Dear Reader,
My mother and her mother were born and raised in West Texas. There were no public libraries in their neighborhoods, but this didn’t stop my mother from being a reader. When I was young, my mother visited the library weekly, but my first visit didn’t occur until I was almost twelve years old (after we had moved away from the region). Before we moved, I would “borrow” her “borrowed” books and read them without her knowing (or so I thought). When I was older, I asked my mother why she never allowed me those library visits with her as young girl. She explained, “That wasn’t our library. I was trying to go unnoticed. Taking you and your sisters would’ve caught their attention. None of us would’ve been welcome anymore. They would’ve found a reason to keep us all out.”
easons she and my father decided to move us to North y g t el like we didn’t have rights to the most basic experiences. “They’d really just started fighting for stuff at home,” she told me. “I didn’t want you to have to wait for that. I wanted you to check out your own books, not sneak and read mine.”
As a reader, I’ve always thought of myself as fortunate to have grown up with the freedom to visit public libraries. To be welcomed into them. When my family moved to North Texas and there was a public library within walking distance of our home, I didn’t hesitate to learn the limits of my card and stretch those limits as much as could. The novelty of having that access has never worn off for me, but I never forget that mother wasn’t as fortunate. I’ve often imagined what it’s like to be a young reader without access to books and wondered what it’s like to grow up in world where libraries are truly a luxury.
My life as a writer would not be possible without my life as a reader. I get to be a writer because I was privileged with the access to books; it was through that access that I was allowed to dream outside of my world. My mother and my grandmother have always been storytellers. Sometimes I wonder if they might’ve been writers were it not for racial inequity in the segregated South. If they had been writers, I imagine they would’ve written about black women in Texas. Maybe farmers or factory workers or basketball players or moonshine makers. I can’t be sure; they never got to be writers. I just know they would’ve written about Texas.
I write Texas and Texans because so many before me never got the chance. In Perish and Holler, Child, I write characters in Texas or from Texas, where access to basic luxuries, such as libraries, are in the peripheral. Much like own family, my characters don’t always see the best of Texas, but they love her. They don’t always feel protected by her, but they protect her, and they stand up for her. She is the only home they know. And I am grateful to every reader willing to journey through these places with these characters. I hope that they will love and root for them, most especially when they seem lost and are difficult to root for. I believe that those are the times they look most like us.