In the first episode of Season 1, co-hosts Annie Liontas and Lito Velázquez speak with LitFriends Angela Flournoy & Justin Torres about their enduring friendship, writing in a precarious world, and chosen family.

Links
https://sites.libsyn.com/494238

www.annieliontas.com

www.litovelazquez.com

https://linktr.ee/litfriendspodcast

https://www.instagram.com/litfriendspodcast/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553436475678

https://justin-torres.com/

https://www.angelaflournoy.com/

https://www.asalisolomon.com/

Transcript

Annie & Lito (00:01 )
Welcome to LitFriends!
Hey LitFriends!

Annie:
Welcome to the show.

Lito:
Today we're speaking with the great writers and LitFriends, Justin Torres and Angela Flournoy.

Annie:
About chosen family, the dreaded second novel, and failure and success.

Lito:
So grab your bestie and— 


Both:
Get ready to get lit!

Lito:
That's so cute.

Annie:
It's cute. It's cute. We’re cute!

Lito:
Cute, cute… So you had a question?

Annie (00:29 )
I do. I have a question for you, Lito. Are you a cat or an ox?

Lito:
I mean, I would hope that the answer is so obvious that it almost bears not asking the question. I'm a cat.

Annie:
Okay, so Asali Solomon at The Claw asked us all, are you an ox or a cat?

Lito:
That's a great question.

Annie: And as a writer... You know, the oxen are the people who work every day in the field, clock in, clock out, pay themselves a quarter an hour. I'm literally talking about me. The cats are people who are playful, exploratory, when the mood strikes them…

Lito:
Why are you looking at me when you say that?

Annie Lito (01:26 )
So are you an ox or a cat?

Lito:
I’m a cat. I think anyone who's ever met me would say I'm a cat.

Annie:
How does that show up in your writing?

Lito:
Well, I mean, play is so important to me—she'll be on the  podcast in a couple of episodes, but when I first...was studying with Lucy, that was one of the first things that she spoke about in our class, and it kind of blew up my whole world. I had been writing for a long time already, but I hadn't thought of it as play, or there was some permission I needed or something. So the idea of play is really central to what I do and love. You wouldn't necessarily know that from the novel that I'm writing, which is sort of a dark book. Um, but it did start out with a lot of play and, I'm also, as you could probably just hear, my cat is coming into the room.

Annie:
Your cat is like, yes, Lito is us. RiffRaff is like, "Lito is cat."

Lito:
My cat Riff Raff, yes. Smarty pants. Um, he needed to join in on this conversation. Anyways, I'm a cat. I, I'm fickle when it comes to my work. Um. I don't want to work on my novel all the time, which is great because life has found so many ways to prevent it from happening. So in the new year, in 2024, it will be 7 years since I've started writing this book, and it's still, it's going to take a few more months at least. And what about you?

Annie:  (03:09 )
I’m four oxen pulling a cart carrying all of my ancestors. I am very much the immigrant who says, get up, go do the work, come back, go do the work. And believe it or not, for me, there is a lot of joy in that. It's a... It allows, you know, it’s Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow, actually. So it doesn't feel like drudgery, usually. It does feel like joy. And I'm actually curious for all you LitFriends out there, if you're an ox or a cat.

Lito:
Yes, that's such a great idea. Please email us at litfriendspodcast@gmail.com, and tell us if you're a cat or an oxen or share on all your socials.

Annie:
Yeah, maybe we should poll them. That would be fun.

Lito:
That's a good idea. #LitFriendsPodcast.

Annie:
The reason I'm asking is because, of course, both Justin and Angela, who we speak with today in this episode, talk about what it's like to go for 10 years between books. "A banger a decade," is what Angela says.

Lito:
It's so funny.

Annie:
And you, you know, part of that, they have this very rich conversation about how, when you put everything into the first book, it takes a lot to get to the second book. But I think also there's a lot of play, right? And there's a lot of understanding that writing appears in different forms. And it might be the second novel, but it might be something else.

Lito:
For sure. I really like how they talk about— that the practice of writing is actually a practice of reading. And I think that any serious writer spends most of their time reading. And not just reading books, but texts of all kinds, in the world, at museums, as Justin points out, art, television, even the trashiest TV show has so much to offer.

Annie: (05:12 )
And there's such a generosity to the way they think of themselves as artists, and also generosity in how they show up for one another as friends, and acknowledging when they fail one another as we as we see in this episode. And I remember my introduction to Justin when I was a grad student at Syracuse. I read We the Animals and fell in love with it, asked him to come do a reading at Syracuse, which was wonderful. And my wife who, at that time was my Bey-ancé, she was turning 30. We had no money. I couldn't buy her anything. Not in grad school. So I asked Justin if he would autograph his story, "Reverting to a Wild State," which is about a breakup in reverse, for Sara.

Lito:
Oh, I love that story.

Annie:
And he did, and he thought it was so beautiful, and I was like, "let me send it to you." He's like, "no, I've got it." He just shipped it to me. He didn't know me. We didn't know each other.

Lito:
He knew you because of books. He knew you because he loved literature.

Annie:
Yeah. And I remember that in it. I held on to it at a time when that act really mattered.

Lito:
One of the things I love about our interview with Justin and Angela is how much all of us talk about generosity, and how Justin and Angela display it in their conversation with each other and with us. And I'm just curious, how do you see that coming through also in Angela's work?

Annie: (07:00 )
You know, I remember her talking about how the idea for the book began with this image of people moving around a house at night. This is The Turner House. And she says this image opens up a lot of questions. And one of the things that really stays with me about that book is how masterful she is at shifting perspective, particularly between siblings, which I find to be such a challenge for writers, right? Like your siblings are the people who are closest to you and sometimes also the farthest away. And she gets that so intimately on the page. And of course, in our conversation with Angela and Justin, one of the things they talk about is being family, essentially being siblings. And that's one of the most powerful echoes of the conversation. They talk about being a chosen family and having to choose again and again and again. And that spirit of consciousness and connection, I feel that very much in Angela's work, and of course in Justin's too.

Lito:
Oh Annie, I choose you again and again, I choose you.

Annie:
Oh, I choo-choo-choose you!

Lito:
So stupid.

Annie: (08:05 )
After the break, we'll be back with Justin and Angela.

Annie: (08:24 )
And we're back.

Lito:
I just wanted to mention, too, that we spoke with Angela and Justin in October during the writer's strike in Hollywood, and just before Justin's new book, Blackouts, was released. And just last week, as you're hearing this podcast.

Annie:
Just last week.

Lito:
Just last week! He won the National Book Award for a book that took him 10 years to write.

Annie:
Absolutely.

Annie:
Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, a novel about queer histories that are hidden, erased and re-imagined. Blackouts won the 2023 National Book Award for fiction. His debut novel, We the Animals, has been translated into 15 languages and was adapted into a feature film. He was nam