B. Danielle Watkins

SJC: What or who inspired you to start writing?

 

BDW: I feel like every time I answer this question I come off odd, lol, reality is, no one really inspired me. I grew up in Buffalo, as everyone knows, and after a certain point in the winter in Buffalo you aren’t doing too much hanging out. My brother is 10 years older than me and I really have no memories of growing up with him, so I was alone for a lot of that time. I wrote stories to pass the time, and I read a lot of The Baby-Sitters Club and Goosebumps, and I just emulated those stories. Could that be considered inspiration, yes, but not really I think it was innately there I just didn't know what I would do with it.

 

SJC: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

 

BDW: I do not know how old I was, but I remember my mother coming home from some black book event with books for the both of us. She had a Maya Angelou book and a poem book by Nikki Giovanni, and I took them. I was mesmerized with the things they were saying, though I had no clue what it all meant. That was probably the first moment I was like “whoa, that means something.”

SJC: What is yet to be revealed through your writing?

 

BDW: My true full heart.

SJC: What is your favorite under-appreciated novel?

 

BDW: My own! I have to be honest. I took an 8-year hiatus from writing novels as I nurtured my film career, in 2021 when I made the decision to rerelease The Alyse Diaries Volume 1: Curious, and add the final 3 volumes to it, I changed the game. Sentury’s story is groundbreaking and aggressively real. It's under-appreciated because it was under-marketed and not given the chance it deserves. But I still have time!

SJC: Do you have any upcoming projects, blogs, tours, or other events you can tell us about and we can help you promote?

 

BDW: I always have 1000 things going on. If you could help promote anything it would be my notebook line that was released earlier this year. Shiloh Naomi by B. Danielle Watkins. Shiloh Naomi By B. Danielle Watkins is a journal/notebook line for African-American women and girls. Created in 2022, Shiloh Naomi by B. Danielle Watkins has over 40 original designs and hardcover and paperback options. One of the goals of Shiloh Naomi by B. Danielle Watkins is to promote the agency of the African-American woman with representation and visualization in colorful and diverse covers and designs. The creator of Shiloh Naomi by B. Danielle Watkins is an international award-winning screenwriter, author, and filmmaker. For more information, visit bdaniellwatkins.com

SJC: How did a girl from Buffalo, New York end up at Winston-Salem State University? And just to add my Uncle Mike is an alumnus of WSSU, let’s go Rams.

 

BDW: Tell Uncle Mike to email me about this current drama that has taken over my amazing school! I have always been someone to not want to do what everyone else did. As a junior in Buffalo, I went on a black college tour, and we saw all the big names. Hampton, Howard, Bowie State, etc., and everyone I was with started sweating those schools, so I knew where I wasn’t going. From a little girl, my mother always told me that I had to go to an out-of-state school, so anything else wasn’t in the question. I literally looked at the list of HBCUs around the country and said “Winston Salem State University” works for me. Then I came to find out, my mom’s first cousin worked at the school at the time. This was just confirmation for me, and then I applied and got into my very own Hillman. 

 

SJC: Why do you think society believes if a young girl is a tomboy that automatically means she must be a lesbian?

 

BDW: People are so annoying! The type of clothes someone has on is to their level of comfort, not their sexuality! Society just wants to rule everything. I think the reasoning is most women who dress tomboyish tend to be more athletic when you are athletic you tend to play hyper masculine sports, when in the hypermasculine arena you are then lumped into a pool. The gay pool. That is only because of the assumption that girly girls who like boys wouldn’t be so rough and act like little boys. It is all flawed.

SJC: Did any specific event or person inspire you to write this book?

 

BDW: Not a person, more like a specific life. Having been out since I was 26, and started this journey at 18 (met the love of my life in college, and then I wasn't gay, so how does that work??) I’ve seen so many stories, good, bad, and indifferent. I wanted to write something that everyone who ever came out could relate to.

 

SJC: At the beginning of the book, Sentury makes it a point to tell the world she is not a lesbian and is attracted to men. There is a statement where Sentury states: “It takes a lesbian to try to convince you that you are like them” I remember watching the actress Niecy Nash-Betts during an interview with Jada Pinkett Smith on the Red Table Talk. Niecy stated she had never been in a relationship with a woman nor dated a woman in her life, she wasn’t gay, but she couldn’t fight the overwhelming attraction she had for her wife Jessica Betts. Do you believe that a person is already gay but try to conform to society’s rules and fight the feeling for fear of the outcome or like Sentury stated, a lesbian will cross your boundaries and try to convince you that you are in fact attracted to and want to be with a woman?

 

BDW: I love this question! This is amazing! Okay, so check it, if it isn’t already in you aren’t going to experiment in the least bit. That’s it, that's all. That’s science. Attraction is science. When it is awakened is something different, and how you choose to act on it or live through it, again, is on you, but the bottom line, bare bones is if there wasn’t something in your chemical makeup that made you prone to lesbian behavior you wouldn’t engage in it. Bisexual, or Lesbian there is something inside that pushes you and some of us listen, some move in fear, and some ignore it. But it was there. Period.

SJC: What has your journey as a Black lesbian woman been like in the literary and film industry? 

 

BDW: I don’t think I’ve ever told this story publicly on the record, but let me tell you what things have really been like. In 2019, I started dancing with the idea of finishing The Alyse Diaries. I wanted to leave my original publisher, and I really wanted to move to a black-owned publishing house. I found one (which will remain nameless) and it was a black female. I was beside myself. I ordered some of their titles, and I was like “okay, I see you sis” and I sent an inquiry. I was super hype. I had several meetings, and in the last one they asked me about the full story of the book, and if Sentury ended as a straight woman or lesbian. I said “lesbian” and there was hesitation. The next thing I knew, I was informed via email that it was okay for me to be a lesbian and affiliated with the brand, but the owner didn’t want the works published to represent her company, and my lesbian novel wouldn’t be published. That is what my journey as a black lesbian in this professional world has been like. Some of it. On the other hand, my sexuality is why I am as popular as I am. It has afforded me opportunities, and films that others have not. I am the first black woman to write, produce, and star in a Revry Original Series (lesbian series), I wrote and co-directed the first and currently the only black LGBT Holiday film to be on major streaming platforms. It is an amazing journey, but everyone should know it isn't as easy as I make it look.

SJC: With all the recent light and tragedy of so many celebrities committing suicide and bringing awareness to it and depression, why chose suicide as the way Sentury would die and was it a hard scene to write? 

 

BDW: When I outlined the novel in 2013 she was already going to die in the manner in which it is in the novel. Her death was symbolic to me, the death of self when hiding from self. I wanted to use Sentury’s story as a cautionary tale. this is the cost of not living to be your authentic self, you die. I believe that whether it is literal or not, you sacrifice yourself when you aren’t true to yourself and every time it happens part of you dies. So yeah, there have been a lot of suicide headlines, and I can only wonder what would have happened if they could have been able to be what their heart yearned for before they made that final decision.

SJC: And lastly, how important is it for you to show black and brown girls that we matter in the literary world?

 

BDW: Representation is important, period. Little black girls need to see themselves in everything they want and see that it is attainable. The best feeling in the world is for a child to say, “I can do it now because you did.” It is very important to me to be a role model to little girls in need of an extra push.