I knew that Desiree Smith had a story to tell. However, it wasn’t until she showed up at a writing workshop—bringing with her, by the way, some delicious home-cooked empanadas—that I realized she knew exactly how to tell it.
In the course of a two- or three-hour gathering, she wrote the autobiographical vignette “You Ain’t No White Girl,” a fully-realized and evocative tale of her early experiences with racial discrimination. Later, while we were eating, she told another story, just as vivid, about growing up poor and different. Again, the story was marked by whatNo matter how tough an experience she describes, you feel like you are right there, amid the moments of childhood confusion and adult outrage. What’s more, you like being there. Here we present three of her stories, two autobiographical (“You Ain’t No White Girl,” “Eight Broke Days of Christmas”) and one semi-autobiographical (“Ms. Marguerite’s Kids”). These vignettes represent just a small part of Desiree’s life, but they help show how she came to be a writer and a person who knows when to cry, when to protest, and when to let things go, “scratch your ass and get glad.” We’re glad to have her on staff.
