a second, but being specifically about publishing because publishing has been very white, it has not been a very diverse industry. There are so many markets and sectors that are untapped that if you actually had a diverse representation of just staff, employees, editors, marketers, salespeople, who understand the market, they'd really see that they're sort of narrow thinking of the market is important.
And I've been working really closely with my publisher in talking about this stuff. They've been really, really great. And something that I shared with them, especially when I did one of my first articles, was that if you were to take away the fact that Tracy is Black in the story, if she was white, if she was a white girl or a girl of a different identity, how would you market this book?
And so if race wasn't a factor. It would be in a totally different section, right? It wouldn't just be in the social justice, Black Lives Matter table section during Black History Month, that wouldn't be just where it's at. It would be in the YA section in the front. It would be with all the other YA mystery authors. And that has been the issue with so many Black books by Black authors about creating a market. I think, even just a few years ago, the thought of having a Black girl on the front of a cover would be like, they can't do it. "We can't do it because it won't sell. Because other people who are not Black, aren't gonna want to pick up that story."
And we're seeing that change. 2020 is the year I think of the Black girl cover year. There's so many. And they're so beautiful and amazing. And I think it's about breaking down the paradigm, you know, working to be anti-racist to teach anti-racist thoughts, not only within publishing about what they think about what storytelling can be. But with librarians, with booksellers, with educators.
If I, in my entire schooling, was never given a book about a Black girl or Black person on the cover other than some antiquated classic that has racist elements in it, not written by anyone Black. If all the books that I've received could be people who are not like me, it's just insane to me that people still, to this day, think that if you hand a book that has a girl on the cover, a boy's not gonna like it, or someone of a different race is not gonna like it.
And I think that's what's lacking in terms of empathy in our society so much of, a wide variety of underrepresented people is because of that. Is because of our lack of thinking that they're actually human. And it's a challenge within publishing. And I think so many of my fellow Black writers who write love stories and write fantasy, they have felt such a huge loss because of their lack of representation, because the window is so small... a peephole. It's almost like a peephole for Black writers to like, "We're trying to get into the house, but we can only get into the peephole."
Often it's this sort of sense about what Black books are about. It's about sadness, or bad things happening, or slavery. And there's so much more. And for me, I do like to talk about that piece of that representation, because I am someone who writes about racism, I do, I lean heavily into that. Not because I feel like I have to, which I think is some thoughts that some writers share is like, they feel like they won't ever get published unless they write about this kind of stuff.
For me, that's not my sense. I have a social justice core in my body, in my being, that's what I want to write about. That's what I want to do. But I also should be able to write about whatever I want to write about. And there should be a space for me. And I think, not just in publishing, but in a lot of markets, a lot of sectors, there's a sense that we have to be perfect. Barack Obama had to be, as president of the United States, nothing could be wrong with him. He just had to live his life perfectly.
His kids had to. His wife had to. And I think that that transcends in so many areas. And Black writers feel like, "We can't fail. We can't have a book that doesn't sell, because if our book doesn't sell, then that doesn't only impact us as an individual, but it impacts anyone else who wants to try that book." And that's not the story though, for other writers. And so for me, when I was writing This Is My America, the first iterations of my writing, I stopped even thinking about writing it when Jason Reynolds' All American Boys was announced and Angie Thomas's The Hate You Give. And mainly because it was like, "Okay, they did it, they got it! They're gonna tell that story and it's gonna be amazing. And that's the one story I get."
And I wasn't even in a place to sort of unpack why that would be unfair to even think that. But for me, it sort of was like accepting the reality of just how it is. And I was just gonna go and write my other stories that I was thinking about. And it wasn't until just that the door kept being knocked on with people to say like, "No, we've got to write more stories." And for me, it was like, "No, there needs to be more. You just can't have a few books that are actually gonna tackle this issue. There has to be more."
And there could have been more to the editor's thoughts, whether like, "Well, maybe my writing wasn't strong enough, or blah, blah, blah, whatever." But I think anytime you compare it to, I mean, really it's not gonna be bigger than The Hate You Give. Like, "What book is gonna be bigger than...?" You know? That was an amazing book. It's been on the bestseller list forever.
Like that should just be put on the mantle as like exceptionalism and no one should even try to think that they could ever do what she did. And like, "Can we set a different standard here?" Most books don't hit the New York Times bestsellers list.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, not for like two years solid, right?
Kim Johnson: Yeah! And I don't necessarily fault so much the editor. We have to break that reality because readers are always gonna compare. You can use Harry Potter as an example, or other kinds of books where if it's something similar to that, like I get. I totally get that. But when there's been so few just Black books in general, I just feel like there's so many things that we need to write about and let us have amazing books, let us fail... Not fail, but like not sell. Guess what? A lot of writers books don't sell and they get other book deals. That should be okay.
I should be able to, say This Is My America does really, really well. My next book, like if it doesn't do well, my career shouldn't end, right? Like I should have a chance to be, as a writer, experiment, we're creators, you know? We're testing boundaries, testing new things. And sometimes a book that you write might not be the hit at that time, but then something in the world happens. And then people want to read that book.
And I think Jewell Parker Rhodes is a really great example. I was talking to her on the phone cause she's amazing. She's awesome. She's just such a wonderful woman. And her daughter is just as wonderful, Kelly McWilliams, is the author Agnes at the End of the World. And I was talking to her on the phone and we're talking about her book, Tulsa that she wrote 20 years ago and they're re-publishing it now because we're at the hundred year anniversary of Tulsa.
And it was something that didn't sell at the time and now people care about Tulsa. And she wrote this beautiful book that fortunately has a chance. And I think that there just needs to be more space, especially if you want to talk about diverse representation. Does it have to fit your idea of what you think is the perfect story to hit the market? Or can you just love a book and invest in it and make it special?
Sarah Enni: Right. And nurture an author's career. We talk a lot about the, I think an example someone gave me recently was that Jodi Picoult, you know, huge, big deal, Jodi Picoult, really only hit big at book seven. And her publisher just gave her the opportunity to grow and become a better writer. And now the backlist is, you know what I mean?
It's just having a long view of like, "Do you believe in an author as an artist or not?" And that's an important thing to be able to fight for.
Kim Johnson: And Jodi's such a perfect example because she's always trying something new. You can't actually, I mean, you can say ethical dilemmas are sort of like her brand, but she's always testing something new. And I think like, that'd be awesome to be able to do.
Sarah Enni: Right, right. Well, you brought up the next book. So I do want to ask about what you're doing next, and then I want to ask about writing as self-care and how that is, or isn't, changing now that you've professionalized your one-time hobby.
Kim Johnson: So, right now I'm working on a historical fiction that will have mystery elements, cause I love those. I think all my books will always have that. And I can't say too much, but it'll continue to look at issues of generational impact of racism and it'll address the topic of the great migration, red-lining in communities, and really how the great American suburban dream was created and the racial elements, the undertones, of that. So it's a story about that.
And I wasn't sure before like are people gonna be like, "Oh, you went from contemporary. We want the next thing. You're going historical." But now under COVID I'm like, "That was brilliant. I'm so glad that that's where we were going before COVID because I'm not ready to write a contemporary set in COVID time."
Sarah Enni: For real.
Kim Johnson: I'm actually glad. I'm like, "Oh, yay. I'm so glad I'm already working on a historical."
Sarah Enni: I'm actually am not sure about this. Was the deal for This is My America, a two book deal? Or are you writing under contract? Or as an option?
Kim Johnson: So it was a two book stand-alone deal. And I had pitched this second book. It actually wasn't historical. It was sort of like a longer thing that I was like trying to think about doing that had elements of looking into the past and that kind of thing. And so then when we went through the process, we settled on this book.
Sarah Enni: What is it like to be writing under deadline? And that self-care question, you know, it's such a precious thing when you find writing as a way of release or catharsis. I wonder if you've been able to maintain that or hold onto that?
Kim Johnson: Yeah. It's really hard now to write because my routine is totally different with what I'm doing and stuff. In terms of trying to do it now, it's been hard. I've been fortunate that pre-COVID, I'd gotten my rough draft together. And so now I'm just going through, which it's a little bit easier. But it's still hard because I have two kids, my husband is working from home, mostly, although he still kinda has to go out.
I'm working a more than full-time job because my campus is trying to figure out how do we do this work remotely? And then I've got the kids at home. And so usually I write on the weekends, because of all the things that I'm involved in, I can only really write on the weekends. And I write at bookstores and coffee shops, and those are places I can't go to anymore.
So trying to find a quiet time and that sort of sense of guilt because I'm always on the computer, especially up through the launch of my debut. It's just been so busy working on stuff. So I'm constantly on the computer. So there's a huge sense of guilt that's there. And just like irritation.
My daughter, she's six, she's like, "Hmm. Yeah, no. You are gonna need to pay attention to me. You're my mother, don't you care about me?" You know? So it's not even guilt. She's telling me like, "You're being a bad mom! Come hang out with me." I've actually gotten back to a routine and it took four months, because my work was so busy. I've gotten back into a routine. I've got my set deadlines of when I'm gonna be turning it in for the first editorial letter. And that feels really good because... it just feels super good.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, not having a routine, especially if that's something you've been able to find. Especially working parents at home, I know this has been just a real time. So I'm glad to hear that you've been able to find a new balance, even with the, gosh! How has it been with the book getting ready to come out? You're in the final stretch here.
Kim Johnson: Oh my gosh. It's been so stressful. Luckily I've always been a multitasker. I just move really, really quickly. And I can manage a lot in my brain. But I'm not sleeping very much cause I'm thinking about all the things that I need to do. And I'm not as quick, my memory is sort of like going. Like, if you were to ask me names of stuff, I'd be like, "Ugh! Hopefully that's the name of that author." You know? So that's been really hard. And I really wish that I would have taken time off, like half-time, like a couple of weeks before. But who has that much vacation time? So I'm just glad, actually today starts my vacation time and I actually then get to just work now full time, all the writing stuff.
Sarah Enni: I was gonna say, you need a vacation to do your other full-time job.
Kim Johnson: Exactly, yes. But it will feel good because I've told everyone, like, "I'm not gonna check email. Don't text me, don't call me. I can't." Like, "My brain can't take it. I really need to rest." But it's been so busy and just so... yeah. It's been incredibly busy.
Sarah Enni: Well, I'm grateful that I could jump into the schedule and get a chance to talk to you today. And I truly enjoyed This Is My America so much. And I'm really excited for it to be out in the world. So congrats on your debut book coming out. That's a really big deal.
Kim Johnson: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I love your podcast. I've been listening to it a lot.
Sarah Enni: Thank you. I appreciate that. Oh, shoot! Then you know that I like to wrap up with advice. So I would love to, I mean, gosh. I guess [pauses]. There's so many things you could give advice on, especially the structure of mystery, but we're wrapping up by talking about finding time as a parent to write and get into it. Do you have any tips for people who are trying to get routines back up?
Kim Johnson: Yeah, I think, there's some people who have always believed like, "Write every day." Or that it has to be a certain amount of hours. I think that you can find a routine, even if it doesn't feel routine. And you just sort of like chunk it away. You might not be as efficient as you were before. It might take longer to do as before. But for someone like me who really was only able to write on the weekends, I still was able to finish a book, finish three books, working on my fourth book. It just takes a little by little.
So if you like to write every day, then chunk out that time, ask for that support, get that schedule together. I think that that's sort of the best way is you have to create a new normal. And once I got over myself and realized that like, "It's okay if I'm not hitting the word count, my goal today." Like, "My goal is going to be this." And so I think that's the best thing is just have some forgiveness in yourself and just take the time that you need, as best as you can, even if it's a little bit of time. You will make progress.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I love that. Getting over yourself is a huge key to writing. I totally agree with that. Well this has been so fun, Kim, thank you again for all the time. And good luck on Tuesday. It'll be such a big, special day.
Kim Johnson: Thank you. I so appreciate it.
Thank you so much to Kim. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @KCJohnsonWrites and follow me on both @SarahEnni (Twitter and Instagram) and the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram). This show was brought to you by Revision Season, the seven-week course where award-winning kid lit author Elana K. Arnold walks you through her tried and true revision process. The next course begins September 20th and be sure to sign up before September 1st to get $100 off @elanakarnold.com.
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Hayley Hershman produces First Draft and today's episode was produced and sound designed by Callie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks also to transcriptionist-at-large Julie Anderson. And, as ever, thanks to you people who know who the murderer is halfway through the movie for listening.
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