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Journalist and writer Kehryse Vanessa Johnson has blamed writing for many things in her life including her untidy room. Yet in a short career she has managed to establish The Richmond Writers’ Group, and interview Clint Eastwood’s jazz musician son Kyle.
October 2007
Kehryse Vanessa Johnson
I don’t know when I started writing or at what point I came to depend on it for survival, but I’m happy for its burden, its obligation. I blame writing for the state of my bedroom; for my erratic schedule; for the mess that my hair is in.
It’s a madness that life would be poorer without. When asked why I do it I always say it’s for fun, but this isn’t strictly the case. I write to learn about myself – sometimes very difficult and complicated lessons. This is not to imply that I suffer for my art, rather that my art carries me.
Rites of passage aside, to my knowledge I have only had two epiphanies thus far, and both have related to writing. I’ve always agreed with the renowned advice ‘write what you know’, but it wasn’t until my second year of university that I fully grasped its meaning. It hit me like a backhand to the face - my female characters were ALWAYS white.
Why? I couldn’t understand this subconscious choice. I even attempted to put it down to years of playing with Barbie not Christie dolls, and the western world’s view of beauty. It was only when I acknowledged my reluctance to write about black women did I expose the gaping hole in my confidence. And so began the release. The moment my identity stopped being in question was the moment my characters’ blossomed.
After university I blamed my tendency to procrastinate and make excuses for not sharing my writing on my fear of failure. So the realisation that it was actually a fear of success came as a huge blow. I was finding safety in failure – the lack of ‘well what next?’, the everlasting hope. I suppose I was telling myself that if I never get there then there’ll forever be something to strive for. It sounds ridiculous now, yet I haven’t always had the comfort to throw my writing out there for all to see. It came with time and support. This epiphany arrived in a writing group among like-minded individuals, and it is with them that I’ve faced these hurdles.
I founded, and am now the front woman of, the Richmond Writers’ Group because of these very experiences. Essentially I aim to aid myself and others in this otherwise solitary business – whether the writer does so for pleasure, profit or a combination. But more importantly, I hope this initiative will help them to reach their own epiphanies – the ones they’ll need to move forward as did I.
Professionally, I write feature articles and reviews, but my study has seen me dabbling in script, poetry and prose – I’ve tried and thrived in it all. I never sit down and tell myself, ‘I’m going to write a story today’ or ‘I need to come up with a play’. Instead, when I have an idea, I pair it with a genre and not the other way around. My material scarcely fits neatly into a labelled box, and that’s what I love about it!
My handwriting is a mess, but for me a first draft must never be typed. There’s something liberating about dirtying a sheet of white paper with ink. Besides, the thought of all those wonderful early words being so easily lost with a backspace key makes my shoulders sag. So with a journal at the root, I write without self censorship (one of the hardest methods I’ve had to master), edit and condense my flowery material through gritted teeth, and then reward myself with a new pair of shoes. It’s the best process and you better believe I’ve tried a few!
I am currently working on an anthology of short stories called After Meeting Faye, which I dream of seeing in print on completion. More than anything, I’m passionate about what I do and only want to keep doing it.
To read an extract from Kehryse’s Pretenders in The Horse and Saddle, click here.
Biography
Kehryse is a 25-year-old freelance writer and researcher based in London. A graduate of writing & drama, she has completed internships at Eve and Breeze magazines, which saw her reporting from fashion events such as The Clothes Show and London Fashion Week as well as interviewing the likes of Lovers’ Rock legend Carol Thompson and jazz musician Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint. Her articles, poetry and reviews have been published in The London Paper, TheVoice and at Ebonyonline. She now has her sights set on Cosmopolitan.
In May 2007, Kehryse launched The Richmond Writers’ Group in association with the London Borough of Richmond and Twickenham Libraries. Its immediate success led to expansion, and Kehryse is now endeavouring to set up a members’ website. She recently acted as head judge for R.W.Gs first short story competition alongside her mentor and novelist Siobhan Curham.
Kehryse regularly attends writing workshops and seminars, performs her poetry at literary events across London and keeps a daily journal, entitled ‘The W Bible’ from which all her ideas stem.