The Creative Hour Prince Shakur

It's finally season three of The Creative Hour and I'm so happy to bring this podcast back in a new form. In season three I'll be breaking down the many different aspects of my life as an author and writer, whether it be getting published, navigating book tour, working on fiction after publishing, a memoir and much more.

If there any particular writing questions, you want to see explored in this season let me know.

We chat with WILLIAM O'NEAL II, a playwright, and artist born and raised in South Georgia. O'Neal II is currently based in NYC and writes stories centered around coming-of-age narratives, queerness, and social transgressions through desire, cannibalism, surrealism, and beyond.

To find WILLIAM O'NEAL II, find them on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/willthesecond_/)


In this episode, we talk to William O'Neal II on ….

Being a career artist versus something else
How good stories are specific, and therefore honest
The power of coming-of-age narratives
Their thematic fascination with cannibalism
Their history as a playwright 
Films mentioned include: BONES AND ALL, INFINITY POOL, GREEN INFERNO, RAW

ABOUT THE GUEST: RASHEED NEWSON is an author, a television drama writer, an executive producer, and a showrunner. My Government Means to Kill Me (in stores August 23, 2022) is his debut novel. Rasheed – along with his television writing partner, T.J. Brady – is also the showrunner of the drama series Bel-Air (premieres Feb. 2022 on Peacock).

ABOUT "MY GOVERNMENT MEANS TO KILL ME": A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story, following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s NYC, from the television drama writer and producer of The Chi, Narcos, and Bel-Air.

PHOTO IN ALBUM ARTWORK BY CHRISTOPHER MARR

Mentioned Media


WE WERE HERE, documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ656rmQAaM
BAYARD RUSTIN and JAMES BALDWIN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalPJ3ITHKg
ACT UP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAzU79PBVM
"Why Black AIDS History Matters": https://www.aaihs.org/why-black-aids-history-matters/
LARRY KRAMER: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/512714500/larry-kramer-pioneering-aids-activist-and-writer-dies-at-84

I talk to Aaron H. Aceves about the process of writing his debut YA book, THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US. We tackle drafting, revision, exploring biphobia through your work, and what this book means to him.

SHOW NOTES:


THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-Why-They-Hate-Us/Aaron-H-Aceves/9781534485655
AARON'S WEBSITE: https://aaronhaceves.com/

ABOUT THE SHOW

In this episode, I talk to Ashunda Norris, a visionary filmmaker from Georgia. Her work spans numerous short films that delve in black gender and relationships, as well as an impressive poetry and open mic career.

WORKS MENTIONED

Ashunda Norris Website: https://ashunda.com/
JOSE OLIVAREZ, poem: https://poets.org/poem/i-walk-every-room-and-yell-where-mexicans
JAMILLA WOODS, “My Afropuffs”: https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153350222521534&_rdr
BELL HOOKS, Opposition Gaze: https://pages.ucsd.edu/~bgoldfarb/cogn21s12/reading/hooks-oppositional-gaze.pdf

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born and raised in rural Georgia, Ashunda is a Black feminist multidisciplinary artist with creative work that encompasses film, poetry, archiving and critical scholarship. Her art centers the complexities of Black {southern} womxnhood/girlhood, magical spiritual traditions of Southern Black folk, Black futures and fugitivity. Her most recent film, MINO: A Diasporic Myth is an award winning afro-surreal futuristic short currently streaming on kweliTV. Ashunda is a 2022 and 2021 Furious Flower Poetry Prize finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee and an inaugural Starshine & Clay fellow. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the California Arts Council, Haile Gerima’s Liberated Territory, Community of Writers and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. Her writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Obsidian, Taint Taint Taint, Root Work Journal, Fence, EcoTheo Review, PANK, Trampoline and elsewhere. A country blk girl at heart, Ashunda loves hot water cornbread, stargazing, obscure cinema and the ocean.

Learn more at ashunda.com

I spent a whole month in St Paul de Vence, France in June and had to sit down to talk about major emotions as an artist and soon-to-be debut author! #ArtistResidency #France #TheCreativeHour

Music by Sam Holman Smith and Sonic Music Loops | Broadcast by Verge.FM. Hosted by Prince Shakur. The Creative Hour Podcast Website. | To support The Creative Hour and Prince Shakur, support on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/prshakur)

ABOUT MY BOOK

My debut memoir, WHEN THEY TELL YOU TO BE GOOD, comes out October 4, 2022. To preorder: https://bookshop.org/a/23229/9781953534422

"Prince Shakurk’s debut memoir brilliantly mines his many eras of radicalization and self-realization through examinations of place, childhood, queer identity, and a history of uprisings."