We chat with author Kalela Williams about Tangleroot, which follows a girl who must face hard truths about blood and family, history and mystery.
Hi, Kalela! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, but since then I’ve adopted Virginia as my home state. I live in a cute, artsy town in the Shenandoah Valley with my partner Davey and our three cats, and I work for the state humanities Council, Virginia Humanities, directing the Virginia Center for the Book. So in addition to being an author, I organize author events for my day job. Which is interesting, because I’m on both sides of the signing table.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Remember back in elementary school when you first learned to put words into sentences? In the first or second grade, we used to put simple vocabulary words into sentences. The sentences were meant to be independent of one another, but I always formed mine into stories. Then when I was in the fourth grade, my mom bought me a composition book, and I was like “Holy sh*t! A whole book for just writing stories and poems!” Though to be more accurate, it was probably closer to “Gee whiz!” or some expression I don’t use anymore.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great if we’re counting books without pictures.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry because then I realized that Black authors could write books without pictures.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: This is like a menu special at a subpar diner. It kind of changes monthly. Right now: Whalefall by Daniel Krauss.
Your debut novel, Tangleroot, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Like ghosts, family secrets rise.
(This feels like writing a haiku or disjointed free verse using refrigerator magnets)
What can readers expect?
Tangleroot is a tense mother-daughter story, one of kinship and secrets, of hidden histories, and of shadowed racist legacies in a small town. Readers can expect to think closely about real-life issues: banned books and curriculums, erased or destroyed historic Black communities, and monuments that have never served us. But they’ll encounter plenty of humor, and above all, a sense of resilience that, like genes, can pass through generations.
Where did the inspiration for Tangleroot come from?
When I was thirteen, I visited an enslaved people’s cemetery for the first time. The burials weren’t marked with inscribed gravestones, like what I expected. They were simply marked with rocks, so I did not know names. I did not know dates. I did not know relationships between those interred. And so I felt that my life’s work would be to give names to the unknown, the unremembered.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing snarky, irreverent Noni, and her mother, the exacting perfectionist, Radiance Carden. Both of them are so different from me and from my mother, so it was fun to “be” someone else by bringing them to life. I learned a lot from these two ladies, too.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Long. Twisty. Full of dead-ends, and gopher-holes that could snap an ankle. I tried finding an agent for a proto-version of Tangleroot in 2011, with no dice. It was devastating, because by then I had put in hours upon hours of research, and years of writing. So I put the manuscript down for almost a decade, but I always had the feeling that the book had legs. I finally came back to it during the pandemic, when I made major rewrites and revisions. For me, Tangleroot is not just a story of persistence, but of trusting your material.
What’s next for you?
Well, writers gonna write. So I’m working on another story of family secrets.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
It’s tough to squeeze in “leisure reads” because I read a ton of books for work. But reading as part of your job? Not a bad gig. With that, I loved: The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides; A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko; The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson, The Apology by Jimin Han and Lone Woman by Victor LaValle. I can’t wait to read: Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell and The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky by Josh Galarza.
