LiveWorld Transcripts

	NYPL presents
	Sharon Flake Author Sharon Flake
	July 18, 2002

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Vista: Does feedback from young people influence the way you write? If so, how?

Sharon Flake: Not really. Because most of the feedback is just what people think about my work. It's not suggestions on what I should write about. Grown-ups try to tell me more than kids what I should do, and I ignore them. I just think that everybody should know their own stories. What inspired me in terms of young people are young people who tell me that they hated to read or were bad readers, and they liked my work and it made them want to read more, or read somebody else's work. That motivates me to keep writing, besides writing. Young people (including my daughter) bring me the most joy, and make me really happy to be a writer.

Disco Babe: How did you think of the name Maleeka Madison?

Sharon Flake: I used to know a girl in church named Maleeka, and I always liked that name. She was in a writing workshop I taught. When you're writing you almost use names as bookmarks or place-holders, because when you run into a character you have to call them sometimes. I may think I'll change them later, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes the name just becomes the character. And I came up with the name Madison because the two names rolled off the tongue, and having the same letters did that.

Beccy: Sharon, was it difficult to get the book published?

Sharon Flake: I really believe that the Lord just made things happen for me. The first publisher I went to with the book published the book. I had other rejections before then, but that's what happened for me. It was really easy. I want people also to understand that I was writing for 15 years before I got published, and I had been rejected with other pieces, and some of that stuff no one would publish even today. I would say it was divine intervention. It's all just click-click-click. Hyperion was starting a new line featuring African-American works, and it just lined up boom-boom-boom, and I was one of the first writers to come out under that line.

Goofy: Does "The Skin I'm In" reflect your own experiences as a teenager?

Sharon Flake: Yes, and no. Yes in the sense that when I was in middle school I felt very small and insecure and, like Maleeka, I didn't think I was pretty or smart enough. I would stay in my house a lot, and read books and watch TV rather than going out. Even though I got fairly good grades, that's just the age when you get messages from the people around you - especially others the same age - that you don't have it going on; that there's some problem with you. So in that respect me and Maleeka are alike. That has stayed with me for a lot of my life. I still have insecurities. There's a chapter in the book where Maleeka and Charlese destroyed a classroom. That also happened in a class when I was in school, although they didn't do as much as damage as Maleeka and Charlese did, but I still got called down to the office. But that's as close as it came to what Maleeka went through. In my life I think I sometimes feel too much, and so I can relate to what my characters are going through.

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