ABSTRACT
“I never wanted to be a writer of anything, except love letters to boyfriends or notes to friends. I loved to run my mouth. I spent more time writing, ‘Marguerite Dawson will pay attention in class,’ over and over again than learning. I daydreamed. I envisioned Black knights on black horses sweeping me up in their arms and taking me to paradise. I heard myself singing like the Divine Sarah Vaughn in a tight, pink, long satin dress in a crowded jazz club. Light-skinned, skinny, near-sighted, strange Black child that I was—I dreamed. Out of that tumultuous world came the stuff of stories.”
