Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah burst onto the literary scene in 2018 with the short-story collection Friday Black, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book. He has also written for The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere, so you might not be surprised to learn that he doesn't really believe in writer's block.
Adjei-Brenyah is back with Chain-Gang All-Stars, and took time out from the publicity blitz to answer the Lit Hub Questionnaire, offering up his go-to books for gifting, and retracing his education as a writer.
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How do you tackle writer's block?
I feel like the response to this has become almost controversial, some writers, like me, assert that "there is no such thing as Writer's Block," others insist it is a mountain to be climbed over. When I say I don't believe in Writer's Block, I mean that I don't find it useful to assign a name to a state of being in which I CANNOT write. If somebody offered me one million dollars to write a sentence I'm pretty sure I could always do it. And so that's enough.
What people usually are feeling is the editorial voice in their head is greater than that exploratory, fun, creator type voice. And so if I'm feeling as though writing is difficult, I try to take solace in knowing revision is my superpower, I remember that I'm creating and in trying I am doing the work.
I also feel like the idea of "Writer's Block" as I understand, it favors the final product and not the process which is many things, not just writing, but living and seeing actively and gathering just as much as spilling out. So yeah all that plus if someone was like here's a million dollars, I'm sure I'd get it done, so like just do it. And even if I can't, I still don't think it's because of writer's block, cause as I've said, it's not a useful idea to me.
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your writing education?
I've been blessed to have many teachers who have set me on this path. Mrs. Deustch and Mrs. Doctor back in middle school. Mr. Norton and Mrs. Jacobs—without them I do not think I'd be doing what I'm doing now.
But if I had to choose one person who had a particular impact, I'd say it was/is Lynne Tillman. She caught me at an age (a big eyed sophomore in college) where I had a lot of desire and very little direction. She basically taught me how to really read, which is a writer's most important ability. She taught me to read sentences and go to even more granular levels than that. She showed me how to be a generous reader she introduced me to writers that would become my favorites, some who'd become my mentors.
Also, she taught me that getting obliterated editorially is a love language, another important lesson in humility that a writer needs to learn at some point.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
I think that most interviews are pretty macro in nature. That is, they rarely ask me to think about the line level decisions I make on the page. I think they think of it as a generosity (maybe it's hard to remember such details) or I think, that because I, sometimes, write stories with premises that could be considered speculative or sci-fi or surreal or whatever, the nature of those premises in a broad sense steals the focus of the questions I'm asked.
Put another way: people ask a lot about the shape of the house but not the trees I cut down to build it. They don't ask me about why I decided to peel pine trees down to untreated 4x4 's for my frames. They don't ask why I choose posts that have less of that center pith in them. This is a lumber metaphor that is coming to me because I'm reading an incredible book called Greenwood by Michael Christie right now. What I'm saying is most questions are about the sum, the big picture and not the parts and how they come together.
What is your favorite book to give as a gift?
I really like giving The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. It pushed me to a legit epiphany and I guess I'm always hoping it could lead someone to a similar clarity. (The part on Houses in the book is the part that led me to epiphany, but that's a whole other story.)
It's kind of a strange book to give because it's basically two stops short of being like, hey here's this bible I think you could really use it, but even though it clearly has the energy and power of a holy book it is beautifully accessible to anyone. I've only given it a few times but I received it as a gift once and I wanted to recreate that feeling for somebody else.
Generally though, if I'm going to give a book as a gift I like it to be curated sort of especially to the person. I know a lot of people who aren't regular readers and also many writers and serious readers and also I just know that people like different things and so I try to be intentional with the books I give as gifts.
If you weren't a writer, what would you do instead?
Is it cheating to be like, director/photographer/music producer/ musical artist? I don't see myself not at least trying to be an artist. Where would I put all my discontent?! If I were not an artist how would I dress up my obsessive tendencies as virtues to be applauded and paid for? I really like making up worlds and sharing them with the world and so these fields would let me do that.
I asked if it's cheating because my answer director/photographer/music producer/ musical artist are all ways of saying writer in different mediums. If you made me choose a non-art thing I did instead it's probably be a lawyer or something, but they're writers too.
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Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of Chain-Gang All-Stars, available now from Pantheon.
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