Hi friends,
This week on Ursa Short Fiction, Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton chat with writer Rion Amilcar Scott, sharing stories, craft advice, 90’s hip-hop references, and how experience as parents, as teachers, and as lovers of music can inform the writing process.
They discuss their reactions to elements of their work playing out in real life, and call for not forgetting the joys and humor of the Black experience that coincide with the tragedies. Rion talks about his generative and drafting process—his beginnings and endings, the structure and limitations of flash and short fiction, the revision process, and his playfulness and improvisation as an approach to the work.
Rion Amilcar Scott: “We have to write what we’re obsessed about. Big things and small things. That’s not the only thing that we’re obsessed about as a people, as Black Americans and around the world. It is one of the things. We have to talk about our pains and, of course we have to talk about our joys too, and I think a lot of people ignore the joys. Take, for instance, I think one big example is Heavy by Kiese [Laymon], I think a lot of people, if you read reviews or interviews, they focus on the tragedies and the sadnesses, and that’s a part of that book, but there’s so much joy and laughter. The book is hilarious…”
Deesha Philyaw: “That Black abundance.”
Rion Amilcar Scott: “That’s right. Black abundance! He puts it up front, and then a lot of people still ignore it, you know? And so, I think a lot of people, white, Black, everybody, oftentimes ignore the fact that we are writing about the complexity of life.”
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Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
- The World Doesn’t Require You (Rion Amilcar Scott)
- Insurrections (Rion Amilcar Scott)
- August Wilson
- “The N****r Knockers” (Rion Amilcar Scott, Tyrant Books, 2017)
- “Percy and the Fire Plums” (Rion Amilcar Scott, McSweeney’s 64: The Audio Issue)
- Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
- The Sellout (Paul Beatty)
- Percival Everett
- Mark Twain
- Heads of the Colored People (Nafissa Thompson-Spires)
- Walking on Cowrie Shells (Nana Nkweti)
- “David Sherman, The Last Son of God” (Rion Amilcar Scott, Midnight Breakfast, Issue 8)
- Eugenia Tsutsumi
- Rising of a Legend (Review by Jessica Sequeira, berfrois, 2016)
- “Special Topics in Loneliness Studies” (Story from The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott)
- “A Loudness of Screechers” (Rion Amilcar Scott, Barrelhouse)
- Edward P. Jones
- Ernest Hemingway
- “Klan” (Story from Insurrections by Rion Amilcar Scott)
- Poets and Writers
- To Sir, With Love (E.R. Braithwaite)
- Between the World And Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
- Night of the Living Rez (Morgan Talty)
- Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest (Hanif Abdurraqib)
- Mitchell S. Jackson
- The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells)
- The Women of Brewster Place (Gloria Naylor)
- Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)
- Miguel Street (V.S. Naipaul)
- Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (ZZ Packer)
- Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Danielle Evans)
- Sula (Toni Morrison)
Listening List
- “Foe Life” (Mack 10)
- Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (Outkast)
- “One More Chance” (The Notorious B.I.G.)
- “Triumph” (Wu-Tang Clan ft. Cappadonna; special shoutout to Inspectah Deck’s opening verse)
- “The End” (The Doors)
- “Riders on the Storm” (The Doors)
- “Winter Warz” (Wu-Tang Clan; special shoutout to Cappadonna’s verse)
- A Tribe Called Quest
- “Straight Outta Compton” (N.W.A.)
- Rakim
- GZA
- Chuck D
- Andre 3000
- “Name Callin’ Pt. 1” (Queen Latifah)
- “Talk to Me” (Foxy Brown)
- E-40
- Kendrick Lamar
- Books Are Pop Culture (Reggie Bailey and Akili Nzuri)
More from Deesha and Dawnie
- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
- The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Dawnie Walton)
Show Credits
Produced by Ursa Story Company
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton
Executive Producers: Dawnie Walton, Deesha Philyaw, and Mark Armstrong
Associate Producers: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Photo credit: Rebecca Aranda Photography
About the Author
Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collections The World Doesn’t Require You and Insurrections, which was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, among other publications.
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About Ursa Story Company
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