FPP spoke with Dennis Norris II via email about his new work, surprises encountered creating the FOOD 4 THOT podcast, the “multiple spirits” within, and so much more. Come to Silvana on Monday, April 30th, and hear Norris read with Jennifer Baker, Cynthia Manick, and Sarah Perry. Silvana is located at 300 W. 116th St., near Frederick Douglass Blvd, on the SW corner. Take the B/C to 116th and you’re there. 7pm.

Tell us about their current work. Currently I’m trying to hunker down and focus on rounding those final corners with the novel I’ve been working on for the past 6 years. All I will really say is that it deals with fathers and sons, boyhood, race, sex and sexual identity, and the question of how we reconcile our childhoods with the futures we’ve chosen for ourselves. It’s tentatively titled “When The Harvest Comes” and when August 28th arrives, you’ll be able to read an excerpt from it under the title “Last Rites” in the anthology “Everyday People: The Color of Life” which is forthcoming from the Atria Books imprint of Simon and Schuster. The anthology’s brilliant editor, Jennifer Baker, really did her thing putting that book together!

They co-host an amazing podcast FOOD 4 THOT. What has been rewarding about this? What has surprised them? It’s definitely been a surprise to learn how much work goes into producing a podcast. It’s a really incredible amount of writing and editing, and producing, in order to make a high quality product. What has also been surprising is the reception of F4T! I don’t think we ever could’ve expected it to take off the way it has, to yield as many opportunities as it has. It’s given me a real lesson on the ways in which social media can really help my career.

The greatest rewards by far are the dick pics the fans send. Kidding! That’s a joke! By far it’s seeing the engagement that listeners have with the show on social media, and the many ways we’re beginning to understand that we’ve done a good job of taking our little 4-person community and opening it up to others who’re in need of queer brown community, and given it to them when they have none, or very little. That’s what keeps us going in the face of the challenges and all the work it takes—the listeners, who’ve made it very clear that there’s a need for our voices, and that we’re able to add a little joy and levity to people’s lives.

What are their earliest memories of Harlem? What is Harlem today for them? My relationship to Harlem is quite young. Although I’ve always had family in Harlem, we’d usually see each other at holidays in South Carolina, where that side of my family originates. As a kid I came to NYC often to visit my older sister, but she was living in Brooklyn. So it wasn’t until I started working in Harlem in 2013, at the Harlem Children’s Zone, that I really began to form a relationship with this community, this place. I love it here, it’s the closest thing to a Black Mecca that I’ve ever experienced, and it’s a place where art and literature have a long history, which is really affirming when you’re just starting out as a writer. Also, working at HCZ, I met and became part of a team of some of the most brilliant black emerging writers of the day. We’re all on the verge of, or already are, doing great things, and it feels a bit like a resurgence, and we all met under one employer at one moment in time. I’m thinking of writer and educator Erica Buddington, recent Whiting Award Winner and poet Rickey Laurentiis, and recent Buzzfeed Emerging Writer Fellow Fred McKindra, among others. So today, when I think of Harlem, I think of the place that brought me into this incredible family of brilliant black activists, educators, intellectuals, writers, and artists.

When do they feel most “we” and most “I”? Do they? I’ve recently adopted the gender neutral pronoun They as my preferred pronoun, after much consideration. Although I’m perfect happy to answer to She or He. I’ve given this much thought and for me it has to do with the fact that I contain multitudes across an array of layers. There are a few, very loving, very well-meaning people in my life who are having trouble adjusting to my use of the word They because of the notion that it’s grammatically incorrect. But for me, it’s actually grammatically perfect because while I am only one person, I feel as though in this area of my existence I have multiple identities. Or perhaps spirits better personifies this. Multiple spirits. And so I need a pronoun that reflects multiplicity. But in this, I also feel very singularly and staunchly me, myself. I. Because this is me I’m talking about, and no one else. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else but it does to me.

If they could share one piece of their writing with all of America, what would it be? Why? Oh I don’t know. There’s a story in my chapbook called “Among Shadows, Passing” that I’m extremely proud of. It took 7 years to get published and pre-dates literally all of my other published work. I wrote it the week my father died and it was the first really good story I ever wrote.

What should we be reading, viewing, or listening to right now? I’m honestly still
stuck on “Anti”, “Lemonade”, and “A Seat At The Table”, but Cardi B is killing it too. If you’re a jazz fan, my sister and her husband Jean and Marcus Baylor of The Baylor Project were nominated for 2 Grammys this year for their debut album “The Journey.” It’s absolutely transcendent.

I’m really excited about the incredible essay collection “How To Write an Autobiographical Novel” by Alexander Chee. And my friend Tommy Pico recently sent me a link to a clip of two women, Jully Black and Jeanne Beker discussing indigenous rights on Canada Reads. At one point the debate gets heated and Jeanne, who is white, says to Jully who is black, “Why are you attacking me? I feel like you’re attacking me.” And Jully has the best response I’ve ever seen to a white liberal who feels attacked during a difficult conversation with an unflinching person of color. She says, “…whatever you’re feeling, take it to the alter. Because I’m not the one that’s responsible for your feelings.” That moment needs to be broadcast all over America on loop, I’d say. We all need to be reminded of this, on the daily. Myself included.