- 16 hours ago
Moderated by Megan Braden-Perry, award-winning authors Addie Citchens and Marti Dumas discuss how New Orleans, memory, and imagination shape their work as Black Southern writers. Powered by Community Book Center founder Vera Warren Williams.
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00:02Well, hello everyone. I am Megan Brayden Perry and I'm so excited to be here interviewing these two wonderful authoresses.
00:11I have on my immediate, well, your right. My immediate left, I have Miss Addie Kitchens. And then to her
00:18right, I have Miss Marty Dumas.
00:21Yeah, so like I said, I'm born and raised in New Orleans and I mostly write as a journalist. So
00:27I'm, you know, on Bon Appetit and Washington Post and all that. But not anything about me. I'm here to
00:33interview my friends.
00:34So I think I'll just ask a question to everyone right now. I've looked at both of y'all books,
00:42you know, and also those books are for sale after they're going to have a nice book signing.
00:46You can get Addie's book, Dominion, over there. And then Miss Dumas has three books over there for sale. Three
00:53of her 16 printed books for sale.
00:56Yes, yes. Thank you. Yes. Clap it up, clap it up. Yes. Okay. So looking at both of y'all's
01:04books, I guess what I really want to ask is how has being a black woman, especially in New Orleans,
01:11how has that shaped your work?
01:13How has that shaped what you write, how you write, who you write for, all of that?
01:18Absolutely. So I, Marty Dumas, and I'm a mom, a teacher, and a writer, born and raised in New Orleans
01:26and currently living in New Orleans with my family.
01:30And being a black woman from New Orleans is, I think, probably just like super obvious in everything that I
01:39write, even when it's not New Orleans centered specifically.
01:41There is a vibe that New Orleans has that so many people want, but that I was born into, gratefully,
01:49that I think really like pushes through all of my books.
01:54So then my series that's like explicitly set in New Orleans is the Wild Seed Witch series.
01:59And it is about a New Orleans girl who wants to be a YouTuber, but her plans get messed up
02:06when she finds out she's a witch.
02:07And actually the thing that I love about, and it happens in New Orleans, New Orleans has its own magic
02:13that keeps popping up all over the place, including the magic of mistakes, which in this series is like a
02:21flower.
02:22So every time you have made a mistake with your magic, it like appears, it manifests as a flower or
02:27many flowers in the case of our poor main character.
02:30Like she was making a lot of mistakes left and right, like, you know, as one does when one ends
02:34up being the main character of a story.
02:35However, the New Orleans-ness of the story, for me, really is always about family and tradition and the power
02:45of being able to see someone else's greatness, even when they can't see it in themselves.
02:51And so then that really, it really permeates those books and probably all of the others in their own way.
02:58Thank you, Marty. How about you, Addie?
03:00Well, I actually grew up in Mississippi, and I've been in New Orleans for the last 16 years.
03:08And I actually just wrote my exclusively set in New Orleans story that was in the New Yorker a couple
03:14of months ago.
03:17And I think it started off with me being from the Mississippi Delta and growing up in the church.
03:24There was a very musical aspect of growing up in the South, a very big connection to family and community
03:32in the ways that are positive and negative.
03:36It influences the way I write, how my sentences go, how my people act in stories.
03:43But New Orleans just added, living here so long, just added another layer to the musicality in my work.
03:50And New Orleans is a city that has like a vibe like almost no other.
03:53So it definitely influences, you know, the power with which I, it frees me to be free in my work.
04:02And it has, you know, New Orleans is Halloween all the time, Mardi Gras all the time, everything all the
04:08time.
04:08So you can be whoever you want. So you don't have to have those pretenses when you're in New Orleans,
04:14right?
04:15Right. And so both of y'all, y'all mentioned, obviously, y'all both mentioned magic and being free, especially
04:20being free as a black woman.
04:22You know, I know a lot of us, like even just now when we were talking together, we see people
04:26who come up and they say, how can I do this?
04:29And then, you know, Mardi, you were explaining, you know, that for you, you were a teacher and you said,
04:33how, how can I do this?
04:35And then with you, Addy, like I know all your mentors, you know, and you see and you want to
04:40say, how can I do this?
04:41So how does it feel to know that you're now the person, both of y'all are now the person
04:46where someone says, how can I do that?
04:49Right. So I'm gonna give a long-winded answer because I'm a novelist and not a picture book writer.
04:56So a lot of people are afraid of the matriarchy.
05:00I'll just put that out there.
05:01Because they're thinking, oh, it's gonna be patriarchy, but just with women on top and we'll just be oppressing men,
05:06that's false.
05:07In the matriarchy, women, people, are looking out for themselves and their community, right?
05:15So they are looking out for the people who have need and the people who need the most support are
05:21the people who get the most support.
05:22And that's what a matriarchy is, just heads up.
05:24And I think that my family was very matriarchal, not just that there was my grandmother who was like the
05:33undisputed head of the family,
05:34but also because she was always looking for what everyone needed, not just what she needed.
05:42When she had, that literally meant that everyone had.
05:44And that is how I feel.
05:46I feel so grateful to have any little iota of success because it helps me to be able to help
05:53other people.
05:54It's very uncomfortable for me to think about it for myself, but it is not at all uncomfortable for me
05:58to think about how to help support and uplift other people,
06:02which is how every single one of my books has come to be.
06:04There's some child that I was like, this particular child needed this book.
06:09And that's how the books came out.
06:11And so the same thing, too, I'm always, I will always talk to people about how my journey went.
06:16It's really difficult to replicate anybody's journey to being an author,
06:20but I'm totally happy always to help talk people through their journey to becoming an author.
06:24We need everybody.
06:25We need everybody's voice.
06:27It's not going to be too many of us.
06:28Don't worry.
06:29Just come on.
06:31That's a very same thing.
06:32Because once you get into writerly circles, there's an intense competition that there doesn't have to be.
06:41We can, if they told nothing but black women's stories or nothing but black stories,
06:46all next year and that's all this got published, it still wouldn't be enough.
06:50You can do that for 10 years and it still wouldn't be enough.
06:53So I always tell people that you write your story the way you can,
06:59and don't let other people influence what you're trying to do for yourself.
07:03And then don't let the industry tell you what you can't write.
07:08There's an audience for everything you do, and you just have to find your audience.
07:12And your audience will love you.
07:13Your audience will appreciate you.
07:15And you'll inspire somebody when you do the work that you're coming here to do without apology.
07:24Absolutely.
07:25So my road to this was a long and winding road.
07:29And one thing I didn't do is give up on my dream of doing this.
07:33So that's what I would tell everyone.
07:34Keep doing it.
07:35Find your audience.
07:37Love your words.
07:38Do what you do.
07:40Yeah, and I think that's so important too because, like you said, so many times,
07:44you know, we feel either we, like, we actually experience it
07:47or we just have this feeling that, oh, my gosh, if I do this, then she can't do that.
07:52Or, you know, oh, there's just, there's not enough room.
07:54And there's clearly, like, there's always enough room for everybody.
07:57There is.
07:58And I don't want to disparage people who actually have that feeling because it's real.
08:01Like, there will be people who will try to pit you against other people.
08:06And you can just politely decline.
08:09But it won't be that, I mean, it is true.
08:11Like, especially if you're looking at Big Five Publishing, no shade to any Big Five publisher.
08:15I think I have a book with almost every one of them at this point.
08:17So there's, like, literally no shade.
08:19We're working through it.
08:20However, in an editor's meeting, they are literally having to be like, oh, I have this archetype person.
08:26Oh, we already have that archetype person coming out this season, da, da, da.
08:31But that doesn't have anything to do with us and our community.
08:34That has to do with their business, not us and our community.
08:39And so then those are two different things.
08:40But I don't want people to be like, oh, no, no, it's just a lie.
08:43No, no, no, it definitely happens.
08:45We just don't have to let it be the only thing that happens.
08:48And so it feels like a solution to this, like, problem, quote, unquote, would be to have more of us
08:55in the bookstores.
08:56Like, more community bookstore-type places, you know, where people can go.
09:01Because, you know, I think about Community Book Center, how it was like a writer's salon.
09:05Like, I feel like a lot of people have gotten their start over there as writers, you know, and just
09:09down on Bayou Road.
09:11And we thank them for hosting all this.
09:13But, you know, I feel like that's good to have, you know, our community together.
09:17Agreed.
09:18Community Book Center is actually my favorite bookstore in the city.
09:22They are, you feel at home.
09:24They make you feel included.
09:26They make you feel like a star.
09:28And everyone over there is so friendly and so great.
09:32And they're such champions of the arts.
09:35Amen.
09:35So we need that.
09:37You know, more and more now where AI is changing the way we consume literature and changing how we write,
09:45we need artists.
09:47And Community Book Center is a place for artists.
09:49It cultivates artists, and it cultivates the art.
09:53So I think it's important for us to help keep those independent bookstores in commission.
10:01You know, we can't give all the business.
10:04Barnes and Nobles, no shade to them or all of those people.
10:08They're billionaires.
10:09We need to support the spots in our community that support us.
10:14Yeah.
10:14Amen.
10:15You know, I remember when I go to Community Book Center, I'll go, and Mama Vera or Mama Jam will
10:20just say,
10:21Hey, look, here's a book that you like.
10:22Like, oh, if you like this book, you might like that book.
10:25And then I always think about when my friend Jamie Attenberg, she told me about Sarah Broome's book about The
10:32Yellow House.
10:32She said, oh, you know, Sarah Broome has this book coming out.
10:35It's called The Yellow House.
10:36You go to a bookstore like it's coming out.
10:38Like, pub day is tomorrow.
10:40So go get it.
10:41And I went to a big bookstore, and they had no idea what I was talking about.
10:45And I know, and one of the reasons I went to a big bookstore was because I was in the
10:49area.
10:49To be clear, I was in the area.
10:51But I know that had I been at Community Book Center, I would have gone, and she would have, one,
10:56been excited.
10:57Because I was like, is the book not coming out?
11:00They had to literally open up the box of the books.
11:02They had no idea.
11:03And now, look, National Book Award winner.
11:05Yeah.
11:05You know, like, it's really good to have our own places, and I'm very, very thankful for that.
11:09One thing I will think, or I will mention, I think it's pretty cool about you, and actually about both
11:14of y'all, is that, yes, you know, you have this New Orleans experience, but also you have other experiences.
11:20Like, you know, you from Clarksdale, and then you've lived in Paris.
11:24I've lived all over the place, yeah.
11:25So, what is it that makes y'all think, you know what, there's something special about New Orleans, or something
11:31special about this communion, this meeting of New Orleans and Mississippi and Paris?
11:37Right.
11:37So, I always say there are people who have to live in New Orleans.
11:43Like, there's a little bit of their soul that is missing if they're not in New Orleans, and there are
11:48people who love New Orleans, which is actually me.
11:49I don't have to live here.
11:50I love it here, but I don't have to live here.
11:54But respect to the people who feel incomplete when they're not, right?
11:58But I did want to make sure that my children were from New Orleans.
12:02And so then, when I had my children actually not in town, and I was like, yeah, we have to
12:07move home, because they have to feel like this place is home to them.
12:12I don't want them to be expats somewhere.
12:14I want them to be from New Orleans.
12:17Like, our culture is so unique.
12:19And I have a lot of appreciation for people who come in from outside and feel like New Orleans is
12:28home and want to stay.
12:29And I have even more appreciation for people who do that and also learn and become a part of the
12:35culture and not just, like, co-opt and try to make the culture different or the culture the way that
12:41it is where they came from.
12:43So, yeah.
12:45And, you know, Addie, there's something I was thinking about with you.
12:48So, this is your first novel, which, to me, like, I look at the novel, and you know how you
12:53look at something and you feel like, wait, this is going to be bigger than she thinks.
12:57Like, I feel really good, like, really, really, really good about Dominion.
13:00And then I look at the back of Dominion, and I see all of these authors, like, amazing authors who
13:05we love right now, you know, saying that they love the book.
13:09And then I saw that you've won so many contests.
13:11So, how, you know, how did you start?
13:13Were you like, I'm going to just do these contests?
13:16And then, you know, how did it go?
13:18What was the plan, I guess?
13:20Did you plan?
13:21Not really.
13:22I wrote this novel, like, when I first moved to the city, and it had been sitting in my computer
13:29files for months, for years, actually.
13:32Wow.
13:33I shopped it around first, but it wasn't the right ending, so I didn't get the right kind of offers
13:38on it.
13:39So, anyway, I won FSG's Inaugural Writer Fellowship Program with the first 50 pages of it and reworked the ending,
13:50and that's how it came to be.
13:51But it's also a novel that I think I've been writing since I was a kid, you know.
13:57And it's a novel about the church, but it's not of the church.
14:02You know, it's not a church novel.
14:03It's about, you know, predators in our midst and how we enable them and how not to enable them.
14:10So, yeah, the novel came from years of doing it.
14:15It just got published in a different way.
14:18But, yeah, and it's been having a lot of success, and I took the long way because I'm almost 50
14:24now.
14:25And so, it's wild.
14:27It's something I've been wanting to do my entire life.
14:29It's just coming into fruition, but it still feels great.
14:35Congratulations on everything.
14:38There's a lot.
14:39Yeah.
14:40And then I guess, you know, so both of y'all, I know that, Marty, you said you were a
14:44teacher.
14:44I was a teacher for 13 years.
14:46I was a classroom teacher, yeah.
14:47I love it.
14:48And it's great, too.
14:49I feel like a lot of people don't really respect children's books as they should and, like, middle grade books.
14:54I don't know.
14:55Maybe I'm wrong.
14:55No.
14:56But I feel like people do that because they don't know that an actual teacher, you know, has written them,
15:02you know.
15:03And a lot of times it's not that.
15:05A lot of times it's just like, hey, I'm cool.
15:07Let me write a book.
15:08And it's like, do you know how to write for children?
15:11Yeah.
15:11Do you know children?
15:13So, that part, that last part, do you know children?
15:16Okay.
15:17Okay.
15:17Cool, cool, cool.
15:17I think that a lot of people, because everybody has experience with, not everybody, but most people have experience with
15:25schooling.
15:26And people think of children as easy and not human and complex.
15:31And so, then they think, oh, I can do an easy one.
15:34But it's, writing a good picture book, I have never done it.
15:37It is so difficult.
15:40You have so few words.
15:42Like, you have to be really, really, really good at what you're doing to write a good picture book.
15:46It probably is easy to write a bad one.
15:48But, I mean, do you want to write a bad one?
15:52Probably not.
15:53So, yes.
15:54So, I definitely hear what you're saying.
15:56That people have had, like, a lot of experience.
15:58They don't necessarily have a strong memory of it.
16:01But they're like, I was a kid.
16:02How hard could it be?
16:03Right?
16:03So, then they're going from that.
16:05I do write novels for children, because I'm long-winded.
16:09And so, then, you know, whatever.
16:10But, which I think when people realize that I write novels, they will give me an unnecessary, like, oh, okay,
16:17you write, oh, it's different.
16:18But it's really not.
16:19It's really about, like, respecting kids as human beings and wanting to tell their complex stories as the complex human
16:27beings that they are.
16:28Especially for little black girls.
16:30Like, that's my, I mean, I, but, like, getting to tell.
16:33Like, I have written so many different little black girls as the main characters of stories.
16:38They're all different, because they're all different human beings.
16:41They've got different internal lives.
16:43They've got, I mean, everything is different about them.
16:44Because we are, as similar as we are, we are all, we're all different.
16:48We're all special snowflakes.
16:52There's a uniqueness that each of us brings to the table that has an opportunity there that I really see
16:57and have always enjoyed seeing.
16:58And it is the reason that I was a teacher, because I do have a strong appreciation for children and
17:03their humanity.
17:04And it's the same thing that I do carry over into being a writer.
17:08Right.
17:09You want to add to that?
17:10Or just, I guess, writing in general.
17:13Like, do you ever feel like you're writing to, you said you started when you were a kid.
17:17So, how did that work?
17:18Like, were you, it was just always in your mind?
17:20Like?
17:21It was always in my mind.
17:22I was always, um, but I started off school in biology pre-medicine, because everybody told me I wanted to
17:29be a doctor.
17:30Because I could do well on standardized tests.
17:33But that wasn't my lot in life.
17:35I went to college.
17:36I fell in love.
17:38I thought I was a poet when I fell in love.
17:40And then I fell out of love.
17:42And so, I knew my first love was writing, and I knew I could go back to it.
17:47And I just took, you know, I taught a little while.
17:50I worked at a bank.
17:51I took all kinds of, like, odd jobs to just pay the bills while I was doing what I was
17:56doing.
17:56Um, and this novel came from a very specific need to tell people that we need to speak truth to
18:05power.
18:06That anybody who says they are just, and they are moral, and they are right in God's eyes, they bear
18:13scrutiny.
18:15You know, nobody should be beyond questions.
18:19And when you're beyond questions, you have an administration like we have now that nobody will ask any questions, and
18:26nobody will push back.
18:29So, I want my novels to be, they are, you know, traumatic in a way.
18:35They are hard in a way.
18:36But they are funny, and they are uplifting.
18:39And in the end, you come off that these characters are going to be free of what tried to chain
18:44them.
18:45And so, I think I poured that in, you know, being a child in Mississippi and having such a strict
18:52upbringing, I poured my need for freedom into my work.
18:56And into the, I wanted these women to have a trajectory that women in my hometown didn't know.
19:03They didn't know to want to get free from under men.
19:06They didn't know to question the pastor, to question the deacon.
19:09And so, I wrote a story where women question, and women love hard, and women understand that the men ain't
19:20always right.
19:21You know, no substance is submission when you're of greater intellect, you know.
19:27So, yeah, the women find themselves, and that's what I wanted for women everywhere.
19:32Gotcha.
19:33Okay, well, look, real quick, I want to just make sure that everybody knows how to follow both of y
19:39'all.
19:39And then, also, just so y'all know, after this, they're both going to be signing books.
19:43You can buy your books here, and then you can get them signed right here.
19:47So, I think both of y'all, all of y'all should do that.
19:50And then, I will start with you, Addie.
19:53How can people follow you online?
19:54Because I know you don't like online.
19:56I'm terrible at online.
19:57Well, I'm on Facebook and Instagram at Addie Kitchens.
20:01I lost my old Instagram page, so I got a little small one.
20:05It's my name.
20:06And, yeah, you can follow me.
20:09Dominion is over there.
20:10It's the green book, and it's about a pastor and his wife and how they're covering up the misdeeds of
20:19their son,
20:19who is a serial rapist, and now the shit has hit the fan.
20:22So, they're trying to keep him out of trouble, but he's determined.
20:26He's hell-bent on getting back in trouble.
20:28And so, it's the journey they take from the realization of this man, this boy is not an angel.
20:35He's actually a reflection of the people around him.
20:40The pearls, the audience just clutched.
20:42I don't know if you saw it, but it was like, what?
20:45Okay, yeah.
20:46And then, how can we follow you, Marty?
20:48Okay, so, I cannot promise you that I will post with any frequency.
20:53However, on pretty much every social media platform, my handle is MomTeacherWriter.
20:59And this lady's son, who is a really good friend of mine, actually, he may not even realize that he
21:03made up that handle.
21:05But I'm MomTeacherWriter basically everywhere.
21:10Gotcha.
21:10And then, for me, I am online at Megan, M-E-G, on Instagram and threads and all that.
21:17Megan, M-E-G-A-N, does.
21:20And then, N-O-L-A.
21:21To be clear, I would never say NOLA out loud.
21:24That's disgusting.
21:25But I just can't say, there's not enough characters in my screen name.
21:29And then, also, I will say, I hope that y'all stay after to meet Naomi DeBerry.
21:35So, Naomi DeBerry wrote a wonderful children's book as a child herself.
21:39She's a young lady now.
21:41It's called My Dad Needs a Gift.
21:43It's about her dad when he needed a new kidney.
21:46And so, also, really very exciting.
21:49She was a 2025, 2026 Time Magazine girl of the year.
21:53So, y'all are meeting like a real star.
21:55And then, also, before I leave, I also want to just, again, say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
22:00you to everyone who's here,
22:02to Community Book Center, to everyone at Community Book Center, especially Mama Vera, especially Mama Jen,
22:08all the wonderful volunteers.
22:11And, also, I personally want to thank one of my friend tours, Kelly Harris DeBerry,
22:15the wife of one of my other friend tours, Jarvis DeBerry.
22:19So, again, we're all working together, and I'm excited.
22:23So, all right, thank y'all.
22:25Thank you so much.
22:25Thank y'all for having us.
22:26Thank y'all for being here.