Elan Mccallum
In her debut novel, Last Summer on State Street, Toya Wolfe chronicles four friends experiencing the life-changing summer the Chicago Housing Authority demolishes their neighborhood and how they must reckon with the fallout years later. Poignant and engaging, it was named a 2023 PEN/Open Book Award finalist, a Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick, and a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more–-and did I mention that the paperback is coming out? It’s been a busy year for Toya.
And things haven’t slowed down yet. Fresh from the Merky Books Literature Festival in the UK, Toya took a moment to let me ask some questions while preparing for an event in Eau Claire.
Elan Mccallum: So the first question I had is about your portrayal of girlhood friendship. It was so authentic and really resonated with me. Were there friendship dynamics in your own life that inspired this–did you mine those kinds of dynamics from your life or was this something that you drew from other spheres of your life, other people?
Toya Wolfe: Yeah, I have always been a part of so many different friends circles–I joke that I'm a floater. I am so extroverted, which is not typical of most novelists. But when I think back to my childhood, I always had a group of girlfriends. And I wanted to explore in this book the dynamics of friendship–what it's like to have one friend and then you and that one person do everything together. What it's like when you invite someone into this duo, you become a trio. Sometimes with that things can fall apart. In this specific story it just so happens that the person who's doing all this inviting is Fe Fe. Her friend Precious is real chill, she's a Christian–she's very inviting. She's trying to be like Jesus and just kind of welcome people in. And they have a friend who is not going to behave that way when they invite a fourth person in. So I wanted to explore the dynamics of friendship and how private a group of friends can be–and what kind of happens when you've got people in the friend group who don't really like each other very much. So you'll see a whole lot of those dynamics of what it means to have a best friend and then if those best friends are going to share or if they're going to just be total jerks about it.
EM: Yeah, I mean, trying to balance an already developed friendship while developing a whole new friendship–especially within a group–can be so tenuous because things are shifting, right?
TW: And also think about places like a housing project, right? You think those people are poor, but there are levels to it. You've got people who–because their family is a part of the neighborhood gang that gives them a kind of like hood royalty–they have status. And then what does that mean for them to be friends with somebody who doesn't have that level of status. So there’s all this different socio-economic stratification. And imagine when you smash some people together who feel, you know, “I'm cooler than this person,” or “You shouldn't be breathing the same air as me”--that happens even amongst people who don't have a lot of money.
EM: If you have potential friends who are scattered across these different socio-economic strata, then there are different levels of personal and emotional development. One of the things that really jumped out at me at the beginning of the book was this sort of retrospective observation. And that was, “We didn't know then that the practice of burying emotions created adults who struggled to build meaningful relationships. Some of us would eventually completely forget how to access true feelings.” So was this an observation that you knew from the beginning that you would include, or did it come later on in edits?
TW: I started this book so long ago, so… I feel like that's a line I added later because I have a very hands-on literary agent, and she would ask me these questions. I'd write a line, and she'd say, “Well, how does that affect these characters?” and “What do you think that means for them?” or just whatever. I feel that line came out of her pushing me, asking me a question, and then me deciding. There's this balance, right? When you're writing a story, and the narrator has distance and knows what's going to happen. You have this challenge of not telling too much, but reminding the reader that the narrator is not in that moment anymore. And this was one of those literary devices where I took the narrator and let her be in her 30s and be wise–because essentially what she's saying is that some of these folks are never going to learn how to let people in. I actually think that comes from being single and being someone who's been on the dating scene, dating guys who don't have any emotional intelligence, or they're working so hard to keep these walls up. And I imagine that somewhere in their childhood they had to put up those walls, but they never took them down. I think that's what it looks like. I think as a child you decide you're going to pretend you don't have feelings, but you do that for so long that you never come back from it. I think that's kind of where that line came from.
EM: So what was your approach writing the adult characters who struggle with meaningful relationships?
TW: For the longest time this book was just in a kid’s perspective, and everybody kept telling me “Toya, you should age them up.” People I respect–teachers, my thesis advisor–telling me if I made them older, I can do a lot more with the narration. And so for many, many years, the story was told by a 14-year-old about a time when she and her friends were 12. I'm a person who will take advice, but I'll also take a minute to digest it. So I decided to try out a draft where the narrator was older, and at the very end or close to the end, we jumped to her adult life. I think because I started this book when I was about 25 and knew very little about life, or men, or anything about writing, this book sort of grew up with me. I got wiser, my narrative got wiser. We're not the same, but I think when you're in your 30s you know a lot more than when you're like 20 years old, and definitely when you're 12 years old, right? So I think when I decided to include adult characters in this book, and when I decided to change the narrative to an adult perspective very, very late, it was… Hmm, I probably started this book in 2005, and I think it would have been about 2016 or 2017 when I decided to make the narrator in her early 30s and have chapters where characters were adults. So way, way later, I think. And yeah, by the time I started adding sort of wisdom into the book, it was stuff I already knew. I think I became wiser, and then as a writer I started making my narrator wise.
EM: It's interesting that you say that because I feel there's a lot of emphasis placed in publishing on the up-and-coming young writer. You know, they’re hot and easy-to-market. The “wunderkind.” But there are incredible writers at every age. What are your thoughts on that, being an incredibly successful writer not in your 20s? What is your experience and your thoughts on that aspect of publishing?
TW: I think this is a beautiful question, Elan, and I'm so excited to talk about this. I wanted this book published back when I was 25. But I'm 42 right now. When the book was sold, I was 41, which means the last few years of polishing the manuscript happened when I was in my late 30s, turning 40–all of that. This would not be the book that we know if I had gotten a book deal back when I was 26 years old. Even the way that we've promoted this book, the conversations I've been able to have–they're all a direct result of my work experience. I've been on the literary scene in Chicago since the year 2000. That means I've shown up for so many fiction writers, having three jobs, leaving a shift at a restaurant sweaty, and I pop up to a bookstore to hear somebody read from their debut novel. I've been in this game for over two decades, right? I've sat in so many workshops. I've paid for one-off workshops where you spend two weeks with a celebrity writer, learning everything you can. I have an MFA in Creative Writing, which means I spent years sitting in workshops, getting stuff torn down and built up. I studied with Audrey Niffenegger, and that's because I went to school when she just happened to have left the art department and moved to the fiction department. I just think so many stars had to align for this manuscript to have this much wisdom in it from other people. For me to watch other writers and their careers. Famous writers showing up to empty bookstores, and then me asking the question, “What happened there?” so then when I set up my tour, I made sure there were 10 people who said, “Yes, I'm coming” from my inner circle to show up and have butts in the seats of these bookstores. And then if nobody else came, there were 10 people in this bookstore. So I think we are obsessed with youth–I'm gonna go ahead and step on my soapbox right now–but what youth does not have is wisdom. Because when you've only been on earth for a couple decades, if you compare that to somebody who's in their late 30s, or in their 40s, or in their 50s, we know a lot more people. We have had a lot more marked up short stories and novels, and that makes a more well-informed, well-adjusted person. And if you can find a way to take all of that and put it in your work, I think it makes your work so much richer. And sometimes people say, “Yeah, I'm looking for ideas,” but you live and you learn and you find ways to write about it, whether it’s a memoir or fiction, whether it's essays or poetry. So, I think to answer your question, I am so glad that God did not give me what I had been begging for, which was a book deal since I was 25 years old, because I got to mine not just my life–I am a fiction writer, I did create these characters–but I lived in all the places that I write about in this book. And it's one thing to live in a place and to write about it. It's another thing to live in a place and have the distance to reflect on it, meditate on it and then write about it.
EM: I mean, I feel like a lot of times when you're writing fiction, oftentimes the conflict is really just a question and the ending is some attempt at an answer. But if you are writing a novel, there's going to be a central question that is being asked. So then having that wisdom, that experience, the time to reflect… Would you say that is what's necessary sometimes to more effectively answer the question?
“Yeah, things happen. You’ve got to work your way through the trauma, and then you’re going to process what happened.”
TW: I think it's the time, but it's also the practice of reflecting. We don't all live examined lives. I think stuff happens to you, and then you have to think it over. It takes time to deal with the trauma of the thing that happened to you, whether it's something really major or just a terrible breakup. Yeah, things happen. You've got to work your way through the trauma, and then you're going to process what happened. And I think that we don't all have the practice of that. Of having things happen to us, acknowledging that a thing happened to us, and then trying to figure out what happened. And then the fourth step is to actually write about what happened. I didn't know how to do that when I was in my early 20s. There are a lot of young talented people. That's why you do have these debut novelists who are fresh out of the MFA programs, and they are praised for it. But I just think it's harder. Even dealing with success–it's harder if you've never experienced what it means to say no, or to understand what you as a human need. Everybody wants something from you. I think that comes with time. It comes with working. I've had so many different kinds of jobs. I had to communicate to my bosses what I think ought to be paid–or if something happens, how to sit down and really talk about how they've offended me and how we're going to move forward. There's just all these life skills that you don't even know that you don't have until you've lived for a while.
EM: Okay, this is making me think about how the personal inspires art. But I've heard a number of different writers say that while writing is art, publishing is business. What has been your experience with that?
TW: So let's say that's mostly true. And I think one of the reasons that I've had a pleasant publishing experience is because I have communicated. I think I learned from having regular jobs. I communicated with the powers that be what my expectations were, and what my thoughts are about different things. Case in point, my contributions to the book cover. When you do final copy edits you–for lack of a better phrase–you have to fight for your words. And oftentimes the final copy edits get shipped out to someone who's not your actual editor, who doesn't know you at all. And sometimes they question you about things that you've said, or places that you've mentioned, if they can't verify with research. Like, “Are you sure about this place?” And so you have to put on really thick skin during so many phases of the publishing conversations. I didn't design the cover–there was a very brilliant artist at HarperCollins who designed the cover–but I sent a Pinterest board with colors and other covers, fonts that I liked, and kind of like the feelings that I thought would be really cool based on creating and spending years in this manuscript. I thought that there should be colors that represent the sunset on the cover because the book is really about sunsetting a neighborhood, but there's also several sunsets that the narrator witnesses herself. I also thought about little girls in the summertime, especially little Black girls. We’re wearing the brightest colors you can find, right? So this cover needs to look like it's ablaze, and that's kind of how I pitched it to them. But then, whoever you're talking to at your publisher, they have to go back and have several other conversations with people that you'll never see or you'll never meet. Those people don't know you. Oftentimes those people haven't even read your book yet. So when your editor or whomever goes back to convey your vision, they're only thinking about what they've done before and dollars essentially. And I don’t say that to demonize them–they've got a job to do, right? Every decision that's made in publishing is so that they can sell books. Before you get to that conversation, it's your job as a writer to take what's in your head and put it in the book. At that stage, you shouldn't be thinking about your cover, and you shouldn't be thinking about all these random people you're gonna have a conversation with. It's a really great case of staying in your lane. When it's time to talk business, talk business about the thing, right? Let them be business people, you are still an artist. Then when it's time for you to add the things that help them do their job better, that's where you take your artistic self and help them translate your vision so that you can sell books. Because you guys all have the same goal at that stage to sell books. And for my book specifically, people look at my cover and they want to pick it up. They're drawn to this beautiful work of art that's not even my words yet. I mean, if they did take any of your suggestions about the cover, then your vision’s on it a little bit, but it's your name and somebody else's art and the title. I think sometimes we demonize the business side. You hear a lot of people who go to a lot of conferences and they're like, “Publishing’s all about business,” and yeah, because you gotta get paid–like, we have to sell these books. But don't let them stray too far from your artistic vision and respectfully find ways to fight for what you want.
EM: That's a great point because, I mean, a business is looking at their bottom line. But of course you as a writer, the artist, you're looking out for your vision. So there's a kind of collaboration that has to occur, and you do have the same goal in mind to sell the book.
TW: There is a way to have balance. If you have industry people who are not hearing you, then it's your job to go figure out how to get them to hear you, how to speak their language. I think throwing tantrums or not saying what you feel is not helpful. You have to advocate for yourself. I've never had a job where I didn't negotiate my salary, even when I was working at a restaurant because I know my worth. And I knew it's also my employer’s job to pay me as little as they can because they have a budget that has to stretch very far or whatever. I took those skills from my regular life and used them in publishing. Like, "What is the goal we're trying to accomplish here and how do I get you to hear me?"
EM: Ooh, so you said that when you’re in your lane, you shouldn't be thinking about all the things that will happen until after you start working with the publisher. But at what point do you really get a sense that your time in your lane is coming to an end and it's time to start merging?
TW: I think once you've sold the book. Once you get industry people involved, it's time to think like them. But I think the problem is when it's just you and your computer or your story, we've got other people in the conversation who don't belong there. I have a friend who recently decided that she's going to write a story, and one of the things I'm going to drill into her head is that only you and this story exists right now. Do not share pages with no body. Okay? You don't think about who's gonna publish it. You're in a season where it's just you. You know what, I'm gonna quote CV Peterson. CV is a visual artist, right? And the two of us, our worlds of art cannot be further apart. I'm a writer. She's a painter, sculptor. Like, she's a visual artist. We get together and we talk process in a very pulled back way so that we can encourage each other and kind of have art therapy. We really are art therapy for one another. And I have been on a tour longer than I thought I would be. I was having a lot of conversations, speaking engagements, just ripping and running all over the place at a time when I thought I'd be working on my next book. January, February is always the time when I start a new thing. It's cold and stupid outside. I got my cup of cocoa, I'm writing down and looking at the snow–it's great. This year, I was traveling, I was speaking, I was exhausting myself. So I'm up visiting CV in Eau Claire, we're chatting and she's like, “Toya, the problem is you're not acknowledging that you're still in "showing season," and you're trying to go to "making season" when you're not in "making season."” She has "showing season," "making season," and "research season"–that's kind of the chunks of her artistic life. We call it book promotion or the tour or whatever, but essentially, I have been in "showing season" longer than I ever thought. And it's a privilege and it's an honor. And I have to just fall back and acknowledge that I'm not in a season where things are still and quiet and it's just me, and I can start writing my next book. People want to ask you, “What's next? What are you working on?” And no one wants to hear you say, “I'm working on telling more people about this book,” but it's real. I was in the UK because the book came out on March 23rd. I was able to go to a string of bookstores in London, and I was able to sit on a panel about girlhood. And the other folks on the panel were from London, they were from Jamaica, they were in their 60s, I'm in my 40s, and the other girl’s probably in her late 20s, if I had to guess. So whatever season you're in, you have to stay in it and honor that. Man, I forgot your original question. Why did I go off on this tangent?
EM: The question was–oh my gosh, I was just so swept up. Oh yeah! When do you know that it's time to come out of your lane?
TW: Yeah, so right now I am still technically in the publishing lane. All up in it. I have an independent publicist. I have a publicist at my American publisher, HarperCollins. I have a publicist at Penguin UK. I spend most of my time talking to publicists because we are still promoting all the versions of Last Summer on State Street. The paperback version is going to be out. So I'm still in the publishing lane right now, and I am hoping that this summer I get to come out of their world and back into my very small, quiet space, where I'm just creating and throwing a mess on the wall and being like, “Oh, I like how that's dripping!” I'm so excited because that's the stuff I love. But it's also a privilege to have a book–to still be in conversation. The book was published on June 14 of last year, and people still want to talk about it, people are still finding it. And I think for people who are writing a book there is this temptation to think about who's going to buy it. What publisher, who's the audience–all those things. But you're gonna have people whose specific job is to think about that stuff. They can't write the book–you have to write the book, you know. So that is your first lane, first and foremost. And if you decide to change lanes for a time because it's necessary, don't forget that you're gonna go back into the lane of writer. And then again, you've got to box out and keep everybody out until it's time to have to let them come over into your lane.
EM: I love that interweaving answer! But, okay, you are probably one of the most outgoing and friendly creatives–particularly a writer–that I've ever met. Being in your lane, writing your book, your story–that's just you and the chair, interacting with the page or the screen. But eventually, your creative community is going to be a part of that. You've been in the game for over 20 years. What's been your journey building a creative community? And how does your community sustain and influence your work, especially since you have an ever-expanding circle of friends? I feel like I could look away for five minutes and you've made 10 new friends.
TW: You know what it is? I think you have to hold on to people. When I studied creative writing as an undergrad, I went to a school called Columbia College Chicago, and it was one of the only schools in the country that had a bachelor's degree in fiction writing. I always knew that this program existed, but it was in Chicago and I was trying to flee Chicago. I wanted to get out of the housing projects and get as far away from Chicago as possible. I failed, but it was a good thing. So I always knew that Columbia had an actual fiction writing major, and I was so fascinated by that. I would be in workshops, and I would always pay attention to who got excited. Because in our program you had to actually write in your notebook in class, and then you would read a little bit of it back. So over the course of 16 weeks you really get to know somebody’s work really well. You're like, “Oh, we're back to that same monster.” You will look up and see whose eyes are twinkling when you're reading your stuff. And those are the people you want to stay in touch with because they get what you're trying to do and are excited about it. I learned early on that you need to grab a few writers who are going to make up your sort of writing community. Maybe you'll be in a workshop with them, or maybe sometimes you'll talk process with them on a break. You'd be sharing, “Yeah, I'm really struggling with this character. I just don't like them.” And I think I learned in childhood about friendship–when you connect with people, you should keep them. I think when I started studying writing, it became that you need to figure out which writers you want to hold on to. I have a mentor friend who jokes that my life is full of these concentric circles of friends and community, and it's because I don't let good people go. Whether they are creatives or just folks who have a similar faith tradition. It’s just the practice of holding on to good people that I learned a long time ago, and I sort of apply it to my creative life as well.
EM: That's a powerful way of being. That's not just art-sustaining, that's life-sustaining.
TW: Yeah, yeah. I think now that I have a book out, there are people who genuinely are cheering me on because they know I showed up for them but also know this is a big deal. I've been working on it for a long, long time, and they're all “Look at you go!” and they're informed cheerleaders. They're not just here for the magic of it all. They're saying, “Man, this woman–she held onto this book forever!” I mean, I have friends who had a book they worked on for a while and they set it aside and started a new thing. But for some reason, I just decided to keep hammering away at this thing obsessively. So, people know my story. They know this. I started a long time ago, and a lot of them have read drafts, they've given me notes. A lot of them are on my acknowledgments page because it's been such a journey. I've kept some of the same people, but along the way I picked up some new folks too.
EM: I remember the first time I read any of your words, I had never met you in person. In fact, I don't think I met you until months after. I was staying at Envisage Retreat for one weekend, and when I walked in, I saw the “They landmarks” quote and asked, “Who wrote that?” because I thought it was so powerful. And CV said, “Oh, that's from my friend Toya. She's from Chicago. She's working on this manuscript,” and I knew I had to read it. From then to now, it's been so incredible to see you come along and blow up!
TW: And Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls–these towns have been such an important part of the creation of this book. Because since 2018, I've been coming up just to work on it in the winter. It's sort of full circle.
Join Toya Wolfe for a reading and conversation Thursday, May 4 at 6:30 PM at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.