With a style similar to Toni Morrison, Olympia Vernon is a modern day, renaissance author who will surly go down in history as one of this century’s greatest writer.  The author of three novels: Eden, Logic and her latest release; A Killing in This Town, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that her work was recognized in 2004 by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  A winner of the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, Vernon grew up in a small town in Mississippi and received a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice from Southeastern Louisiana University in 1999 before going on to complete her studies at Louisiana State Univerity where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 2002. Ms. Vernon took a few moments from her busy schedule to visit with B-Now.

Tell us about your new novel; "A Killing in This Town" and how it differs from your previous works.


There is a menace in the woods of Bullock, Mississippi, and not only for the black man destined
to be lynched when a white boy comes of age. The white men who work at the Pauer Plant are in danger, too, but they refuse to heed Pastor Earl Thomas’s urgent message that the factory is slowly killing them. It is only when Gill Mender — a man haunted by past sins — returns to town that change seems possible. A Killing in This Town exposes the fragile hierarchy of a
society poisoned by hatred, and shows the power of an individual to stand up to the demons of history and bring the cycle of violence to an end.  How does it differ from my previous works?
I am not so sure the message is different. Everything I write is written for those who cannot speak, for those who have, in some form, been denied the power of language, the inability to speak against the wrongs of society. Eden, my first love, concerns a young girl who draws a naked lady on the first page of the Bible with a tube of fire-engine red lipstick and has to
spend weekends with her dying aunt as punishment.  Logic deals with child molestation. Each book is not "about" one thing or another really. Each is a search for the human being to define the course and shape of his/her energy.

I remember when I was teen. I could not always speak, use my voice, against those horrible events of which I was a witness. I knew that freedom lived and in the life of freedom, the voice must be heard, must be the tool of the tongue. I am well-acquainted with my freedom now. And it is a rushing stream of power that has brought me the comfort of the Supreme. It is beautiful, shy, at times, eternal. It is the power and freedom of speech and tongue. The power of language.


Where does the inspiration for your stories come from?

This answer will never change, my characters. I am not one for writing outlines or staying up late at night to figure out a title or the structure that will emerge. The characters, their vocabulary, laughter, dialogue, pain come through me and I am only the tiny energy of the earth who writes it down. It is so much bigger, stronger than anything one can imagine. And I must respect it, at all times.


What is your most memorable or unusual moment as a writer?

 When I broke the seal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters envelope. I had been in the shower the morning it arrived, heard an unusual knock at the door. I ignored it. My hair was wet. I had been blow-drying it when I heard the knock a second time. I opened the door and the postman had given me several envelopes and a box that awaited me. I opened the box first. My dear friend and fellow artist, Kathryn, had sent me a doll. We have collaborated on projects in
the past. I turned from the American Academy of Arts and Letters envelope. It had been sitting on a glass table and I stopped, paused a moment and returned to it. I opened it, shivered and saw my name and the beginning line and immediately, I cried with a force new to me.


If we could take a peek at your bookshelf, which authors/titles would we find?

Wow, I’ve never been asked this question before.  You would find biographies, autobiographies. You would find information on/about anyone in the world...from Ray Charles to Donald Goines to Edmund Perry to Katherine Anne Porter to A.J. Ayer to Etta James to Che' and many, many more. And some fiction that is not afraid to strike the hardest blow: Hubert Selby, Jr., etc.

What does the future hold for you as a writer?

I am unsure if any writer can answer this. I can tell you that I hope I continue to sleep with the
scent of ink under my covers and that my relationship with the pen is not altered, that my characters continue to trust me, that I am as humble tomorrow as today...that I continue to live in spirit and energy.
 
What Advice would you give to neophyte writers?

To never think while writing. The minute a writer begins to think, he/she has taken over the
scene.

C. J. Domino is a freelance writer and the author of the upcoming novel, Outta Control.

Contact her at CJDomino@b-now.com