“As a 6ft 2 1/2inches dark black lesbian with a shaved head, my identity provokes many of a reaction just by being in a room.”
Sweet Dreams is a book, that went down like good food. Nourishing, because some of the things we go through as non-gender conforming queer WOC, especially those of us that are “out” there, is rarely documented or validated. Those stories are simply not told. They remain hidden, stolen and/or erased.
With Pam Sneed’s recently published book, (part of a forthcoming collection, For Anna Mae, For Me, Tina Turner, and All Black Women Survivors), I was immediately pulled in by her honesty. It was the rare bit of water in the desert of literature expressing experiences that are not hetero, white, and /or phallocentric. Brilliantly and simultaneously broaching the reality of our own internalisation of self-hatred and how that can play out between us. This poetic memoire does not conform to the unspoken rules which support the polarisation of genre or voice.
During our frank conversation Pam Sneed speaks about her book, but more pointedly the themes woven into and provoked via her unconventional narrative laying bare an unconventional life.
Featured image by Brian Fabry Dorsam
CHECK THE AUDIO OF THE INTERVIEW WITH JAMIKA AJALON