How Do You Escape? | A Conversation with Ravynn K. Stringfield
Interview conducted by Christina Thomas
Photo Provided by Ravynn K. Stringfield
Who is Ravynn K. Stringfield?
I took this question two ways. First, how I understand myself—I am Ravynn, first and last of my name. I am a carrier of legacies. I am Thelia’s granddaughter, a storyteller, someone who chases starlight, and in the more practical sense I am a PhD Candidate in American Studies. I study Black women and girls in new media narratives that are digital, fantastic, and futuristic in nature. I’m also a novelist, a freelance writer, and an artist.
How do you escape through creative writing?
In terms of creative writing being an escape, it allows me space to break from reality and sink into the depths of my mind. Instead of fighting my mind to focus on one thing, it allows me to let my mind be free and experience whatever it lets me see. Writing fiction and creative writing is, in some ways, a primal call and response. My body needs a story, but I have to listen to myself to know what story my body wants me to tell, right? So I’m responding to whatever I need to feel nourished. It is such an escape from capitalism, neoliberalism, and the structure of our lives. The undercurrents and the underpinnings of the way that we move through the world makes us believe that productivity and busyness, of doing something every minute of the day, is what we should aspire toward. That’s not always soul-fulfilling work. Creative writing is my escape, I feel like I’m doing my soul’s work. It is the moment where I can put aside all of that capitalist junk, for just a moment, and write the story that fulfills me and nourishes me.
How do you escape through art?
My art intentionally centering Black girls came about when I started to intentionally write about Black girls. When I started grad school, I started creatively writing about Black girls then, the art followed. Then, the research followed. The art started intentionally in 2016. I was definitely on and off about it for a while, but I wanted to see myself in writings, in stories, and in art. I did see Black girls, but I didn’t see them the way I saw Black girls. Instead, I saw them in the way that white people saw Black girls. Again this goes back to feeding my inner child and knowing what she wanted and needed and providing that for her. The latest burst of art, because I was doing this on and off, started around the beginning of the pandemic and got really intense in the middle of May and beginning of June when the rising national protest against police brutality, again, were coming full force. My inner child was very scared and sad, needing some way to process what was going on. So I was making art for my inner child and acknowledging the fact that I was feeling all of these scary things. When I shared my art, and people asked me why I share, and I’m just like, well I want to share and I like to show people what I’m working on. I also realized people were feeling similarly and needed to be affirmed in that way. They needed to see that joy. They needed to see a Black girl who was sad and comforting her friend. That’s when this particular round of art started.
Artist: Ravynn K. Stringfield
Artist: Ravynn K. Stringfield
How do you escape through Black Girl Does Grad School? How is this a space of survival, resistance, and even refusal for you?
I have thought about Black Girl Does Grad School as a space of escape, resistance, refusal, and all of those things. The inception of this site was because of this understanding—I quickly realized that I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, I didn’t know what the expectations were, I didn’t know how to find the information I needed, and I was scared to ask people. I realized I could document what I was doing, whether or not it was right (whatever right means in this sense) and hopefully it would help somebody else. Black Girl Does Grad School is more of me reflecting on my experience, without expectations or guides, and how I am doing grad school. There are so many layers to that and this feeds into your prompt about refusal. When I realized I didn’t know what I was doing with grad school and I also quickly realized that if I didn’t protect myself, my spirit, and my soul, the academy was going to take it from me. I didn’t want that to happen, I didn’t want to break, and I didn’t want to become someone I didn’t recognize. I didn’t want to yield to the academy. I wanted to leave this program and be able to say that my life was mine. Something that comes to my mind when I think of this is that line from June Jordan’s poem “A Poem About My Rights”, “Wrong is not my name/my name is my own my own my own.” I was, still am, fiercely protective of myself, my creativity, of the way I learn and engage with the world and I refuse to let the academy tell me that I have to do something in a specific sort of way. That is not who I am, that is never who I’ve been. I am not accountable to this system that would rather not have me there, I am accountable to myself, to my family, to Black girls. I am accountable to the community I built. I don’t owe the academy anything. The refusal is strong in Black Girl Does Grad School. I will not let you change who I am.
Ravynn K. Stringfield is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at William & Mary. Her dissertation project focuses on Black women and girls as creators and protagonists of new media narratives that are futuristic, fantastic and/or digital in nature. Her writing practice also includes blogging, crafting essays and drafting novels and short stories. You can find her written work across the Internet, though most notably on her weekly blog, Black Girl Does Grad School, and her freelance writing has appeared in ZORA, Shondaland, Greatist and Catapult. Her fiction is represented by Leah Pierre of Ladderbird Agency. Ravynn is also an amateur artist and enjoys making illustrations of Black girls being happy and their magical selves. If you are interested in following her art practice, you can visit her art instagram page. Some of her designs are available on Teespring as teeshirts, mugs, totes and more; and some designs are available as 5.5 x 4.25 in. blank notecards in her Etsy shop. When she’s not writing or making art, she can be found posted up in local coffee shops, trying out new beginner asanas in a yoga studio or telling her dog, Genghis, all about her Lois Lane obsession.