![]() |
![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
![]() |
In the beginning there was “connection and fear.” That’s how Valerie Boyd (J85), arts editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, describes the genesis of her sojourn to write Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston (Scribner, 2003; paperback due 2004) about the Harlem Renaissance writer who is receiving a new surge in interest. In 1994 Boyd, then a reporter at the Journal-Constitution, her hometown newspaper, made her annual trek to the Zora Neale Hurston Festival in Eatonville, Fla. There she heard author Robert Hemenway critique his 1977 book Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, pointing out things he felt he missed because he was a white man writing about an African American woman. He declared that it was time for a new Hurston biography to be written, and it needed to be written by an African American woman. “When I heard those words, I felt it was my calling,” Boyd says. “But even though it felt like something I would do, the thought of doing it was just frightening.” Maybe she would be ready in 10 years, she decided. But a year and a
half later, Boyd received another nudge — a telephone call from
John McGregor, an independent literary agent who had gotten her number
from an unidentified source. He was inquiring about her interest in
writing a Hurston biography. At that point, Boyd surrendered. “I
felt like fate was calling me — and that Zora herself was calling
me — that this was the work I was destined to do,” she says. Moments before Boyd left the grave site, a black crow appeared. She remembered that at the first Hurston Festival in 1990, a big black crow arrived on the scene. Its presence was so prevalent that festivalgoers started calling the bird “Zora.” Boyd took the crow’s appearance at the grave as a sign that Hurston had given her blessing to tell her story. One of Boyd’s first challenges was to track down people who had
known Hurston personally. They were all elderly, so time was of the
essence. Three of the people Boyd interviewed — Dorothy West,
John Henrik Clarke and Louise Thompson Patterson — died before
the book was completed. After 4 1/2 years of research, Boyd was ready to write. She was drawn back to Florida, where Hurston wrote most of her books. During a year and a half of writing, Boyd kept a photograph of Hurston on her desk and would read portions of the book aloud to it. “Sometimes,” Boyd thought, “it seemed as if Zora would look at me in a very approving way, and sometimes she seemed to be looking at me like, ‘Oh, please.’ And I would dutifully press delete.” She says Hurston also appeared in her dreams at critical moments. “It was a real intuitive, spiritual process working on the book, [but] it wasn’t like I was channeling her,” Boyd says. “I really did have to work. It was a serious process that tested all of my skills and training.” “Communing with the ancestors — we have to respect that.
Valerie is on a spiritual journey, like Alice Walker,” says E.
Ethelbert Miller, director of the African American Resource Center at
Howard University and the author of Fathering Words: The Making
of an African American Writer. Boyd’s journey isn’t over. She owns the film rights to her book, and she hopes to see Hurston’s life immortalized on the silver screen. Alvelyn J. Sanders (C90) is a writer living in Atlanta. Her work
has appeared in Essence, CrossRoads and Black Issues Book
Review. She is also a regular contributor to WABE-FM, Atlanta’s
NPR affiliate. |