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Christopher Paul Curtis Goes to Powell's — 2000 Dave Weich, Powells.com On the strength of widespread critical acclaim and a large, diverse, popular following, already Bud, Not Buddy had outgrown the confines of children's literature to become one of the most talked-about releases of the year. This on the heels of Curtis's debut, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, which itself captured both a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor. Bud Caldwell has composed a list of "Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself." He knows some things. But shuffling from one foster home to the next, he does not know who his father is. Until...could those old flyers his mother left him hold the answer? Who are Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression, anyway? Is Herman his father? In Bud, Not Buddy, ten year old Bud takes to the road to find out. At Powell's, Curtis enchanted an audience overflowing with children, parents, and curious, appreciative readers. Before his appearance, he sat to talk about his remarkable success, penning back-to-back children's hits after thirteen years employed at the historic Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan. "Writing took my mind off the line. I hated being in the factory," Curtis explained. "When I was writing, I forgot I was there."
Dave: I'd been reading Bud, Not Buddy back and forth to and from work on the bus, and on Friday, I reached my stop at a crucial point in the story. I realized then how much I was enjoying it. The books are for kids, but a lot of adults have told me how much they've enjoyed them. Christopher Paul Curtis: When I write them, I really don't think about writing to kids. I know you're supposed to think of your audience, but when I wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, I didn't really write it as a children's book. I thought of it as a story, and the narrator happened to be ten years old. It ended up as a children's book because I didn't know where to send it. Most publishers won't accept unsolicited manuscripts, so I sent it to a literature contest at Delacorte Press just to have a professional editor read it. It didn't win the contest because the narrator, Kenny, was too young for the contest and 1963, the year the story takes place, is considered "Historical Fiction," but they published it anyway. When I wrote Bud, Not Buddy, I just had a story to tell and wanted to tell it. I didn't think of it as a children's book, per se. There are things in Bud, Not Buddy that kids won't get, but that doesn't detract from the story. Some things adults won't think are funny, kids will think are hilarious. I don't think that takes away from your enjoyment. Dave: How long had you been working on The Watsons when you submitted it to the contest? Curtis: A year. My wife, Kay, had more faith in my writing than I did, and she said, "Take a year off work." So I did. I worked on it for that year. Flint is an unusual city because a lot of the people there are from the South. Whenever they'd get breaks in the factory, they'd drive back home. When I'd see them again, they'd say, "I drove twenty-four hours straight," and I always wondered if I could do it. Kay's sister had moved to Florida, and we decided to drive there. Just like in The Watsons, she had a plan, every step of the way, and I thought, "No, no, I want to see if I can drive twenty-four hours in a row." That's how the story got started. It was about a family taking a trip and the year was 1963, but the story was called The Watsons Go to Florida at the time. Then I went back and worked on it, but once I got the family to Florida, nothing happened. So I set it aside for a while, until my son brought home a poem by Dudley Randall called "Ballad of Birmingham" about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. As soon as I heard it, I said, "Ah! The Watsons want to go to Birmingham!" and I wrote the rest of the story. Dave: After you finished high school, you went to work at the factory... Curtis: Fisher Body, in Flint. Dave: Had you written before? When did you start? Curtis: I was always a very good reader and a good writer, but when I was in school there was a different emphasis placed on writing. It wasn't creative writing; it was mostly diagramming sentences, correct grammar, all the structural stuff. When I was in the factory, I was keeping a journal. Writing took my mind off the line. I hated being in the factory. When I was writing, I forgot I was there. I'd tried fiction, but I knew it was terrible. When kids say they don't like what they've written, that's what I tell them: "Be patient. Fiction takes a long time." I didn't really feel comfortable with fiction until my late thirties, early forties. I'd tried it, but I wasn't happy with the results. Dave: And you went to school again, right? Curtis: The University of Michigan. Dave: While you were working? What did you study? Curtis: Yes. Political Science. I realized I was wrong for that when I ran the campaign of a Senator in Flint and Saginaw. I just didn't like politics. It was all about money. The moment he won the election he was fund raising for six years away. It wasn't his fault; you have to be that way. So I didn't like politics. I knew then that it was wrong for me, but I never imagined I'd be writing. Dave: What kind of stuff are you doing with kids? Do you visit many schools? Curtis: I do a lot of school visits. On this tour, I meet with groups of kids, and I tell them about my writing process, how I got started. I do a little reading. I tell them if I can do it, they can do it, too. Dave: Both books are very much fictional tales, but they're entirely rooted in history and real issues, so I can see how in the rush to categorize they might be considered "Historical Fiction." How did you come upon the story in Bud? You mention your grandfathers in the Afterword. Curtis: Originally, I didn't plan to do a story about my grandfathers or about an orphan. The factory where I worked, Fisher Body, was a very historic place. It's where the sit-down strikes took place in the 1930s; it's where the United Auto Workers Union started. One of my Political Science instructors at the university talked about it. He'd done studies, conducted interviews with people in the sit-down strikes. I'd never read anything about it before, and he made it really come alive. The workers took over the plant. The National Guard rimmed the plant with tanks, and General Motors said, "Blow them out of there." They didn't do it, but it was a very tense, dramatic time. This was where I worked for thirteen years, and I thought it would be fun to write something about that, something that would be interesting for kids to read, so I did a lot of research on the thirties and the strike. In the meantime, I went to a family reunion, and they started to talk about my grandfather, Herman E. Curtis, and his band back in the 1930s called The Dusky Devastators of the Depression. I thought it was really interesting, so I took notes. When I write, I like to have a couple things going at once, and I found that the story about Bud kept growing. I'd write a little about the sit-down strike, but it would seem kind of stale, so I'd jump over here and think about stories about my grandfather. I don't outline my stories. I don't know where it's going to go. Originally, my grandfather was the ten year old orphan in the story. I don't feel comfortable with it until I get a narrator, then the narrator starts to talk and I go from there. Well, he turned out to be this ten year old orphan, Bud. I like The Watsons much better, but I think Bud is probably a better-written book, in a technical sense. The Watsons is more episodic, and I think Bud flows better as story. But The Watsons will always be special to me because it broke me out of the warehouse I was working in. I'm doing something that I want to do, finally. Dave: The Watsons is more episodic, but there's also much more going on. Whereas Bud is focused predominantly on the one character, The Watsons is filled with a whole cast of characters, more plot lines. They're different books. That was part of the fun of reading them back to back. Curtis: In Texas, there was a woman who introduced me to an audience who said the same thing, that the books were very different. I'd hate to be pigeonholed, but I don't think there's any danger of that because I have too much fun when I write. If it doesn't feel fun to me, I know it's not right. Dave: There's music in both books. Curtis: I love music. I'm not a musician, but I've got a closet-full of albums. There's always music in our house, and it makes me feel good, too, because my daughter is eight and she's being exposed to it. She listens to Steely Dan and Benny Carter . She's a very good pianist already. She just had her first recital, which turned out to be a contest, though we didn't know it, and she won first place! Dave: One of my favorite details in The Watsons is that the father buys a record player for the car because the family is taking a long drive south from Michigan and he's afraid of starting to like country music. Curtis: I think that's how you like music - it's whatever you're exposed to. That's one of my fears, really, that all of a sudden I'll be listening to Country and Western. That will be what I like! Dave: Are you working on something now? Curtis: The third book is very different. It's back in Flint again, but the narrator is fifteen and the setting is contemporary. His mother owns rental properties and group homes. She's scamming the state and the insurance companies, trying to break this boy into the business, but he'd rather not. He'd rather be a philosopher. It's a completely different kind of story. A male narrator again, but that's about the only similarity. Dave: Is it any different for you, writing about a child in a contemporary setting? Curtis: No, not really. Once I get the character, everything seems to be okay. It's a mental trick: you actually feel like there's someone talking to you. I just write down what they say. It's very inefficient. I write reams of stuff that I can never use. With The Watsons, I didn't have to do a lot of research because I was around that age in 1963. With Bud, I had the research from the sit-down strike book I'd been working on. In this book, I don't really have to do a lot of research. Dave: Do you write according to a schedule? Curtis: I do. I'll work at the library usually from about nine to noon, then the next morning, I wake up at five o'clock and I start to edit what I did the day before, try to hammer it down into a story. Writing The Watsons, I found that it's better if I just write what comes whether it's going to work at that point in the story or not, then work on cleaning it up the next day. A lot of things come up that I use later on. Dave: What kind of stuff do you read? A lot of kids' books? Curtis: I hadn't read any young adult or children's literature until I found out I was a young adult or children's author, then I said, "I better read some of this stuff!" I found I really enjoyed some of it. There's some really bad stuff, but there's also some outstanding writing. My favorite author is Toni Morrison. I like Kurt Vonnegut and Zora Neale Hurston. Then I go on binges when I'll find an author and just read everything. The latest one is Jim Thompson. He's outstanding. Some of his stuff isn't as strong as the rest, but it's like when you're reading Toni Morrison - the language maintains you. Even when Jim Thompson is bad, he's good. He's one of the few people, he and Vonnegut, that can make me break down and laugh. Dave: Do you have a favorite Vonnegut book? Curtis: I like his autobiographical stuff. I'm reading Palm Sunday again. It's a collection of his speeches and other things. You feel like he's talking to you. Dave: Do parents ever complain about your books? Curtis: Well, with The Watsons, there's the occasional "hell" and "damn," and I think "ass" is in there one time - that's upset some people. When I go and talk to kids, you can always tell which one has been prodded by their parents. A hand will come up and the kid will say, "Why are there swear words in that book?" I ask, "Are there any words in there you haven't heard? Do you hear those words on the playground?" And they say, "Yeah." When you write, you try to tell the truth. You try to make something realistic. But I don't think my writing is going to stir much controversy. You have to get to a certain level, I think, for people to take notice. For instance, Harry Potter - witches? I mean, who cares? But I'm not at that level yet. Maybe someday. Dave: You are developing a track record, though: two books, and they've both won prestigious awards Curtis: I get the question a lot, "How are you gonna top this?" But I feel like the pressure's off. I feel like I can do whatever I want to do now. I feel like I'm in a very good position. Dave: You don't avoid difficult topics in either of the books. I think you handle them with a lot of grace, actually. At the end of each book, you include a note to the reader, and it does seem like you are promoting - I don't know what the correct word is - peace? Maybe, if that's not too simple a word. Curtis: That's a good word. I'll take that. Dave: Well, it's surprising to find African American role models in young adult fiction, particularly in books that are popular with a cultural cross-section of children. Do you feel like your success has given you more of a political voice in that sense, reaching such a large and diverse audience? Curtis: I shy away from politics, so not really. I think the best I can do is to write the books. Right now, for me, that's the best thing. I don't want to be a spokesman. What you said about the books being for everybody, that's really the ultimate compliment. There aren't many African American fiction writers for kids. There's one other man, Walter Dean Myers. He and I are really the only ones writing for this age group. That's terrible. I think it's why the books have been so successful, too: they've fallen into a void. It was a problem when I was growing up, too. I read a lot of things, but I didn't read books because there weren't books by, for, or about me. I was a good reader, but no books made me think, "This really touches me. I understand this." Hopefully, some kids, African American particularly - but whoever, that's fine - will find something in these books that will touch them. It's a great compliment what you said, that the books are universal, that you don't have to be African American to relate and enjoy them. I hear from people, they say, "Were you in my closet? That's just like my family." An Asian person or a white person. That makes me feel really good when I hear something like that. Christopher Paul Curtis visited Powell's City of Books on April 5, 2000 for a special five o'clock reading - his first trip to Powell's. The children in the audience especially appreciated his stories about his own kids, including the time Whoopi Goldberg sat for dinner with his family and gave his daughter an enormous stuffed animal. |
Just a few days before his visit to Powell's, 
