Talented writer and fellow Hunter College colleague Heather O’Neill interviewed Linda Villarosa for AfterEllen.com. Check out this engaging interview, and support Linda’s book, Passing for Black.
Check out some of the interview below:
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Interview With Linda Villarosa
by Heather A. O’Neill, Contributing Writer
June 23, 2008
Linda Villarosa has long used her writing to raise awareness. A journalist, editor and now a novelist, she’s written about a variety of important subjects from LGBT issues, African-Americans and HIV, to parenting and health. In 1991, as the executive editor of Essence magazine, she co-wrote an article with her mother entitled “Coming Out.” The article ? about, you guessed it, how coming out affected Linda’s relationship with her mother ? received a record number of responses at that time in the magazine’s history.
Villarosa is also the author or co-author of three books: Body & Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being, Finding Our Way: The Teen Girls’ Survival Guide and The Black Parenting Book. Dafina Books recently published her first novel, Passing for Black. The book follows Angela, a young black woman whose search for identity crosses lines of race, sexuality and family. Villarosa spoke with AfterEllen.com about the book, what inspired the novel and the challenges of using her skills as a journalist to write fiction.
Warning: Some spoilers for Passing for Black
AfterEllen.com: Toni Morrison has famously said, “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Is Passing for Black that kind of book?
Linda Villarosa: I think so. Someone asked me last week, “I finished your book and I was surprised at your age that you’re doing a coming-out novel.” And I thought, well, that’s just the book I had in me. I hope I have another one, but this is the one I definitely had in me.
Also, I like coming-out novels. I like to read about people who are struggling for something and then they get to it. That’s what this character was doing. It felt really natural. I don’t think I’m a natural fiction writer, I’m much more natural as a journalist, but this is the book that I had in me.
AE: As a journalist, you’ve written about many of the things your main character Angela experiences in the book ? from coming out to how gays and lesbians are accepted within the African-American community, to the Bible and homosexuality. How was it different writing about these subjects in a novel? Did you have more freedom?
LV: I felt like I had so much more freedom. I went through a lot of drafts because I had no experience. People said: “Oh, you’re a good storyteller, you’re funny, but it doesn’t come through in your journalism. Your journalism is so serious.” I thought that was interesting. And it’s true. My “in print” voice had been much more serious than I found it in my real life. So it was really nice trying to find that voice.
The other thing people say when you’re a beginning novelist is to write what you know. These were a lot of the things I knew mushed together. I just started to get into the flow. I thought, this is what I’m supposed to be writing, this is stuff I know about. It’s just through a different rubric. But it’s nice to be able to write in my own voice, which is funnier and more upbeat, crazier than the more serious journalism that I’ve done.
AE: The book addresses important issues such as race and sexuality, but one of the many things I loved about it was how all of the characters are so authentically and richly flawed.
LV: Something I’ve found with fiction or movies …
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To read the rest, go to AfterEllen.com.
Enjoy!