Agile Histories of Home : An OS [re:con]versation with Anjoli Roy

[Anjoli Roy is author of Enter the Navel, an OS 2020 Digital Chapbook selection. Read more about this series, with the theme “Bloom, Mutation, Entropy, Catalyst, Brine.” You can find the entire series at the OS Open Access Library, here.]

Greetings, comrade! Thank you for talking to us about your process today! Can you introduce yourself, in a way that you would choose?

Sure thing! I am a creative writer and high school English teacher in Honolulu. I’m originally from Pasadena, California, which is Tongva land. My genre of choice is creative nonfiction. And, with my good friend Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng, I am also cohost of the literary and music podcast titled It’s Lit (see itslitwithphdj.wordpress.com), which has featured more than 100 writers to date.

Why are you a “poet”/ “writer”/ “artist”?

We ask the folks we feature on our podcast a similar question, which is “Why lit?” and this happens to be my favorite question to ask, and yet I always stumble on how to answer it myself. I am a writer because stories shape our whole lives, and writing is the best way I am able to be attentive to this life. Writing makes me feel alive and present, and it allows me to try to make sense of the world around me. Writing things down is my attempt to preserve memories, which…