Nisi Shawl: Speculation & Inspiration

Word Bridge igniting passion for diverse literature through live online author meetups

Angie: Welcome to Book Bridges. The podcast of Word Bridge now igniting a passion for diverse literature through live online author meetups. Because words build bridges to unite. Today's book bridges is brought to you by our partners at Lee and Lo books. I'm your host, Angie Beumer. Johnson. WordBridge Now members gather monthly online to meet and to be inspired by diverse authors. It's like a book club with the author. What's coming up is just a taste of our full program with Nisi Shawl, author of Speculation curious, creative, Winna wonders if magic has finally come into her life and learns the powerful stories of her family's past. Listen in for a treat as Nisi Shawl reads us, uh, some of their beautiful book speculation.

Angie: The one thing that I do want to highlight today, we have teaching ideas that will be coming to members from Kanetta Sanford and from Lindsay Harrelson. Thank you both for that. And we have Lindsay, who will be running our question and answer session. Toward the end of the session today.

Winnie Williams' glasses broke on her grandparents' porch

Nisi: We'Re starting out with Winna Williams, sitting on her grandparents porch, reading a book by her favorite author, Edward Eager, a book called The Time Garden. And she's taken off her glasses so that she can get closer to the book, and I'm going to do that, too. The adventure started when Anne, Roger, Eliza, and Jack discovered an enchanted plant that let them travel in time. The magic had just whisked them away to a tropical island, and now they were trying to keep their own parents, who, as children, had apparently had similar adventures from being consumed by cannibals for lunch. It was kind of funny, but scary, too, because it made Winna think how if someone eats your mother as a little girl, you don't have a real good chance of being born. 40 pages passed, and the dangers of cannibals were replaced by those of fire breathing dragons. Winna tried for the third time to brush away the spider web or mosquito or whatever it was that kept tickling her knee where the quilt had slipped off. She touched something soft and squiggly and damp.

Speaker D: Gah.

Nisi: She cried, jumping up on the back of the armchair. But it was only her little sister, Tupelo, who stuck her wet fingers back in her mouth and started crying like the baby she was sitting on the floor. She was always sneaking up on people. Winnis sighed and rolled her eyes back so she was looking at the dirty white rafters of the porch ceiling. Can't a person get any privacy? All right, she said, motioning with one arm. Come on up here, big girl. Let me see if I can do anything with that head. She had her comb in her back pocket, and she had to twist around to get it out so she didn't see what happened next.

Speaker D: She heard it crunch.

Nisi: It was an awful sound, and Winna knew exactly what it meant. Last time, that sound had come from under the paws of an overly friendly German shepherd. Now it issued forth from beneath her sister's butt. Tupelo rose right back up from the chair cushion, as if going into reverse fast enough could undo the damage. But it was hopeless. The whole weekend was ruined. Winna's glasses were broken, and that was that. They had already tried taping the frame back together, but the results were wobbly. When Winna put them on, the world looked all weird parts too far, parts too close, and leaning over, like the sky was going to fall in on her head. It made her dizzy. So they took off the tape and set the pieces back on the table, where their reflections shone quietly in the dark, polished wood. Heavens to Betsy, Grandma said again. Well, pretty soon your grandfather will be back from Pawpaw. He ought to have some notion of what we can do. But when Grandpa Carl came in, he seemed to know exactly what to do. He left the box of groceries on the dining room table, overriding Grandma's concern for the finish. It'll only sit there for a minute, Dot. I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail. He walked into their bedroom, and soon there were funny creaking noises coming from over their heads, shuffling, slighty sounds, too. There must be an attic, Winna thought. These belonged to your great aunt Estelle, he said.

Speaker D: Maybe they'll do the trick, at least.

Nisi: Till we can get you another pair. They had silver frames around perfect circles of glass. Two tiny stars pierced the bridge, right where it would rest on Winna's nose. Those are a pair of real old fashioned spectacles there, Grandma observed. Go ahead. Said Grandpa Carl.

Speaker D: Um, try them.

Nisi: Winna lifted the glasses from their case and saw that the earpieces curled almost all the way around, like the kind in pictures of Benjamin Franklin. They were beautiful, but different. Reluctantly, she put them on. It was like stepping into a newborn world. The dim, shadowy dining room became suddenly clear. Dark corners revealed details clocks and cupboards and curious carvings that ran around the walls up near the ceiling. Wow. Said winna. She turned and faced Grandpa. Thanks. These are fabulous. Question is, as ah glasses go, do these fill the bill? Winna nodded as hard as she could. They're even better than my old ones. Maybe it was time for a new prescription.

Speaker D: Can I she hesitated, then went ahead.

Nisi: And asked, maybe if I'm careful, you could let me keep them. I want glasses, too. While Grandma tried to tell Tupelo how wicked it was to want glasses, when the good Lord had given her a perfectly fine pair of eyes, winna went back out on the porch.

Winona was born a slave and taken from her mama

Nisi: The rain had stopped. There were still thin puddles on the dark, wet wooden steps, but the gravel driveway that curved below the steps had already soaked its puddles up. Winna walked down the steps and crouched at the bottom. The round pebbles looked pretty sparkling and polished by the rain. Some she could almost see through like watery milk. Others had tiny flecks of gold mixed with pink and black. She'd never noticed before how beautiful a regular old driveway could be. It must be the glasses, she decided. What if they're magic? She wondered out loud. What if these are magic spectacles I'm wearing? There was a sort of shimmer in the corner of her eye. It spread so quickly, she didn't have time to be afraid. It was all colors, rainbows flying off the edges of everything, as if diamonds had broken apart, as if the whole world had split into a hundred images of itself, each shining brighter than the last. Then the shimmer was gone. Looking back, Winna realized that this was when the adventure began. Not with putting on great anastelle's glasses, or with her old ones getting broken, or with coming to stay with Grandpa Carl and Grandma. Not earlier, and not later. Not that night when fireworks spangled open and turned flips and somersaults and spun in circles of radiance like stars dancing for joy.

Speaker D: It started that afternoon, in that very.

Nisi: Moment when she squatted, examining the cool, smooth stones, asking herself what made such ordinary things so great, wondering out loud if magic had come at last into her life. That was when she was caught up in speculation.

Speaker D: This is Winona's tale.

Nisi: Grandpa Carl says you know about slavery, don't you?

Speaker D: That's right.

Nisi: People claiming they owned other people like they wouldn't own an animal in this country. It was the whites owning the coloreds, mostly, and it went on for hundreds of years. Sometimes they'd treat their slaves like a horse or a mule, working their bodies down to the bones. Sometimes they'd treat their slaves like pets, give them pretty names and fancy clothes and keep them around to wait table and make the air pleasant with their songs. Winona was born a slave and taken from her mama when she was just a tiny little girl so she could be one of these pets. That's how she grew up, with bows in her hair and good food on her plate. All she had to do was play with this white child and keep it entertained. But she didn't know where her mama.

Speaker D: Was, didn't even know her mama's name.

Nisi: She swore on the plantation's Bible she would never let that happen to any child of hers. But she knew for certain the second thing would make a big difference because she was fixing to have a baby.

Speaker D: And that how did it happen?

Nisi: In the usual manner. Tupelo. And if your mama ain't told you what that is, I'm sure not about to mess with the subject. But when she knew she had a child coming, Winona ran away. Yes, indeed, she escaped and headed north. Most of the men, the overseers and such, were off training to fight, but it was still plenty dangerous, and with Winona expecting, it was even worse. They were headed up to Ohio, her and some of the others that had run off at the same time. Even with a guide and lots of help, they had to go slow on foot. Then the baby was born. She stopped another month after that, waiting for the woman to come back and lead her north, gathering her strength and watching her baby grow. It was a little boy. She named him Key on account of it was him unlocked her chains and set her on the road to freedom. She loved her little boy Key for that, but of course, she mainly loved him for himself. She woke up around noon one day before Key was born. She'd got in the habit of sleeping through till nightfall. Nothing better to do in that little room. And since it was summer, it got awful hot and stuffy in there, so usually she slept. But all that changed when she had that baby. He was a good baby, too. But a baby's got to eat, and his diaper got to be changed. And if his mama's sleep, she got to be woke. Winona had learned to rouse up at Keith's softest whimper almost before he knew he was about to cry.

Speaker D: The quietest sound, but it was something.

Nisi: Even quieter woke her up. This time it was silence. Key was gone. Winona screamed. She couldn't help herself, though she was supposed to be still in case the neighbors heard and turned everybody in. They'd had their suspicions, according to this family, so she hushed herself up quick as she could. She looked all around the room, telling herself he must have crawled off under some hay or something, though she knew good and well can't no month old baby crawl.

Speaker D: Then she smelled smoke.

Nisi: Then she noticed how hot the floor was underneath her feet, and she realized the barn was burning. The door was locked on the outside, like always. She tried to bust through anyways, but it was too solid. And it was hot, hotter even than the floor. Fire just outside, burning to come through and get her. But great great grandmother Winona hadn't come all that way to die. She grabbed up her blanket and threw it to soak in the water bucket. Then she wrapped it around her and waited for the fire to do her work for her opening that door. When the fire burned through, Winona ran out between the flames. Next thing she knew, she was standing there, staring at the whole farm going up in smoke.

Speaker D: Barn, house, chicken coop, everything there was up in flames.

Nisi: No one else in sight. No sign of Key, no matter how she looked, how hard she looked, how far from the burning barn she went looking. She headed north on her own, aiming for Canada. But she settled here in Michigan, married Ezekiel Cole and had eleven other children by him. Lived a good life kind and generous to every passing traveler, helping everyone she could, but always asking, had they seen her baby anywhere on their way? She never gave up looking for that key.

This is a very personal book, very family oriented for me

Nisi: I had some photos I was going to share with you and talk about a little bit.

Angie: That was a beautiful reading, beautiful text, and, uh, a joy to hear you read and sing.

Speaker E: I can hardly wait to read the book now. Oh, I'm sitting here.

Angie: It's awesome.

Speaker D: You'll love it.

Speaker E: Well, you have me with grandfather's story.

Nisi: This is a very personal book, I'll say, um, and very family oriented for me. Uh, my hope is that it will bring together the generations and help kids and adults understand that we are all basically stories. That's what we are, when you get down to it.

Speaker D: And that we're not each other's enemies.

Nisi: We learn from each other and we grow together.

Nisi Shaw's latest novel is beautifully written and beautifully plotted

Speaker E: I definitely think I will start off with my own question. First of all, Nisi, that was wonderful. Looking through all of those pictures, I felt such a connection because I can't tell you the number of times before my grandmother passed away that it was pulling out all the pictures. And as you said, hearing all the stories and hearing that you look like your great great so and so and so, it's just really beautiful to see that heritage and, um, to see that piece of your family and to kind of feel that in my own heart. Um, my question is, as I was reading through speculation and just the nature of the plot, I wondered if you ever hit any snags in connecting all the dots. Because as I was reading it and I was connecting all the dots, I just kept thinking, this is so clever. This is so clever, the way that they pinned everything together so that the plot runs through. And so I just wondered if there were any snags that you had as you were connecting all of those dots.

Nisi: Yeah, um, I'm laughing because, um, the.

Speaker D: Nature of the snags was that, um.

Nisi: I often made it too easy for my protagonist to figure stuff out. Um, and it took, ah, an outside reader, it took my editor, really, um.

Speaker D: To say, well, how do they know that?

Nisi: Um, how do these people know that they're related? And I had to go back, uh, and do a lot of, um, revising. Um, and this book, I mean, it.

Speaker D: Took me I don't want to tell.

Nisi: You how long it, um I have a notebook, um, mentioning working on it from 20 years ago.

Angie: Your novel is just a great example of telling the story through different genres. It's not just prose start to finish. We've got some of this oral stories, we've got a letter, we've got the interesting communication, the way she figures out how to communicate with the ghost. And, ah, that is just so fun. The way it happens and the way it's portrayed on the page. Uh, and I felt like the language just right from the beginning, like, you just got to savor it. And it was very lyrical. I felt like, oh, man, this is like poetry in a full-length novel. So just gorgeous. Uh, I keep thinking, like, maybe this is the year that I have read the Newberry medal winner. So I'm going to keep an eye on this because I think it should be a contender. I would think if you wish you'd.

Angie: Been here with Nisi to ask questions of your own during the full program, become a member www.wordbridgenow.com. Join the conversation with our upcoming authors. See the link in the show. Notes us. Thanks again to Nisi Shawl and to our partners at Lee & Low Books. In the spirit of words as bridges, take care.

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