Authors On The Rise is happy to bring you an interview from author Push Nevahda. Enjoy!
AOTR: Briefly tell us about you and your book.
PN: My name is Jeremy Williams, and I also write under the pen name, Push Nevahda. I’m 41, and a native of Detroit Michigan. I am a graduate of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, and I’m currently finishing up a master’s degree in African American history. My new book is titled Detroit: The Black Bottom Community. It is currently available in all major retail outlets. My parents migrated from the south and eventually settled in Detroit’s Black Bottom community. My father and my mother went on their first date to Black Bottom’s famous Flame Bar to see Billie Holiday perform.
AOTR: When did you first begin writing and why?
PN: I think writers are born. I think that people can learn technical writing such as journalism. But writers are born.
AOTR: Describe how it felt seeing your name in print for the first time.
PN: While I don’t believe that a writer needs to be published in order to be considered a writer, I certainly felt a sense of confidence and achievement seeing my book on the shelf of Barnes & Noble.
AOTR: With so many books in print, what sets your book apart?
PN: Black Bottom had never been studied as an exclusive study. Also, my book is a photo-essay which illuminates the perspective and brings the reader into the visual experience.
AOTR: Have you faced any obstacles as an author? If so please share one lesson you've learned.
PN: The only serious obstacle that any author would face is one of leisure and time to write. Certainly I’ve encounter those matters, but I’ve since learned to sacrifice everything else for sake of time and leisure.
AOTR: How do you handle writers block or does writing flow naturally for you?
PN: Writers block means it’s time to put down the pen and pick up a book. That’s what I do.
AOTR: Finish this sentence. If I were not an author I would be...
PN:…a comedian. Whatever the case, I would be an artist because I was born one.
AOTR: When a reader finishes the last page of your book what do you hope they take away?
PN: I don’t know. I would hope that they would simply have an experience. That’s all any writer can really hope to achieve, or hope to give a reader. I think it’s just as important for the writer to walk away from his/her own book having transformed themselves to another plateau or level in life. After all, writers are writing for themselves as well, if not solely. This is why the best of Emily Dickinson’s work was published posthumously.
AOTR: Where do you hope to be ten years from now in your writing career?
PN: It would be great to be on the bestseller’s list, and/or win a Pulitzer, but none of that is necessary for me to feel any better or worse about the craft of writing. So, I would be content to just still be able to write, teach, and have the same passion for literature that I have now. Writing, for me, is the same as breathing, for you.
AOTR: How can readers contact you or find out more information about your book?
PN: www.pushnevahda.com / 313 929-9022
AOTR: Thanks for your time. Much Success!
Nevahda's ten favorite things:
Drink: water
Cookie: chocolate chip
Quote: “You have asked me what I would do and what I would not do. I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning.” –James Joyce
Site on the internet: Facebook
Shopping Center: Camelback in Scottsdale AZ; Tanger in Howell MI
Movie: Raisin in the Sun
Snack: sunflower seeds
Restaurant: Motown Grille, Detroit MI
Shoe: Hippopotamus boots
Sports: none
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