Recently, I reviewed an ARC of Where I’m From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents from She Writes Press. You can check out my review here and order your copy here. Please welcome Ebony Walden!

Grab the Lapels: What did you want to be when you grew up, and does this choice influence your writing today?

Ebony Walden: Not too long ago, my mother sent me a clipping from my high school graduation bulletin. I said I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Today, I own a consulting business where I do a mix of organizational development, leadership development, strategy, coaching, and diversity, equity, and inclusion work. I like using that part of my brain, as well as the creative part through writing, poetry, and filmmaking. My creative work doesn’t consistently pay the bills. Not yet, anyway. So my entrepreneurial self pays for my creative self. Almost all of my writing comes from the dynamic life experiences I try to create for myself, so even in that sense, my writing is probably entrepreneurial.

Grab the Lapels: What was the first piece of writing you did that you remember being happy with?

Ebony Walden: Wow, that is a good question. When I started writing poetry in 2009, I felt like I was pouring out my heart onto the page. Those first spoken word poems were confident, a bit didactic, but they were bold. They are still some of my favorite poems to perform today. For a person with a terrible memory, it’s remarkable that I can recite them pretty well. One of my favorites is entitled “Speak.” I am not sure it is the best poem, but I think it is my message to myself, to speak up and share my story, but also my message to the world.

Grab the Lapels: Given that a lot of creative types go through a “bad poems” phase in adolescence, do you think there is a specific “achievement” a person must “unlock” before they are a capital-P Poet?

Ebony Walden: No, we all have what Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts.” A LOT of my first poems were bad, but like anything else, if you write enough or get enough practice, you will also have some gems. You get better with time. You find your voice and flow, and see the weaknesses in your work more clearly and hopefully improve upon them.

A poet is someone who writes poetry. A writer is someone who writes. Whether you are good, someone pays you for your work, or it gets published is a different thing altogether. 

Grab the Lapels: How do your friends and family respond to your writing?

Ebony Walden: It depends on what I am writing. My friends who have read advanced copies of my memoir liked it. I think they learned some things about me and my story, about my travels. I write with the same wisdom and search for meaning that guide how I show up in my daily life, so it probably feels aligned with how they know me. I am probably more funny in person, but I am more vulnerable on the page.

I write on Substack and my friends and family read it often. They reach out when I have written something that resonates. I’ve been blogging and publishing articles for years, so I think they might be tired of my writing, but maybe that is in my head.

Grab the Lapels: Well, now I have a new Substack to follow! Did you do any research for Where I’m From? If so, why/why not, and can you talk about why you made that choice.

Ebony Walden: To write the book, I had to go back and retrieve so much information from old emails, blogs, newsletters, journals, and photographs. I kept copious notes, blogged almost every other day during my travels, and took 7,000 pictures. My trip was eight months long, so it was a contained period of time. I also had to research the names and histories of places, foods, and other facts to make sure that what I remembered hearing or seeing was accurate. Memory is fallible, so I had to go back and verify things in my life and what I experienced in the world.

Grab the Lapels: Now that we’re up to our eyeballs in AI, do you have any concerns that someone will challenge your work for using AI, even if you have all the receipts?

Ebony Walden: It’s not something I’ve worried about, but just this morning, I read an article about how AI scrutiny ruined a Black author’s book deal. It’s a little scary because receipts don’t necessarily protect authors from suspicion.

Grab the Lapels, jumping in: (you can see some photos from the trip in this post on Walden’s Substack.)

Ebony Walden: I can’t get lost in hypotheticals, though. My job right now is to be a good writer, share my story, and focus on being present on my upcoming book tour.

I completed my manuscript before AI as we know it today was widely available. I have journals, blogs, emails, photographs, and several drafts that document both the journey and the writing process. More importantly, these are my lived experiences, told in my voice. No one else could have written this particular book, human or otherwise.