Literary Titan Interview with Priscilla D Johnson, October 2023 Recipient of Titan’s Gold Book Award

“All About Us” follows a young woman living in the height of the Jim Crow era as she and her siblings fight seemingly endless obstacles in search of a brighter future. What was the idea, or spark, that first set off the need to write this book?

As flight attendants, we often had nice layovers in New Orleans. It was 1995. I flew with a co-worker who was from Yazoo City, Mississippi, a place I had never heard of. My co-worker asked that I ride the three-hour drive with her to visit relatives. Upon entering the city, I was surprised. I could see how downtrodden the area was. Yazoo City’s downtown is a place with colorful dilapidated buildings surrounded by poor areas. I knew growing up that my family, like many other black families, was poor. However, the city was shocking.

The residents were poor, poorer, and poorest. I witnessed families without running water and electricity. Sagging tin roofs appeared to be the norm. Thick plastic used as makeshift barriers for windows and doors. Houses without indoor plumbing. The need for infrastructure was visible.

This was a wake-up call for me to write a story about poor blacks. Of course, I knew I would insert in this story a few experiences of my own growing up poor, as well as friends and neighbors I once lived around. I knew I had a story to tell and blending other’s experiences with my own would, maybe just maybe make a great novel.

What was your approach to writing the interactions between Caiti and her siblings?

Realizing that siblings play an important role in the development of social skills, I wanted to incorporate pretend-play interactions between younger and older siblings. I felt this could teach empathy, sharing, and cooperation between the characters.

Nonverbal interactions needed to be established early on. I did not want too many speaking interactions with the younger siblings until later in the story. After making that decision, I decided to showcase the younger siblings by taking their personalities, and rather than have dialogue, their physical mannerisms would lead mostly until they were a little bit older.

There is a lot of time and care spent with descriptions and building the setting and tone of the story. Was this out of necessity to develop the depth of the story, or was it something that happened naturally as you were writing?

Definitely a necessity. Giving vivid descriptions was an attempt to make the reader feel as if they were right there with the characters, walking their walk and experiencing their pain, joy, and their surroundings.