Well, when I was a very young child, my mother abandoned the family. And so, I had the honor and pleasure of having a wonderful grandmother raise me. And Grandmother took care of a whole household of little kids. And she cooked and she cleaned, but she told wonderful stories. And I didn’t know it then, but I think she was training me to be a writer, that she was teaching me the African-American oral storytelling tradition.
And she was also teaching me values about how to live in the world and one of the most important ones was she would say, “Jewell, child, there’s nobody better than you and you’re no better than anybody else. We’re all a mixed blood stew.” And that sense of belonging to all of humanity, everybody is my kin, has really sustained me throughout my life. So, I was very lucky to have Grandmother.