avatarAimée Brown Gramblin

Summarize

CREATIVE CORNER AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES

Carlos Moreno Writes Engaging Historical Nonfiction In His Book Victory of Greenwood

“I grew up with amazing storytellers on both my mother and father’s side of the family. So sitting at the feet of elders and listening to their stories was something I’ve done since I was a small child.”

Carlos Moreno. Image used with permission.

I knew how to do the journalism — investigating documents and primary sources and finding the facts. The other piece of the puzzle for me was bringing that research to life and making it interesting for the reader, and for that, I went back to reading and listening in that great tradition of oral history and tried to marry both of those elements in my writing.

— Carlos Moreno, Author of The Victory of Greenwood

I started a professional creative interview series about a year ago. These interviews center around folks who are at intermediate to advanced levels in their professional — usually writing — careers.

Why do you write creative nonfiction?

I’ve made my living as a graphic designer, but have always had one foot in the journalism world. I learned print design while working for the Oklahoma Eagle, one of Tulsa’s Black-owned newspapers, and since then have designed for several newspapers, magazines, and books. When I started writing, I naturally gravitated toward hard journalism and editorial pieces. I’d tried that approach when I set out to write my book, The Victory of Greenwood, but I quickly found that it just wasn’t working. The writing was too dry, and I felt that there were already many history books out there about Greenwood and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. I had to find a different voice for this book. I was fortunate to find other examples of talking about historical events in a more creative way.

When and how did you break into creative nonfiction?

I worked with my friend Ann Patton to do the layout work for her book, Unmasked! in 2015. The book is about the rise and fall of the KKK in Indiana in the 1920s. It’s a very tough subject to deal with, but an important story to tell. Mrs. Patton spent years making sure that everything she put into her book was historically accurate. As a journalist herself, this was the most important thing to her. The way she told the story, however, was in the style of a novel. I felt that the way she engaged readers with her materials was very compelling. Mrs. Patton was a great help to me when I started trying to figure out how to tell the stories I wanted to write about — biographies of the families who lived in Greenwood, before and after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. I didn’t want the book to focus on the historical event. Instead I wanted readers to get to know these families and connect with them on a personal level.

Where have you learned the most about creative nonfiction? For example, from reading other writers, advanced education, workshops, or elsewhere? For aspiring writers, are there resources you’d recommend?

I was (and still am!) very new to the format. I struggled with how to tell real stories in a creative way that would make them alive, the way that they were told to me by the elders of Greenwood when I worked for the Oklahoma Eagle. I read Shomari Wills’ book Black Fortunes and his book also reads almost like a novel. I was greatly inspired by the way he wove together the biographies that were the subjects of his book with the greater context of place, politics, and economics of the times they were living in. It made you feel as though you were going through what they were going through and, for me, was a new eye-opening way to tell history. I aspired to do that in my own writing.

Advice that I would give to any writer is: be ready to edit and sacrifice. It really is worth it.

The thing I did the most to hone my own writing was to just keep reading more and more biographies and memoirs, especially of Black Oklahomans. Mabel Little, Eddie Faye Gates, Dr. Charles Bate, B.C. Franklin and his son John Hope Franklin were all excellent writers and I found myself going back to them whenever I got stuck or didn’t feel like I was really going in the right direction.

Who are your three favorite creative nonfiction writers?

I haven’t read a lot of creative nonfiction, but I can list a few of the excellent books that I read during my research for The Victory of Greenwood:

Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie which was dictated by the scholar and music critic Albert Murray. The book is brilliantly written and tells many stories not just about Count Basie’s life, but his musical inspirations and his creative process. As a creative person myself, this was a very fascinating read.

I’ve mentioned Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills. I can’t recommend it enough.

There’s a cookbook by Cleora Butler called Cleora’s Kitchens and it’s about the most creative way to write a memoir that I’ve ever come across. The book isn’t separated by breakfasts, lunches, and desserts, but rather Ms. Cleora breaks up her book by decade, and talks about her life, her cooking, the way that food and catering changed over the decades, and then she weaves in recipes for you to taste what she’s writing about. It’s really amazing.

What are your tips on writing outstanding creative nonfiction?

The things that helped me the most were, number one, just to keep reading and reading. The more I read and researched, the more I wanted to share all the great stories I was absorbing. I also relied a great deal on conversations that I would have with elders in Greenwood, back when I worked in the neighborhood and again when I was in the process of researching and writing my book. I grew up with amazing storytellers on both my mother and father’s side of the family. So sitting at the feet of elders and listening to their stories was something I’ve done since I was a small child.

I knew how to do the journalism — investigating documents and primary sources and finding the facts. The other piece of the puzzle for me was bringing that research to life and making it interesting for the reader, and for that, I went back to reading and listening in that great tradition of oral history and tried to marry both of those elements in my writing.

What are the pitfalls to avoid in creative nonfiction?

I would say never insert so much of your own speculation or opinion that you’re not telling the truth, anymore. There are 25 stories in my book, about different families and institutions in Greenwood. I could have easily written another ten or twenty more, but I just didn’t have enough facts at the time that I felt comfortable putting together a full story or a full chapter. At that point, I would be making things up and writing historical fiction and not a work of nonfiction.

There was one chapter I had to cut out completely, and it broke my heart because I’d really poured a lot of myself into it, but I wasn’t confident that I had all the facts 100% correct about this person and it would be worse for me to publish something that was untrue than to include it just because I felt the writing was good. Advice that I would give to any writer is: be ready to edit and sacrifice. It really is worth it.

What are your future projects?

I’m continuing to write, but I’m back to my journalism roots, writing for a radio program called Focus: Black Oklahoma. I have a couple ideas for future books, mainly topics (such as music history, and the story of early aviators like Bessie Coleman, James Banning, and Thomas Cox Allen) that I wish I could have delved more deeply into writing about Oklahoma history. But I don’t see myself taking on another book for at least a few more years. This project took a lot out of me!

About Carlos Moreno

Carlos Moreno is a graphic designer at CAP Tulsa, Oklahoma’s largest anti-poverty nonprofit organization and a national leader in early childhood education. He also volunteers with Code for Tulsa, working to make local government work for the people, by the people, in the 21st century.

He was selected by national urban-affairs magazine NextCity as part of its 2014 Vanguard Class. In 2015, he was certified by IDEO and +Acumen, in the practice of Human-Centered Design. Carlos earned a Bachelor of Arts in Administrative Leadership in 2017 and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree with a focus on civic technology in 2020 from the University of Oklahoma.

Carlos is the author of The Victory of Greenwood and A Kids Book about the Tulsa Race Massacre. He lives in Tulsa, OK with the love of his life, their brilliant teenager, and a very fat, grumpy cat. You can find him on Twitter or Medium.

Books
Nonfiction
Writing
Interview
History
Recommended from ReadMedium