Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, publisher, and New York Times Bestselling author of 36 books. He visited Larry J. Ringer Public Library on October 24th as a part of the book tour to promote his latest novel, The Door of No Return. One doesn’t meet a New York Times Bestselling author in College Station everyday, so I set up an interview. I immediately started preparations and was soon invited to his VIP Meet & Greet.
Reading his upcoming novel, I was amazed at how he conveyed complicated ideas, emotions, and objects in a straightforward way. In a few words, the readers felt countless emotions in a small event in the giant plot of a character.
Through this interview, I discovered Kwame Alexander to be a humorous individual and a romanticist at heart. Just a warning for those who meet him: Be careful with your names, or he might just put you in his next book! In all seriousness, he was a great interviewee, and his books were even better! I cannot wait to read any future pieces he might publish.
A: I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was in college, and I met a woman. And I wanted to let her know she was beautiful. But I was really shy. So I wrote her a poem. And I think that was the beginning of me, deciding that poetry is really cool, and it can get attention. And people will respond to me.
Q:How many books have you written and which one is your favorite?
A: 36 and all of them are my favorite. That’s like asking who’s your favorite child.
Q:How long does it take you to write a book? And how many hours do you write?
A: The Undefeated took me one hour. The Crossover took me five years. The Door Of No Return took me three years. Surf’s Up took me a week and a half. It really depends on the book. I write every day from 6am to 11am.
Q:How do you get your ideas? Where do you get your information or ideas?
A: I dream a lot. I read a lot. I pay attention to what’s happening. I get inspiration from everywhere. I just walk around paying attention. I [also] get my inspiration from my kids.
Q:What was the most surprising things you learned in creating your recent book, The Door
Of No Return?
A: The most surprising thing is that it was the hardest book I ever wrote. And there were times where I had to stop writing, because it was kind of painful. So I stopped for at least an hour to a week.
Q:Do you hear from your readers much?
A: I get about 10 fan letters every week. It ranges from “You are my favorite author. I’ve read every one of your books. Thank you for doing what you do, too. I have a book report to do on your book. Can you help me with it?”
Q:What do you think makes a good story
A good story is a beginning, a middle, and an end [with] really good characters and a compelling message.
Q:Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotion strongly?
A: Yeah, but can they be good writers? Probably not. Because a good story requires you to have some emotion. Yeah, put some of your emotion in it. So when we read it, we will feel some.
Q:If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
A: Just keep doing it. Eventually it’s going to pay off. Do not give up.
Q:What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
A: When I was able to get dates in high school in college because I wrote poetry. I was like, “whoa, this poem really worked!” People actually [thought] I’m cool. It gave me confidence.
Q:What period of your life Do you find that you write about most often?
A: Um, well, it depends. I used to write a lot about my 12. My middle school years, my tween and teen years, but now, I’m writing about my adult life.
Q:Do you read your book reviews?
A: Well, there’s a short and a long answer that I used to read all my book reviews, until I started getting some bad ones. And then I stopped reading them all. And then I started reading just the good ones. And then for this latest book, The Door of No Return, I got a lot of really good reviews. And then the New York Times wrote a book review about it and it was the worst. So I’ve stopped reading reviews now.
Q:How do you select the names of your characters?
A: I have a file on my phone. And it’s all the names of characters whenever I meet somebody who has an interesting name, like when I met this kid named Debkonya, I put it in my phone. And then when I’m writing the book, I’ll go look at my list and say, “oh, This journalist, I will name her Debkonya.”
Q:What is the one thing that you would give up to become an even better writer?
A: Meat
Q:What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
A:It’s always hard to start writing on a blank page. It’s so intimidating to sit down in the morning to just start writing. It’s so hard you just want to procrastinate. Do you want to watch Netflix or, you know, do something else?
Q:What made you choose this particular topic?
A: I didn’t choose it, it chose me. I was in a place called Ghana and I had visited 11 times in 10 years. And on those visits, this story just came to me. And it kept saying, “You got to write this, you got to write this.” So I was called to write it.
Q:You mentioned in your book that you wrote it for the part that nobody knows. What do you mean by that?
A: If you ask [people] cultural questions, most people don’t/won’t know some of those answers. Or they’ll say things that are stereotypical. And I wanted to write a book so that we could get away from the stereotypes, and begin to talk about, well, what did it actually mean for a kid to grow up in West Africa? You know, and in particular, in a place called Ghana, which is a country. And so a lot of people will, a lot of kids will say to you, Africa is a country? No, it’s not a continent. So, yeah, I think people have a misconception or a perception of Africa, when you think about it, and usually that perception is based on TV shows and really bad books. And so I think that people don’t know a lot about Africa. And so in that regard, they don’t know a lot about black history. And they don’t know a lot about me
Q:How did you come up with the name Kofi for your main character?
A: The character is always the first thing I come up with when I’m writing a book. I can’t start writing until I know what the character is, how they dress, where they live, how they act, what’s their personality, it’s almost like I’m filling out a job application for them, so that I know who that person is. So I spent a couple years thinking about Kofi. And once I knew who he was, then I started writing the book, but I have to know who the character is.
Q:How did you imagine a plot like the one in your new book?
A: So my writing process involves a lot of walking and thinking, a lot of reading, a lot of imagining and brainstorming. And so maybe my first trip to Ghana was in 2012. I didn’t start writing this book [until]2018. So there’s a lot of observing, thinking, reading, imagining, cooking, walking, until you get to a point where you’re like, Okay, I know the character. I know what sport he plays. He’s a swimmer. I know how swimming is gonna play a part in his life. And I’m in love with love. So there’s always a love story in like, all my books in some way. So I know he’s gonna have a crush. So I knew all these things. And once I got sort of an idea of what each row and what each of those roles we’re gonna play in his life. And I started writing
Q:Most authors based their characters off of people in their lives who have you based your characters on in The Door of No Return?
A: A bunch of people, a lot of kids I met in Ghana.
Q:Are the settings in your book a real place like it’s an actual village or is it imaginary?
A: Both. It’s based on a real village. So I sort of used my imagination, because I obviously wasn’t there in 1860. But, you know, based on my research and having been in villages in Ghana, so using those two things, plus how I imagined things up plus what I know about that year.
Q:Why choose the title the Door of No Return?
A:You gotta read the book to find out. I want them to have the same experience you and I had, where they discover it as they’re reading.
