Leila Motley, author: ‘I will keep writing stories about black girls and women’

Nightcrawling was partially inspired by a true case that came out in 2016 of a young woman who was sexually abused by various members of different Bay Area police departments. I was born and raised in Oakland and this case was all over our local news for months and I remember feeling confused as to why the conversation around it was rarely about the pattern of harm to girls and women of colour or even this one girl and instead focused entirely on the police department.

Years later, when I was thinking about writing my next book, I knew I wanted to write from the perspective of a teenage black girl and focus on vulnerability and the lack of protection of black girls and police sexual violence and the case from 2016 seemed to fit into that narrative. From there, I tried to expand on what is usually just a news headline and make it Kiara’s story and experience, in all of its nuance and complexities. I didn’t speak to survivors of abuse, but I read accounts of police sexual violence and a reader with experience in sex work also read the book to provide feedback. Honestly, most women and girls in my life have experienced sexual violence and I didn’t feel like I needed to seek out other survivors of abuse to understand it enough to tell this story.

Who were your first readers? What were some of the initial comments that you received about your manuscript before it was taken up by a publishing house?

I kept the book to myself for quite a few months before I let anyone read it. A stranger who was my mentor in this program called Pitch Wars was the first to read it and now she’s a friend, but at first, it felt most comfortable to have someone I didn’t know be the first reader. I let my partner read it at the same time that agents were reading it and after the book sold, I let my parents read it. We went on submission with the book in the very beginning of the pandemic and a lot of the editors told me it was the first book they could focus on and became invested in since the lockdown.

What we often experience when we receive just a headline or a statistic is a detachment from the life that has been lived and impacted by this type of systemic violence. Through Nightcrawling, I sought to build out that life and give it the attention and nuance that we’re rarely invited to see survivors through.

The nuance with which your characters are depicted is also present in your depiction of Oakland as a vibrant city. Was that how you had always intended it to be or did that organically happen while writing the book?

I think both elements were present in the writing process. I wrote the first draft of Nightcrawling the summer before I left for college, the first time I was ever going to leave Oakland for more than a few days, so I wrote the book with the intention of writing a love letter to my city, and to the parts of the city that most outsiders never see or choose to ignore. My language was also heavily influenced by the fact that I was writing and performing poetry at the same time that I was writing the novel and it would have been impossible for me to write about Oakland in any other way.

The novel doesn’t focus singularly on the police force but also speaks to a larger policing of bodies, specifically those that belong to women or the trans community. Was that an attempt at highlighting the struggles of those other than cis-het men in the black community?

Absolutely. So many movements, from Say Her Name to #MeToo to Black Lives Matter, were founded and organized by black women with an attempt to centre black women, but many followers of these movements have chosen to recenter the narrative away from black women. We are often the only ones who are willing to talk about the issues that are unique to our experiences as black women. Black women, black queer people, and black trans people experience a different kind of policing than black cishet men do and it was important to me that these narratives don’t go unheard. In Nightcrawling, we see the ways that policing plays out for Kiara and the other sex workers versus the way that policing impacts Marcus, Kiara’s brother, and his circle of male friends. I wanted to portray a range of experiences with policing while keeping Kiara’s experience being policed as a black girl at the heart of the story.

The protagonist Kiara, who is a sex worker, mentions that her father was a part of the Panthers and at one point she speaks of his fists as being akin to her thighs. Was that a way to show how Kiara’s struggles are no less significant than her predecessors who fought against oppression?

The legacy of resistance that black people have built, including the Black Panthers, is an important context to understand Kiara’s story through. By attempting to survive in a world that does not care about her safety or dreams, and by speaking and acknowledging the harm done to her in a culture of silence, Kiara joins this legacy of resistance.

I wrote most of Nightcrawling when I was 17 and I think being in that particular stage in my life, still living in Oakland, helped me to access Kiara and connect to our shared experience as black teenage girls from Oakland. I borrowed experiences and elements from my own life and I also tried to allow Kiara to flourish as her own person on the page.

As a debut novelist, what advice would you give to other young aspiring authors, especially those from marginalised communities?

I would echo the words of Toni Morrison and say that you should write the stories you wish you could read. If I had been able to read a book like Nightcrawling when I was younger, it would have shown me that I am not alone in many of my experiences. I also believe that writing is a discipline, and having some consistency about it is important, whether you write every day or have a certain chair that you always write in. It’s a practice.

Which writers inspired you in your journey as a young novelist?

I always give credit to Jesmyn Ward, who is my all time favourite writer. I’m currently revisiting her work and I’m in awe of how she creates worlds that intricately balance plot and description. Ntzoake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo and Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara are two books that opened my mind to the ways that using language that doesn’t conform to traditional conventions reflects more authentic experiences. Poets like Sonia Sanchez have also informed my prose as well as my poetry.

What would you like to write on next?

I will keep writing stories about black girls and women but I want to expand the scope and depth of my work. I’ve actually written two-and-a-half different novels since writing Nightcrawling, and they have all explored things that are both similar and different to the themes, places, and people that I wrote about in Nightcrawling. One day, I’d love to tackle something historical because I love research and being able to use fiction as a way to look at historical events from a different perspective. I’m also in the middle of writing a poetry collection.

Simar Bhasin is an independent journalist

Nightcrawling was partially inspired by a true case that came out in 2016 of a young woman who was sexually abused by various members of different Bay Area police departments. I was born and raised in Oakland and this case was all over our local news for months and I remember feeling confused as to why the conversation around it was rarely about the pattern of harm to girls and women of colour or even this one girl and instead focused entirely on the police department.

Years later, when I was thinking about writing my next book, I knew I wanted to write from the perspective of a teenage black girl and focus on vulnerability and the lack of protection of black girls and police sexual violence and the case from 2016 seemed to fit into that narrative. From there, I tried to expand on what is usually just a news headline and make it Kiara’s story and experience, in all of its nuance and complexities. I didn’t speak to survivors of abuse, but I read accounts of police sexual violence and a reader with experience in sex work also read the book to provide feedback. Honestly, most women and girls in my life have experienced sexual violence and I didn’t feel like I needed to seek out other survivors of abuse to understand it enough to tell this story.

Who were your first readers? What were some of the initial comments that you received about your manuscript before it was taken up by a publishing house?

I kept the book to myself for quite a few months before I let anyone read it. A stranger who was my mentor in this program called Pitch Wars was the first to read it and now she’s a friend, but at first, it felt most comfortable to have someone I didn’t know be the first reader. I let my partner read it at the same time that agents were reading it and after the book sold, I let my parents read it. We went on submission with the book in the very beginning of the pandemic and a lot of the editors told me it was the first book they could focus on and became invested in since the lockdown.

What we often experience when we receive just a headline or a statistic is a detachment from the life that has been lived and impacted by this type of systemic violence. Through Nightcrawling, I sought to build out that life and give it the attention and nuance that we’re rarely invited to see survivors through.

The nuance with which your characters are depicted is also present in your depiction of Oakland as a vibrant city. Was that how you had always intended it to be or did that organically happen while writing the book?

I think both elements were present in the writing process. I wrote the first draft of Nightcrawling the summer before I left for college, the first time I was ever going to leave Oakland for more than a few days, so I wrote the book with the intention of writing a love letter to my city, and to the parts of the city that most outsiders never see or choose to ignore. My language was also heavily influenced by the fact that I was writing and performing poetry at the same time that I was writing the novel and it would have been impossible for me to write about Oakland in any other way.

The novel doesn’t focus singularly on the police force but also speaks to a larger policing of bodies, specifically those that belong to women or the trans community. Was that an attempt at highlighting the struggles of those other than cis-het men in the black community?

Absolutely. So many movements, from Say Her Name to #MeToo to Black Lives Matter, were founded and organized by black women with an attempt to centre black women, but many followers of these movements have chosen to recenter the narrative away from black women. We are often the only ones who are willing to talk about the issues that are unique to our experiences as black women. Black women, black queer people, and black trans people experience a different kind of policing than black cishet men do and it was important to me that these narratives don’t go unheard. In Nightcrawling, we see the ways that policing plays out for Kiara and the other sex workers versus the way that policing impacts Marcus, Kiara’s brother, and his circle of male friends. I wanted to portray a range of experiences with policing while keeping Kiara’s experience being policed as a black girl at the heart of the story.

The protagonist Kiara, who is a sex worker, mentions that her father was a part of the Panthers and at one point she speaks of his fists as being akin to her thighs. Was that a way to show how Kiara’s struggles are no less significant than her predecessors who fought against oppression?

The legacy of resistance that black people have built, including the Black Panthers, is an important context to understand Kiara’s story through. By attempting to survive in a world that does not care about her safety or dreams, and by speaking and acknowledging the harm done to her in a culture of silence, Kiara joins this legacy of resistance.

I wrote most of Nightcrawling when I was 17 and I think being in that particular stage in my life, still living in Oakland, helped me to access Kiara and connect to our shared experience as black teenage girls from Oakland. I borrowed experiences and elements from my own life and I also tried to allow Kiara to flourish as her own person on the page.

As a debut novelist, what advice would you give to other young aspiring authors, especially those from marginalised communities?

I would echo the words of Toni Morrison and say that you should write the stories you wish you could read. If I had been able to read a book like Nightcrawling when I was younger, it would have shown me that I am not alone in many of my experiences. I also believe that writing is a discipline, and having some consistency about it is important, whether you write every day or have a certain chair that you always write in. It’s a practice.

Which writers inspired you in your journey as a young novelist?

I always give credit to Jesmyn Ward, who is my all time favourite writer. I’m currently revisiting her work and I’m in awe of how she creates worlds that intricately balance plot and description. Ntzoake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo and Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara are two books that opened my mind to the ways that using language that doesn’t conform to traditional conventions reflects more authentic experiences. Poets like Sonia Sanchez have also informed my prose as well as my poetry.

What would you like to write on next?

I will keep writing stories about black girls and women but I want to expand the scope and depth of my work. I’ve actually written two-and-a-half different novels since writing Nightcrawling, and they have all explored things that are both similar and different to the themes, places, and people that I wrote about in Nightcrawling. One day, I’d love to tackle something historical because I love research and being able to use fiction as a way to look at historical events from a different perspective. I’m also in the middle of writing a poetry collection.

Simar Bhasin is an independent journalist