Prompt to Page Episode 56: Eugenia Johnson-Smith === Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Prompt to Page podcast, a partnership between the Jessamine County Public Library and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. I'm your host, librarian and poet, Carrie Green. Each episode we interview a published writer who shares their favorite writing prompt. Our guest today is Eugenia Johnson-Smith. Eugenia is the author of Positive Power: 31 Devotions to Help Unleash Your Positive Power. She is a coach, international, inspirational, motivational speaker and freelance writer. Eugenia is the owner and CEO of Positive Power LLC Training and Development. Her work has been published in the Kentucky Monthly Magazine, Presbyterians Today Magazine, and she is a columnist for the Lextropolis Magazine. In addition, she has stories in numerous [00:01:00] anthologies, and she currently works at the Carnegie Center as the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative Associate. She teaches several classes at the Carnegie Center, including Free Writing Practice. Welcome, Eugenia, and thanks so much for joining us. Eugenia: Thank you so much for having me. Carrie: So, as you mentioned in your bio, you are now the program associate for the Carnegie Center's Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative. We have had folks from the K, KBW? Is that the Eugenia: K, K-B-W-C. Yes. Carrie: Yeah. I think for me sometimes it's easier to say the whole, the whole name than the acronym. [Laughter] Eugenia: Exactly. Carrie: But anyway, for people who maybe didn't catch those episodes, do you want to tell us a little bit about the organization? Eugenia: Yeah. So the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative. We've been existing since like around 2020. Basically it was started by Neil Chethik, who was the [00:02:00] program director here at Carnegie, and it was going on during the time of the social unrest around the shootings of the unarmed Black men in the streets. And so Carnegie Center, you know, did a deep dive into some of their, you know, practices and different things like that, and decided that maybe they could do more to reach out to the Black writers in the state. So they established this organization to help remove the barriers that may be preventing them from coming into the Carnegie Center, be it financial, be it just the history of the Carnegie Center, you know, in the past. Carrie: Mm-hmm. Eugenia: They may have not had, you know, positive experiences. So they wanted to remove those and show that it's a welcoming place. So it's set up to amplify the voices of the Kentucky Black writers to give them an opportunity to take classes here free of charge or at a reduced rate, and offer scholarships so that they can enjoy, you know, all that [00:03:00] the Carnegie Center has to offer. And there's so many things that can help up-and-coming writers. So I'm excited to be able to take on this position. I've only been here for probably a little, maybe a month or two, possibly. Carrie: Mm-hmm. Eugenia: But I'm just super, super excited about it and ready to, you know, share everything that's going on here. Carrie: You were saying before we started recording that you kind of, before you got this position, you were kind of a self-appointed ambassador for the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative? Eugenia: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just an amazing opportunity and I've been around the Carnegie Center. I was actually here when the Carnegie Center was dedicated when Barbara Bush came to, you know, cut the ribbon Carrie: Oh, wow! Eugenia: and everything. I was standing out on the lawn. Never [00:04:00] at that point did I expect that I might be in here, you know, taking classes, writing a book, or any of those things. But I knew that it was here and I knew how important the Carnegie is to the literary community of Lexington, of the state, you know, so when I came here to start my journey, my writing journey was way before the KBWC existed, and I was afforded opportunity to take some classes via scholarship as well. So once the KBWC was formed, I was like super excited. I mean, what an opportunity to have. And when we have opportunities, people need to know that they exist in order to, you know, benefit from it. So I was on a mission, just if you told me you liked to write, if you told me you were a poet, I'm like, come to the Carnegie Center, you [00:05:00] know, take a class, you know. Do you know this person? And then, when the KBC, I was like, and then any Black person for sure that I saw, I was like, you've got to join. You know, so I'm sending the names to Claudia. I'm saying, Claudia, here's a new person. So I think right now we are probably up to over 200 members in the collaborative. Carrie: Wow. That's great. Eugenia: And we've been able to allow them, you know, to help them to get their voices out and give them opportunities to share their work, so. Carrie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You have some upcoming events. Do you wanna share a little bit about those? Eugenia: Yeah, sure. So we have coming up in May, on the 20th of May, which is a Wednesday, a third Wednesday of the month is our Burn the Mic, and our Burn the Mic is from 6:00 to 7:00 PM at the Carnegie Center, and it's free and open to the public. We will have a featured poet. And it's [00:06:00] Empress Rocks. So how this works is that if you are a writer, they have an open mic portion that you are free to sign up for. So I encourage you if you are, and it doesn't matter if you're poetry or prose or whatever, you have an opportunity to sign up and read your work. And it's a very welcoming environment, so don't be afraid to do it. Bring your friends. So that's on the 20th. And then on the 26th of May, we will be kicking off our Perfect Black Poetry for the People. And this is a public art project, and it's sponsored with the KBWC and some other art partners throughout Kentucky. But we will be kicking off. We'll have Crystal Wilkerson. It's based on her book Perfect Black. So she will be here along with several of our poets, they will be reading, there will be a reception, and basically what's going to happen [00:07:00] is after that evening, we will have 15 poets that will be presented. Their work will be presented throughout the city of Lexington. They will be up and coming poets as well as established poets such as I said, Crystal Wilkerson, Frank Walker, Dorian Hairston, so several different ones. So they'll have their works on giant posters throughout town and we will have QR codes that will show where they are so that you can go around and see them. And there will be also like a couple banners on the Met. And that's gonna last for about 18 months, so you'll be able to see it throughout town. Carrie: Oh, wow. Yeah. That sounds very cool. I'm excited to see those. Eugenia: Yeah, we're excited too. Carrie: You also mentioned in your bio that you lead the free writing practice. Eugenia: Yeah. Carrie: Which I know you're starting a new session soon. Eugenia: Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, basically I believe there are two sessions, [00:08:00] two different classes of free writing. I teach my classes on Zoom, so if you happen to live outside of Lexington or outside the state, you are more than welcome. There also is a class I believe that is taught here locally at the Carnegie Center in the evenings. My class is from 12:00 to 1:30 Eastern Standard Time. We have members from like Ireland that come, Washington DC. Carrie: Oh, wow. Eugenia: So there's people, you know, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Harrodsburg, I mean, there's people all over that attend my class. And basically we do prompts, we have prompts that I send out, and then we also do timed writing during the class and we share our work. Carrie: How do the prompts help the participants in your class? Eugenia: So my class is based on Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones, so we're on [00:09:00] free writing, which means we do just straight writing. We don't do any kind of critique, self-critique. We don't worry if the words have punctuation in them or if they make sense. We're just flow writing, so I, that gets people. A lot of people sometimes get stuck in what they're writing, so they need a way to just like break through the barrier. So when there's no pressure, you know, no judgment, no pressure, you just write whatever, it helps you to flow. And it helps to get, you know, the little brain moving and everything, so. So, and a lot of times people can take some of what they've written and then, you know, write books or whatever based on that, so. Carrie: Right. Yeah. So, what's your experience with using [00:10:00] prompts? Do you use those yourself in your writing? Have you used them in the past? Eugenia: Yeah. Yeah. So I like visual prompts and I also like audio prompts. So when I'm writing, I like to listen to like the ocean or, you know, things like that to help me to get my mind clear and to help me to get focused and everything. But I just, you know, I'll look at different pictures. I like all kinds of things, so I use different kinds of prompts depending on what's going on. Carrie: And so when you say you're using pictures, are you then writing about those images or are they just to kind of get you in the frame of mind to do it? Eugenia: Basically just as for like a catalyst, you know, kind of just like [00:11:00] looking at them and then whatever kind of comes to mind as I'm saying, we're not really going in with an idea. It's just kinda like, where does inspiration come from when you look at this picture? And then, and the neat thing about it is from like my class perspective is everyone has the same prompt. Everyone sees the same prompt or hears the same prompt. We oftentimes use poems, poetry that we'll read, take a line from something like that, a line, a word, an idea, and then write, and then it's amazing to see out of like 10 people how everybody has a different take on what they saw or heard. Carrie: Right. Yeah. So what are your favorite writing prompts or writing prompt? Do you have one that really [00:12:00] seems to work for a lot of people? Eugenia: Usually we do, like I said, the poems and we do different ones. And I usually try to change it up because our sessions are usually like a 12 week session, so sometimes I use themes depending on what time of the year it is or when it is. So I'm just pretty open. I kinda, I don't really have a favorite one, but the last couple of sessions I started including visual prompts because some people, you know, some people are visual, some people are better with seeing, so I would a poem and then a visual. And so they seem to like the visuals as well. Carrie: Okay. So what prompt would you like to talk about today? Eugenia: Well, I think I would like to talk about a prompt that is like a visual [00:13:00] prompt. [Laughter] Carrie: Okay. Eugenia: So I would have like a photograph of like a cup. So then you would see the cup, you know, sitting on the table, and then you would just go from there. You would just write from there. So it would just be like the visual prompt. What do you see? What, you know, then you would just write from that. Carrie: That actually sounds a lot like Kevin Nance was on the podcast a couple of episodes ago and he gave a very similar example. Kevin had a coffee mug on his desk and it had an elephant, a picture of an elephant on it, and for him it sparked a memory of going to the county fair with his brother. And so, you know, that was his example of how the object would kind of spur a memory for him. Eugenia: Right. Now [00:14:00] that you mentioned that about him and his elephant, I used an elephant prompt as well in one of my classes actually. It was a picture of an elephant. It was sitting in the room and it was looking out a window. So it was just a blank room with the elephant looking out the window. So that was the prompt. So it just, that was kind of interesting, the stories that came from that, you know? Thinking about the poor little elephant looking out, thinking he's all by himself, you know? So there's all kinds of different, all kinds of different crazy things that could come from prompts, and prompts are really fun. I mean, you could look at one prompt, the same prompt a bunch of different ways, and use it over and over again. Carrie: Yeah. Well, do you have any final writing tips that you'd like to give our listeners? Eugenia: I think that you've just got to keep writing. You [00:15:00] know, don't be hard on yourself, don't be too critical, because you've got to get the words on the page. Once you get the words on the page, then you can make them pretty, you know? Then you can make them grammatically correct. You know? So if you're spending all your time trying to figure out if this is the right way the sentence should lay out you'll never get to the end of what you're writing. So just write it, you know, just write it. And then worry about how it looks and how it sounds later. Carrie: Absolutely. That's great advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Eugenia. We really appreciate it. Eugenia: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it, you guys. Carrie: Thank you for listening to Prompt to Page. To learn more about the Jessamine County Public Library, visit jesspublib.org. [00:16:00] Find the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning at carnegiecenterlex.org. Our music is by Archipelago, an all instrumental musical collaboration between three Lexington based university professors. Find out more about Archipelago: Songs from Quarantine Volumes One and Two at the links on our podcast website.