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You Are Beef Today. Zor Nolhurston is a household name for the average booklover.
Doubly so for the average black book lover.
But that wasn't the case in the nineteen seventies when Alice Walker rediscovered the deceased writer's elusive works. Despite being the most widely published Black woman author of the nineteen thirties Harlem Renaissance, when Hirston died in nineteen sixties, her stories and books had gone out of print.
And if you listened to our previous episode, which one of y'all want Beef, you'll recall that Zora's beef's with W. E. B. Du Boyce, Richard Wright, and others led to her fall from literary fame and into literary obscurity.
You may also recall her beefing with her Frenemie Langston Hughes over the play meal Bone, despite Zora never speaking to him again. Langston included Hurston's story The Gilded Six Bits in an anthology title The Best Short Stories by Black Writers. Alice Walker also had a short story in that collection, call to Hell with Dying, but Several years later, a neighbor let Alice Walker their eyes were watching God,
and then Walker's journey to unearthed Zorra began. The young Walker began studying Heurston's life in writing, and in nineteen seventy three, she found herself knee high in grasses and weeds in Fort Pierce, Florida's Garden of Heavenly Rest, searching for Hurston's unmarked grave. In a two thousand and four MPR interview, Walker described calling out to Zorra to find
the writer's resting place. I actually started to call to her to Zorra, she remembers, and I just kind of stepped into this hole, which was the only thing that looked like a grave in the area. Walker took it upon herself to buy Zora a headstone and inscribed it a Genius of the South. Walker wrote about looking for Zorra in a Miss magazine article titled in Search of zor Or Neil Hurston. The article sparked a renewed interest
in Zora Neil Hurston and her writing. Later, Walker edited A Hurston Reader, taking its title from a Hurston quote, I love myself when I am laughing and then again when I'm looking mean and impressive.
I shuddered to think about what would have happened to Zora's story and writing if Alice Walker hadn't taken it upon herself to go looking.
Now we have Zora's novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God, Moses, Man of the Mountain, and Jonahs Gordvine. We have Zora's folk tales and short stories like every Time Got to Confess and Mules and Men, and her autobiography Desk Tracks on a Road In short. We have Zora. We still have soa.
My name is Zora Neil Herston. This song the call shove it Over, and it's the line in rhythm, pretty gentle. To distribute it all over Florida where I got you you land noise. I'm going to spread the news about the Florida boy shove it all. Oh wow, Hey, you'll catch a line a shack.
A like a lack a la like a like a like.
I'm Katie and I'm Eve's today's episode Literary Detectives.
After the break, we'll take a look at another black woman writer whose writing and story went out of print after her death in nineteen sixty six. Then we'll speak with Michael Gonzalez, the curious reader and intrepid writer who resurfaced that writer's short stories in the early twenty twenties.
That mystery writer we tease before the break, it's Diane Oliver Eves. Do you remember the first time you heard of her? Honest, it was really recently same. I didn't learn about her in school or even as a bookstore owner. I found out about her in twenty twenty two, when Michael wrote about her in The Bitter Southerner. I was fascinated by Diane, a twenty two year old writer whose life was tragically cut short by a motorcycle crash in
nineteen sixty six. I was also fascinated by her stories, which are mostly about the horrors of racism and black communities in suburban America. Reading her stories now, when might place her work in the historical fiction category For a Remember she's writing in the mid sixties. The lunch counter and the grade school integrations and the ever present Jim Crow was very current when Diane was writing these stories, and we wouldn't be alone in not knowing Diane's work.
She was young, very talented, but still young, so when she died, some of her short stories were published posthumously, but they were believed to be her only remaining works. But sometimes reality has plot twists too. Diane's family kept Diane's writing in a chest for nearly sixty years, and idot late eight new unpublished stories a positive plot twist. We love to see it.
Of course, we want to learn more about Diane, so let's speak with Michael Gonzalez, the writer who was the catalyst for the renewed interest in Diane's work. Michael is a literary essayist, music journalist, and short story scribe and, as our luck would have it, a podcast guest. Michael, Welcome to On Theme.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for joining us. Can you give us a brief bio? How you describe yourself?
I describe myself as a cultural critic. I mean, I've been writing since I was a kid, and you know, when i was younger, I used to write a lot of short stories, which I'm doing again now, but for most of my career I was writing about music and books and television and film and that kind of stuff. So one of my heroes, Greg Tait, used to call himself a cultural critic, and I kind of adopted that.
So we have you on today because Diane Olive short stories were recently published and you had a hand in that. So I'm curious to know and hear you describe how you came to find out about Diane Oliver in her writing.
Well, you know, it was kind of weird because one of my friends, Paul Price, he and I went to college together, and he was moving from Jersey to Florida and he was cleaning out a historic facility and he started sending me all kinds of old black stuff that he had, and one of the books that he sent me was an anthology called Rite On and Right On, I believe was publishing either seventy one or seventy two, and you know it had a bunch of people in there,
Lorraine Hansbury and Leroy Jones, and you know, I came across this name Diane Oliver, who, out of all the names in the book, hers was the only one that I was unfamiliar with. So I was like, okay, well let me check her out. I've never heard of her before. And I the story that was in there was Neighbors, which is actually the title story of the short story collection that just came out from Grove Atlantic and I
read Neighbors. Neighbors was this short story about a family and their little boy that is supposed to integrate a Southern school during Jim Crow the following day. And it begins with the older sister on the bus coming from her job as a domestic thinking about the pressures of that her little brother is going through. You know, she's walking through the neighborhood. People are giving their support or
given their opinions one way or the other. And then she comes home and you know, there's the men are meeting in the dining room, the minister and you know, the local men of the community, the men from the church, and the kitchen, the women are meeting and everybody's trying to decide if this little boy is going to go to integrate this school the next day. And it was such a real story to me because you know, when you watch movies about civil rights, and you know, you
never really deal with the dilemma. You know, we deal with you know, yes, this is going to happen and you have to be strong or whatever, but you know, there's not a lot written about, you know, what the family is going through in terms of their nerves, what the little boy might be going through in terms of his fear. I mean, everybody's afraid. And this story was just so real. I mean it felt like I was
in these people's homes. I mean, I you know, of course, like everybody else had read about Jim Crow and about people integrating schools, but this was the first short story that I read that really put me in that house, put me with those people. And after I read the book, like I put in my essay, later on, I wanted to know more about Diane Oliver. I'm like, who is she? Like,
how come I don't know more about her? How Come she's not up there with you know, Tony Morrison or you know any Alice Walker or any of the other you know, black women or black writers period. And I just started digging and looking for more of her work. I found some of her work online. Thank god, there is an archive of Negro Digest Slash Black World, which was a magazine that Johnson Publications, the same people that
put out Ebony and Jet did. It was a black literary magazine in the fifties and sixties and early seventies that published some of her short stories. And so I just started looking more and more into her work trying. It wasn't really that much about her written at the time.
And so the essay that I wrote, which was published in the in the Bit Southerner and it was called The Short Stories and Too Short Life of Diane Oliver, which was published in March twenty twenty two, I just basically, you know, went with a little bit of material that I could find and basically wrote this essay about her and her stories, the few stories that I did find through Negro digests and as well as some that were published in anthologies that I later ordered, And you know,
I just felt so, I mean, I feel really good that this revival of her work is happening. You know, years ago in the seventies, Alice Walker basically brought on the revival of Zoria and Neil Hurston. She found Zoria's grave, if I'm not mistaken, which didn't even have a marker on it. She wound up buying a gravestone for Zoria and Neil Hurston. And she was instrumental in basic bringing back to this woman of the Harlem Renaissance that who had kind of faded away. And so a small part
of me felt the same way with Diane Oliver. I mean I kind of claimed her as my own because prior to my essay, nobody was talking about her. I was basically turning on all these different black writers to Diane Oliver's work, and so it felt I mean, it just felt really good. It just felt really good. And you know, I'm just so proud of where it's going. I feel a sense of pride that this is happening.
It seems like there's tradition of black writers making sure that other black writers do not fall into obscurity or that their work is seen one more time, one more time, one more time. And I was wondering, do you feel like you're a part of that tradition or what do you How do you that tradition of rediscovering and then amplifying not just keeping it to yourself, but making sure that as many people as possible. No, kind of like Alice Walker did, was Zora Nelhurston.
Well, a small part of me kind of took that as a mission, maybe about ten years ago, like in twenty fourteen. You know, one of the things, I mean, I love black writing. I love black writers, but I also you know, would visit a lot of bookstores and it seemed to me, like, I think I got frustrated with the beats. I mean, as much as I love Jack Kerouac and William Burrows, and I'm like, how many more editions of their work do we need? You know
what I mean. I'm like, you know, there are so many black writers who put out one or two books in the seventies and just basically disappeared. Nobody has heard about these people. And you know, I kind of just took it on myself to start writing about these rights. I did an essay on a Chicago writer named Ronald o' fair and he wrote a book called Hog Butcher, which later on was made into a movie called Cornbret Earl of Me. And it basically was about a teenage kid
in Chicago who is shot by a policeman. And this guy is like the hero of the neighborhood. He's mistaken for a thief and he's killed. But I wanted to know who was Ronald Fair, and so I started doing some research, you know, on who this guy was. I mean, Black Expectation films is something that I've written about extensively. A guy I grew up in the seventies during the Black Expectation period. I didn't know that Corporate Early in
Me was based on this black Man's book. So when I discovered that, I just started digging into his autobiography finding what I could find. You know, thank God for the Internet. But I also, you know, started going to the libraries more often. I had to actually stop going to the library, you know, because now, I mean, I love libraries, but I don't like to go as much as I used to because they're not the same. They're
not quiet, you know. I used to go there to have a sanctuary that it's like a recsenter or something, you know. But I did start going to the library again to do research because there's a lot of books that you can't find online or you know, even if you could order them from Amazon, they're like, you know, sixty dollars. I'm not paying sixty dollars just to read the section of a book, right, So you know, it
sent me to the library again. In twenty fourteen, I was living in Philadelphia, and then later on I moved to Baltimore, And you know, when you tell librarians were you're doing, you know, I would get into some conversations. They were just so helpful, and I can't give enough props to the librarians in Philadelphia and in Baltimore who just was you know, would go out of their way to help me with these columns, I mean with these articles.
Rather, did you find that in your research process you ran into anybody who had an intense interest in Diane Oliver, like somebody that you didn't seek out who you knew had that interest?
None? Nobody. I mean I did find and I can't remember her name of him, but I found a woman that was in uh the Iowa Writers' Workshop with her. She had written a little essay in that appeared in a magazine called The Brooklyn Rail and she had written a little bit about Diane Oliver, and so I, you know, reached out to her. But other than not know, I mean, it was almost like she didn't exist. And to this day,
I don't know why. You know, I discovered her work in different anthologies that you know, came out through the seventies and eighties, and I just don't know why no one, you know, attached themselves or looked into her. I mean, you know, sometimes with these anthologies, you know, people look at them and they read them or whatever, but you know, other than that, they're just throw them back on the pile,
and that's it. I just had a general curiosity, and you know, as a I don't know, I mean, I don't want to call myself like a literary detective or anything, but I just wanted. I just wanted to know more, you know, and so I just found what I could find them. Nego Digests and Jet were the only ones who actually did obituaries on her. From what I understand, she was supposed to graduate in June of nineteen sixty six and then she was going to go to Chicago
to work for Johnson Publications. But I love, you know, finding some of this stuff on Google Books. I mean, Google Books is such a great research you know, a research guide, as is sometimes the Internet Archive, where I could find different books and different things like that. I was writing a column for Catapult called the Blacklist, which was basically about out of print black writers, and so I think that was part of you know, I had
already started on that mission. I only did six of them for Catapult because my editor got a promotion and I didn't really want to work with another editor, so I stopped doing that. But you know, it didn't stop my curiosity in you know, unveiling or discovering or rediscovering other these you know, black writers.
Yeah, I love your Catapult column and you went on to continue to write about other authors for other publications. Why was that exploration and examination and discovery and rediscovery important to you?
I love writers, I love writing. I love you know, various styles. I love you know, the era of the you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, the writers that came out of that era. And you know, even though Diane Oliver was the MFA candidate, you know, most of the writers that came out of those periods didn't go through the same kind of MFA programs. They were like writing out of experience and you know, who knows, Like they might have been day laborers or whatever. People had different kind
of jobs and different kind of career paths. And you know, I've just always been curious about who these writers are, Like I was saying before, you know, I see a lot of white writers who you know, they are constantly in print, People are constantly writing about their work. There's no shortage of essays or you know, books about these writers. And a part of me was just like, how come we don't have that? How come you know, people aren't
curious about the black writers. I mean, you know, there are a lot of black writers that people do are curious about, you know, who stay in print, like you know Tony Morrison or Tony cable Bar or you know Alice Walker. But you know, I wanted to know more about the other people as well. The first person that I wrote about was Who's a guy who's a friend of mine named Darius James who wrote this crazy book that came out in the nineties called Negrophobia. And if
you haven't read Negrophobia, please do. I mean it's one of the most bizarro books ever. I don't know if my essay had anything to do with it, but within months of me writing about his book was reprinted. And so there have been a couple of writers that I've written about, Neddie Jones being one who wrote a book called Fishtails. I wrote about Fishtails for long Reads. It was an essay called Beautiful Women Ugly Scenes because which I actually stole from a book from you, but I
always loved that title. And Eddy was a writer that I found. You know, my late girlfriend she loved Neddie Jones and she used to talk about this book Fishtails and I actually bought it for her, but I never read it. I bought it for her in the nineties, but I never read it myself, and that when I finally read it, I was like, wait, this book is wow. Like she was just like, you know, drinking and talking mad and I just loved her for you know, it took the book took place in New York and Detroit.
Neddie is from Detroit originally, and I discovered that one of my friends was friends with Nettie and I found her like that, and you know, it's been that kind of thing. I mean. Charlotte Carter was another one that I wrote about who She was a black crime writer in the in the nineties who put out a trilogy of books about a black woman. She was like an
amateur detective. But they were really good books and I really enjoyed reading them, and so I wrote about her, and she wound up getting her books came back into print. But you know, one thing, and I guess maybe it's my ego so times, but you know, these books come back into print the way he ever says, oh well, you know, you know, Michael Gonzales is the reason that these books are back and for everybody acts like they were there was that we discovered it. I mean, not
the writers themselves. I mean I've had the writers reach out to me and thank me and whatever. I mean. You know, I'm a simple guy. I don't need awards everything, just you know, recognition.
What's a respect? Michael's names, props, you know what we you give me your props because I feel like you truly have the magic touch with this. Because I remember seeing that article in twenty twenty two and then hearing that the book was coming out in twenty twenty four, knowing how slow publishing is, I was like, oh, y'all fast tracked this, like y'all really wanted this out after
reading Michael's article. And one of the things about Diane Oliver's writing, especially in this collection, it's very of the time she was in in the time she was writing, which is the sixties. So what do you think it is about her writing that's resonating with people in twenty twenty four? It being about Jim Crow era situations.
I agree with you, and I don't agree with you because some of the stories just have like a gothic kind of feel to me, Like that story meant Julip's not served here that is. I love that story. I love it. It's so stunning.
When I started feeling the twist coming, I was like, oh, am, I right, But.
You know I think I mean, especially with the current climate or race, it's like, I mean, who doesn't feel like, you know, racism is alive and well in America. I mean, it's never gone away. Sometimes it might hide out for a little while, but you know, affirmative actions being has been taken away. You know, we see what the Santus is doing in Florida. You know, now it looks like, you know, God forbid that Trump is going to get back into the White House, and we know what he's
all about. I mean, I think black people and you know, are realized that, you know, these things can change it any time, you know. I mean I used to joke with a friend of mine and be like, yeah, we're gonna wake up one day. They're going to be like, you know, slavery started back, you know, and it's like, you know, I say that as a joke, but it's not funny, you know. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen with these people. You know, the people
in the Supreme Court, you know, the public officials. I mean, these people are just blatant. They don't care that we know that they're racist. I mean, at least years ago people would try to hide it a little bit. They don't care. They you know, they're they're not for us. And you know, I think you know people who are of color in our allies. You know, we realized that. And these stories, you know, I just hopefully they could be a warning or you know, a foretelling of what could happen.
More with Michael Gonzalez. After this break, I was thinking about what you said earlier about how much her stories resonated with you, and they were unlike any other stories that you read before. And I'm just like, I know you read a lot of stories of that era, and for her stories to stick out to you is very fascinating. And the idea that their interiorized were something that you could understand more through her writing. Do you have any
insight as to why her writing was that way? What was it about her life or her practice that got her to that point with her craft?
Well, she was raised as Charlotte, North Carolina, so you know, considering that she was in school, I don't know exactly what you she was born, but considering that she was in school in the in sixty six, you know, we can just assume that, you know, being in Charlotte, her parents were educator. She grew up middle class, but you know, there was still Jim Crow in the South during those years.
You know, she was a young woman who, you know, from what I understand, was a big reader and then she started writing, and she was reading stuff at a young age. You know, she would go to the library and get stacks of books and you know, sit in her room, and then she decided that she wanted to write her own stories. I think by the time she got into college and had certain teachers kind of guiding her,
and then getting into the Iowa Writers Program. I'm not sure how difficult that was at the time, but you know, it seems to me like she she just had this vision of she knew what she wanted to do from
the time she was young. She won a contest from Mademoiselle magazine and spent the summer in New York working, I believe for the literary because Mademoiselle published a lot of literary short stories during that era, and you know, it was one of these internships that Joe Diddion had at one time, Sylvia Plath had that internship at one time. When I'm reading these stories, it doesn't say, oh, she was the first black to do this, or she was the first black to do that. But in my mind,
I believe she had to be. You know, I don't know how many black writers, young black writers were trying out for to get this Mademoiselle internship and win these contests and you know, to become a part of the Iowa Writers you know, MFA program. But she was also very aware of her blackness. I mean, she wasn't like
trying to right color out of the equation. All of her stories, whether they dealt with race directly or prejudice directly or whatever, you're aware that these characters are black people. From what I understand, I mean, they've sold the I mean, the book has been sold all over the world. You know, it came out in the US and England the same day, but you know it's also been sold in other European
countries and stuff. And from what I understand from the sister or you know, I mean I haven't spoken to her myself, but from the interviews that she's given there are more stories in this chest, so I guess, you know, once they decide what they're going to do, I mean, hopefully there'll be enough for second volume or whatever. You know.
I mean, I think we're going to see. I mean, considering all the writing that's being done on Diane Oliver right now, I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, somebody buys the book and they start making Netflix a Prime or whatever movies from these.
I can definitely see.
I mean, you know, I mean, if like you know Calson Whitehead, and you know Victor Laval or whoever, all these other writers exactly exactly, and I can see it being done. You know, some of those stories, I mean, they're so rich, they're almost like feature films, you know. I mean, so I'm you know, I'm curious to see what happens next.
Yeah. And as someone who considers himself a literary detective, what tips would you give to writers or researchers looking to explore lesser known literary figures like Diane Oliver essay?
I said, I was guided by spirits in a way. I felt like she guided me to to who she was. You know, I'm not trying to say that in a way to be like, oh like so you know, like on some mojo kind of thing. But you know, I I would just tell people to try to, you know,
look up. Uh. You know when when you find these anthologies, whether or not it's like a Norton anthology or this one or that one, you know, if you find writers that you're unfamiliar with, and then I have people, I have friends who turned me on to different stuff because they know that I'm you know that this is an interest to me. So that's basically how I discover a lot of stuff. I mean through conversations with writers and just through you know, looking at different collections and stuff
and use bookstores. Use bookstores to me is a treasure. And I don't go as much as I used to, but you know, I love you know those you know, books that are damn near falling apart. You know, the pages are turning, yell, the type maybe a little bit, but you know, you find all kinds of gold in these books.
Absolutely. It sounds like being out in the community and talking to people is really a way to find these lesser known authors too, because like you said, your friends put you onto it. Going out to use bookstores like being there, being present, being in conversation with people, You'll find these hidden gyms that you otherwise wouldn't if you were just off to yourself.
I have a tendency to read a lot, and I also have a tendency to buy a lot of books that I may not even get you in a you know, it may be a year or so. So when Paul said me that right on book, I don't know what made me like just start reading it immediately.
But you know, it was those spirit guys exactly.
And I'm not even joking with that. I have had some weird experiences, and you know, later on, my mother was telling me how my grandmother was my great great grandmother really was a conjured woman in the in Virginia, and I was like, maybe I got some of those spirits in me, because you know, I've had some weird experiences that turned out to be really you know, good experiences, and you know went on to you know, write about
different things that happened because of these spirits. So thank you spirits, Thank you spirits.
So now it is time for role credits, the segment where we give credit to a person, place, or thing we encountered during the week, and we have Michael joining us. But first, Eves, who are what would you like to give credit to? This week?
I like to give credit to the champions and mentors who help us along our paths our journeys. I was thinking about Diane Oliver and how there were some people in her story, like teachers, who encouraged her to keep writing, and so times they gave her advice that she didn't necessarily follow. And I think it's really nice to have those people there for you who you know have wisdom and have knowledge who can pass that along to you, and you know what you can take and what you
don't want to take from them. So I want to give credit to our champions and mentors of writing. They have helped me a lot in my path and I'm thankful for them.
Michael, who are what would you like to give credit to?
Well? I would like to give credit to one of the writers who is one of my mentors who continuously helps me out. His name is Barry Michael Cooper. Barry started out as a journalist. He's a well known screenwriter. He wrote New Jak City and sugar Hill and the Folk of Rim and he's to me one of the best writers in the world. And whenever I reach out to him for help or guidance or whatever, He's always
there for me. And so right now I'm in the middle of writing another book book that was actually written by a white writer called The Cool World, and it was endorsed by James Bowen when it came out in nineteen fifty nine. It was later made into a film in nineteen sixty three. And when I reached out to Barry and said, Parry, you know, because all the Barrier films take place in Harlem, I said, Barry, have you heard of this book, The Cool World and the movie? He was like, oh my god, it's such a big
influence on me. And so he was like, you know, if you have any questions, just send them to me and I'll answer them. And as busy as he is, I sent him the questions and literally like two hours later he sends me back to answers. So I'll give props to him, but if you don't mind, I also like to give props to my book word Mom, who is still with us. She's eighty six years old and I love her to death, and you know, she's the
reason that I started reading. My mom always read all kinds of newspapers and magazines and stuff, and her name is Franciscan Vallas. Props to her as well.
I love that shout out to Mama's. I would like to give credit to piggingbacking off of your shout out to use bookstores, Michael, I want to give credit to for Keeps Books, which is a used bookstore in Atlanta. I hadn't been there in a while, and so I just popped in over the weekend and she shows love all the time, and it's just a really cool hangout spot. Always good vibes when I'm there, and I always get a really interesting book too. So shout out to four keep.
Shout out to Rosa Duffy at for Keeps. Where can people follow you on social media?
I'm on Facebook, Michael A. Gonzales, I'm on Twitter at Gonzo Geo, Nzo Mike and Mike KK one word at Gonzo Mike, and I'm also on Instagram.
Michael's instagram is Big Mike.
Give one and we'll see y'all next week. And thank you so much Michael for joining us.
Thank you, I appreciate this. This was really good. Thank you.
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves, jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also send us an email at hello at on Theme dot Show. Head to on Theme dot Show to check out the show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.