Dee: Should a would be author consider her genre first before she write or just write and let that stuff come after its done?
Olympia: I NEVER considers what genre I'm in. JUST WRITE. Nothing else in the world should matter. Let the publisher deal with that. You create the baby you want to feed.
Dee: Do you think about where your book will fit on a bookstore shelf before you write?
Olympia: No. Never. Not before I write, after I write it sometimes bother me that powerful works by African American writers cant just go in the FICTION section with all others. Why must it always go in the AFRICAN AMERICAN section, as if we are plagued to remember who we are? We already know who we are. We are reminded of this constantly. Why cant we have subjects, topics beyond the African American experience to discuss? I don't think cancer is African American or Asian or Hispanic. I don't think AIDS is African American or Asian or Hispanic or Greek or Jewish. Then why can't our words be without color and yet live with all other fiction?
Dee: When you met with your agent was that a concern?
Olympia: No. When I am writing, I have but one concern, that I stick with the character, regardless of how mean and nasty and pitiful he or she is. Period.
Dee: I review a great deal of books. This past year I reviewed at least twenty books that were not only badly written, but a waste of decent thought. Now I know this reality isn't a new phenomenon, but do you believe that some writers do not have the gift?
Olympia: I believe that some writers writer formulaically, meaning they write what they think others want to hear about without giving homage to the true nature of the word. This is the difference between a gifted and a talented writer. A talented writer will sell his or her soul for the public. A gifted writer will write from the gut and spit it out into the world for the world to digest. A gifted writer can't write a bad line, a bad book. He or she doesn't know how. This is the beauty of it, thus the difference between mind-engaging works and those that are lost.
Dee: How has prayer helped you promote your books? Olympia: Prayer is not a promotion but a gathering of angels, those who have passed in your life, and those who are in your life without your knowing it. Prayer is a vehicle, promotion is the human word, Prayer is the gut of every life, and I can't imagine not praying to God or angels. It would be like bleeding yourself into
