More in this series
"So if I am a tender writer... then my poems should be everything that I am."
Leah Johnson interviews poet and classes instructor Angel Nafis on community, process, and writing in and outside of an MFA. (Even though advice is whack.)
Wow. I don’t know that I do. What does “cultivating community in writing” mean?
People who are like “This is all I fucking think about.”
And I think that kind of turned me out in some ways. And it was very rigorous. In my mind, when you reach a certain level of rigor, it’s sort of hard to turn that off. It’s hard to unring that bell. It’s like anytime someone gets me talking a little, it’s like I turn to finals week insanity. It’s like a shark smelling blood. And I think that’s what the program did. I smell blood in the water when someone brings up—
Leah Johnson is a 2021 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellow whose work has been published in BuzzFeed, Cosmo, Catapult, and Teen Vogue among others. Her debut YA novel, YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWN was the inaugural Reese's Book Club YA pick and named a best book of the year by Marie Claire, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. Her sophomore novel, RISE TO THE SUN, is due out in 2021.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Leah Johnson
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Leah Johnson
More by this author
TLDR; I Tweeted Myself Into a Career and Now I’m Stuck Online
As part of our Social Media Week series, Leah Johnson writes about using social media to connect with her readers and how she engages online as a recreation rather than an obligation.
‘The Mighty Ducks’ Movies Taught Me How to Survive a Pandemic
I’ve found an unavoidable kinship with the Ducks. It could be, at least in my estimation, a quintessentially black American story.