Everything Comes to Light
A conversation with Micah Dawanyi on dreams, self-confrontation, and Black representation in media.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The first week of November is meant for so many things. By this time, the white-throated sparrow has turned on its axis and faced South, the changing leaves quietly find their way back to Earth, and the pensive writer, having no remaining Summer light, will have turned inward on himself and begun the work of remembering.
Micah Dawanyi knows exactly how he likes to create. When I ask him if there are any conditions he likes to be in place before he starts writing, I’m pleasantly surprised that we begin talking about light. He’s recently bought a new lamp that is just right for his workflow, with just enough light that his words remain visible to him and nearly everything else fades into the background. “I like to be alone. I like it to be very dark. I like to be by myself. I could be in that space for hours.”
We speak about the sheer joy of writing for hours. Of the occasional surprise at the words that spill from us, almost as if we are revealing our own voices to ourselves. When talking about how critical writers and artists can be of their own work, Micah says, “A lot of artists hate their work because it feels too much like them.” I begin to think of the many reflections to be found in voice, in words, in light.
The first week of November is a time for reunion. The sun is setting as I sit at my desk after my call with Micah and I turn a Lucille Clifton line over in my head. “My one hand holding tight / my other hand." I think of the light from Micah’s lamp and the light pulling back across my living room floor. Of the shadows gained in the new season, and the time that is lost. I think of the Diaspora’s time. Of our instances of reflection, reunion, and remembering.
In the beginning of our conversation Micah spoke about the fear storytellers often face at the profound intimacy of creation, a process that can reveal new, personal truths and sometimes prevent artists from fully committing to or believing in their work. “The first jump into that world is very scary and it’s like jumping into a black hole. But once you jump in, you see a lot of colors. Everything comes to light and then it’s just about self-discovery.” As Micah and I speak about his work, I think about how maybe this is what we’ve always been doing, discovering new ways to find ourselves in the light.
Mia Monet: Dreams have historically been a powerful, multifaceted motif within Black storytelling. They’ve served as pathways towards imagining liberation and as evocations of cultural memory. Can you speak to why you chose dreams in your novel, When the Record Stops Spinning, to help your protagonist access the past and reconcile with his memories?
Micah Dawanyi: What's funny is I considered the cultural significance of dreams when it comes to Black storytellers and the Black community so I’m glad you came at this question from that angle because I haven’t really had that much of a chance to talk about this. I had a bunch of dreams when I was writing the story…those served as divine confirmation to take a leap of faith, and I ended up being glad that I did. It was about creating an emotional landscape for the main character to confront previous versions of himself. The physical landscape of dreams can materialize and force you to confront things in your subconscious. I thought that would be key for the main character, Kairo, because he’s at a place where he’s wallowing in self-doubt and pity. I thought I could use his experiences in that dream realm to reveal helpful things that he can use to pick himself back up.
Mia Monet: Dreams also reveal a certain duplicity of self. I think this duplicity, especially for Black people, can manifest in how we experience a doubleness in the tension between what we carry in our inner worlds and what we wish to, and often struggle to, express outwardly. I also think of how our reckoning with dreams can only occur in the aftermath. My dreams feel real to me when I’m immersed within them, and it is only after waking that I can process their unreality. And even in that, what truly makes it “real” or “not real?” Especially if it is, like in your story, revealing something that’s so deeply embedded in my subconscious that I needed the dream to help me through it, to help me see it.
Micah Dawanyi: Exactly and that was the fun thing about the symbolism in the story. This might be spoilers for the interview, but I’ll still say it. Even the part in that opening scene where he can’t see out of the train. That was symbolic of him being blinded by his own darkness. So, when I had the ending scene, and he was able to see outside, that was all symbolic of his success at confronting himself and making peace with the past.
I would also say, just in simple terms, I think there’s a lot more room for whimsical, imaginative Black stories. I often see a lot of people who are fine with flying dragons and magic but as soon as a Black character finds themselves in a whimsical or imaginative story, they say that’s unrealistic. So, it was fine when we had fire breathing dragons but when a darkskin person is in a tv show or a book now it's like “ah, that’s not relatable.”
“I think it’s important to find your own North Star as an artist and to stick to that because that’s going to define your destiny.”
Mia Monet: I agree. That reticence for seeing Black people in those roles also points to the idea that the Black imaginative is linked to Black liberation. So, when we talk about Black imagination or Black dreams, we’re also talking about Black freedom. I think about when Dubois wrote about “dreaming of dreams.” I think of an imagination that is so boundless, a dreaming that is so endless. And us being able to be something like inventors because of that.
Micah Dawanyi: I love that, we need as much of that as possible because I think when we see Black characters painted in that light that is also a form of radical expression. I’m all for advocacy, and policy, and those important things I’m all for rallying for those. But I think there is also a lot of radical expression in allowing autonomy, agency, freedom, and creativity for Black characters. I think that is also, in its own right, incredibly radical when we look at historical context.
Mia Monet: Right, during the Harlem Renaissance Amiri Baraka would talk about how important it is for Black people to be creating art in the struggle towards freedom. What you said about Kairo gaining a deepened sense of sight on the train reminded me of Gwendolyn Brooks. Nikki Finney also said something similar, saying that the poet is one who sees, one who is “always looking.’ Brooks once wrote, “If you wanted a poem, you only had to look out of a window.”
Mia Monet: One of my favorite quotes from your novel was, “You asked me where we are going but our destinies are entirely different.” Can you speak more to this quote in reference to your fictional characters and storytellers in the world?
Micah Dawanyi: When you look at Kairo’s position in life at the beginning of the story, yes he’s been through an incredible amount of hardship and adversity, but I think part of the reason why he’s struggling is because he is referencing his own journey for success in comparison to what is “normal” of society…I think that line was a bit of encouragement to him to stay on his own path and to appreciate the uniqueness of his own journey. But it has to be on his time, not on the rest of the world’s time. In terms of storytellers in general, a pathway into the arts is going to be nonlinear, I think. For most people, success is going to look very different if you compare 5 to 10 different people. So, I think it’s important to find your own North Star as an artist and to stick to that because that’s going to define your destiny.
“When it comes to the artist, I think home can be a return to that state of childlike wonder.”
Mia Monet: That's beautiful. The quote also made me think about our first issue’s theme, A Dream of Home. Over the past year, I’ve been so enthralled in reading accounts from people of the African Diaspora about their experiences with place. Another nonlinearity comes to mind when thinking of the Diaspora’s different conceptions of home; for some people home is a wish, it’s a remembrance, it’s an aspiration. For some people home doesn't even exist anymore because of gentrification. I was thinking about all our paths across the world and the different directions those arrows point towards and away from.
Micah Dawanyi: Absolutely, and the title for your issue, A Dream of Home really spoke to me because, like you said, home is not always a physical place. I think one of the more underexplored things when it comes to home...when you think of the Black community, across the Diaspora, a lot of us have been placed into a state of survival instead of a place where we can thrive and feel safe. When it comes to the artist, I think home can be a return to that state of childlike wonder that we once had before we learned about the horrors of reality and all the difficult things we’ve had to go through as a culture.
Mia Monet: I love this idea of childlike wonder being a definition of home. It’s an idea that home can be returning to self. So, it’s not just self-confrontation, it’s self-reunion as well.
Micah Dawanyi: “That’s a perfect word, reunion…”
Mia Monet: When you’re writing your characters, how do you choose their settings? Do their environments or the history of the place they are located shape the people they are?
Micah Dawanyi: What I like to do, especially for When the Record Stops Spinning, is design the character first and then I like to create settings that force the character, even against their will, to confront what they’ve been running from. I think that clash of tension makes for an engaging story and self-discovery, which is a really important part of my stories. I like that you mention the setting because I think the setting of a story can often be a character itself. I don't think enough people talk about that, especially when it comes to Black stories as well where we often are confined to stereotypical spaces in storytelling.
Mia Monet: You reference something so prevalent in the lineage of Black literature where settings become characters themselves. In Beloved, where the haunted house is an active character, the protagonist experiences “rememory” which I feel your novel utilizes. In this rememory, Sethe’s past completely occupies the physical space around her. Her environment becomes the landscape in which she must confront her past to finally move past it. She experiences this in her waking world, your protagonist experiences it in his dream world, which is fascinating to me.
Micah Dawanyi: I think that gives storytellers a lot of space to create fully realized characters which is the exact thing we need so much more of in the Black community. When you give characters a properly idealized setting, that can add so many different layers of dynamism to the story…I know for me, it’s not even always an act of revolution like, “oh, they stopped us from doing this so I’m going to make sure I have my characters in this type of space.” Part of it is that awareness, but part of it is just that I fabout my characters, and I think when we talk about freedom, community, and accessibility I would want to see people in those different spaces.
Having a black woman protagonist in a story who’s in a STEM program and having a Black male protagonist who grew up in theater and the arts, I want to see more of those things. It's not just because I wanna stick it to the other side. It’s just because I wanna see it. Just because it should exist, you know?
Micah Dawanyi is a three-time published author, illustrator, and speaker driven by a passion for learning and uplifting others. Through his creative work, he aims to make knowledge accessible, inspiration tangible, and empowerment personal.