SHARYN SKEETER with WENDY HINMAN

Sharyn Skeeter is a writer, poet, editor, and educator. She was an editorial assistant in Mademoiselle’s fiction and poetry department, then worked as fiction/poetry/book review editor at Essence, and as editor in chief at Black Elegance.  As an assistant professor at Emerson College and the University of Bridgeport, she taught journalism, literature, Black American theater, and writing. She lives in Seattle where she's a member of the board of trustees of ACT Theatre. Her debut novel Dancing with Langston is described as “a powerful novel about the rewards and realities of following one’s dreams,” and is the gold winner in the 2019 Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards in Multicultural Fiction.

Sharyn Skeeter is a writer, poet, editor, and educator. She was an editorial assistant in Mademoiselle’s fiction and poetry department, then worked as fiction/poetry/book review editor at Essence, and as editor in chief at Black Elegance.  As an assistant professor at Emerson College and the University of Bridgeport, she taught journalism, literature, Black American theater, and writing. She lives in Seattle where she's a member of the board of trustees of ACT Theatre. Her debut novel Dancing with Langston is described as “a powerful novel about the rewards and realities of following one’s dreams,” and is the gold winner in the 2019 Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards

in Multicultural Fiction.

Sharyn, Thanks so much for agreeing to share your experience with Writers Connection readers.

1. Did you always want to be a writer? What were your early influences?

As I remember my childhood, books were always in my own and other relatives’ homes. I learned the value of reading from that. My father got me an encyclopedia and the Great Books of the Western World collection in addition to other books.  But it wasn’t until high school that I realized that I enjoyed writing. My teachers encouraged me to write poetry and I enjoyed studying languages.

2. How did you develop your skills as a writer and a poet?

In college, I studied Spanish and French literatures. When I read literary works in those languages, I had to look up many words. I didn’t know it at the time, but that got me to learn how writers use words—in any language—to create their art. A few years after college, I found myself in the fiction and poetry department of Mademoiselle magazine as an editorial assistant. By reading submissions, I began to see why some would be considered good writing and others would not.

3. How would you describe your first big break? How did this lead to more opportunities?

The experience at Mademoiselle led to my becoming fiction/poetry/book review editor on the first staff of Essence, at the time a new national magazine for Black women. I had the responsibility of choosing what would be in each issue in those areas. I also wrote for the magazine. This put me in touch with many young writers who have since gone on to impressive careers. By seeing their processes close up, I got a real-life education in what it might take for me to be a writer. Also, editing others’ work helped me improve my own. I was writing poetry in my free time, but during those years I preferred being an editor.


4. Describe your writing process. Do you
have a writing routine?

I believe that writers are always writing. There are stories everywhere. I write notes to myself with ideas for stories or lines for poems. My writing routine is still similar to my magazine work. Generally, I’m better at writing to deadlines than having a regular daily schedule. When I’m working on a project, though, I usually break it into parts that I can complete in a particular timeframe. After researching whatever I might need to get started, I do a rough outline, then get to work on a first draft. That’s the hard part for me. I really enjoy the possibility of breaking away from the outline and that first draft when I do several revisions. 

5. How do you balance the different types of writing that you do: poetry, short fiction, playwriting, longer fiction? How do you decide what form to use for an idea? How do your ideas evolve?

Poetry can come to me as a line that’s calling for more development. Other times, if I have a topic—as I did with the five poems in Our Black Sons Matter—I work at finding a way to bring something new to it. In that case, I did the series of five poems as a narrative of a woman’s grief cycle. The poems in In Search of Color Everywhere (which were previously published in journals) were part of a series on black Americans in the Old West.
The short fictions that I’ve had published have been novel excerpts from one unfinished work and from Dancing with Langston. I do have some ideas for short fictions that I’d like to write.
When I started Dancing with Langston, I knew that it could only be a novel. Its story and ideas needed a longer form. The characters could not have been as developed as I wanted them to be in a short story. As for playwriting, I’m working on a play adaptation of the novel.
I’m not sure that I decide what form to use. I think the idea itself tells me what it wants to be.

6. What do you wish you’d known sooner in your writing career?

As I said, I was an editor. I learned much about being a writer simply by working with writers. So, there isn’t much that I’d wished I’d known sooner. Except maybe before that… When I had a hint that I wanted to be a writer, I made the mistakes of many young people. That is, I didn’t realize that what I was writing—usually poetry—really should’ve been in my journal and not in public. I think that sometimes young writers make the mistake of submitting, as I did, writing that’s very meaningful to them, but that doesn’t communicate adequately to the reader. I learned that during my first week at Mademoiselle as I read through “slush.”                                                                       

 7.Tell us about your novel Dancing with Langston. I understand Langston Hughes is a relation.  How much is of your story is true? Was it intimidating to write about him when so much has already been written about this famous writer?

Though Langston Hughes visited other relatives in New York City, I never met him and I’m not sure that my father did. So, except for some anecdotal material related to my father’s Army days in World War II, the Dancing with Langston story is completely fiction. That goes for Langston and all the other characters with recognizable names. I was not intimidated about having him as a character. I’d heard and read many stories of his hard work, love, and generosity. I tried to keep those characteristics for the fictional “Langston” in the novel. I think if I’d allowed myself to be intimidated, I couldn’t have written this story—or, for that matter, anything else.

8. Dancing with Langston is a quiet, powerful story.  I really enjoyed it. What techniques did you use to build tension and drive the story forward without continuous action?

Thank you. My understanding of Buddhist impermanence—even the impermanence of what we consider to be history—drives this story for me. Carrie thinks she’s set in her married life. Cousin Ella has remained stuck in her past. Meanwhile, life is changing around them and they’re forced to find new ways to survive. They are clearly being driven out of their comfort zones—the apartment door will soon be knocked down. The challenge for me was how to get some of the characters unstuck to live as fully as they can in their circumstances.

9. Dr. Charles Johnson wrote a lovely endorsement for your novel, Dancing with Langston, describing it as “one of the most beautiful, brilliant debut novels” he’s had the pleasure of reading in years. Would you describe him as a mentor? How do you share work with one another?

No, he’s not a mentor. We only occasionally share work for proofreading. When he did this for my novel, he enjoyed it and offered to write the endorsement.

10. What is next for you?

I just finished the first draft of the play adaptation of Dancing with Langston. I’ll work on its revision even though theaters are closed due to Covid-19. I’ve also been writing a few poetry drafts that will need polishing. But I’m really driven to start my next novel this summer. It’s a story that I’ve been collecting notes on and have wanted to get on pages for years. I need to get that novel written.



11. What else have you learned that you would like to tell other writers?

Sometimes young writers are told to write about what they know. What they don’t know is how limiting that might be. While it is necessary for writers—indeed all artists--to be self-aware, I think it’s good to learn about or be interested as much as possible of what the world offers. Don’t be afraid to be challenged by new material. I’m not saying that this ever has to be used directly. But just having an awareness of others’ lives, different experiences, and issues can add depth and details to writing no matter what form it takes. Really, though, writers should not feel that they have to imitate someone else or follow some particular trend. Listen mindfully to criticism and don’t take it personally. All the while you should read and work on skills. Then feel good about submitting your best work. Most and best of all, enjoy writing.

12. Is there more you’d like to add or an answer to a question you wish I’d asked?

  I’ve published this novel during a time of much transition. Just as with Cousin Ella and Jack, we are all being forced to change our old comfortable ways during these new, often troubling conditions. But if we resist change, we risk being stuck, as they had been, in the condemned building.
  At this moment, we have many good and just reasons to be concerned with how issues of race have been experienced in our history and current events. Protests to correct injustices have taken many forms—in the streets, in funding, in the arts, in business, in the courts and legislatures.
  In Dancing with Langston, the setting for the characters is the black living space of Harlem. With that, none of them could avoid issues of racism. But they deal with it by their inner strength, which is reflected in the resourcefulness of their outward behavior. Just as many of the protesters are saying, ultimately, we want to go on with our lives—expressing our humanity—the same as anyone else.
  Despite their difficult situations, what sustains my characters is love. Sometimes that love is unconditional, other times it’s painful or unexpressed. But maintaining that love in all its facets is what, finally, supports these characters’ survival in Dancing with Langston.
In the end, there’s a Zora Neale Hurston quote that, I believe, sums it up. “But for the national welfare, it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem.”  
  Thank you, Sharyn. Sharyn can be reached at  
dancingwithlangston.com.