Writer Spotlight: Kelly J Baptist

 Acknowledgements, rehearsing, Mommy Box, YA, BookSmitten, and barbershops: Author Kelly J. Baptist

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI. In this piece, meet author .Kelly J. Baptist.

I first interviewed you in 2020, and I credit that interview for setting me on the enthusiastic path of getting children’s book writers to tell their stories. What has changed for you in the intervening five years? 

Wow, Charlie, has it really been over five years?? Time flies when you’re writing stories! Thank you for finding me worthy of a second interview! I published Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero in 2020, and since then, six more books for young people have followed! I have not been idle!

I work as a Social Emotional Learning Interventionist at the Arts and Communications Academy in Benton Harbor, Michigan. What does your job entail? Have story ideas risen from your intervention with students?  Is there a particular intervention that’s lodged in your heart? 

In 2022, I took a major leap of faith and left my job at the middle school to write full time. What an adventure! While I don’t work in that capacity anymore, my students are forever in my heart, and many experiences/encounters have inspired me as I write, none more than my first novel-in-verse, Eb and Flow. I dedicated that book to three special students. Be sure to read the acknowledgements in that book for the wild story of how life imitated art as I wrote that story!

You’ve lived in Alabama, Florida, and Minnesota. Ultimately, you’ve made Michigan your home. What are some of your favorite memories from the other states where you’ve lived? 

I lived in Alabama while attending Oakwood College (now University), an HBCU. Those were some of the best times of my life and I really loved being steeped in so many types of Black culture. Choir trips rank high on my list of favorites, as well as “broke college student” visits to IHOP! 

For Florida, THE WEATHER! Oh, how I miss the palm trees! I can’t wait to be a snowbird! Minnesota was absolutely gorgeous in the summertime, and my family always enjoyed going to the Mall of America.

School visit

I don’t operate under a set writing procedure because it’s very difficult to do while juggling full-time work and full-time parenting to five kids! Instead, I have (sadly) been conditioned to write in the middle of chaos, with multiple things going on, and with either one or two hands. I steal moments in the morning before the kids are up and take advantage of moments throughout the day to get some sentences in—in the school pickup line, at gymnastics practice, and before I collapse in my bed at night. A peculiar thing is that because I write this way so often, I struggle to be able to write in complete silence! I believe if you are passionate about something, you adjust and make it happen!

Is that still the case as your kids become older and (theoretically) more responsible? Do you still have trouble writing in complete silence? 

I love that you added the “theoretically” here, because that’s so true! There are many benefits to the kids getting older, but it definitely doesn’t get easier; the obstacles are just different. I don’t have trouble writing in complete silence, but I still don’t get too much of it! So for that reason, I continue to maximize my time as much as possible and don’t let the atmosphere around me hinder my writing.

You were a master, between a full-time job and raising five children, of using every spare moment of free time to write. For the writers out there with busy schedules and little free time, what organizational techniques worked for you? Did you have a special affinity for ten-minute writing bursts, or was it something you trained yourself to do? 

Like a lot of writers, my fantasy is to write in the cute coffee shop with no distractions and people bringing me food and drink. Since that scenario is rarely feasible, yes, I trained myself to accomplish a lot in ten minutes. This only works because I allow myself to always be thinking about my manuscript and to think the words out in my head long before I sit at my laptop. 

Because I’ve been rehearsing my next chunk of prose or dialogue while driving/cooking/showering, I have enough stored up and ready to go when it’s time to write. I always have a notebook handy and I jot down notes throughout the day. Those techniques have helped me to maximize my writing time.

 

From there, she released "Isaiah Dunn is My Hero" in 2020, and the sequel, "Isaiah Dunn Saves the Day," released in 2022.  Your writing career began when your short story about Isaiah won the “We Need Diverse Books” award. After a short story and two novels, does Isaiah have more to say? 

Isaiah has just a little bit more to tell us. After Saves The Day, I envisioned one more book to finish his story.

 

Since I live in a small town, I love books set in big cities, and since winter can get annoying, I love books set in tropical climates. You also said you like to write stories with boy characters, because you grew up in a family of girls. Is this a case of “write what you don’t know”? 

I think it’s a case of “write what you wished for!” and that’s been the case in a lot of my work. The concept is not completely foreign to me, though, because growing up, my best friends were boys, and I have two sons.

In terms of people, Kobe Bryant will probably always be my greatest inspiration. My goal is to approach writing with the samei ntensity, passion, and relentlessness as he did on the court. You’re not shy about your lifelong adulation of Kobe. What first drew you to a smallish (for an NBA player) point guard for a California team? How did his sudden death in a helicopter accident affect you? Are you still a basketball fan? 

Man. Kobe will forever be my GOAT! I was drawn to him after reading a story about him in a sports magazine. He was in high school, thinking of turning pro, and even back then, I was inspired by young people pursuing their dreams. 

As I matured, I began to admire him for more than the wins and championships; I started paying closer attention to the work ethic and consistency. His passing took my breath away then, and it still does now. 

I did not know it was possible to mourn so deeply for someone I had never met. But, as with most tough times, it sparked something in me to approach writing and life the way he would. 

I still use him as motivation whenever a difficult task is ahead of me. I don’t watch too much basketball these days, and if I do, it’s college or Kobe highlights. I’m much more into football now and am gaining a ton of inspiration from Deion Sanders and his family these days.

 

Workspace

I do remember being young and typing out stories on their old-school typewriter (my father still has a lot of these stories and notes in his “Daddy Box”). Are you now in possession of your early stories? Do you have boxes for your five children? 

My parents often pull out my old stories to show me and I cringe! I’m so grateful I’ve come a long, long way! Yes, I have my own “Mommy Box” for my kids now.

Eb and Flow is a novel in verse. How did you come to write the story in that style? Do you have a musical score for it? Do you have one for The Band in Our Basement? 

I really want to say that the story wrote itself in that format. It was written in notebooks and from page 1, I noticed that I was stopping in weird places and writing shorter sentences and zig-zagging, and all kinds of things. I just let it flow! 

My youngest daughter, Natalia, composed a musical score for Eb & Flow and I am very proud of her work! You can check it out on YouTube! She also created a score for The Band In Our Basement, and I love having it play in the background while I read the book to students.

An inspirational moment came when I was around 9 or 10and my mother took us to see a small-town production of the play, “A Raisin in theSun”. I came home and wrote my first play after that!

You’ve done picture books, rhyming picture books, middle grade novels, and novels in verse. Plays are one of the few genres you’ve yet to crack. Do you have a play in you? How about YA? 

Yes, I actually have EVERYTHING in me! My next novel would probably be considered lower YA because my main character is 14. And I’ve written two film scripts so far, one of which made it past the first round of the Final Draft Big Break Competition. You know how I feel about contests, so it’s only a matter of time for me to break into that genre😉

You’re part of a children’s writer podcast team (BookSmitten), along with Heather Shumaker, Jack Cheng, and Patrick Flores Scott. For your second season, the four of you decided to try and write a picture book. The other three were primarily novel writers. Did you find your previous picture book experience to be helpful in this grand project?  

 

I would say yes, my previous experience helped, but I learned so much more going through this process with writing friends and using Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul as our textbook. It was like a mini-class immersion.

I think my perspective brings a strong sense of reality to my story. Things like how a Black mom speaks to her kids, the prominence of barbershops to Black culture, and how fictive care and the importance of community has had a huge impact on us as a people are infused in this story. What role do barbershops play in Black culture? What roles have barbershops played in your books? 

Black barbershops and beauty shops are like salve for the soul. I believe they are medicinal. Just as you might go to a hospital or doctor’s office with a physical ailment and leave with a solution, the same is true for these shops. Your hairstyle is transformed and you depart with confidence. 

Now, I absolutely hate waiting for my turn in the chair (and that is usually the side effect of beauty and barber shops) but the environment is always ripe with stories, laughter, and ideas. Where else can you get free comedy, advice, and lessons in patience?

What’s next for Kelly Baptist?

I’m currently launching KejebaInk, a publishing company dedicated to publishing the work of serious young authors. Adjacent to that will be a writing league and summer camp, stay tuned! In terms of writing, I have a picture book coming out this year, and a novel in verse coming next year. Kelly J. Baptist is always writing!

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXuQB4zWnrU