I’ve pretty much always been both an avid reader and writer. And though I loved the books that I read as a child, none of them encouraged me to write. I couldn’t personally relate to them. Oh, but lo and behold…the day that I snuck a book from my mother’s bookshelf changed my life. Of those books and a few to come after it, I was inspired to become an author. Though they’re listed in numerical order, the numbers do not serve as a rank. They are:
- Mama by Terry McMillan
- What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage
- The Warmest December by Bernice McFadden
- The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
- Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- A Love Noire by Erica Turnipseed
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
- The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume I
- Abraham’s Well by Sharon Ewell Foster
Some of these books, I don’t even remember the plot line. I just recall the inability to sleep at night because the next page wouldn’t stop calling my name. I remember resisting the urge to whip my book out in boring math class. Finishing the book and researching the bio of the author, desperately trying to find at least one similarity (same zodiac or something). Making it my business to read every piece of literature that that particular author dropped. Living with the characters still roaming around my mind for days, sometimes weeks after finishing it.
I had to be a part of this community. I had to keep history’s ball rolling. I had to make use of all the stories and secrets that people randomly decided to share with me. I had to share some of the journal entries that I’d climbed out of bed at three o’clock in the morning to write. So, I did.
Are you a fellow griot? If so, what books/authors encouraged you to risk expression?