Shakarean Hutchinson, an MFA candidate at Cornell University, is from outside Charleston, S.C. She earned a B.A. in English from the College of Charleston in 2016. Shakarean takes influence from several writers, such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Roxane Gay, and Junot Díaz. Her winning story, How to Kill Pigs, details the life and complexities of a young Southern girl trying to find her place among the men in her family. This is Shakarean’s first award.
Q&A
Why do you write?
I write because there are stories running constantly through my head. I read an article and a line strikes me in just the right way. I see something out the window while on the bus that feels like it can go towards a scene. I’m listening to music and think about an event in the past that I want to write through. These thoughts are constantly there and the best way for me to get them out is to write about them.
I also like the idea of creating something. Of creating a little world where I’m the architect of everything that gets to be known. I like the idea of holding something back from the person who will eventually see this little world.
What is your writing process?
When creating something new I tend to just write what’s in my head. I don’t think about plots or characterization or figurative language or anything of the sort. I just let my fingers run across the keyboard and try to get everything in my head onto the page. It’s after the initial first (horrible) draft that I go back through the work–see what’s working, what’s not, what can be cut, what can be salvaged, etc. I imagine it’s not an efficient way of writing, but it works. For now.
Major influences when writing?
I hope it doesn’t sound too cheesy to say Zora Neale Hurston. I read her for the first time as a sophomore in high school and it showed me that stories can be about the south, stories can be about black people, stories can be about black women specifically, stories can have heavy dialect, the kind that I heard in my mama’s house and grandmother’s house and at church. Hurston showed me, a 15-year-old at that time, that the black south was part of the American literature landscape. And that I can be a part of the American literature landscape.
Who is your go-to author? Meaning who do you like to read in your free time?
Again, is it cheesy to say Hurston? I’m teaching her short stories to my undergraduates this semester and it’s almost like rediscovering her work. Outside of her, pretty much anyone! Right now, I’m mostly reading marginalized writers – POC, LGBTQ+, women, disabled, etc. I just finished Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and it’s made me want to go back and reread Salvage the Bones. I also really like going back to Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler. Speech Sounds and The Book of Martha are particular favorites.
Do you have a favorite work of literature that inspired you in the past and continues to inspire you?
Their Eyes Were Watching God. (I swear, I’m not just saying that. Hurston has had the greatest impact on me.) Reading The Color Purple was pretty altering for me as well. It’s another story about a black female southerner, but with threads of queerness. Again, showing me that these things exist. Woman Hollering Creek, by Sandra Cisneros, was pretty influential as well. It kick-started my love of short story collections.
What is some of the best advice you have received in regards to your writing?
Direct quote from a former professor: “Write it, and then worry about the rest later.”
Interview conducted by Jazmyn Jackson.
How to Kill Pigs
By Shakarean Hutchinson
– an excerpt
The rifle was too big for him.
Daisy stood behind her younger brother Julius watching him try to control the gun. It shook in his hand as he tried to line the weapon up the way it was supposed to. The butt of the rifle floated well past his head; his right hand barely covered the forestock. His pointer finger was just long enough to graze the trigger. Everything trembled in unison.
“What you’re going to do,” their grandfather Joe began, a hand on the back of Julius’ head holding it steady, positioning the rifle until it was in the correct location, “is hold that gun until you get the right shot. Just wait.”
Daisy wiped a line of sweat from her brow, collecting the droplets on the back of her hand before blowing them away with a cool breath. The morning humidity was already heavy and it hadn’t cross ten o’clock yet. Daisy figured it would be the only cool air she’d feel on her skin all day and she enjoyed the slight reprieve.
“How do I know I got the right one?” Julius’ voice still carried the high pitch of youth. It reminded Daisy too much of their older brother Cotton, of when they spent their days riding bicycles around the neighborhood and fighting each other with rocks and sticks until someone’s skin broke open. That was years ago, before the house was filled with yelling. Once Daisy spied on one of the fights. She was supposed to be asleep, but she crept into the hallway, just far enough where she could hear the noise clearly and make out the scuffle between Joe and Cotton. It continued until Cotton’s back hit the wall with a loud thud. They were panting, their eyes glaring at one another, and Daisy held her breath, feeling her chest burn with expired air until Cotton pushed away from the wall and walked out of the living room and then the house. Daisy crept just a few inches forward and saw her mother sitting in the loveseat, a cigarette dangling from her fingertips. She didn’t say a word the entire time.
“You’ll know it,” said Joe. He receded from Julius and Daisy watched her brother’s deep breath, the steady shake of the rifle dwindling down to a mere tremor. With Cotton gone the only person their grandfather wanted to teach how to shoot was Julius. Not her.
A group of gnats settled around Daisy’s head. She waved them off, feeling their miniscule bodies against her fingers, but they came back. Three of the insects settled onto her neck and Daisy slapped them with the palm of her hand, wincing slightly at the self-inflicted pain.
The booming gunshot startled Daisy, her body jumping back and a ringing settled in her ears. When she looked back at Julius he was still stumbling from the recoil.
“Goddammit Daisy,” Joe spat onto the grass, his voice barely louder than the crickets’ mating calls.
“What, I didn’t do nothing.” She scratched where the gnats were, a smashed body of one catching underneath her finger nail.
“You scared him. He shot before he was ready.”
“He was gonna shoot anyway, weren’t you Julius?”
Julius ignored them as he stood before a dead pig just inside the battered makeshift fence.
The skin around the singed hole where the bullet entered the pig’s head was shredded into three sections, the red insides open to the air. A thick trickle of blood rolled through the sweat and hair of the pig until it finally landed on the ground. When Daisy got near the collecting blood she prodded it and the dirt together into a paste with her scratched Mary Janes.
Joe came up behind them and clasped the top of Julius’ shoulder. “That’s a good shot. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“Cotton got it in the eye his first time,” Daisy said.