Marching for Justice With #BLMCHIYOUTH

Leaving the house sometimes, I imagine what it would be like if I never came back. What if the run of good luck that has kept me from the fate of so many Black men and women who meet guns or bullets or chokeholds or night sticks runs out? All of those awful possibilities came rushing back to me last Sunday as I got ready to go to the #BLMChiYouth protest against the police shooting of Paul O’Neal.

I said goodbye to my five year-old daughter, Lucy. She was cross-legged on her bed looking at a book. I gave her a hug. She asked me where I was going. I told her about the Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Chicago.

“Are there going to be police there?” she said. She brushed a strand long brown hair away from her forehead.

“I guess so,” I said.

“You’re not going to get arrested, are you?” she said. I still couldn’t get the image of all those police officers standing around, slapping fives, checking themselves for injuries, while the life ebbed out of the young man at their feet, his hands shackled behind him. What a terrible way to die.

“No, baby,” I said. I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m not planning on getting arrested.”

After navigating traffic and finding a parking spot, I got to Wrigley Square about thirty minutes late for the protest. The sun was still high in the sky, and people were crowding the sidewalks, enjoying the last moments of the weekend. On the square there were about 200 or so people sitting on two sides of a grassy field. The crowd skewed younger and whiter, but there was a good presence of black and brown faces as well. Across the street, lines of police were arrayed along Michigan avenue.

The protest organizers stood in a circle at the fountain nearby. Eva Lewis, a young black woman with long black and purple braids, thick glasses, and yellow ankh earrings was earnestly reading a long list of names over a bullhorn. The names were all people who had been killed by police.

I walked around the perimeter of the square so I could get a lay of the land and get a sense of the group’s vibe. Despite the fact that I grew up in Berkeley, California, where demonstrations are an unofficial part of the curriculum, large gatherings always make me nervous, especially when they involve interactions with police. The Dallas shootings at a BLM rally last month added yet another layer of gruesome possibility. But despite my discomfort, there is something deeply satisfying about getting with a bunch of like-minded people to draw attention to an injustice that should not be ignored. Exercising the right to free public assembly and speech makes me feel most American, I suppose.

I immediately noticed the white guy with dirty blonde hair and a large green backpack walking near the crowd’s edge, muttering about something Eva had said.

“Did she just say that America was created to protect white men?” he said. He repeated the question over and over, shaking his head and laughing. I moved away so I could keep an eye on him and the nearest exit. From the way some of the black people in the crowd were stealing glances at him, I wasn’t the only one wary of his disbelief.

On the other side, I noticed a light-skinned brother taking deep draws on a cigarette, also muttering about the proceedings. He had a blue baseball cap tipped forward at a jaunty angle. He was skinny, but tall and tense. He surveyed the crowd with disgust, his eyes light green and googly.

“This shit weak,” he hissed and shook his head. “This shit lame.”

He didn’t appear to be talking to anyone in particular, but a woman with a notepad sidled up to him and identified herself as a reporter. His face brightened a little as he talked and she scribbled.

Honestly, I had some concerns, too. Having white allies is important to any stand against white supremacy, but I can’t help but have Malcolm X’s Message to the Grassroots speech in my head, where he complains about white influence making the March on Washington whiter and more palatable. Like cold cream in hot black coffee was the analogy he used. Being black often means occupying spaces designed with the comfort of white people in mind. I didn’t want to protest with knuckleheads, but I also didn’t want this to be about making white people feel comfy.

After a moment or two, Eva came back out and made a shocking statement about what we were going to do: the goal of the march was to shut the streets down, but not get arrested.

I’ve been to a lot of protests and before an event gets started, usually you’ll get advice about what to do if you got arrested, but can’t recall anyone ever saying the goal was to avoid arrest. Protester street cred is supposed to come from getting locked up. Throwing your body against the gears of the machine, and all that. But this new approach felt oddly subversive.

“If you a CPS student, I know you not trying to get arrested,” she said. “Because I know I ain’t.”

It was startling to hear a young activist pragmatically consider what a clash with the police might mean for her and all the people gathered together. There are times when an effective protest may require people sacrificing their freedom, but she was letting us know that this wasn’t that kind of party. (Besides, there's ample evidence that mass arrests are a tactic being used to dismantle BLM movements around the country) I had already promised Lucy I was going to be coming home that night, but hearing Eva say this made me not feel like I had to carry the promise like a secret.

As a teacher, I admired her classroom management acumen as she made everyone repeat several times that no one was going to get arrested. She also said that we needed to stick together. If we were by ourselves, we should find a “protest buddy” who could look out for us. We shouldn’t put our hands on anyone. We shouldn’t cuss at police. We should not do things that would get us arrested. We should listen to instructions from the organizers. Racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia were all unacceptable.

Everyone was smiling and looking ready to go. The gaggle of young women and men who were organizing the event were holding a powwow on the side to go over the final details, and Green Eyes came over. He moved his hands wildly, but seemed mostly calm as he mansplained how “weak” and “lame” the nascent protest was and detailed his idea for making it less so. They tried to placate him by listening, but he stomped away when he didn’t get the reception he wanted. He walked to the center of the still-seated crowd.

“You see those motherfuckers over there?” he said, pointing to the police lining the sidewalk on the other side of Michigan Avenue. “They taking this shit for a joke. I’m tired of this bullshit”

Eva grabbed a bullhorn and yelled back.

“If you have any respect for the black girls who are putting this together, you will stop.”

But Green Eyes was in his own world, at the center of everyone’s attention. He was a model of righteous black fury. Cursing and jabbing at the air. The crowd fidgeted and news cameras were hoisted on shoulders. I felt the impulse to pull away from the spectacle, but an older brother with a black beret and a large black liberation flag stepped in front of the young brother. And then another one of the young poets, and another, and another. Nobody was being overly aggressive, just letting him know what he’s doing is not acceptable. They surrounded him like bullshit antibodies.

It was tense for a moment as he yelped, “Get your goddamn hands off me,” but then the organizers told everyone to stand up and we were on our way. Crisis averted. As we marched down Michigan, a chant starts, “No justice, no peace, no racist police.”

Green Eyes approved.

“See, that’s what the fuck I was talking about,” he beamed.

Walking down State, the organizers tell everyone to link arms and come in tight. I’m hesitant because I don’t know anyone, but I guess that’s the point. They encourage us to share names with one another (Two college-aged white kids, Elaine and Kareem, are on either side of me) just in case anything happens. As we’re marching and yelling, I’m a little surprised at how connected and strong I feel amidst the tall buildings and roaring traffic.

Side note: Participating in public protest nowadays means being ready to not only confront the stares of bystanders, but also their cameras. A protest should disrupt the normal flow of people and capital so the public is forced to consider the injustice. Disagree with the cause or not, people are forced to think about what they think, even if what they “think” is just a product of brainwashed thinking. The thing that’s complicated now is that people insulate themselves from thinking by holding their phones up. When thought and emotion get too intense, people feel the impulse to point their cameras at it. I notice the wry smiles on people’s lips as they stare at their screens as we pass. I wonder are they thinking about police brutality or how many likes their footage will earn them. Hashtags in their eyes.

As someone participating in protest, this raises the stakes because at any moment, anything could happen that could be beamed to screens all over the world. Don’t trip over your shoe. Don’t throw a rock. Don’t say the wrong thing. Really, the police don’t need to patrol a crowd that’s being recorded, and recording itself.

But I also get it. The young ladies who organized the protest had put the whole thing together online and were very aware of how to use it to their benefit. They encouraged people to take out phones and take pictures of them and tweet about the event. After all, that’s how I heard about the event. So it can be an important tool, but you wonder when the effort to encourage awareness mutates into a performance of “wokeness”.

I saw the scruffy white guy from earlier as we walked up State. He had a friend with him and they were both sipping cans of Milwaukee’s Best. The crowd was chanting  “Black lives, what? Black Lives Matter!” and these guys are chanting “All lives matter!” Some people around me hear it and yell at them, but they just flash silly grins and keep chanting. I leaned over to one of the guys.

“Why are you doing that?” I said.

“Well, because they do matter,” he said, matter-of-factly.

I agreed that all human life is significant, but that wasn’t the question that Black people have had to answer in this country. The question of valuing the lives of Black people is the question that Paul O’Neal faced as he scrambled over that backyard gate, heavy with breath, school backpack jangling with nothing but a screwdriver inside. (By the way, why was he so committed to that little backpack? He was either driving around in a brand-new stolen Jaguar with the backpack pressed uncomfortably against his seat or he grabbed it in and put it on after he crashed his car and fled the police gunfire. Something about it was important to him. He’ll never be able to tell us why.) Black Lives Matter is necessary because it’s an answer to a question that this country has not yet set itself to come to terms with.

I didn’t say all that too him, but basically I fussed at him like I would fuss at a student who was being disruptive during class presentations. He got the point and apologized. I told him I was glad he was there and how important it was for guys like him to represent, but I restrained the impulse to share my name with him and I walked away.

My adrenaline had gotten going talking to Milwaukee's Best and within a few steps I felt like I had been running wind sprints. The sadness came all of a sudden and the weight of why we were marching put lead in my feet. I stopped chanting and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, just being a part of the crowd. Just being a vessel for someone to use for good purpose.

I credit the organizers for that moment. Not only did those young ladies take ownership of the event, providing a very clear vision of what they wanted to happen, they also did little things that made me feel cared for, like encouraging those who had come on their own to link up, like pausing the march to have people share hugs with people they didn't know, to adopting chants the crowd contributed. All stuff that made me feel cared for. Stuff that made it easier to just breathe and be present.

And maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Black women have always done this kind of organizing, it’s just patriarchal nonsense that has kept some of our best and brightest leaders on the sideline. I noted the young brothers who formed a line of security and consulted often with the main organizers. The love and respect that they showed was a model for everyone there.

I had to leave the march early to keep my bedtime appointment with my two year-old, but I felt a bit of catharsis as I drove home. I didn’t leave the rally feeling like I had ended police brutality or the state-sanctioned murder of black people in America, but it certainly left me with a vision of the type of leadership that will move us there. That will move my children there. Thank God for that.

Obama Faces the Throne

At first, Obama rushing down to see a stricken Mandela it reeks of political expedience. It's not like he's got much else going on. Stay in Washington and have to talk about secrets and firing Eric Holder? Or get out of the country and have a presidential moment with one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century? 

Seems like an easy choice, but I think we also forget that for most of his life, the US considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist. Billions of American dollars were made while black South Africans were murdered. And when you think about it, Robben Island is really just the precursor to Guantanamo Bay. So as great as people say Mandela is now, the American mainstream has always been a leery about the man who married Winnie and fought alongside Fidel Castro. If anything, this costs him political points. 

But I think this might be good for the President. In this country, Black people have invested our last bit of hope in this man and that makes us a little less than objective. Obama's very image has become such a cure-all for Black people in America. No matter the ailment, just rub some Obama on it. 

• Broken leg? Splint your leg with a picture of the President shaking hands with Bo the dog. Your bones will heal themselves, overnight. 
• Depressed because a classmate got shot? Watch the inauguration again, while rubbing your forehead with a picture of Aretha Franklin's hat. All your cloudy days will become bright. 
• Caught in a prison industrial complex that grows and grows? Make eleven blindfold one handed free throws. Be filled with a sense of accomplishment to enjoy the rest of your days. 

But not everyone's buying that in South Africa. According to this New York Times report, there are protests planned across Soweto. He's getting an honorary degree at Johannesburg University, but some students will protest outside. Two major political groups have suggested that the President be put in chains when he arrives (oh, the irony) for “war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”. 

“When President Obama was ushered into the world, there was a promise for change of policy, like the closure of Guantánamo Bay, and how he is going to respond to the dispute between Israel and Palestine,” Phutas Tseki, the regional chairman of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said in announcing his group’s participation in Friday’s protests. “Now he is on his second term, and he continues to be arrogant, and his policies continue to entrench American power to the whole globe without any change.”

It's hard to find a lot to argue with there. I think Black people's support of Obama lets us lose sight of the greater diaspora. We have a duty to criticize this man if he's not doing right by us, all of us. If we can't do that, then maybe it would be better to have a white man be president. Maybe we could be more honest with ourselves. At least with a white man we would more clearly see that our president, despite being one of the best presidents this country ever had, is planting the Corporate American flag right in the backs of the people who lifted him high.

“There is now among the students a feeling that Obama has done nothing to the advantage of South Africa, and has only continued the American policies around the world that we thought he was going to end,” Mr. Levy said. “He is a visitor of our government, and we do not object to that, but we do object to his being honored by our university and we want to make sure he hears our calls that he follow through on the promises he made.”

I hope that whenever Mandela makes his transition, he makes it in peace and full comfort. But I also hope that our president has time to sit at this great man's throne and consider his own legacy.

Django: An Unlikely Black Fairytale

I met Robert Croston in Teach for America purgatory summer training. Dude is an awesome school leader and had something smart to say about Django, so I'm turning over the mic.

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At it’s core, Django: Unchained is a counter-narrative and graphic fairytale about a black man’s commitment to honor his marriage vows and reunite with his wife despite the institutional fetters of slavery.

But of course, this is no kid's fairytale. The damsel in distress is an enslaved comfort woman and the knight in shining armor is a runaway turned bounty hunter. In this story, the dragon gets shot through the heart, the ogre gets kneecapped, and the castle is blown to smithereens.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a black slave that hooks up with a bounty hunter by the name of Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz), who gives him freedom and a new job: hunting white fugitives. Despite his new employment and emancipation, Django never gives up on rescuing his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who was sold down the river to Mississippi's fourth largest plantation: Candieland. Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) owns the plantation and his loyal houseman Stephan (Samuel L. Jackson at his sinister best) runs the show. 

When Django tells Schultz his story, the German marvels at Broomhilda's name and recounts a Norse legend about a maiden named Broomhilda who was freed from mountaintop captivity by a shining knight. As the bounty hunters mount up for their quest, it's hard not to see the enterprise as a fairytale. 

Foxx does not have to act an ass like the last black actor to land a major role in a fairytale box office smash. In fact, Django, according to Monsieur Candie, is more than a Mandingo fighter, a violent black male slave dripping testosterone; he is a 1 in 10,000 type “nigger” (sic). His ability to defer gratification—for blood or sex—in order to carry out the clever ruse they use to purchase Broomhilda’s freedom distinguishes him summa cum laude from all other Romeos and Prince Charmings. 

Unfortunately for a fairytale about black lovers, Foxx’s and Washington’s performances are on the pedestrian side. Apparently all that was needed was pretty faces and household names to fill the roles. Interestingly, Django’s altruistic appeal to take Broomhilda’s beating for running away is the single most passionate scene they share during the entire film. Foxx and Washington spend little time on screen with each other expressing their love in words or touch beyond the predictable passionate kiss after the heroic rescue of the final scene.

Django’s selfless love compels him to traverse KKK-saturated lands and defy black codes to rejoin his wife. But beyond his death-defying conquest, Django’s love for Broomhilda is only weakly portrayed by his daydreams, which call to mind a General Mills farmer imagining his long-lost award-winning sunflower.  Broomhilda is more like Django’s stolen property, an object to be possessed rather than a cherished companion. As a married man, I would have preferred to see daydreams of the wedding ceremony, “honeymoon”, or a hand holding stroll through the field. 

Despite all this, Django is an American Legend. Django does what maybe 1 in 10,000 men would do as a fugitive: He risks almost certain death to infiltrate and destroy the master’s house in order to save his wife and restore his family. Django is more than a cinematic tale of gore. It's a clarion call to black men to fight for their families no matter the racially oppressive economic and social conditions of America. Even so, as Americans, we should consider the Broomhildas of our personal and collective hearts held captive by any number of institutional “isms,” especially racism and capitalism. Pursue her with a reckless abandon; there is no tomorrow.

-Robert Croston

 

Narratives of Terror

Shortly after the brutal Gabrielle Giffords shooting earlier this year, the name Jarod Loughner was injected into the American consciousness. Listening to the devastation that he caused, one couldn't help but grimly do what we do when we need answers to things: Google Search. 

The news media studiously instructed that the footage would be disturbing, and it was more than that. All of them are eerie, but America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country, terrified me when I first tried to watch it. With its Death Metal soundtrack ("let the bodies hit the floor" is the refrain), it featured a desert scene with a single American flag posted on a dirt mound, scrapping the ground. A figure appears in a black cloak and a happy face mask.  Happy face mask has only one arm ("his right one!", the on-screen comment prompts). While the music rages, Happy face mask lifts the flag and lights it on fire (patriots burn flags to preserve their honor, fyi). Then he creeps off like a creep.

I felt like I was in that scene from The Ring when that creepo girl crawls out of the TV. I stopped the Loughner video because I thought happy face mask might crawl out of my laptop if I let it run to the end. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, this message directly from a killer was a surreal experience (if we're even allowed to use that word anymore) and a natural extension of our conversation to the digital world. Jarod Loughner probably knew for some time that his name would be searched for. (Afterall, that's what it means to be truly famous; people have to search for you.) He knew that they would search for him and he wanted them to see something special. Not some dumb skateboarding videos. Not some girlfights. Not some stupid mass transit rider beating on some other stupid mass transit rider. No, his videos would explain to people why he was doing what he was doing. Not only would he take lives, but as a child of our culture he knew the most important thing to control was the narrative of his actions. 

It turned out that this became kind of a moot point afterwards. Most of the videos were just rambling PowerPoints about world conspiracies, bad grammar, and the like. He seems to be wanting to say something about the power structures that lay under the ones we see. He wants to uncover the conspiracy that deceives 85% of us. Now, I believe the world is run on conspiracies, but the narrative Loughner kicked just didn't make much sense. There were snippets of truth tied together with a lot of nonsense. That's one of the real shames. He didn't even make sense. All that suffering he caused, that suffering he carries, all because of a war raging in his own head.

So what do we learn from it? If you thought the Giffords massacre would deliver the public support for stricter gun laws, you're crazy. With a Negro as president, we all just feel a little safer if the White man gets to keep his guns. Americans like being able to kill, and they don't need anybody to tell them different.

And as far as people taking the shooting as a message to tamp down the political rhetoric, have you seen "Give Us Your Cash, B****"? If you haven't, you really need to take a look to get an update on what the worst racist and sexist thing you've seen in a while. This is some cutting edge racism and sexism. It's educational. Sadly, the song and video look like they really were directed by an employee of Black Entertainment Television.

But maybe this doesn't have to be a meaningless event. Maybe we could actually learn something real about a danger we face. We are entering the age of narrative reassignment. Now, before someone does something horrendous, their first concern will be how to frame their own story. We've been constantly told that we have to "sell ourselves as a brand" and this is no different. Before they do what they do, killers will actually set the table for the crimes they are going to commit.

You know Facebook had to get their credit.

This came to mind recently because of the coordinated bombing and shooting that took place in Oslo yesterday. Apparently someone detonated an explosive and then later opened fire at a kids camp, leaving an estimated 80 92 dead in his wake. The suspect in the crime, Anders Behring Beivik, who looks like he stepped from the pages of of Norwegian Vogue, has a twitter account with only one post. What does it say? "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests." There has also been mention of "disturbing" right-wing internet postings from Beivik. Don't expect to see less of this kind of thing. Whoever conducted the 9/11 operation inspired a generation of murderous auteurs who want to control their own narratives. 

And to be honest, it's not the Loughners and the Beiviks that we really need to be worried about. They commit their crimes and become footnotes. The real controllers of narratives are the Murdochs and the Liebermans and the Bushes and the Bin Ladens and the...wait for it...Obamas. These are the men who sow narratives before they do their killing. 

9/11. The Taliban. Al Qaeda. Osama Bin Landen. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein. That pretty much summarizes the last ten years of fear. It would almost be funny if not for the thousands of lives lost and the trillions of dollars wasted (stolen). Although the way Loughner and Beiviks managed to coordinate their online presences with their crimes may be disturbing, it pales in comparison to the horrors that await if we don't stop consuming these narratives that explain away murder and exploitation.

Oh, by the way, how's that Libyan petroleum extraction project going? 

My Peoples

How often do you look at a blog's links, anyway? They're just there. Half of them don't work. Some of them haven't been updated in twenty years. They're all out of context, with no description or reason for you to want to click on them.

So, as a public service, here's the rundown on my current list of "My Peoples" and why you should read them.

Crystal Wilkinson

Crystal Wilkinson is the author of Blackberries, Blackberries, Water Street, and Birds of Opulence (forthcoming). I had the pleasure of both taking a class and being an associate instructor for Crystal back in the good ole days at Indiana University. Even though I didn't get a chance to have her in workshop, she taught a young(ish) Misstra Knowitall a ton about writing and teaching.

Her blog is a must read because it gives you insights into not only the writer, but also writing and the writing biz. I would recommend starting with her post about how she has to remind her mama that she's a writer and what that actually means. She's also got a dynamite post about the pressures that writers feel now that social media and the writing business have formed such a close (incestuous?) relationship.

Pedro Bell

Pedro Bell  helped develop the P-Funk cosmology and his writing and visual art are essential to understanding any endeavor that purports to be "on The One". This links to Pedro's MySpace account. I haven't heard from my brother in a while, but there's some good autobiographical information and if you leave him a message he might write you back. You should check out the series of interviews I did with him. Dude is deep.

 "So I don't steal nothing." Miss you, ND.

Under the Blue Light: Indiana Review Blog

What can I say about my baby? She's grown up so much *sniff* since I was editor. Now they've got a new design and they do awesome contests and they have interviews and authors reading. *Sigh*. Well, check out the newest posts, but if you want to walk back down memory lane, take a look at the beautiful IR editors at AWP in 2007. 

Cake and Potatoes: Jackson Brown

Jackson Brown and I were roommates back at IU. I thought I had it going on, but this brother is a writer, cartoonist, musician, and one of the coldest MCs to darken (ahem) the hallways of Ballantine Hall. Cake and Potatoes is all that and a bag of corn chips. Funny, silly, searing, smart ass hell, and beautifully drawn. It looks like he's on hiatus (or is that "hi-itis?) but check out his greatest hits. For my taste, Off the Chain is one of my favs.

 

I so tried to find a pic without a Black hand holding a link card. Alas. 

Jericho Brown

I was lucky enough to meet this brother during my Funk Issue days. This links to the book site for his collection, Please, which if you ain't got, you need to get. It's funky and all that. I also did an interview with Jericho that is, of course, quite funky.

Remember me?

Post No Ills: Kyle Dargan

Post No Ills is Kyle's brain child, which like a lot of his brain chilluns, is both smart and cool. You can find great reviews of the latest in literature, movies, and politics here. They just did a review of Evie Shockley's The New Black, which I gotsta go cop. Oh, what's that you say? Did they do an interview with Misstra Knowitall himself? Well, as a matter of fact they did.

Patrick Rosal

My best memory of Patrick Rosal is at the end of the Indiana Review Funk Issue reading when he jumped on the piano and started everybody to singing Billy Ocean's "Suddenly." (I'm glad he knew all the words because I wasn't doing nothing but humming until "...wake up and suddenly you're in love!") Pat's an amazing poet and someone who writes with his heart. He's been blogging for a minute and on his site you can find everything from poetics to politics to boxing.Check him out.

Play Vicious: Ro Pulliam

I met Ro in Baltimore during my Americorps days. I lived in a house with four(!) roommates and somebody got the brilliant idea that we needed another one. Thank God we did. Ro's my man. A renaissance man who holds it down with the words, music, and web design. His site is complex and fly, just like him.

 
Datsun Flambe: Rion Scott

I met Rion Scott during the Funk Issue (see a pattern?) and if you want to read somebody, you should read him. He's smart and funny as hell (see another pattern). He's publishing some great stuff over at PANK magazine, but his updates at Datsun Flambe are keepers. 

The Spire: Shawna Ayoub

Shawna Ayoub is a writer of Lebanese-American descent that keeps it real. I met her at Indiana University and that was one of the first things I learned about her in workshop. She's thoughtfulness, humility, and honesty shine through in her work. She shares a lot of her work at The Spire, along with life reflections. Cool stuff.

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Tayari Jones

Writer, teacher, hustler. I picked up her first book, Leaving Atlanta, while I was still in the wilds of Minnesota, and I had to keep stopping myself from trying to write like her. This site is not only good for getting insights into her process, but it's essential for keeping up with what's going on with African-American fiction. Oh, and does she have any interviews with Misstra Knowitall? Funny you should ask.

Secret Inside Girl: Vanessa Mancinelli

From her "About" page:  Vanessa Mancinelli: 1. Writes fiction. 2. Teaches literature. 3. Lives in Los Angeles.

I would also like to add: 4. Is obsessive about her teaching 5. Is obsessive about her planning.  6. Sings a mean Bill Withers. You need to check out her Seriously, this just happened post. Hilarious.