- Phoebe is a New York Times best-selling author.
She has couple books,
but the first one,
let's go to the first one
because it kind of fits our theme a little bit today.
It was called,
I believe it was called "You Can't Touch My Hair and
Other Things I Still Have to Explain."
(laughs) Yeah, there's the title.
And I wanted to talk to you about,
I guess the inspiration behind writing that book
and also, what it is,
if the book is the answer to a question,
what's the question?
Actually, that's a dumb question
because that's the title of the book.
The title of the book is the answer.
No, you can't touch my hair.
That's actually the answer to the question.
So, talk about the book, how bout that?
Let me just make it simple and try not to--
- Yeah, so, oh I love Elvis Mitchell, yes!
- I know.
- 2014, I believe, yeah.
I used to have my Blaria blog.
And I think I was just on some random
New York Comics Who are Up and Coming,
you know those lists where they put you on
for like the first 15 years of your career,
and you're always like yeah,
I've been up and coming forever?
- Uh huh.
- So (laughs)
- I'm still up and coming.
- Yeah (laughs)
I've been up and coming for six and a half years,
and my lit agent just sent me an email
and he's like you're probably already working on a book.
His name is Robert Guinsler.
But he was like if you're not,
I think there's book to be had.
I think you're really funny
and it could be really cool.
So we sat down and you know,
I think I always secretly wanted to write a book,
but I just wrote these very short, 500-word blog posts,
maybe a thousand word blog posts,
like I had no idea really how to go about writing a book,
or an essay collection,
other than like to read them.
And so I am just a title person,
that's like the first thing I always come up with
and I just felt like throughout my life at that point,
people had always tried to touch my hair
and it was really,
and I know I change my hair a lot,
so sometimes people can get very excited.
(laughs)
- Oh, I remember,
I would be around you are a show,
and you'd come out,
it'd be like we'd do a show on Tuesday,
then we did a show on Thursday,
and somebody who was at both those shows,
you have changed your hair,
and you'd walk in,
and somebody would freak out,
just like what, you did it,
I'm like can you calm down?
It was like, like it was always like that.
(laughs)
- Yeah, so I was like that's kind of funny,
if we just called it "You Can't Touch My Hair"
and then I could do a fun essay collection
about so I really sort of talked about
me sort of coming from this place
of where I used to hate my hair
because I used to perm it.
And of course, when you fry your hair,
it's not going to be perfectly straight,
like a Jennifer Aniston, or what have you.
So I really had all these feeling and emotions about my hair
and how it got on this sort of journey
to really love my hair
and feel positive about it,
and see it as this symbol of pride,
and that it is professional,
that I can wear it anywhere,
that I'm not this edgy person
for having my hair natural,
like that's just how my hair grows out of my head.
And so writing the essay collection,
that was, that came out 2016?
So I wrote it in 2015,
so yeah, when I was like about to turn 30,
so it was just very sort of like,
like now that I'm about to turn 36,
I'm like oh my God, 30 is so young,
like you're such a baby at 30 still,
you don't even realize.
But it was just sort of me being like
okay, I could take up space and write a book,
because I think what happens a lot of times
with authors of color, and particularly black authors,
you compare yourself to the canon.
So you're like well, my book isn't like this
urgent James Baldwin or Toni Morrison,
so does it not have the space to exist?
But then it's like I just wanna tell funny stories
and make social commentary, and you know,
I could just be like a black David Sedaris,
or what have you, you know what I mean?
Like I could just be funny and I don't know,
write to readers like they're my best friend,
and that's just as valuable as writing like
the next great black American novel,
whatever that means.
- That's such an important point to me
because I feel like what you just brought up
about taking up space is something,
especially if you're the kind of creator
that doesn't have large corporate backing
and you're not pushed by a giant team of people,
there's something you have to deal with all the time,
is like the self talk to take up space.
I'm wondering if there's any advice you'd have
for people who are kind of on that precipice,
where they do feel like they have something to offer,
but they have an internal doubt about taking up space.
- Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things
I think I still battle with from time and time
where I'm like I don't know if I can say this in a meeting
or oh, I don't know if I can own this,
or oh, I don't know if I can ask for,
negotiate for the pay that I think I deserve,
and so I'm sort of of the mind
that you're always going to have those thoughts.
It's not about eliminating them,
it's about being able to be like,
you can overpower them, right?
And so I think,
especially when you're going to be in an artistic arena
or what have you.
I think just taking the time to do stuff
not necessary to advance your career,
but to just develop the skillset.
Like me starting Blaria was not because
I wanted to become a New York Times best-selling author.
I was just like well, I have this outlet,
I like to write, and maybe I can develop my voice this way
if I'm just writing a blog that I don't know,
maybe 200 people read at maximum.
And I think that really helped me just sort of
take the pressure off and just be like
if I'm gonna say that I'm a writer
I just need to claim it by just writing
three blog posts a week.
And that's what I did.
Is like, I set a schedule,
and I would be at work, finishing my blog post
when I was supposed to be booking my boss's travel.
(laughs)
And so I just was sort of like
if I could just get up every week
and put this blog out there,
that is me taking up space and it's okay,
and if someone hate it, it's fine.
If someone thinks it's great, that's also fine.
It's just the act of me doing it.
So whether it's like you wanna play music,
or you wanna sculpt, or you wanna fashion design,
just do it because you never know where it's gonna take you
and I think that's the thing that people forget
because everything is so commodified
so you're not always necessarily creating
from a place of pleasure,
but from a place of how can I turn this into profit?
- Right.
- And so I think it's easier to take up space
if you're trying to do it for pleasure first.
- Awesome.
- Fantastic advice.
- I don't know if that makes sense.
- No, it makes perfect sense.
- Oh.
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