Zibby chats with poet, essayist, fiction writer, and assistant professor of English, Iheoma Nwachukwu, about his brilliant, ravishing, ruthless short story collection, JAPA AND OTHER STORIES, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection! Iheoma explains the meaning of “japa,” a Yoruba word central to the book, as it follows young Nigerian immigrants yearning for a new life in strange new territories and struggling to anchor themselves in their new homes, much like Iheoma’s experience in the United States. He reflects on his extraordinary journey, from his early life in Nigeria (studying biochemistry with dreams of becoming a doctor), to discovering his true passion for writing and moving to the US to pursue an MFA.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Iheoma. I'm delighted to have you on Totally Booked to talk about Japa and Other Stories.

Did I pronounce that right? Japa? 

Iheoma: Yes. Japa. 

Yeah. 

Japa. 

I mean it's, yeah, Japa. Yeah. 

Zibby: What, what? Tell me what did I do wrong? 

Iheoma: So it's. So it's the, the P word in in Yoruba language, which is where it's from the word japa. It's, it's pronounced Japa, not pa, but it's like a pa sound like a KW. You know? Yeah, but it's okay.

Zibby: Sorry. You know. 

Iheoma: That's fine. 

Zibby: Well, congratulations. Whatever it's called, however it's pronounced, I can read it. And that's the most important thing. Almost doesn't matter. That's the good thing about reading. You like make up how everything sounds in your head anyway. You'll never, we'll never know. Okay, so congratulations on this short story collection that has gotten so much attention.

Oh my gosh. Have, were you even prepared for this? And just take us. Okay. Were you even prepared for all of the attention this book has gotten? 

Iheoma: No. When I put the collection together, I was living in Mississippi and so I was about to live in Mississippi to come to Pennsylvania. And so, and then I entered the book for the flying corner and, you know, started coming to Pennsylvania and the day that I got an email was in 2023.

The day I got an email saying you won. I was, so, I'm in, I'm in my basement right now, so I was in my basement, I was, I was writing and I looked over, there was a notification on my phone. It said, and I'm like, okay, a scam. One of the scams come in again. And then, but I went up and my wife was in the kitchen.

I was like, yo, look, this woman said I won this competition. It's probably a scam. You know, we get all these scams. But then I think I got a follow up email, uh, from Laurie Oslan, who's the editor of the FC. And that's when I was, I was like, okay, this is, this is, this is for real. And of course, fast forward to, you know, enter, I entered my book for some awards, not, not a lot.

And I didn't hear, so basically my thing is I don't check to see like, oh, like, you know, go online to see have they announced anything. Right? So I really don't like doing that because of times this patient could wreck you. So what I did was, you know, I, I, I, I end up checking for one of the things that I answered and.

Found out they had announced like, I think the winner like maybe a month ago. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not gonna get anything. So I was like, yeah, it looks like it's not gonna happen. Then one day, I think when, so this was probably, was it in, in February or March when the long list was an announced, I got an email saying, embargo and blah, blah, blah, and I was like, oh my God, this is.

It's, it's impossible. And for me, it, it's, it's a very, the, the fact that it's getting this attention for me is monumental because we tried, and when I say we, I mean me and UGA press, we try to get, you know, a buzz going, uh, you know, how the industry is, uh, get reviewers to look at the book. And we weren't quite successful with that.

So, and, and what I felt was that, you know, if you have a buzz going at. You know, when you have judges looking at books, they might have heard of your book, you know, because of the ball that you simulated, you know, prior to them, you know, judging the, the competition. And so we didn't have any of that going forward.

And so this has been like a shock, right? Yes. I had no idea this was gonna happen, but I mean, I'm very, very happy. We're here. 

Zibby: So you wrote this collection of short stories, loosely based or inspired by your experience moving from Nigeria to the states and having, right. This is what I've read. But now why don't you tell me the, the real truth.

Tell me about the backstory. Tell me about the stories themselves and how they came into existence. 

Iheoma: Okay. So when I thought of a linked collection, I was thinking of, um. I don't know if you're, if you're familiar with a Orion, it was an Indian, uh, fiction writer, very successful Indian fiction writer, and he had this book.

One of his books was, uh, collection titled Mal Goodie Days. The Mal Goodie is a fictional Indian town. Right. And so when, so basically for me, the realization of that is the story, um, Ana Jaco Town, which is like a fictional place in Nigeria. Right. So basically the, the whole collection was, was, uh, you know, trying to do a linked collection, was trying to do an arc in Orion.

Right, but the inspiration for this stories, of course was, you know, my experience in the us you know, 20 16, 20 17 to 2020. And so that was like the driving force of trying to pull the collection together. I'm a very stuborn person, so my prior collection did not have, they were automatically linked. I am the sort of person who, I just push against that, but this time around, something said to me, it's time.

You know, and, and so I responded to that voice and that, that that's the way I work. I could have 10 people saying, you gotta do this, you have to do it. Like, I will not do it until I hear the voice that says, okay, now it's time to do it. And, and so when I put the collection together, the voice was saying, it is time to do that themed collection.

So I decided, all right, I'm gonna put it together. And so I started to write the stories. And the stories. The first story, the first story in the collection is actually the first story I wrote. You know, while.. 

Zibby: Like ever. 

Iheoma: No, no. The first story I wrote for the collection. 

Zibby: Oh, like, wow. My first short story that I wrote was not good, and I was nine years old.

But anyway,.. 

Iheoma: Yeah, so it was the first story that I actually wrote for the collection was the first, you know, you know how when you read the stories, you didn't have to arrange them? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Iheoma: Right? Because I did have to move some things around, but, but that first day was the first one. You know, that I was, you know, that I wrote for, um, for the collection.

So after that was done and I wrote the stories, you know, I had, I had an agent who had, prior to this time, tried to sell my collection. And what he did was, you know, I had to read, I publish in the IOR review, the sudden review. And so you wanted to play off that strength and, and to have all the stories in the collection and then try to sell them didn't work.

Right. And so I part away with the agent and I was like, okay, I'm, I'm going to try to do this myself. And so I put together the collection, wrote the stories, and then had all of the other stories that I felt were thematically linked. What I was trying to do. I put those stories, the titles on the wall, right?

Just wrote them out, you know, on a piece of paper. Put that on the wall. And for three months I would walk past the wall, look at them, and then try to move them around. So that's how basically the order of the stories came about was that that was another, another entire process on its own of me just walking past this list of titles in my study in Mississippi.

Just walking past back and forth, back and forth over like a three month period and just going, yeah, you don't belong. I'm sorry. And some stories, you know, were really hard to take out of the collection because I love them. They have been published at prestigious journals. But, but they did not belong. I said that was one of the hardest decisions to make.

It was like, you know, pulling out stories that were gorgeous to it, but just did, weren't doing anything, really, did not belong in, in, in the collection. And so that's how I put the collection together was basically that sort the process. Some of the stories have been published in, in the IOR Review? No, no.

The Southern Review. That was one. The, uh. So all of made the The collection, right? And then are those that had not been published yet, but were sitting on my computer. But I knew there were great stories. I knew they belonged in the collection, so those made the collection. 

Zibby: I love the idea that there's this wall in Mississippi of short stories pinned and the image of you just like a man and his wall of stories moving them around fast forwarding over time, like even that is just such a cool image should be like a, a chapter, like a picture book for kids, like how we make stories or something. Anyway, whatever. Nevermind. So tell me about your own life experience. When, why did you come to, like, what is your story? I know, gimme your story geographically, timing, all of that. 

Iheoma: Alright. I have a first degree in biochemistry.

Okay. I, my intention of, and then of course the intention of my parents was that I was going to be a medical doctor, right? Because a lot of times in Nigeria, parents give you like maybe four choices. If parents have a bright kid, they give you like, you know, maybe three or four choices. You are either a doctor, a medical doctor, or a lawyer, uh, an engineer. That was, I mean, in my experience, there was nobody that.. 

Zibby: This is, this is not so different from Jewish parents. I'll have, you know, very similar doctor's, lawyers. Yeah. You know, the whole, anyway, keep going. 

Iheoma: Yeah. So, in fact, growing up, my nickname was Doctor. 

Zibby: Oh,.. 

Iheoma: You know, yeah. 10 years old, 11 years old.

I was a kid who, you know, like he's gonna be a doctor. He is pretty bright. So that's gonna happen. But I also loved reading. I love, I, I loved reading. I loved poetry. I read poetry a lot. In fact, I wrote poem before I said writing fiction. So poetry was a part of my life for a long time. I read a lot of books.

In fact, I was telling someone the other day when I was like, still in Nigeria, our high school is six years. We have, we have six years of primary school and six years of secondary school. So I was in my second year of secondary school and I was fighting my best friend in the library. A book because I didn't know where we were reading the same book and I didn't know.

So what we found out, we were reading the same book, started fighting about the book in the library and they kicked us outta the library. Uh, but usually what I would do was I would, when I found the book, 'cause I loved it so much, uh, the book was titled The Adventures of soa. When I would find the book after I was done, I would hide it.

I would not put it back on the shelf, I would put it underneath the shelf. Uh, so like social sciences, I'll go to that section and put and hide the book underneath the shelf. But of course, the next day when I came back, it wasn't there. Oh, they put it back. They put it back where it was supposed to be.

Right. So, so my, so, so I, I, I went to, you know, to, to the sciences. But the reason I did the sciences in secondary school was because all my friends were in the sciences and it was a cool place to be. However, in my third year of, of secondary school, we taking aptitude tests 'cause we do take aptitude tests in Nigeria and those tests determine whether for your last three years of secondary school, whether you're gonna be in the sciences in what we call the commercials or you're gonna be in the arts. So I score, I scored highest for arts. Second for science. And you know, last was, was commercials. I was supposed to go do the arts. My friends were in, in the sciences. I was like, okay, I love my friends, I wanna hang out with my friends.

So I went on to do sciences and also because I was expected to be a doctor. So went on to college, you know, did, uh, was a biochemistry, you know, uh, got into the biochemistry, finished, and, you know, that's not what I wanted to do. I. Couldn't, I think God made it that I couldn't find a job because I guess my destiny was to be a writer.

And so if I had a job, if I had found a job after I left college, I would not, I don't know if I would've ended up writing fiction. So I guess the, the circumstance, it had to be right for me to see that fiction was the only way out for me. Right. I love that. 

Zibby: Fiction as backup plan. 

Iheoma: Yes. But, but it wasn't even a backup plan.

It was like,.. 

Zibby: No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. 

Iheoma: Yeah. But yeah, it was like I had this stuff else 'cause I was helping my father wrong. He had, uh, my dad had a, a Saba Cafe. You know, it was his building. So like, you know, he had an office downstairs and then I was, I was running that while I was trying to figure out what, what my next book was.

So I was writing fiction, but so when I was writing fiction, it wasn't because the goal was to get into a journal or the goal was to go do an MFA. It was, I can do this. I have all of the stories and I want to tell them. Right. So I was writing them and I was a Nigerian journal back then. That was called, uh, I think it's called, was, uh, I forget what the name was, but I'll, I'll get back to it later.

But this, this journal was. They were asking for submissions, and I would write a story every week and send them a story. But I, you know, and then finally they took one story. It, it ended up not being published even after we had signed, you know, uh, and then much later, uh, I got a story into a journal. Um, and then the writer, Chimamanda, I, you familiar?

Zibby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, of course. 

Iheoma: Because she runs a fiction workshop in Nigeria every, every year. I don't know if it's still running, but, so this was probably, I think, I'd say 2006 or seven that I attended the workshop. I think it's probably 2007. So I attended the workshop, you know, sent an entry. I was accepted, and then I met someone at the workshop, a writer, a Kenyan writer called Bin Ana.

So Ana, so he loved my work, and he said, look, why don't you just send me more of your theories, you know. And I was like, sure. So I started to send him stories and he liked one of those stories and I met him the next year in Lagos. I think probably a couple years later I met him in Lagos and he, he said, well, I'm gonna set up a fellowship.

You know, I. So, so he was the director of the Chino Center for African Writers in at Bar College in New York. Right? I didn't, I didn't know that. No one knew that, 'cause he didn't advertise that. 'cause if he did at the workshop, a lot of people would just come to him and, you know, try to, uh, bootle him in, in order to get favors from him.

So he didn't tell anyone and I didn't know, you know, but I just did like that he lacked my work. So, you know, I hung around him just so I could talk to him. So basically what happened was I got a fellowship, uh, and I, um, in 2010 and I went to Ghana and I lived in a hotel for four months writing shelters.

You know, I, back then I got paid a thousand dollars tax free and then, um, lived in a hotel. They paid accommodation and then fed me for, for four months. And at the end of that, and the banker comes to me and says, you know, there are actually schools in America. That, you know, so he's talking about MSA programs, which I had no idea what MFA WA was.

It says that this school in America, that you know, they can pay for you to come, you know, and just come and write and write stories. And, you know, you, you attend classes and, and at the end of the day you get an MSA. And I was like, really? He was like, yeah, and we're gonna make it possible for you to apply.

And so basically what they did was all the application fees for the seven MFA programs I applied to, they paid for that and then they paid my ticket, you know, from Nigeria to the US. So that's how I came to the US in 2011. And I ended up at the Missionary Center for writers, um, in Austin, uh, Texas. Shout out to Texas.

I still love, Austin's a beautiful place, miss, I miss that city. So I, so that's how basically I came to the US was I came to do an MFA. And so after the MFAI, I then ended up doing the PhD. And after the PhD I got a job market. And you know, here I am. 

Zibby: My gosh. Wow. So then how do you make time to do all the different things?

Like, when do you, when are you writing, when are you thinking of things? How, when are you editing? Like when are you, how are you organizing your time? 

Iheoma: That's a good question. I have three kids now. 

Zibby: Oh, wow. How, how old are they? 

Iheoma: They're, uh, six, nine. 12. Now. He just turned 12. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Iheoma: Right. So in the beginning, say back in 2011 when I was, you know, for a brief period I was alone.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Iheoma: Right? I didn't have a, I didn't have a tv and so I could write all day. The Mission Center is a very competitive program, so you know. You had to b, bring your A game and all that. So I was constantly writing then I don't really have a, I have a struggle with time with finding time to write. However, as the kids started to come, I had to shift that time and adapt my writing time around them.

Right? So they, I'll say back in Tallahassee, right? I would write, um, I started to write, I'll come back from my PhD program thing and write from like the 10:00 PM till till about 12, right after a while, I had to move to 3:00 AM so I started to write at 3:00 AM 

Zibby: That's insane. 

Iheoma: But, but here's what I told myself.

I, I, I said, look, when I first got to Tallahassee to do my PhD, I said to myself, look. The reason you're here is because, you know, they love your, your writing. That's how you got into the program. That's gonna come first. So I had to, for me, I had to build in my mind a hierarchy of like, okay, so what's going on here?

The writing comes first. Right. Secondly, you know, you have to, uh, you are also taking classes. If you fail those classes, you do not graduate. So those classes come second and then, you know, the teaching comes third because, you know, you, you, you are gonna teach, right? And you're gonna do your best, but you need to be honest with yourself.

The writing is who you are. If I don't write, I'm not me. So the writing is very important 'cause it defines who I am as a person in the world. If I, if I didn't write, I probably fall sick and I would not, you know, would not be able to take classes. I even teach any of my students. So it wasn't, teaching wasn't left because it was the least.

It was something I paid the least attention to. You know? Everything else was feeding into who I was as a person. I was just, you know, I was being pragmatic. Right? If, you know, without the, the classes I was taking, if I failed them, that was not way I was gonna graduate. No matter how well I was doing the teaching, I could, I would not be able to graduate from the program.

Right. And so, so that's, so it was just a pragmatic list because, you know, I felt this was how I was going to be able to, to succeed, you know, doing the PhD. But I, but then I also told myself that the school has a. Great library, and so you need to take advantage of that library. So I used to go to the library to write sometimes in between classes, I would go there, uh, I would go there on a Saturday, uh, go use the library and write, especially when I was working in a novel, it would be like, you know, like, okay, this, like you have one hour, you go there.

And I always use the same computer. On the same side of the library. So I go there, it was my favorite computer. If someone was using the computer, I would not work. I would just walk around and come back and use that computer. So that's so, so those, uh, blocks of time when, when I could work at school. And then at 3:00 AM when I start, I wake up 3:00 AM and then I, I arrive till like six, you know, and I'm ready.

I wasn't getting a lot of sleep back in those days, but today basically, my, my thing is I, I wake up at five. I teach. So I wake up at five, I write for an hour, then, you know, exercise. Then, then I'm, I'm, I'm off to work and I prepare, but I do, I do the preparation for class the night before. Right. And my thinking is say, uh, something happens, uh, you're out of power.

I don't want to go to work for the excuses and say, well, I, I couldn't prepare for myself. No power in the morning. Right Now I can give myself excuses about my work, but like, yeah, I couldn't write because, you know, power was out. But, but if I'm employed somewhere, I, I can't go there and tell them. Right.

And so that's, that's the reason I work. I prepare for my classes the night before, and then the morning of I do, I do the writing and, you know, and then the preparation for, for that day go out the door. So the, the, the, the thinking, you know, and I like to, I don't like to say thinking, I like to say dreaming.

The dreaming. The dreaming is when I'm brushing my teeth, when I'm driving. If I am say, doing dishes. Or just whatever the activities that I'm doing in the bathroom. Those, like if I'm taking a shower. Those are just, those are moments of magic. Because that's when you know, you know when you are working a story, you're carrying that story with you, you everywhere.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Iheoma: Right? And so like when it's inside of you and you're bathing, you're brushing your teeth, things happen and then things shift around. Right. But also dreaming that actual dreaming while sleeping. You know, Steinberg Steinberg calls it the, the Committee of Sleep that helps you with, you know, character setting, you know, while you're sleeping.

They're like, they're helping you sort things out. That does help and that, that, that works sometimes. And so my thing is, if I wake up at 5:00 AM I run to the computer where I'm like in this almost non compose mentee state and, and then look at the manuscript and, and things shift around in the manuscript when you, you do that, in fact, for a, a story, one of the stories in my collection, urban Gorilla, which I wrote while I was in, I believe.

That story might have been in Tallahassee to during my last year in Tallahassee. That story, that was a section of it, the, the end part of the story that I struggled with a lot. And my, my agent at the time, David McCormick, he would said to me, I'll send him, you know, I was like, the story's done. I send him to him.

He'd like, uh, Uhuh. This ending doesn't work. You know, you have to rewrite the ending. I said, okay, well see. See. So what I'm gonna do is, 'cause usually what I used to do is when I, I would wake up at 3:00 AM I would wash my face, then just relax and then go back into, go into the work. And I said, this time around, I will not wash that face.

I will not, you know, prepare to sort like, you know, go into the work. I would just launch into the manuscript. And so I woke up that night and opened up the manuscript immediately. And I tell you, it was like magic. It was like someone was telling me what to do. It's like, here, like this. And I was just, I'm just going.

And then, and then, and then it ended. So like, the ending of that story was basically, so that's how it came. Wow. You know, now it doesn't always happen like that, but it's, I think it's the best state to write in. Mm-hmm. That state where you, you, you sort of like in a, in a dream state. So you have, so all of these other moments where you are, you're driving, you sort like, you like in a, you know, sort of dream state.

You are in the bathroom, you know? Right. So those moments put together the moments that produce, you know, the work. And so usually I tell my students that the writing is not done. Where while you're behind your computer, it's done while you're walking around, it's, it's done while you're doing all these other things, you know, something comes to you about a character. You're like, oh, that's interesting. And then you fall that away and then something else. But maybe while you're talking to your friend, you feel flash of color and that reminds you about something about, reminds you about the character, you know? And then you're like, okay, that seems interesting.

I felt that, you know, away again. And then when you go to bed, everything comes together in the compost heap. Love it. You know? And then you wake up and you have that, and then you, you expand that, you extrapolate, and that's why you get a lot to write and, and I don't spend a lot of time, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not gonna spend three hours sitting there 'cause you know.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Iheoma: Well first I, I have to get out, but like, after a while you, you run out of, out of the magic juice and then you're.. 

Zibby: Oh my God. 

Iheoma: And you're like, okay, I got nothing to give this, this manuscript. There's no point in sitting there just 'cause anything. I write past the point where when I run out. I know I'm gonna cut out later.

I'm just wasting my time. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Iheoma: Right. 

Zibby: Yep. 

Iheoma: Yeah. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, this has been fascinating also. We both have dimples and I think that only nice people have dimples. This is my theory, right? It's like a tell. It's like. The universe gives dimples to people who you can just look at and say, oh look, they're like a nice person.

So it's a shortcut. So anyway, whenever I meet someone with dimples, I feel like an immediate connection. So, uh, anyway, congratulations on your book. 

Iheoma: Thank you. 

Zibby: I wish you all the best and uh, thanks for sharing your story. 

Iheoma: So thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: My pleasure. Alright, take care. Bye-bye. 

Iheoma: You too.

Bye-bye.