Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: On Community, Identity, and Writing "My Monticello" (Part 1)

Jocelyn Johnson - Part 1

Bree: [00:00:00] On this season of pause to go, I'm going to be talking with creative change-makers who are truly inspirational. And I am delighted to open this season with this interview with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. Jocelyn is the author of my Montessori. Uh, fiction debut that was called a masterly feat by the New York times and was a finalist for the Kirkus. She's been a fellow at Tin House, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing appears in Guernica, The Guardian, and elsewhere.

Her short story, 'Control Negro' (So good) was anthologized in the best American short stories of 2018 and was even read aloud by LaVar Burton for selected shorts. Jocelyn was a long time public school art teacher, and she lives and writes where I live and write in Charlottesville, Virginia.

One of the things that I'm particularly [00:01:00] interested in for this episode is the deft way that Jocelyn used a painful and terrible moment in our communities, recent history, several moments, really, but I'm speaking specifically about the Unite The Right rally on August 11th and 12th of 2017. And then also the horrible environmental events that have taken place around the country, like the California fires and other very real effects of climate change, and through creative engagement and diligence, she crafted a book of short stories and the novella that not only transformed those events into something strangely more accessible to us, but also allowed her to process the events and move through them herself. I know that this book helped me to feel.

More connected to others, to even the people I felt most isolated from most different from. And so[00:02:00] this interview is divided into two sections. You're hearing part one today, which is really focusing on the cultural inspiration and the impact of my Monte cello.

And then next week, check back in actually just click, subscribe or follow right now. So you don't miss it because next week, Jocelyn will share more about her personal creative process, how she finds inspiration, where it gets challenging and the realities of sending your work beyond your safety zone.

So enjoy part one of this interview with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. Hi, Jocelyn. 

Jocelyn: Hi Bree.

Bree: Thank you for being here. 

Jocelyn: I really appreciate it, 

Bree: um, I'm a big fan of My Monticello, and just a big fan of you. So it's been such a joy to see your work recognized after so many years,

and you, you really [00:03:00] exemplify exactly what I want this next phase of Pause To Go to be, which is creative change-makers right. People who, . Um, Well, who are navigating really challenging periods of life in a creative way and finding a way to truly transform a moment whether or not you feel that is happening.

It's that's certainly what I see. I don't know. Does it feel that way? Do you, do you feel like it's a transformative moment for you?

Jocelyn: I do. I do in a kind of a bunch of ways. Um, uh, . Um, particularly like artistically. So the book that I wrote, My Monticello that came out this fall. Really came out of me, wrestling with a incredibly difficult transition time in the country and locally here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Um, and so that was very much, you know, born of that change and that transition and that difficulty. And then [00:04:00] also just writing, writing, writing for a really long time, but being a public school, art teacher full time, and then. You know, the pandemic and selling my book and all the change that's come from, uh, from that, those two things.

Bree: As someone who lives in Charlottesville, , I have found My Monticello to be an incredibly. Healing and energizing book. Um,  when I read it. Uh, first of all, you and I have known each other for a long time. We were in overlapping social circles.

We had, I've been friends with your husband for many years too. And there's something about reading, uh, reading something that not only tackles. Really, really challenging events in Charlottesville. And I I'm thinking particularly of, a black UVA student who was, um, beaten  uh, 

and actually it was not an isolated event, right. It was just [00:05:00] one that got more attention. And then of course, the events of August 11th and 12th, um, 

uh, that were also not isolated, but certainly a culmination of what seemed to be happening around the country and a harbinger of what was to come-- the way that you have interpreted and then transformed those events into stories. Cause I don't want to discount what came from you, right? It's really easy as someone who lives in Charlottesville to say, oh, this is this.

That is that. And. And it's not, it's you, it's your interpretation of that? So I guess where I'm going with, this is like on one hand, there's this healing of like, oh my gosh, you see this is how it feels. This is what it felt like for a community. Um, but then also having it filtered through you and feeling the human Jocelyn.

Behind that. And knowing that this is what was [00:06:00] living in your brain is really, really moving. I wonder, what has that been like for you living in Charlottesville? What has the response been in the community for you? 

Jocelyn: Yeah, it's been really, uh, interesting. So like a lot of people who make art, you know, I'm kind of an introvert.

And so I have like the public face of having been a public school teacher here for many, many years and knowing a lot of people through that. Um, but people don't necessarily know what senior brain and fiction, when I write fiction in particular, these stories, it's a whole different aspect of how I'm seeing things.

So I always say, you know, It's kind of where my. Darker thoughts go and things. I worry about the most go and things I noticed that are kind of unspeakable go isn't into fiction. So it's like a whole nother kind of part of my imagination and brain. And so it's interesting for people in your community to set with that, particularly around.

You know, the, the [00:07:00] unite, the right rally here, where we have these marauding, um, white nationalists and white supremacists kind of converged from all over the state and all over the country to, uh, obstensively to, um, to protest the idea of removing Confederate statues. But in reality, coming with. Swastikas and machine guns and torches.

And, um, and with a lot of rhetoric shouted, that just was much broader than that. And this idea of who belongs here and so forth. So, um, it's really interesting to have people in your mind thinking about the things you are sensitive to and the things you think about, but also about how you. Our interpreting and feeling about this event that they also in some way experienced or saw.

So I see it's, it's just funny because I live near first street, which is featured in the book and I walk my dogs and I have really bad dogs. I have two very, very bad dogs and I'm walking my dogs like down. The street looking like a hobo, just like [00:08:00] normal in my, like, not fancy and like a car we'll like slow down and I'm like, they're gonna slow down and say something about the book.

And they're like, I'm listening to your audio book or I've read your book or my book clubs, reading your book. And, and, um, all of it has been really, really kind and warm, uh, actually, and really enthusiastic. Um, but also. You know, it's hard stuff. So I had my parents' neighbor, who's an older white man said, I've read the end of the novella 10 times.

I just wanted you to know. And so that's like, or people will tell me where they were, are when these events happen or something that they felt about it. So it's a little, it can be a little bit intense 

Bree: yeah. That you, keep having to stay in that place even after writing this, which I would imagine is a little bit of a. Releasing of that 

Jocelyn: It is. I think there was a cathartic aspect to writing it, to writing what, the things you fear most and going, you know, I kind of took these real events and wrote into a future that is not the future that I hope for, for [00:09:00] any of us.

 It was a paradox in it because you have power and what you decided to write about, and that can feel really empowering. And the stories, this idea of reclamation, it has this kind of the fantasy of reclamation. What, what, what is it like when you center a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in Monticello, um, to like, what would that feel like to have that person feel at home there?

Um,  it's cathartic, but also I wanted readers to kind of take what I'm worried about and have it on their minds too. But then they bring it back to me too. You know what I mean? I'm like what I'm worried about. Let's all worry about it.

You worry about it for a little while. I'm gonna rest and they're like, but wait a minute. What should we do about it? What do you think? What were you saying? What, what happened? And, you know, 

Bree: so, and that's, you know, that's really, I was one of the questions that I wanted to ask you was like, what, what would you like to happen?

You've given us this incredible book to grapple with these [00:10:00] issues on a very human level, meaning a very emotional. Level right. That it's not about statistics. It's not, um, it's, it's about characters who are very richly drawn, who then inhabit our hearts and our minds, even in the short story format, which also I have to say is just perfect.

Jocelyn: Um, it's one of the things I'm most proud of is that this book came into the world as short stories and a novella. And for anyone who knows anything about publishing, short stories are just not like the sexiest thing and the way that we see them in our country and the way some readers.

Um, look at them, you know, the novels kind of the standard, and then short stories are like way down there. And then like poetry is like, like the, you know, the most exquisite and highest art form, but it's kind of the lowest in the, like in the publishing totem pole of, of access right. Of what people might pick up just to read, uh, for the average reader.

And so unless someone's into poetry or [00:11:00] into short stories or someone who studies literature. So I'm really, really proud that this b ook came in this weird format that kind of reflected what I was interested in at the time. And yet has found a broader group of readers and been kind of, um, put out in spaces where novels might've might've dominated or might dominate generally 

Bree: well, it's, it really feels perfect for it because.

' it's a collection of stories, right? And, and so each one gives a different perspective on these issues. And, um, and so it's not overwhelming. It's like, it it's like we keep going in from different ways. You're enveloped without being smothered. I guess that's the way that I feel, I felt enveloped.

 It felt like being held in a space. Um, 

Jocelyn: um, I like, I like that point of view and I, I liked that idea of, you know, the stories, all center, black characters, you know, there's men, women, children. They're [00:12:00] pretty big variety of voice and different kinds of characters.

But I like this idea. Even within any identity, there's no monolith. And so when you do short stories, there's a way in which that's just  uh, at the forefront because you have different characters experiencing in this case. Different and similar things. They're experiencing this idea of home, this idea of longing this idea of being on the outside of something or defining what home is for them or seeing how they're seen by where they perceive as home.

And so, um, but they all have different individual experiences that they're bringing to that. So I think that just resists this idea of one way of seeing or one way of being. 

Bree: I've been thinking about, so often the white community projects, any black perspective as speaking for all of the black community, right.

 I do also feel like because you are presenting so many different characters who have different histories, different perspectives, different foibles, [00:13:00] different, they're just different stories.

 I felt like maybe that wouldn't happen as much. But was that a thought for you? Has that been an issue for you? 

Jocelyn: I think that the short story format really helps. I think it does help, um, quite a bit, but I still. I don't know if this is true for this is probably true for all writers.

I think it can be more true for writers of color and for women is that people really want it to be used. So they're like you're Da'Naisha. Um, or, you know, and I don't know if there's something that's a compliment in that because they just identify with it so much that they feel like it has to be you, but then you're also like, I actually have a really big imagination then obviously they can't say I'm Da'Naisha Loveand.

The narrator of the first story, Cornelius Adams, because there are so dramatically different and I'd love something about that. Um, when, when you have this whole constellation of characters who are just distinct and to themselves, so there's something really nice about that. And even in the novella, which takes up the majority of the [00:14:00] book and which a lot of people, um, have talked to me about.

There's a cast of characters in the novella too. So in a way, it also resists this idea that there's one way to react. And that was because I was thinking about our community. And to be fair, I was thinking about it from the perspective of a public school teacher. So this idea of what happens when we're smushed together, not just with people who we.

Identify with in whatever way, because their friends, because their family, because they're from a culture, that's our, because they look like us, but also people who are different than us, right? So there's young and old people. There's immigrants in the group. There's neighbors from around the corner.

There's, you know, the, the, the neighbors who gentrified the street over and, you know, they're all kind of pressed together and the space and the way that you might be in a public school. 

Bree: It felt very real, felt very true, I guess, is the, is the word that I would use for it.

Um, and did you, you also, so Da' Naisha [00:15:00] and MaVi  uh,, um, are Descendants of Thomas Jefferson as well. And we live in Charlottesville where there are many descendants of Thomas Jefferson living here. And I'm thinking of that particularly because, um, because many of those descendants have been in the spotlight in the last five years, three years, five years.

And. So I wonder, was there concern about how that was being presented? Because it takes a lot of courage, takes a lot of courage to do that. So 

what was that like for you? 

Jocelyn: Yeah. Yeah. So first I'll just say for anyone who hasn't read the story. Um, so my Monticello is the story of this group of neighbors.

It's kind of a near future slightly, I would say apocalyptic life, you know, the future that could be now where there's, these storms have rolled through and there's been some sort of. Breakdown and they, don't kind of, kind of know the parameters of the breakdown, but cell phones, aren't working the powers and on, and this group of marauding white supremacists kind of come into this space [00:16:00] and they go to this one particular street where there's public housing and they basically roused everyone out and start setting the place on fire and this group of neighbors escape and a jaunt bus.

And, and, and it was just like, Local people who live here will know these little public buses and they go up, ended up going up to Monticello and taking refuge in this historical plantation home of Thomas Jefferson, um, led by, uh, the major love Donaysia Hemmings love and her grandmother, violet or Mavi, um, who are descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings and enslaved woman that he had children with.

So when I wrote this, I'm not a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. I actually got the idea to write, to connect kind of the infrastructure and environmental and social breakdown that I saw, um, that I see now and all that I saw very specifically in August.

11th and 12th in Charlottesville in 2017, when we had the unite, the right rally here, we unwittingly hosted this violent rally here [00:17:00] to Thomas Jefferson, because I went to an event, um, in 2018 where, uh, descendants set up in an audience, um, and said, and was introduced as this woman stood up and was introduced as a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

And when I saw her at. This all connects. And how does this connect? What's the relationship to the founding fathers here with some of the racial and. Well, I will say racial tensions that we have now, you know? And so that was that. So our actual living descendant here was kind of the connective point for me.

So then when I started writing the story and was excited about the story, it totally occurred to me that people both here and elsewhere who are real descendants, you know, I was, you know, making a voice within that. This imagined voice of a descendant. And I wanted to be thoughtful of that and respectful of that.

And, um, So I actually talked to monitor cello and they have a getting the word out [00:18:00] project and I had them kind of put these bulletins. I asked them to put these bulletins in their newsletter to let people know about the book. Once I knew the book was going to be published and to. Offer for people to contact me.

If they had thoughts, concerns before the book was finalized before I'd done all the editing. And I actually didn't hear from anybody, but I felt really good that I at least put it out there in the world. And I tried to read through it with an eye for what would I be sensitive to? Um, not only as the. Uh, black descendant of slavery, um, at Monticello, but just as a community member, as you know, I have all of these different groups in there and it's, it's an impossible task because if you're going to write literature, you have to, in one way silence the idea of what the reader's going to think, but I wanted to be at least responsible and thoughtful about it.

So I did actually think about like, what will this feel like if my neighbor reads it, what will this be? Like if you know, I thought about that. After I made it and I did edit with an eye to some of the edges of it, but I didn't really change the core of the story because the [00:19:00] core of the story felt true to what my experience was.

And then I will just say, as the end of this little anecdote, I did end up reading at Monticello. Um, and I met, a handful of descendants of slavery, not just of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but of other families that lived, whose ancestors lived as enslaved people there came to the reading and I ended up having lunch with a person who had inspired the whole event.

I met her. And so it was really nice to have, um, at least these individuals, uh, be excited about the project and, and, and hopefully recognize my intention. To be respectful of their real history. 

Have you gotten much pushback? 

I have not. And I really, um, you know, I'm, I'm slightly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I have to say in writing this, just to talk about race, just to have characters who are dealing with microaggressions. And then what I say is microaggressions, being physically assaulted , having all kinds of issues that relate to race at [00:20:00] every level, from a mental, psychological standpoint to a physical standpoint, um, to an emotional standpoint, I really worried that I would hear from people in a nasty way, especially on social media, especially being a female writer.

Um, I hope I'm not inviting that now, but that has not been my experience so far. And I'm really, really extremely thankful for it. I know that I know other writers that really have written about things in the similar vein that have really had. Bad experiences, but so far I haven't. And even if I end up having a bad experience, just this period of not having one, you know, just having, being able to bring my book into the world for these months without having that and having the opposite happened has been such a pleasure that I feel like it will kind of put those other things in a different context, as opposed to if that had been my first experience or really early on.

Bree: Yeah. Well, first of all, I hope that you don't right. And, and the book is so [00:21:00] loving. It's also, I just want to point out it's not all it, it is heavy. There's a lot. I mean, it's, it's grappling with some of the most painful issues that our country is facing. That humanity is facing. Um, 

like it's, it's just huge, but there's also so much love. There's love throughout the book. It has so much heart. And there's also levity. I mean, having. This collection of folks going and taking over Monticello, like it's kind of a childhood dream. 

Jocelyn: I was totally the night at the museum there, like at the touch, everything.

There is a fun element to it. I mean, aside from this bigger idea of reclamation, it's just like a joy and it was a joy for me to go to Monticello and take like the fancy tour. I took the tour where you get to go upstairs and everything and be writing down like the twins are going to be in this room.

And, oh my gosh, you know, miss EDA will totally be here because she's like this, it [00:22:00] was made it so much more fun for me to be there and more exciting. 

Bree: I mean, even just the gift shop, even just the gift shop when they take the, um, part of ink and the Quill. And it's like, ah, that would be so much fun to go do that.

It made me want to go get a pot of ink, right. Then just to play just the visceral response that I had to, uh, them having access to these things. And yes, this night at the museum. Uh, approach. I just really loved it. So I just want to point that out that it really is beautiful to read and it's incredibly entertaining as well.

 We can focus on. The real and important issues that it brings up, but it's not a polemic, right? It's it's not a polemic. So my husband is an environmental filmmaker.. My background is in drama therapy.

We really believe in using creative approaches to affect [00:23:00] change. And there's so much evidence that shows that if you can engage with people on an emotional level, that they are far more likely to, um, see the world a little bit differently, much more than if we're running stats by them or, uh, news articles, things in which we can really remove ourselves from the situation and, and reading.

And I'm totally biased because I'm a reader I love to read, but for me, reading, you know, when you write a book and you have a reader, Jocelyn. It's like, you become a part of me and it's like, that happens. There's something, I feel like there's a shift that happens on a cellular level. And I, I think of that, how you said earlier that then you have these people who are coming back and saying, what can we do?

You know, like, what do we do now? Like looking to you as a prophet too, which I guess is the danger. [00:24:00] The danger of writing something that is so powerful and moving the danger of being so awesome that people want to turn you into a profit. Um, and I don't think we quite got to this.

How can we be grownups? Like, what do you see? Um, I, I'm not asking, I'm not asking for a directive from you. I'm asking for what you want. Like, what do you, what do you want people to do after? Yeah, 

Jocelyn: so hard to say. I mean, you make something and people are going to bring so much to it. You know, it's kind of a meeting halfway.

They're going to bring their feelings to it. I actually had an event last night. Um, At CBI congregation, Beth Israel, which was looking at the book, they did a book club on it. And then we had this kind of culminating event, which we also put out on zoom for a wider community.

And it was looking at the book through the social, um, action lens and social justice lens. At one point, my friend, who was the moderator was like, what are we, what do you do? Like, he literally was like, how do you stop racism and everything else? And I was like, I don't know, you can't ask me [00:25:00] that. Um, um, but he'd given me the question before I knew he was gonna come towards that question.

Maybe not quite so boldly. So I had thought about it and you know, I think the two answers I gave are true. One is that. The reason I wrote the book was because I didn't know how to respond to August 12th and to these broader changes and steps backwards in my opinion that our country's making.

So it's a reflection of things in the past that I think we've worked to get away from and then moving back towards them. Um, I didn't know exactly what to do. And so I wrote the book. That's what I did. I that's how I like wrestled with it personally. Um, but then there's this other way in which I think I do know some of the things that are important for us to do, because why now what's important for me to do I'll put it that way and things that I hope other people do.

I kind of left my characters in the novella and a predicament. And that's the very last story in the book and there's an open-ended ending. And the reason I did that was because I think it would be [00:26:00] really silly for 20 some people on Monticello to solve racism and for us to all close the book and say, wow, that was a good read.

That was really fun. I really wanted the reader to be left with this question. I don't want them to be there. So I want to do something to intervene on their behalf or this isn't the feature that I want. So I feel compelled to do something. I'm worried about them and I want it to be different.

And therefore I'm willing to consider how I can be different to make it better. And I know for myself, it's really easy to see when you feel targeted. And it's really hard sometimes to empathize with all the people around you and some of the things they might be going through. It's really easy for you to want the things around you to work, but sometimes it's harder to advocate.

I mean, I think as our countries, we think about infrastructure, social infrastructure, minimum wage, who gets paid for what who's valued. I mean, it's really easy to see it when it's affecting you or your children, but sometimes we don't feel compelled to [00:27:00] have equity and to advocate for other people or suffering or to even believe them, or to even acknowledge when we know for a fact that something was horrible, but to acknowledge it as if that will take something away from our character, not, not having happened, but to acknowledge it.

 Just being, um, kind of a humble seeker of understanding, right. And recognize what we don't know, being willing to believe. The way books can put us in other people's shoes, but listening and paying attention to the people in our community and around us and in the world that are telling us something as hurtful and like actually, you know, taking that to heart and, and being open about it and considering it . all the problems we have are so huge.

It can be very overwhelming. So I think there's this way in which we have to build community and build alliance and that's in politics, but that's also just in the spaces, closer around us, I think the book says we're all connected. Certainly the novella has this idea that everyone is connected, whether we recognize it or not.

And [00:28:00] we build alliances that reflect that, right? So that we actually. Acknowledge it we're connected even to the people who are saying things that are the exact opposite of what I want for America and so forth. So how do we create communities that are connected and that see, and that acknowledge that we sink or rise together, you know, , we're only as strong as the, the, the person who's suffering the most.

And so I think. Would change our whole way of being, and it's not easy, obviously people much smarter and braver than me have been talking about these things and wrestling with these things and being extremely compelling on all kinds of fronts on these things. And yet it's kind of the human condition.

That's just like a hill. You're always climbing and you're kind of working at it, but if things can get worse, then things can get better. We've seen things in our country changed dramatically in the last five years. Even, you know, you can say things change. We've seen specific changes in the way certain things work.

[00:29:00] And so if they can change in one way, they can change in a different way as well. And so that's, you know, there's this measure of hope in that for me, even though it feels like a really hard task, um, to, um, to, to keep things good and make things good and hold the line even, even just to hold the line sometimes.

Bree: Thank you for holding the line.

 Here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. Number one, I think it's really easy to have very romantic thoughts about having success as a writer and having a book get a lot of attention, but it can come at a cost and I can hear how thoughtful Jocelyn was and is to prepare herself for the responses of her readers and her community. Number two, when you're creating a story inspired by real events, there's a fine line between respecting the perspective of others and honoring your own creative vision. I like that Jocelyn wrote her draft first and then carefully garnered feedback without losing the integrity [00:30:00] of her piece.

Number three, there are many ways to advocate for change, but so much of it boils down to being, as Jocelyn says, a humble seeker of understanding, recognizing what we don't know and remembering that we as a society are only as strong as the people who are suffering the most. Thanks to Jocelyn for writing such an incredible book and her willingness to talk about it.

The link to My Monticello is in the show notes, and I really encourage you to read it like today. Thanks also to the very first pause to go podcast sponsor code-based coworking and to w T J U and the Virginia audio collective for your support. Also special shout out to @Dilinistic for the pause to go artwork and to my show intern Camden luck, who has been a lifesaver this month.