Imani All Mine Page 20
How did you come up with idea for All-Bright Court?
The novel grew out of a short story that I wrote for an assignment during my last year at LSU. At that point it was only twelve pages. I had always wanted to write more about where I grew up, and about the steel industry there. This book gave me the chance to do both.
In Imani All Mine, Tasha is black, and poor, and a teenager with a baby. By making her all these things, isn’t she a stereotype?
Tasha is far from being a stereotype. Tasha’s general description does fit that of thousands upon thousands of black girls, and this is partly the reason why I wrote this book. I grew up very poor. I’m one of nine children who were raised in a housing project, went to public schools, public universities. I feel truly blessed because of my upbringing. Never have I lost sight of the fact that as a child, because of my class and color, some people actually did stereotype me as doomed to fail. Not only me, but also every child my mother gave birth to, every child on my street, on my block, in my neighborhood. Of course, I’m talking about a time twenty-five, thirty years in the past, but I don’t feel much of a shift in attitude today.
You write about black family life. How do you see the state of the black family, especially poor families?
It is easy to say that the family structure is falling apart. There are many single-parent homes. But in many cases where you find an “intact” structure, the problems of increasing violence in poor neighborhoods, the influx of drugs like crack, the increase in the dropout rate, and the lack of job opportunities make it hard for families. Parents can control only what goes on in their houses. You have true warlike conditions in some of these neighborhoods. There are some very real pressures and concerns that did not exist when I was growing up in a housing project.
How would you describe yourself as a writer?
I would describe myself as a black female writer. I surely have been black and female all my life, and now, because I am a writer, I do not want to stop describing myself in that way. I do not fear that, because there is some descriptive tag before the word “writer,” I will be pigeonholed. Racism and sexism are what can pigeonhole you. They can limit, even stop you. Not describing myself as a black woman will not prevent that from happening.
About the Author
CONNIE PORTER grew up near Buffalo, New York, the second-youngest of eight siblings. Porter’s Addy books in the American Girl series have sold more than three million copies. Named a regional winner of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists contest for her first novel, All-Bright Court, she lives in Virginia.