MONTICELLO — Chicago writers Sandra Jackson-Opoku and Tina Jenkins Bell spent three weeks at Allerton in the spring/summer of 2023 as part of the Artist-In-Residence Rooting a Deeper Connection (RDC) program. RDC highlights and celebrates the arts and study of nature within Black and Latinx communities.
Jackson-Opoku grew up in the Windy City and still resides there as she composes works of historical fiction, non-fiction and dramatic works, including the award-winning novel, The River Where Blood is Born.
Bell is a Gary, Indiana native who currently lives in Chicago. She is a published author of flash fiction and short stories. She also writes plays and works as a freelance journalist and literary activist. Bell’s flash fiction, “Swimming,” was published in Jet Fuel Review and chosen for inclusion in Best of Small Fiction 2022.
We sat down with the writers to learn what they worked on while they were at Allerton, their impressions of the park, and what they like to read when they aren’t concentrating on their own works.
Question: What did you work on while you were at Allerton?
Jackson-Opoku: I’m working on a few, but my main residency project is a historical novel that is currently known as “Days of DuSable.” It kind of gives a speculative look at the life of a man who was Jean Baptiste DuSable. He was biracial and established the first permanent settlement that would become Chicago. Although he has been historically erased, his legacy as the founder of modern Chicago is being acknowledged more and more.
The initial setting of the book is the 18th century, the Revolutionary War era, because that is the time that DuSable establishes his trading post at the place where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan.
It is actually a time travel novel, so it moves all around through time, from that period up until the present.
Jenkins Bell: I am working on a collection of short stories. The working title is American Ghetto. American Ghetto delves into lives of people living on the edge while trying to balance themselves, improvise and progress despite vital missing links, or claw their ways toward the American dream. These stories primarily reflect African American experiences, which are also American experiences.
American Ghetto stories will traverse time, moving from historical, to modern day, to the future. So, the stories I am focusing on here are going to be speculative. I have a huge interest in our impact on the environment; the environment’s impact on us. I’m a geek about reading articles where Mother Nature is saying ‘no more,’ like disappearing shorelines and about things we thought we would always have, like water.
Question: What are your impressions of Allerton? What do you think of the park?
Jenkins Bell: Allerton is beautiful with its formal gardens, the Mansion, and the various homes and structures surrounded by forests and meadows. I love and am inspired by the park. (Park Operations Manager) Micah (Putman) gave me a tour. Micah talked about things from the science end while I shared things from the speculative end. Somewhere in the middle of that, we were able to merge science with fiction — the believability of a stretched truth. For me, having the land as a muse is very important.
Jackson-Opoku: It’s been very inspiring to me because some of the grounds and formal gardens are quite lovely. But the untouched wilderness helps me evoke what the landscapes DuSable traveled might have looked like in the late 1700s. It’s a landscape that is much less altered than Chicago.
Question: When you write, is it easier to be inside or out in nature?
Jackson-Opoku: It varies according to what I’m working on. For this project, I think I am more inspired by being in nature. I will take some notes, but I don’t usually write in those settings. I absorb the sounds and the sights and the way it feels — the atmosphere — then I try to evoke it.
Jenkins Bell: I agree. I’ve been all over the grounds and keep a journal with me, but as far as sitting down to write I’m going to find a little space either here (in the Greenhouse) or The Residence or the Mansion — to write or create without distractions.
Question: If you are going to read something for enjoyment, is there a certain genre or certain book you gravitate to?
Jenkins Bell: It just depends on the book. The Sweetness of Water was beautifully written and a favorite of mine currently.
I brought some books to re-read, like Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. This summer, I will re-read some of the classics from James Baldwin and go back to that. But I’m always open to reading something new in various genres.
Jackson-Opoku: My reading tastes are very eclectic. I read a lot, like a couple of books a week. Some of it is research, some is to admire and analyze the writing craft. But then I also sometimes like to read the literary equivalent of junk food. So I have another sideline and that is as a mystery writer, so when I just want to veg out and mindless reading, I like to read mysteries and crime fiction.
Question: Is there anything else you would like to add about your experience at Allerton?
Jackson Opoku: I would like to express my gratitude to Allerton Park and Rooting a Deeper Connection for hosting us in such a lovely setting, and for holding space for writers of color and marginalized experiences. I think I speak for the both of us when I say how much I appreciate that initiative.
More info
To see more of these authors works, go to For Love of Writing (FLOW), a website they helped form to lift the writing community by connecting writers with resources and hosting events to publicize the community of African American writers and:
Sandra Jackson-Opoku
https://flowauthors.com/sandra-jackson-opoku
https://twitter.com/jacksonopoku
https://www.instagram.com/sjacksonopoku/
https://www.facebook.com/sandra.jacksonopoku/
Sandra Jackson-Opoku is author of the American Library Association Black Caucus award-winning novel, The River Where Blood is Born, and Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him, an Essence Magazine Bestseller in Hardcover Fiction.
Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic works are widely published and produced. They appear in Both Sides: Stories from the Border, story South, Another Chicago Magazine, New Daughters of Africa, Novus Literary Journal, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, the Chicago Humanities Festival, Lifeline Theatre, and other outlets. She also coedited the multi-arts anthology, Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks.
Jackson-Opoku’s work has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an Esteemed Literary Artist Award from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Lifeline Theatre BIPOC Adaptation Showcase, a Globe Soup Story Award, quarterfinals placement in the Stage 32 Diversity Springboard Screenwriting Contest, a Plentitudes Journal Fiction Prize, the Minotaur Books/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Books Competition, and more.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku has taught creative writing at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Chicago, the University of Miami, and Chicago State University. She presents workshops, readings, and literary presentations in schools, libraries, and arts organizations worldwide.
Tina Jenkins Bell
https://flowauthors.com/campaign-2
https://authory.com/TinaJenkinsBell
https://twitter.com/tinajbell
https://instagram.com/tejay2016
https://facebook.com/tjbell2
Tina Jenkins Bell is a published fiction writer, playwright, freelance journalist, and literary activist. Bell has had numerous short works published in journals and anthologies, including “To the Moon and Back,” Hypertext Journal, which was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council award, “Swimming,” Jet Fuel Review, which was selected as best small fiction by Somber Press and also recently nominated as best short fiction on the web. More recently “The Visit,” Re-Living Mythology received a favorable write up in the Publisher’s Weekly. A playwright, Bell’s two plays, Cut the Baby in Half and A Conversation with Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks, an Indignant Women Collective collaboration, were produced as staged readings. She is a co-founder of FLOW (For Love of Writing) and has collaborated with numerous writing and arts organizations, authors, and bookstores to offer literary programming in Chicago’s underserved communities. She is currently working on a short story collection, American Ghetto and her second novel, Down and Dirty in Kosciusko, Mississippi.
