3 Minutes with Ayize, Author of The Liminal People
Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People is also featured in the Afrofuturism Storybundle. Here, a closer look at writing and the work:
How does liminality manifest in your life?
How does it not?! I’m forever between the now and the later, the done and the doing. It’s a character trait flaw that makes contentment an accomplishment for others and not myself. Despite being born black in Harlem to politically minded folks, I used to refer to myself as a Black Cultural Refugee, before black geeks became cool. I have three master’s degrees and no Ph.D. I’m in the middle of the world and my understanding of it. Yes, liminality is manifested in my life.
Describe this work in 3 words.
Traveled. Troubled. Family.
Why this story?
This story was a compromise between the expansive multi-dimensional tale I wanted to tell and the intimate close narrative that the epic needed to be based in. It’s been a long and strange balancing act.
What subject do you find most difficult to write about? The most effortless?
Can they be the same thing? I love writing about fights and food. My next novel should be about food fights. But the choreography of physical combat and the innate sensualness of anything that is offered to the mouth make the writing effortless and enjoyable. I tend to stay away from real life events though I have experimented. Nonfiction is probably something I should push myself to write more but I think I need to hang in some plain old narrative fiction for a while before I do that. The idea that a mundane life can be worthy of insight given the proper attention to the craft of writing is not revelatory but expansive for a kid who grew up reading sci-fi and comics.
