BUSY BEING BLACK
To encounter our light, we often need courage, which my guest today defines as “acts that bring something necessary to the surface.” Prince Shakur is a queer, Jamaican-American author, journalist and videomaker, whose work is steeped in his commitment to Black liberation, prison abolition and queer resilience. His memoir, When They Tell You to Be Good, was released in October and won the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award, which honours probing, provocative and original new voices in literary nonfiction. Connected by our love for James Baldwin, Prince and I explore how our anger can often feel like a reaffirmation of our Blackness, defining and cultivating the courage we need to live according to our beliefs and how his desire to create spaces of transformation for others acts as a transformative force upon himself and what writing his memoir taught him about telling the truth.
PAGE COUNT
Prince Shakur discusses his debut memoir, When They Tell You to Be Good, a political and personal exploration of his coming of age as a writer and activist. Shakur shares how race and identity shaped his formative years, how journaling providing him with a creative outlet, his experience with activism and protest, his approach to writing about family, how he incorporated research into the memoir, the challenges he faced in the publishing industry, working with Hanif Abdurraqib as his editor at Tin House Books, and more.
PEN AMERICA
With When They Tell You To Be Good (Tin House, 2022), Prince Shakur delivers a political coming-of-age memoir on growing up as a queer child in a Jamaican family, and his development as a radical organizer, traveler, and writer. As he spends pivotal years in his twenties traveling and participating in movements such as Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock, Shakur carries the experiences of growing up with a father murdered early in his life, and an incarcerated stepfather. In the latest episode of PEN America’s Works of Justice podcast, Nicole Shawan Junior, deputy director of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing, speaks with Shakur about the process of writing and editing his book, outlaw masculinity, and how incarceration interrupts family dynamics.
WRITE-MINDED PODCAST
This week’s guest, Prince Shakur, takes us on a journey of how and why reflection matters, and offers examples and tips, too. This episode offers up other writers who reflect masterfully, and as has been the case with each of these craft episodes, we invite listeners to consider how and whether you might invite new ways of seeing into your own creative pro
DELAYED RESPONSE
A conversation with Deja Beamon about the cultural impact of the film, Soul, and the short series, Lover’s Rock.
DEBUTIFUL
Prince Shakur, the author of When They Tell You To Be Good, joined the podcast to discuss the freelance hustle, how being radicalized in college opened up his writing, and what he hopes to write about in the future. Follow the author:
THE HERO’S JOURNEY
Join us as we discuss: Prince's current projects, his long term writing goals, the importance of creating black art, writer's block, things to consider before signing with an agent, and how being a black writer drives him to work
THE BLACK WRITER’S STUDIO
BOOKS ARE POP CULTURE