Sara Johnson Allen
Anyone who knows the South today knows that it is a changing place. The North Carolina I remember from my childhood is not the North Carolina I call home today. Much of this is a good thing; some of it is not. It is always easier for us to look back on the past and imagine it is somewhere better. This is the basis of nostalgia, and the basis of much of folklore work, which hinges on the preservation of the “traditional.”
As a folklorist, I spent a lot of time thinking about what traditions ought to be preserved— of what is worthy of carrying into the future. I’m most interested in looking forward, in thinking about where we go from here. And as a writer, I’m most interested in mythmaking— how the stories we tell impact how we see ourselves.
We are in a moment in the South where so many of our myths have crumbled, many for good reason. But what we are not seeming to grapple with collectively is the fact that people need myths and stories to survive; they need something to believe in. And when the stories one has long told themselves about their relationship to home, to place, and to identity crumble— well, many people will cling to the first new story they can find.
I see our essential work at Good Folk as a collective project to write new myths and stories into place, stories that are reflective of who we are, of what this place looks like, and of where we go— together. It must be a communal project, and it must hinge on the act of paying careful attention to the world around us, of seeing it up close. It requires recognizing all the changing and shifting stories around place, especially this one, and being open to the writing of a new story.
Artists and writers and inherent mythmakers, but these days, they are also documentarians, letting the world around them infuse itself into their work. This dual role of mythmaker and documentarian— perhaps best described as a citizen artist— is one of the key themes of this project, and one of the key themes that underlining this conversation with writer Sara Johnson Allen about place, myth, identity, culture, home, and how we grapple with the tenacious and nebulous nature of it all.
Sara Johnson Allen was raised (mostly) in North Carolina. Down Here We Come Up, winner of the Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press, is her debut novel, released this month, and which I wholeheartedly recommend.
A recipient of the Marianne Russo Award for Emerging Writers by the Key West Literary Seminar, the Stockholm Writers Festival First Pages Prize, an artistic grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and MacDowell fellowships, her work has appeared in PANK Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Reckon Review among others.
When she is not teaching or shuttling her three kids around, she writes about place and how it shapes us.
None of us live in a vacuum; I believe that we are all influenced by place. But I also believe that we should consider more deeply the ways in which a place is also influenced by us— the roles and responsibilities we have in participating in the communities which we call home, and giving back to the communities that shape us. It’s a question I think I will spend the rest of my life pondering, but one thoroughly enjoyed diving into today. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
