Author and professor P. Djèlí Clark visited Morgenstern Books and Café on Friday night as one of the final stops on his book tour to discuss his newest novella, “Ring Shout.”
With conversation led by Matthew Woods, bookseller and editor of Kismet Magazine, the bookstore hosted a free, public conversation about Clark’s work, which includes fantasy novels featuring marginalized voices embedded in history, and his newest book.
“Ring Shout” started as an idea that wouldn’t come to life until more than 11 years later. Clark noted that he pulled inspiration from free people using folklore to talk about their trauma and utilize supernatural storytelling, even though they were conscious of the truth of the story.
“This was a great depiction of the work I’d done previously...” Clark said. “It was a hodgepodge of stuff, I said ‘I want to write,’ and I knew the story I wanted to write.”
Clark’s visit was part of his mini tour for the paperback of a book previously released in 2020. The novella features a mix of genres like horror, fantasy and historical fiction. It features female main characters who fight against members of the Ku Klux Klan.
This wasn’t Clark’s first time at Morgenstern Books; he last visited in August 2024, when he spoke about “The Dead Cat Tail Assassins.” During the talk, Clark talked about how he wanted to be a well-rounded storyteller, exemplified by writing women as the main characters in his novellas and focusing his story plots on traumatic times in history such as slavery. But he doesn’t hold himself to only one genre.
Clark noted that he tries not to hold himself to one genre and occasionally uses folklore to talk about trauma in history.
“A lot of films were influences to be able to sit down and write ‘Ring Shout,’” Clark said.
When he’s not writing novellas, Clark goes by his legal name, Dexter Gabriel, and teaches at the University of Connecticut as an assistant professor in the history department.
He said he pulls much of his inspiration for his books from the courses he teaches along with his students. He focuses his courses on African American history, including slavery and how it is portrayed in pop culture and in film.
Bloomington residents Gabriel and Savannah Mo visited Friday night to hear the talk, buy a book and get it signed.
“I’ve really wanted to read this book for a long time and saw he was coming and thought it’d be really cool, I love the content of the book,” Savannah Mo said. “I think it’s important to support authors who are creating stories that focus marginalized voices, I think Morgenstern’s does a really good job of showcasing those authors. I think that, especially as a white person, it’s important to be reading these kinds of books.”
Some guests at the program had never heard of Clark or his work, like Gabriel Mo, who said he’s now going to read the book after the talk.
While some came because they were fans of the book, others had different intentions going.
“When we saw the description of the book, we were like, ‘This seems like a really good thing,’” sophomore Keira Tabb said.
Two IU students were tasked with finding something newsworthy along a bus route in Bloomington for a Media School class.
“Ours is bus route nine which goes right down this street,” junior Grace Hunteman said. “I’m a big Morgenstern’s fan myself so when we were looking through Bloomington's events I was like ‘Hey this is happening at the time we need to get this story, and this would be perfect to do, and I hadn’t heard of the author before.’”
Other guests were previous fans of Clark’s work, like archivist Amber Passen.
“I am here tonight because I fell in love with P. Djèlí Clark, mostly from the small, short story ‘A Dead Djinn in Cairo,’ and then just tripped down everything he’s ever written,” Passen said. “I wanted to hear him talk about his books.”
For Clark, these book signings are a good opportunity to promote his books and increase his recognition.
“I think any writer, you want to get out and meet people and talk to them and talk about what your book’s about,” he said. “I think hopefully it gets people to buy my books and people want to converse with the author.”
Clark is in the process of writing his next short stories for a different audience. This time, he's working on a book for a younger audience.
“(It) is not horrific but does have some serious themes,” Clark said. “I’m working on a ‘Benny and the People Who Could Fly.’ It’s a fantasy type of story, it’s got magic, monsters and all that for a middle grade novel.”
After the hour-long conversation with Woods, including questions from the audience, members of the audience lined up to get their book signed by Clark.
