On this week's episode of Cultivating her Space.

I love a book with a map and a glossary, But why don't I see myself reflected?

And one faithful Saturday, I go and I see parable of the Sewer and there's a black woman on the cover.

There's an illustration of a black woman, and it blew my mind.

And I borrowed the book, you know, took that home, read it and it changed the course of my life.

Hey, lady, have you ever felt like the world just doesn't get you?

Well, we do.

Welcome to Cultivating her Space, the podcast dedicated to uplifting and empowering women like you.

We're your hosts, doctor Dominique Brussard and educator and psychologists.

And Terry Lomax, a techie and transformational speaker.

Join us every week for authentic conversations about everything from fibroids to fake friends as we create space for black women to just.

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Now, let's get into this week's episode of Cultivating her Space.

It's doctor dom here from the Cultivating her Space podcast.

Are you currently a resident of the state of California and contemplating starting your therapy journey?

Well, if so, please reach out to me at doctor Dominique Brusard dot com.

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I look forward to hearing from you today.

We have such a powerful guest.

Okay, we are honored to be in conversation with doctor Susannah M.

Morris.

Susannah is a black feminist, scholar and cultural critic whose work centers the interior, lives and experiences of black women.

She's an Associate professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech and the co founder of the Krunk Feminist Collective.

She's held distinguished fellowship and visiting professorship positions at Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

Susannah is the author of Positive Obsession, The Life and Times of Octavia E.

Butler.

Her other works include Close Kin and Distant Relatives, The Paradox of Respectability, and Black Women's Literature.

The co edited Collection, The Krunk Feminist Collection, and the co authored young adult guide Feminist af The Guide to Crushing Girlhood.

Well these titles, okay.

Her work has appeared in outlets such as Gawker, Longreads, Cosmopolitan dot com, and Avenue dot com, and she's been featured on platforms including NPR, the BBC, The New York Times, and Essence magazine.

The Lady let me tell you something.

Okay, there is so much more that we could say about Susannah and her contribution to black feminist thought and culture.

But lady, we're going to go ahead and jump into this conversation so you can hear directly from her.

Susannah, welcome to cultivating her space.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm really excited to be here.

You're so welcome, Yes, and the feeling is mutual.

We are excited to have you here.

And so we are going to start with our quote of the day.

And this quote comes to us from your book Positive Obsessions, and it is something that Octavia Butler said, Black women writers are necessary so that black women can define and depict their own experiences rather than being objects in the stories of others.

And I'm gonna read that one more time for the folks in the back to make sure you heard this.

Black women writers are necessary so that black women can define and depict their own experiences rather than being objects in the stories of others.

Ooh okay, I mean.

I don't even know where we're supposed to go from that, right, Like Mike Drive all right podcast, I'm so done.

That quote from Octavia is so so powerful and so and that quote is found within your book and so so tell us, Susanna about what this particular quote means to you in terms of writing about Octavia Butler.

Yeah, so the quote really encapsulates the focus of my career, right, which is looking at how black women write ourselves into space, into spaces, right, creating spaces for ourselves.

And Octavia is a trailblazer in a particular kind of way because she is the first black woman to primarily publish in science fiction and fantasy genres that really people you know, have thought and sometimes still do think, are relegated.

They're for white boys, they're for white men, live.

For men in general.

And so she didn't let that kind of notion overdetermine what her possibilities were, right.

She was committed to creating robust, complicated, flawed characters.

And so she's in conversation with your Tony Morrison's and your Alice Walkers, and your Tony Cavem Barras and your n K j Emersons and all the people, right, And so I think that's what that quote really ependomizes for me.

It's so beautiful, such a great grounding quote for this conversation.

And Susanna, we are going to ask about your origin story, what we want to learn more about your background, But before we dive into that, I think it's important for us to set the table for listeners, especially black women listeners who might be meeting Octavity Butler for the first time.

I know this felt like a research project for me that I was loving.

It was different from school back in the day.

I was like, I love this, this is so interesting.

So can we talk about just I guess you know, I know presentation matters, right, we often hear that, but when we think about Octavia's work, it goes beyond representation right into prophecy.

I know she says she's not a prophet, but prophecy power and possibility.

So can you talk to us about, in your words, why is essential for black women to know Octavia Butler and the significance of her work right now, and honestly, like what shifts when we encounter her, just to kind of start there and then we'll dive a bit deeper.

Yeah.

Sure.

So in the essay Positive Obsession, which is where I get the titles from my book, Octavia closes by talking about like why science fiction is important for black people more generally, and just to paraphrase her, she's like, science fiction is forward looking, it's expansive.

It gets us off the sort of you know, regular footpath that we're all on and gets us to sort of think differently.

And that is particularly significant for black folk and for black women even more particularly right because of these controlling images that have overdetermined often how we see ourselves, you know, are internalized white supremacy that we may have internalized, patriarchy, colorism, all the various things, right, these shackles that we have to throw off of ourselves.

And so reading somebody like an Octavia Butler, who not only have again these complex, flawed, interesting, robust characters, but they're also in scenarios that are literally out of this world for the most part, except for the Parable series.

It's that's definitely here on our earth.

But you know, sometimes we don't see ourselves reflected in these kinds of narratives.

And she's like, actually, we do belong here.

Because the kinds of existential questions that science fiction and fantasy kind of invites you to consider.

Black women need to be at the center of those conversations.

They're not conversations for other people simply to have.

These are human questions.

Ooh, okay, all right, I mean I already there are so many other questions that are coming up for me as you share that in so many ways, in different directions in which this discussion can go.

But I do want us to back up and let's talk about your origin story and how did you get to be the doctor Morris that sits in front of us, in front of us today, that doctor Morris and your students referred to you as.

And how did it become that you are so passionate about getting Oxavia Butler's story out there.

Yeah.

So I am from all over, but I went to middle school and high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and that is where I encountered Otavia's work.

Literally just going through the library one day.

I was in high school, just a few years after Parable Sower was published, and I'd never heard of Octavia Butler.

We didn't really read black literature in my high school.

And I was in a fancy magnet program, international baccalaureate program.

We're all headed to college and all that.

We're reading all the Shakespeare that we could find, all of the classics, but we were not reading black literature.

We weren't reading Langston Hughes or County Cullen or insert xyz named Tony Morrison.

We weren't reading those people.

So it was up to me to supplement my education, which I did.

But my favorite genre was fantasy.

So I was like, Okay, I'm reading this black literature, but they're not coinciding.

And I was actually getting kind of frustrated with reading fantasy because I'm like, I love this genre.

I love a book with a map and a glossary, But why don't I see myself reflected?

And one faithful Saturday, I go and I see Parable of the Sower and there's a black woman on the cover.

There's an illustration of the black woman, and it blew my mind.

And I borrowed the book, you know, took it home, read it, and it changed the course of my life, you know.

And then I would continue to encounter her work as I progressed in my studies and you know, became a black feminist, you know, professor and literature professor.

So I would always teach some aspect of Octavia's Cannis, so maybe Candred, maybe a short story, you know, something like that.

And then I just was like, Okay, really, what I'm teaching is black science section and fantasy.

And because I'm nosy, I wanted to know more about Octavia's story.

That's the real, real truth is I'm nosy, and I would be reading, you know, and assigning interviews and things from my class, so I wanted to know more.

I wanted to know more about her.

You know, there's some authors where there's just like tons of material, and there was material out there, and you can, you know, read interviews by her.

There are interviews about Octavia or allb Octavia on YouTube.

But I wanted to know more.

And when she passed away into thousand and six, she left behind like a really voluminous pressure trol of an archives.

She kept every receipt, every diary entry.

She has diary entries from you know, high school, her mother's diaries in there.

She kept every bill, every prescription label.

I mean, it's a lot.

It was lots of way through, but that was a place where I could get the answers that I saw.

So that's sort of the trajectory.

It was so beautiful to one.

You're a great storyteller.

I was envisioning you at the library in Florida.

You're welcome, like seeing the book.

And then when you when we were preparing, I was going to ask like, did you ever have a chance to talk to her?

Interviewer?

And I saw she passed away, and my heart broke for you.

I'm like, I wanted Suzanna to be able to meet her and talk to her as well.

So I have to ask you, right, it's been almost what almost twenty years or so since she's passed away, or she since she's left this physical plane.

So I'm curious and your writing process right in the archives and those quiet moments, did you feel her?

Did you experience any signs or any synchronicities or any moments where were like I think that was her.

I would love to hear about that, and I will say if the answer is no, can you talk about what happened inside of you as you were gathering and shaping her story?

Yeah.

So I talked about this with one of my fellows, sister writers, sister biographers, Alexis Pauline Dumbs, and as I was wrapping up my book, and I'm, you know, interviewing her, and she's very spiritual and she's recently written a biography of Audrey Lord, and you know, so she's like, I'm communing with Audrey Lord.

I'm in the archive, and she's just like, but I Tavia is a different kind of ancestor, And I'm like, yeah, Octavia was a different kind of is a different kind of ancestor.

So in her life, you know, she was raised Baptist, knew a lot about the church, knew a lot about the Bible, but really was an agnostic kind of atheist person.

So I didn't necessarily feel like, oh, her spirit with me, but her energy of like getting your butt in the seat and right, that's Octavia.

Habit over talent, that's Octavia.

You over here sit and crying and going through something.

Finish the book, you know what I mean?

Not that she didn't have compassion as a person, or anything like that.

But I didn't have that kind of fluffy interaction with the ancestors.

It was like your call to do this, so do it right.

So a thing that you know she wrote in her manifestations, which you know, I know had been going across the internet, and I include a page of it in my book.

She would often end her manifestations would so be it see to it?

Right.

So if you declare you're going to do something, then you have to make it happen.

And that's how I signed copies of my book too, right, So be it c to it because that really is the mantra that was in the back of my mind as I was working.

So that was like the spiritual kind of aspect to it for me.

You know.

That was almost as we were trying to decide on a quote of the day, that was that was our that was the second runner up for the quote of the day.

So be it see to it.

Oh yeah, I'm feeling that quote just yeah as you were saying it.

So what we know is that like Octavia like so like like quite a few other black women writers, like one of my faves, Zora Neil Hurston, didn't enjoy the fame and the accolades while they were present here on earth.

So why do you think her legacy has endured then?

But more so, like her popularity has grown so much since her death.

Yeah, I mean she got to experience a little bit of it.

But she she died so young.

She died at fifty eight, you know, and so in her forties, you know, she wins the MacArthur, you know, Genius Fellowship, right, which is huge.

That is a huge honor.

It's something that you can't nominate yourself for.

It happens behind the scenes.

Other people nominate you and write letters for you, and then they call you up and say you won.

Right, And she's the first black well, first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur of any race or gender.

So we'll start there, right, So she got to see some but after so many years of laboring in the vineyard, right, I think because she died suddenly and there was so much work that we were waiting on.

Right, she was supposed to continue the Parable series, which you know sort of exists in bits and pieces in her archive.

You know, she published a novel the year before she died, and so that sort of that novel ends with the kind of implication that Okay, there's going to be sequels.

There was just so much, so much more she had to share with us, and I think that the age of the Internet helped that, you know, we're able to sort of spread her community, like we can interact with one another.

You don't have to be an academic to be a lover of Octavi or Butler right to be a fan or a stand those kinds of things.

So, you know, I think that her sudden death immortalized her in a particular kind of way.

And sometimes this is unfortunate, but people do get more love sometimes after they're gone.

Right.

We see that with you know, fine artists, visual artists, where it's like, oh yeah, this person twirled in obscurity and then they died and it's like there's stuff was worth a million dollars, you know.

So it wasn't quite that dramatic with Octavia, but there is certainly, I would say in renaissance.

I mean that's the term that another writer who's written really beautifully about Octavia's life.

I know, George wrote about, you know, a renaissance in Octavia's kind of cannon, like people are interested more and more every day the adaptations the tell which just show you know, all those things.

Yeah, that's so amazing, And I'm thinking about what you said earlier.

I remember a line in the book where she said something like, don't depend on inspiration, depend on habit.

And so in all your research, it'd be really nice to know how does she practice her calling?

Because I think I also saw something else where it said all I do is write, or like all I'm here for is writing, or something along those lines, And so what would you say black women can learn from her discipline?

And how does she practice her calling?

Yeah, so when I Pavia went to the Clarion Writers' Workshop, which is this famous science fiction and fantasy workshop.

She went in nineteen seventy and she felt like this is a place where I really learned to home in my craft.

So she published two short stories after being in that workshop in nineteen seventy, But between nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy six she didn't publish anything.

She kept on sending things out and she kept on getting notes right.

And while she's doing this, she's working odd jobs.

She's working in factories, she's singing office buildings, she's working in like hotel laundries, like she's doing really hard physical labor so that she can have odd hours and write whenever she needs to write.

So I tell that story because it's an unromantic, un sexy story of being a creator, right, because I think sometimes in our age or social media, where we only show the good things, right, we show when you win the award, we show when you go on the trip.

You know, you don't show the boot when he acting up or when they're being whatever.

You show them when they're acting right or you're trying to get them back right or whatever.

Right, she had so many years of just spoiling in obscurity and poverty, quite frankly, and I'm not glamorizing that either.

I'm just saying that didn't stop her, right.

She felt like she had something to share.

She had to do it.

That's why she called it a positive obsession.

She couldn't stop herself from writing, even when folks were like that, can be a hobby girl, go ahead and get your good government job.

Go ahead and be a civil servant, be a nurse, be a teacher.

And she could have been any of those things, but she had to be a writer.

And she felt like she had to focus her entire life on that.

So I think I think Black women already know that, though I think we are kind of the er type of like it stuff as hard.

I'm gonna keep on doing, you know, like that's far from my job.

Let me go get a master's, you know what I mean.

So I don't know that we need any more advice to be on point because I think that we really have that down.

I think a thing that I've come away with, you know, after writing this book is our table.

Was able to write twelve books, right, eleven novels and a collection of short stories and short essays.

That's a huge cannon to have, right, and she could have done so much more if she had more resources.

So, yes, the habit or the persistence over talent, because there's lots of talented people who are undisciplined.

Absolutely, But also I wish that she had health insurance in the nineteen seventy.

I wish that she had somebody to help her do laundry at her house, you know what I mean.

I wish that she had this infrastructure.

And I'm preaching to myself, but I talk about this with my homegirls, who are also scholars.

You know, running businesses, what have you?

We have to set up an infrastructure like self care is beyond the bubble baths.

It's like, can we split an assistant?

Can you hire somebody to clean your house?

Okay, what's going on?

Because we can't do it all?

Maybe it's a skill share.

Maybe we're all going around feeding each other's house once a month.

It's goes to a different person.

Because I'm this is not just from middle class or upper middle folk, right, as for folks at any class level, that we need this infrastructure and oftentimes we're the ones holding our families together, we're the go to person at work.

So where did we get to sort of foreign to ourselves?

Right?

And Octavia didn't always have that in her life.

She was creating in spite of not having the resources.

So rather than emphasize discipline, which I think is important, I really want us to emphasize care.

My drop on that that is so powerful.

Thank you, Yes, that is so important.

Okay.

So speaking of the infrastructure and the support system and the sisterhood, talk to us, tell us about the k Feminist collective and for those of us who for those listeners who aren't familiar, tell us more about it.

So that's my crew.

We became friends in graduate school.

Now twenty years ago.

It's hard to believe that I'm a middle aged lady, but it has happened.

I'm turning forty five.

Nice month.

So twenty years ago, me and my homegirls got together and this was the era of crunk music, right where folks were talking about like, oh, I'm getting crunk with that person, meaning you know, you might have to get in someone's face, she might have to tell them what it is.

And so we put together crunk and feminists, being like, this is a type of feminists we are.

We're hip hop generation feminists.

Most of us are rooted in the South some kind of way, and so that's how we came up with the name.

And then fast forward to twenty ten.

Brittany Cooper and myself were talking.

We were both professors in the state of Alabama.

I was at Auburn, she was at Alabama, and we were young professors and we thought like, we're kind to write about PLoP culture and politics in a way that our day jobs didn't necessarily allow.

And so at the time it was like height of like blogging, you know, and blogging was free we didn't have resources, you know, except ourselves, So we just hit up all of our friends that we knew were dope writers, and we started this blog.

And now we you know, published two books, you know, one edited collection of our blogging that came out in twenty seventeen and then a young adult handbook that came out in twenty twenty one.

And we now have a subset because you know, we got to go with the time, so it's not in blog, it's a subset.

So, you know, having this crew, which we modeled ourselves after the Combahee River Collective, so Barbara Smith and her comrades in the nineteen seventies.

We're black feminists who were like, okay, we're fighting for you know, particular kinds of rights and to be understood in particular kinds of ways, who themselves named themselves after the Combahee River, you know, where Harriet Tubman was doing all of her five stuff during the Civil War.

So we try to think about ourselves and that kind of lineage of you know, black women, black black woman's sisterhood, black feminism, and so on.

So yeah, we are a group that writes together, but we're also friends that literally have that mutual aid with one another as well.

It's so inspiring.

Oh my goodness.

So one's fine giving us all ideas on how we can create lasting legacies as well.

And I think it's just so amazing too that even though I'll Tavia about their transition twenty years ago, like this book is out and like people are learning more about her and her work and can go back and read some of her other content.

I wanted to ask you a question.

Oh man, I think it escaped me at the moment.

I had a question for you.

I wanted to know, let me see that it'll come back.

I'll come into another question I had if this comes back, will circle back to it.

But one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Susannah is this had me cracking out when I read this part.

Okay, so you described how wild Seed.

You said it's unapologetically weird.

So there were black immortals, shape shifting and dolphins, you know, like I loved it all, Like it was great.

It was a great book.

What did Octavia?

What would you say?

She gave us permission to do artistically and creatively by being that expansive.

Yeah, I think that Altavia gave us permission to be weird and strange, and oftentimes black girls don't get permission to be weird and strange, right to be quiet, to be reserved, to be introverted, to be you know, So a story do they tell?

In one of the first chapters is Octavia hanging out with her friends at school and they're all like talking about superpowers, as you do, you know, I want to be invisible, I want to live you know whatever.

And they're like, well, what do you want to do?

And she's like, oh, I want to live forever and breed people.

And so that was definitely a record stretch, like who wants to do that?

And but that basically that desire, that interest is what became Wildseeed and the other Patterns novels.

So she was already thinking about those questions in high school, right, but she was trying to find like minded folks like novels that she loves.

She'd go to like the you know, thrift store and get or use bookstore and get copies of them for like, you know, a nickel because this is the nineteen fifties and sixties, and pass them out to people, you know, her friends at church, like hey, I want you to read this book with me.

You know, let's the equivalent of you know, today handing out I don't know, hunger games or whatever it is, Harry Potter.

But you're a young person, right, and you're trying to connect with other people who like those things.

Maybe it's harder for us to contemplate that now because again, we do have social media, right, we have group meets, we have all these different things.

But back in the day, fifty sixty years ago, sometimes it was harder for black nerds to find one another, you know, especially someone who today we would use the language of like neurodivergence.

Right, So some of o Tavia's social interactions when she was a young person were like, you know, not what people expected.

It was hard for her to navigate socially.

And so I think it sort of just shows an example that black women's genius looks all kind of ways.

It might be a little weird, amen to that.

And so as you as you were doing your research and immersing yourself in not only Octavia's.

Work, but like her life.

Mm hmm, what's something unexpected that you learned from all of your research?

Yeah, I mean unexpected?

Yeah, I would say, what was unexpected was you know, here I am in her archive, I'm reading her most intimate ideas.

Now.

She gave the archives to the Huntington Library willingly, you know, I'll say that, but still, you know, it felt weird sometimes being like, you know, reading about her struggles with mental health, right, or things like that.

But what I think was most surprising was just reading how she talked about herself.

Sometimes she was really hard on herself, and that was very hard to read.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been super surprising because she was an artist, right, and she had high standards, and that's not a bad thing.

But you know, she might write a portion of a chapter of a book, right, and it reads very close to what we see on the page has been published.

But the way she would break down her writing, oh this is not good.

People won't believe this.

What am I doing?

This doesn't matter.

I don't you know.

I've lost it all Throughout her career, well into the nineteen nineties, she's like, oh, this work isn't good.

So there's one moment that I write about where she's literally coming from being honored as a distinguished guest and she's on the plane and she was like, I don't have anything to say.

What's coming out doesn't make any sense?

Have I lost it?

Am I still good?

You know?

And that's not to pedestalize her, right, she was a person was complicated, who have their ups and downs, and who was entitled to that.

But it's just hard to see another black woman do herself like that.

Okay, well that was surprising.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

I think many of us can relate to that too.

As you were stating all that, I'm like, she just seems so human, but also there's this greatness, you know, where you appreciate the work.

But I think, yeah, many of us can definitely relate to that.

I want to ask you as well, Susannah, what is a topic that you are really interested in that you don't get to talk about much like people are like, oh, I want to talk about the book because this is you know, this is what we're promoting on the book tour.

Are there any topics that you really appreciate that you don't get to talk about often?

And what are they?

So?

I feel like I get to talk about pretty much everything I want to talk about in general.

I've really been blessed on tour and in general to like, every conversation is different.

I've been remarking that to folks because when full to read the book, they come away with different things.

So the questions that y'all are asking are different than say, the questions I had last week when I was at my alma mater, my Hoolyo College, and I was, you know, in conversation with the president there, which was amazing and super dope, and she was asking very particular questions because she's a civil rights lawyer and the president of a college, and so she just had different insights.

So I've been really challenged surprise, and I am just eternally grateful to people engaging the books.

So people are just coming from all different angles.

I'm like, yeah, I love that, you know, so I've been getting to talk about all kinds of things.

I love that.

It's amazing.

Yes, And so when you think about the evolution of your career, right, so from being the young girl reading in the like going to the bookstore, reading books in the lib you know, in the library, and then now you're a professor and you're writing the books that other people are reading.

When you think about this evolution of your career is there anything that has really surprised you in terms of where your career has gone.

Yeah, I mean I like I've saved you.

I have humble roots, right.

Both of my parents are immigrants, Caribbean immigrants.

My mother has a grammar school education.

You know, she had to drop out of school to basically farm, right.

So in the third grade, my grandmother was like, you have to work full time.

Right.

So that's my trajectory from that, right to having a PhD.

So I feel very kindness, humbled by the shoulders, and I'm standing on in particular kinds of ways.

I'm not really supposed to be here, right, Like the spaces that I occupied were not really created for me, right.

But I am coming through the door with all sorts of folks behind me that I've never even met, right, ancestors literal and figurative, that are sort of like pushing me through and holding me up.

I did well in school, you know, I wasn't a student who struggled in general.

I mean, I had mass was not easy.

I went straight through.

You know, when people look at my resume, they're like, Okay, she graduated high school, she went to college, she went to graduate school, right, afterward, she got a job immediately.

Now she's in another job.

She's written these books.

Wow, you know, but they weren't shooting with me in the gym, you know.

So and again, I first person in my immediate family to graduate from college, from graduate school, you know, all of those things.

So and that's another reason why the crew has been so important to me, because many of my homies have also similar trajectories right where they might be the first in their family to graduate.

They might also be first generation Americans, or they might have deep roots in this country.

You know, we all have like our kind of humble roots in particular kinds of ways.

And yeah, I mean I love saying why I was so supposed to be here.

I tell that to my students too.

I often say, this classroom that you're in with this black lady, professor, it was not supposed to happen, And there are folks who would love for it me to continue to happen, you know.

So there's that My trajectory is in some ways very straightforward, in other ways really kind of a wild ride, because you know, based on the stats of my life, I shouldn't need me doing this.

Once again, so inspiring sho's getting And the next question here is a two parter, and this part of me is like hesitating on the second part because as a creative, I'm like, this is the question everybody asks and are like, I just released this project that we'll dive into it.

Ask away you already know?

Okay, first part is well, one, you've done so much, right, You've already overcome so much, You've accomplished so much, You've already made history in many ways.

Right when you think about just what you've accomplished, what would you say you want your legacy to represent?

And then of course what's next for you?

Like what do you envision next?

I know it's creatives.

There's always something swirling around in there.

H So yeah, we love to know.

Yeah, so my legacy.

You know, when I did an event in Brooklyn at the beginning of October or September thirty excuse me.

And it was wonderful.

You know, my editors came and my homegirls from undergrad and just like my partner was there and travel with me, like I was saying with a homegirl, like it was just like all of this chosen family.

And towards the end of the key and a.

A was in conversation with ebe Ze Boy, who's a writer I love in respect and just it was just super dope in a large crown.

I was like, okay, look at me.

So at the end of the Q and A, I see a familiar face and it's one of my former students from Georgia Tech.

The Meal, a young black woman and she is in her being her second year in law school.

I think she did in her second year of law school.

And so she took several fast with me, super bright, you know, and now she is going to be a lawyer.

And she got up and said, you know, I just want to thank you for you know, being there for me, for being a mentor, for being I'm like, that's what it's about, you know.

That's what it's about for me, is being able to you know, mentor folks, particularly other black women, to encourage people in the field, whether it's to get a pH d, which is complicated.

I have lots of thoughts about that, particularly the academic industrial complex.

I'm like, don't do it unless you really want to do it, you know, but just you know, it's real, and so yeah, that's what I really think about in terms of legacy is it's funny to me as a professor folks, you know, especially with the climate now where they're like you're indoctrinating students.

I can barely get them to read a syllabus.

So if someone years later comes back and says, I need a positive impact in their life, right, I'm not telling them what to think, but I'm telling them to think critically.

Right.

And Camilla's out here.

She you know, started a chapter of the NAACP at Georgia Tech.

You know, she's adult, so she's doing all this work, all this volunteer stuff.

What I mean, I believe the children are our future.

Like she is such a wonderful and I just got to play a small part in her trajectory.

I got to pay it forward.

When I was at my Holyok last week, I was introduced by two of my professors who are still there, who were young assistant professors back in the day, and now they have been professors for twenty something years, almost thirty years in some cases.

And I could see them looking at me like we remember back in nineteen ninety nine when he was in the class doing XYFB, and now I get to do that for other people.

So that's really just and I want them to continue to do it in their profession.

So I'm looking at Camille like, okay, so when you become an esquire, you have to make sure you mentor this next group.

Right.

It's like Tony Morrison says, like, if you make it, it's not like, oh I made it, and then that's it.

Right.

You have to pull people into the room with you as well.

Right.

Power is not to be held on singularly.

It is to be shared with the group.

Right, beautiful, thank you so much.

Yes, oh my, yes, that so beautifully stated.

And so you mentioned being a professor at Georgia Tech and in your bio you know as Terry ragelbio at the beginning.

You've written multiple books.

So for those of those listeners who want to connect with you, we know they're going to go out and get the book.

Yes, how can they find you?

How can they support you?

Yes?

So they can find you on Instagram And my handle is a Susie May and may ye I'm on Facebook.

You know if you're still on the Book of Faces, Susannah Morris PhD.

I really left twitever.

I have an account over there, but I don't I don't go over there, really, you know.

And I'm trying to figure out my life on TikTok, so I won't share that just yet, but really Instagram and Facebook and Susannah dot com which is getting Susannah Morris dot com, which is getting a makeover.

And I'm remembering I did not respond to your question fully, Terry.

So I'm still thinking about, you know, where I'm going next.

But so as folks follow me, you know, and subsect as well, it's called the remix.

I'm sort of thinking about autodidecks.

I'm thinking about folks who are self taught in a particular kind of way.

And I'm telling you it was time that when Autodidex she went to Pasadena City College or to the junior college still around, and you know, she went to the Clarion Writer's Workshop, but she was largely self taught because regular school just did not connect with her.

She was someone who had to create their own curriculum.

And so, you know, when we look at her report cards from her primary and secondary school, they say things like, oh, she's a day dreamer, she's lazy.

She you know, wish none of those things were true.

She was a deep thinker, and you know her her divergence.

Folks were not first of all able to really diagnose that in black women well anyway, even to this day.

And she was born in nineteen forty seven.

So in working on this book, I've really been sort of interested in, like, Okay, how have black folk in particular used like a life library spaces right to create their own personal curriculum?

As the girls are saying on TikTok, like, oh, I'm making my own personal curriculum for the fall.

Well that was on Tavia right, she'd be like, well, I want to figure out what you know these aliens would look like, So I'm going to go research marine life, or I want to set my novel in the Amazon.

So I'm going to go to the Amazon and go with a research group and do that research.

And she's not the only one.

Some people have become famous, right like in August Wilson, who would skip school so that he goes to library and really learn stuff because he was learning stuff in high school.

And then think about the people that we know in our lives, and it might even be us, It might be your grandmother who is like I'm a master quilter and I'm going to learn all that I can about quilting.

Right, there's a certain level of expertise that folks at black folks that I think we prize, and I think it's it's no surprise or should be no surprise.

These third spaces life libraries have been under attack because they have been so important to marginalized folk, in particular Black folk, black women.

I just went in because I moved recently and I got a library card, and when I walked in, I just saw all kinds of folk at the computers.

As I was walking in, there was someone who looked like they were probably unhoused, who was also coming in, and I'm like, and no one's going to kick him out.

And he doesn't need a library card.

He just needs to show up and be in the space and he can use the computer.

Right, he can be in a warm, safe environment.

Right.

There were people there with their children.

You know, people are learning all kinds of stuff.

So I really want to think about that.

It's very nebulous now, but you know, as y'all follow me on the socials, you know I will be sharing what I'm working on.

Well, that's so insightful, And yeah, we're looking forward to that to see it in real time, to see like how you evolve this next step in the journeys who's in.

We appreciate you so much.

Thank you for the work that you do, for the legacy you've already you're leaving now and then you know what you're going to do next.

So we'd love to have people support you.

Were going to share your links in the show notes, and we just want to thank you so much for your time, your gifts today.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

It's a row honor.

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