Hurricanes and Hometowns: Interview with Writer Nordette Adams

  Versatile author Nordette Adams. (shared profile photo)

An author of enough poems to fill several quality leather-bound volumes and prize-winning short fiction, African-American Books Examiner  Nordette Adams is perhaps best known for a provocative style of journalistic blogging that is both intellectually stimulating and entertainingly streetwise, featured regularly on her self-branded WritingJunkie website and other blog locales with a decidedly literary and sometimes womanist twist to them. In each of her literary guises, she has been known to explore everything from the politics of poetry and relationship blues to deficiencies in our nation’s educational system and the various fine lines and qualities that make human life what it is in our brand new millennium.

She recently took time to discuss the hurricanes that almost erased her hometown, life as a caregiver, distinctions between citizen journalism and professional journalism, favorite modes of writing, and what she’s reading now.

Aberjhani: It’s my understanding that you grew up in New Orleans, after being born in Memphis, but were living in New Jersey when hurricanes Katrina and Rita pummeled the Gulf coast region back in August 2005. Then you bravely moved back to New Orleans with two young adult children a year or so afterwards. What surprised you most about the state of the city upon first returning to your hometown?

Nordette: Yes, when I moved back my son had two years left of high school and my daughter was working full-time. New Orleans east surprised me most. It was nearly a ghost town. When I left New Orleans in 1979, that part of the city was thriving, mostly an area of middle-class African-Americans, but during Katrina it was completely under water. While it's not the part of the city in which I grew up, it is the part that was the "happening thing" before I left for black locals. When I returned, I saw empty street after street of lonely red or blond brick ranch houses. In the last two years, however, New Orleans east appears to be on the rebound. Other than that, I still feel a sense of my world being scattered. My friends didn't come back. Many relatives in my age range aren't here.

Aberjhani: As we approach the fourth anniversary of the hurricanes, what do you see as some of the New Orleans’ most crucial needs, in terms of its continued recovery from Katrina and Rita, at this time?

Nordette: New Orleans needs fearless entrepreneurs, risk takers with vision who are absolutely loyal to the city and creating living wage jobs to help strengthen the infrastructure, especially entrepreneurs who will broaden the kinds of businesses we have here and place them within the city limits not in the suburbs. Like many cities, we also need mental health care programs and more housing to improve the quality of life for lower-income families. And whether our politicians want to hear it or not, we have a long way to go still with our education system, finding ways to keep students engaged in the arts, ways to help them channel positive energy that defeats an attraction to violence and crime.

Aberjhani: Have you had an opportunity to interact with any of the celebrities—such as Susan L. Taylor, Brad Pitt, Jeffrey Wright, etc.–– who have worked to bring attention to New Orleans’ and the rest of the Gulf Coast’s post-hurricane challenges and what kind of impact would you say their presence has had?

Nordette: No, other than to pass a note to Susan Taylor during a rebuild event before my mother broke her leg. I'm just starting to get back into the swing of life since the passing of my mother and working with my dad, who lives with me, to get estate-related paperwork straight. However, I did recently write about Brad Pitt and his supposed run for mayor of New Orleans which is only rumor, but still an amusing idea. As a New Orleanian, I appreciate the hard work of celebrities on behalf of the city, and I'm glad Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bought a house here and enrolled their oldest child in school in the city. That's love. Susan Taylor: can't beat her. She was loving on New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and did not abandon the city after the flood. A class act. Just gorgeous.

Model Green Home under construction in New Orleans. (press release photo)

Aberjhani: Through your various websites and profiles, such as Writing Junkie, BlogHer, Red Room, and of course now your Examiner column, different audiences know you in different ways. Some read you as a blogger, journalist, poet, fiction writer or all-around fantabulous (I made that word up: fantastic plus fabulous––get it? :-) Internet literary presence. Do you have a preference for a particular genre, and if so, why that particular one?

Nordette: My moment of confession. I prefer to write fiction and poetry. Over the years there's been a tug of war in my heart between fiction, in particular speculative fiction, and poetry. My practical side screams leave poetry alone because poetry doesn't pay. I always thought I would be a novelist one day, and I address some of my misgivings about the failure to finish a novel in two posts at BlogHer.com. I came on the web with a goal in 2003, to build an author platform and prove I was marketable to publishers, but facing a variety of life challenges I fell off track, became a little discouraged.

Aberjhani: What about now?

Nordette: I look up now and "experts" are [still] telling authors they need to build platforms. *sigh* However, I'm starting to feel the groove again, posting poetry every now and then, such as Reading You Again and “Like a Revelations Day,” plus some others, but I'm trying to not fall into the trap of posting fiction or poetry online for instant reader feedback gratification. I'm working at sticking to a fiction writing schedule. As you know, it's easier to find work in nonfiction than fiction and so creative writers can get sucked into becoming a non-fiction producer rather than a creative artist.

For Part Two Please Click Here

Aberjhani is the African American Art Examiner and the author (or co-author) of eight books including The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance and Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World.