“No matter how long I’ve been away from home, Haiti remains inside of me.” – Katia D. Ulysse

For the final episode of WRITING HOME’s second season, Tami and Kaiama welcome the critically acclaimed Haitian-American fiction and children’s book author Katia D. Ulysse. Reflecting Katia’s stories, this conversation weaves together the vitality of music, the multifaceted bonds between mothers and daughters, and the changing, transnational narratives of Haiti. Katia drops some wonderful gems as she lifts up the names of the people she loves, such as how she learnt how to story-tell at her grandmother’s feet and why she thinks of motherhood as “babysitting her daughter for the ancestors.”

Katia D. Ulysse is a fiction writer, born in Haiti. Her short stories, essays, and Pushcart Prize–nominated poetry appear in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including: The Caribbean Writer, Smartish Pace, Phoebe, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism; Mozayik, The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, and Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat. She has taught in Baltimore public schools for thirteen years, and served as Goucher College’s Spring 2017 Kratz Writer in Residence. Drifting, a collection of short stories, drew high praise from literary critics. She is currently at work on another short story collection. Mouths Don’t Speak is her latest novel.

Reading List:

Katia’s books
Mouths Don’t Speak (2018)
Drifting (2014)
Fabiola Ale Lekòl/Fabiola Goes to School (2016)
Fabiola Konn Konte/Fabiola Can Count (2012)

Authors who Katia mentioned:
Yanick Lahens
Roxane Gay
Edwidge Danticat

“Addicted to Love” by Robert Palmer
Robert Palmer performing with James Brown

photo credit | Sherry J. Insley