Jeff Olozia: Hello and welcome to Writing Forward, a conversation show featuring some of the best and brightest voices from across Wisconsin. I'm Jeff Aloisia, I'm a former editor at the New York Times, a Milwaukee suburbs native, and now I'm a freelance writer based in Madison. Each week I sit down with writers from and connected to my home state for candid, sometimes messy conversations about craft, identity, and what it means to build a writing life rooted at home and away from the traditional centers of the literary world. From fiction to nonfiction, poetry to journalism, we dig into what keeps Wisconsin writers moving forward, one word at a time. My guest today is Danteel Moniz. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Danteel came to Wisconsin to earn her MFA in fiction from UW Madison. And today she serves as an assistant professor in the university's creative writing program. Danteel is the author of the acclaimed story collection Milk Blood Heat, published by Grove Atlantic in 2021. Set largely in Florida, the collection follows characters confronting moments of sudden reckoning. Children, parents, siblings, friends, and strangers, forced to grapple with grief, desire, faith, violence, and the complicated obligations we owe one another. Calling it a stunning and important debut, author Danielle Evans wrote that the stories in Milkblood Heat are like lightning, spectacular, beautiful, carrying a hint of danger. The book was a finalist for the Penn Gene Stein Award, the Penn Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. Danteele is also the recipient of a Pushcard Prize, a McDowell Fellowship, and she was named a National Book Foundation 5under 35 honoree. Her work has also appeared in the Paris Review, One Story, Tin House, Plowshares, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. And I'm happy to say that her debut novel, Beholder, is forthcoming from Scribner.

Dantiel Moniz: Thank you so much. So happy to be here.

Jeff Olozia: I'm so happy that you're here. You know, there are times where I try to streamline a guest bio just for the sake of time, and there are others where I think like the list of publications and honors has this sort of accumulative effect and says more than I could ever say. So I want to talk about some of that acclaim. But first, we begin every episode of the show by asking our guests to share a brief passage from someone else's writing, be it a novel, poem, essay, or article that for them evokes Wisconsin in some memorable way. What did you choose and can you read it for us?

Dantiel Moniz: Yeah. So I'm gonna read two little brief snippets from All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thinkham Matthews. I it's so good. It's like opens up and it's like immediately, you know, is constant. So if y'all don't know, if you haven't read it, it's a it's a character who has recently graduated school and ⁓ she's just found a job or she's about to you know, so that's where we are.

Jeff Olozia: Love that books.

Dantiel Moniz: My boss said, like a god granting a boon, twenty-three an hour, you'll relocate to Milwaukee, where your client is. I will pay for your apartment. That sounds great, I said. I may have added, I'm honored to get to work for you, all nonsense. Once I hung up, I punched the air and yelled. I remember the restaurant as deserted, but it may not have been. This is not a story about work or precarity. I'm trying, late in the evening, to say something about love, which for many of us is not separable from the other shit. As the summer began, I moved to Milwaukee, a rusted city where I had nobody, parents two oceans away. I lay on the sun warmed wood floor of my paid-for apartment and decided I would be a slut. So I had to read that part. I was just like, it's not doable. But then I just wanted to read this next part where ⁓ Madison actually comes in. In July, Peter said that we needed a new junior consultant on the project, another me. I forwarded his email on. Tom was unemployed then, still living 90 minutes away in our college town, going to free concerts at the terrace, taking me in during bike rides around Madison's lakes. His inability to find a job startled me. He was the smartest person I knew. I comprehended at a technical level what a recession was, but not what it meant, truly meant for the people tumbling into its maw. Some half of my generation never recovered. Thanks, my dude. We'll think on it, Tom replied, and I, in my sparsely furnished apartment, felt my anger flare. I'd reached out in a bid to cement friendship beyond graduation and one dollar drinks at bars and burgers at the plaza. And remembered fondness, knowing he needed the job and that he was from around here, he, like me, unlike our most forceful savvy friends, did not seem ready yet to flee Wisco for the coast.

Jeff Olozia: That book is so good. I'm so glad you read it in part because I hope other people go out and and pick it up. You know, it's like it's a book full of ideas that somehow manages not to be preach. You know, sometimes when you read a novel that's full of ideas, it comes off like a novel full of idea. And and she manages to do it without being preachy and do it within the character in the story. And ⁓ I I thought it was lovely. What stands out to you about those pieces that you read?

Dantiel Moniz: A a novel full of ideas. Yeah. So for me, you know, again, I'm born and raised Jacksonville, Florida. I came here first to Madison ⁓ in twenty sixteen as a graduate student in the MFA program where I now teach, but beforehand had never thought about Wisconsin a day in my life, like just didn't have any concept of what it was or, you know, what it could be. And ⁓ now I'm living here consecutively. Now it'll be my fifth year ⁓ this August. And it when I first read the opening of that book, I remember thinking like I had the same kind of thrill, the same kind of frission run through me that's when I see like Jacksonville or Florida mentioned and things where I was like, ⁓ is this like becoming a place that I feel at home in? So the one thing is that like seeing Madison or even seeing Wisconsin, I was like, and then the other part of it is that I'm really drawn to this person who has this outsider's perspective of being in Wisconsin because that is still my perspective. So on the one hand, this place is becoming more of a place that I think of as home, but I also still feel like I'm on the outside looking in and trying to figure out like what exactly makes this place and the people who inhabit it tick.

Jeff Olozia: I think that perspective is so valuable. It's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on. Firstly, because I love your book, but also, you know, so many of our writers are sort of born and bred Wisconsinites. I think it's really valuable to get the perspectives of someone who for whom this is not a sort of native place. ⁓

Dantiel Moniz: Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm endlessly like

Jeff Olozia: Whoa. You mentioned that you moved here for your MFA. I think you were twenty six at the time.

Dantiel Moniz: I was twenty six turning twenty seven. Yeah.

Jeff Olozia: And you had never been here before, you didn't know anyone here. What were your first impressions of the place?

Dantiel Moniz: There were so many more bugs than I thought that there would be. You know, like mosquitoes and like spiders. I was like, wait, I'm from Florida. And I you know, and not just that there were so many, but like I remember going to the festival foods that's on Eastwash. You know, it's in the parking garages. And, you know, so like, ⁓ these webs, all these spiders. So it wasn't just like one spider. It was like a colony of spiders all hanging out. And I was like, spiders in Florida don't hang out like that together. It just was so that was my first thought. But then my second thought was, ⁓ I saw the lake. Like I was driving by and the lake just like, Came open and I was like, whoa, I just didn't expect ⁓ so much water for a place that I think of as like, ⁓ it's in the middle of the country, but obviously the Great Lakes and all, but I just wasn't expecting it's beautiful. Seasons are beautiful. I had no conception of traditional seasons before I got here. So it's just been like a I don't know, finding myself where if you're on the same rhythm as nature is on, like in the traditional sense of things turning, ⁓ it's doing something to my biochemistry that I hope is positive.

Jeff Olozia: I spent a year in California and then I did my grad school in North Carolina. I remember that first year in California just being really like disoriented by there not being distinct seasons. How how do you do with the winter?

Dantiel Moniz: So I like it. Like I think it's cool. Like you know, like honestly, really people are like, You're gonna die. You're you know, but really it's proper clothing, right? Once you learn that, like it's pretty good. My issue with winter is just how long it goes and how little sun that there is. I'm from the sunshine state, so that's kind of a thing. But I think it's really magical. Like to be able to literally walk on frozen water or to go out and it's snowing, I still haven't lost like the magic of that. I even don't mind so much shoveling. Yes. But just really quick to your point about the distinct seasons. I remember very vividly being in Florida and people who would come there from somewhere else would just be like, I miss spring, I miss fall. I ⁓ and I my response was like, Well go. Who's stopping you? Who's keeping you here? Go, who cares? And then I experienced it myself for the first time and I was like, ⁓ I get it. Yep.

Jeff Olozia: I believe you also got into the Iowa writers workshop. What what ultimately drew you to UW Madison? ⁓

Dantiel Moniz: Judith Claire Mitchell, to be honest. Yeah. She really she really does. Actually, so I had gotten straight into Iowa and I gotten onto the wait list here, which when you think about it, it it does make sense. Like Iowa accepts like some 25 people and Madison accepts six, you know, every other year. So that makes sense. But I just remember, ⁓ even just being on the wait list, she wrote me an email that made me feel so seen. And she was like, you know, I don't know you, and so I'm not I can't take credit for anything that you are and who you are. And what you've become, but I'm so proud of you. And I just felt like, ⁓ I want to be in a place where somebody sees me. Whereas when I got into Iowa, I was like, I didn't get a phone call. I didn't get any of that stuff. And so I like remember emailing somebody and I was just like, Hey, I got like a acceptance letter, but you know, so what what's the next step? What do I do? And they they were just kind of like, you come to Iowa. And I I'm saying it like that because tone is hard. Yeah, I understand like tone is hard, but I just remember being like, ⁓ That's it? You just come to Iowa? I don't know about that. And so yeah. And so I I came here and I I've never regretted Okay, briefly, right after I accepted Wisconsin and turned down Iowa, I felt like every book I read, they were like graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop. And I was like, ⁓ my God, I've done a bad thing. But it turned out good. Yeah.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. That's such a wonderful thing that Judy did for you. I mean, I think it makes such a difference to to know that there's somebody rooting for you. Yeah. Even someone you haven't met before. Did you find the program to be competitive? Like, you know, that that's another thing that often gets talked about with MFA programs, specifically in the context of Iowa. There's a sort of weird funding structure where you have to compete with your cohort. What what was your experience like with the cohort of fiction writers here?

Dantiel Moniz: I think that we all when we first came in, we made a very conscious decision that like no matter what, w we would maintain like our civility with each other. Not just that. So we made it a point to go on like field trips together and like go do stuff. So even if we weren't exactly no one needed to be like best, best friends, but we were like, listen, we're not gonna make it contentious because we're here. It's a very small program. Unlike, you know, other programs where you might rotate and do different things, like you're with the same five other people like your whole two years that you're here. We all get the same funding. ⁓ they get way more funding now than we did, which I'm so happy for them. But like you know what I mean? You know, there's like the normal stuff 'cause we do have to, you know, that's something that that's just never gonna go away. You have to be able to be like, ⁓ I might be disappointed that I didn't get this thing and this other person got that thing, which is the human part. Right. And the part that's under your control is to be like, figure out how you regulate that so you're not projecting and lashing out. I think we mostly did a pretty good job.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. You mentioned this in the context of the ⁓ passage from Sarah's book that you read. The idea that that a place can stop feeling like a place where you're getting a degree, say, and start feeling like home. When did that occur for you in Wisconsin?

Dantiel Moniz: Literally not till I came back the second time. So the first period of time I was here was between twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen. That's the length of the program. I left. ⁓ and then I came back three years later to start as a tenure track person. So I just remember the first year of moving here and I was like, ⁓ I live here. Like I kept having that. I still kind of have it a little bit. I'm like, ⁓ I live here. I live in Wisconsin. But yeah, it's it's very different to be to have been a graduate student in this environment because I already knew it was temporary. There was no so like I was, you know, experiencing the place, but not in a place where I was like, ⁓ I have to. So like when I came back, it was like, ⁓ I need to know this place now as a person who resides here. Yeah. ⁓ and I remember like last Christmas I was back home because I always go back home to Florida at least once or twice a year. ⁓ because all my family's still there. ⁓ but I was with my dad and I remember thinking like ⁓ yeah when I go back home and I was like ⁓ I am home. I was like, but I do think of that as hell, ⁓ when I go back home, it's bizarre. ⁓ 'cause I'd never really lived anywhere more than a temporary time ⁓ anywhere but different cities in Florida. I had a brief stint in Seattle. It was so expensive to come back home. But yeah, so like this is really interesting to have like a place as an adult that I'm getting to know as a home and that I may like, you know, raise a family here myself. And then that actually messes me up sometimes. I was like, ⁓ my God, my child will be from Wisconsin.

Jeff Olozia: Isn't that interesting? In some ways, you can't pick two more different places than Jacksonville, Florida and Madison, Wisconsin. We we mentioned that you have this unique perspective as someone who's simultaneously an insider and an outsider. So I want to ask you a question that I'm thinking about very often, which is like, do you think there is such a thing as Wisconsin writing? And like, if so, what is what is an outsider to an insider notice about that aesthetic?

Dantiel Moniz: I'll say it just from the situation of like student work, right? So because I teach also at the undergraduate level as well as the graduate level, but like a lot of the undergraduates here I do feel like are from around here. One thing I have noticed is that I feel like it might it's fine to say y'all, right? 'Cause this is you're from here. I feel like there's a way that y'all are a little bit maybe like sucked in, like like a little bit Like this. ⁓ and in the writing, you know, I could I can see it in the writing, you know, like I don't want to say that y'all are just repressed as a blanket statement, but like, I don't know, maybe there's something a little bit more at arm's length about it in a way that I feel like is a little bit opposite to how when I approach the work, I'm like tumbling all the way in. I'm bringing you to the center in like the most uncomfortable place. And a lot of people say that about my work. They'll be like, it's a little bit grotesque or it's little bit this. And I'm like, I don't know, being alive is a little bit grotesque.

Jeff Olozia: You seem to have such a good sense of sense of self and sense of your own work. I think one thing that that struck me about both your fiction and just like reading interviews, I think is you're willing to go there and say the thing that especially in Wisconsin, we don't always say. Like I'm thinking about, you know, the first story in your book, Milk Blood Heat. I was so excited when I won't spoil what happens in that story, but there's a moment in which like something pretty dramatic happens that I don't know, not not everybody's willing to go there. You know, I felt like I was reading a great George Saunders story or Flannery O'Connor or something. But also just being willing to say, to talk about ambition and talk about what you're good at. You know, to give you a a quick anecdote from my own graduate school experience, I remember the first time I took a long form fiction class, the first class I had a great professor ⁓ named Nina DeCremont, and she had us all go around the room and say, before we even like got into reading each other's work is like it was a specifically a class for novel writing. And she said, What is your biggest, like most embarrassing ⁓ ambition for your book? Yeah. You know? And all these people in my class were saying, like, I would love for this to turn into a Hollywood movie, or I would love for to have a video game, or, you know, to to win some great award for it. And I was like, as a person from Wisconsin, I was horrified. And I I remember just saying, like, ⁓ I'd just be happy if somebody like would publish my book. And for the longest time I thought that that kind of humility was a virtue. and I don't know that it necessarily is. I think it's like important for us to sort of own our value and to talk about ambition. I'm just curious, like, where does your confidence come from?

Dantiel Moniz: Hard one over a lifetime of not having been that person, of feeling like I don't deserve first, you know, whatever those reasons are. And for me, I have a lot of systemic external reasons why I might think, yo, I'm not good enough or I don't deserve this, or, you know, X, Y, and Z. But like I mean, and it's still a process. I'm not gonna sit here and be like, I'm so confident every day. Cause it, you know, that's just not how growth works. You don't do a thing one time and expect it to be static. That's not how living things work, right? Everything's always in flux. So it's always having to. Reconfigure and rebalance, which is actually where I feel like I am having been five years away now from Milk Blood Heat and going into this new thing, which is new unknown territory in all the ways, right? A second book is a very big thing, a novel versus a short story, which, you know, the the public and publicity makes a big thing. I do agree with you though. I think that we are taught in a lot of different instances that you have to stay small and humble. Since I've been examining more structures and more like what are the systems that we actually live in and how do they influence our lives. I've been thinking a lot about the question, what who does that benefit for you to stay so small? And there is a balance, right? Ego can very quickly be like, I'm the best, you know, a God complex type of thing. And so it's like the balance of, no, but do you do this amazing? You're not the only one. Who can do amazing things. It's like, but if you are doing something that literally only you can do, you have to own that. And I think in the last couple of years, where I've come to is that I am literally physically embodied in this lifetime as this person in this specific space and time moment to be a storyteller. So that's what I believe wholeheartedly. Then I have to do the thing and I have to do it in a way that doesn't impede my work. And me being very self-conscious, especially when, like you said, I'm I'm so looking at myself all the time, not in a narcissistic way that again balance, but I'm looking at it all the time to be like, if I understand myself, it helps me understand other people sometimes. But if I'm gonna do that, self-consciousness is a detriment to what I'm trying to do in an authentic way. So it's just reminding myself that. And then having a good group of people around me who understand me and love me and know what I'm doing.

Jeff Olozia: I read an interview with you, I think where you were saying that your first semester at Madison you didn't really write because you you had to syndrome. Yeah. To your point, I think, like, as far as who does that benefit, you know, there's so many sort of forces that are either acting against us or that are just outside of our control. Especially when it comes to publishing, which is just such a lottery. The worst thing we can do is get in our own way. Yeah. But as you mentioned, I think it comes from hard work and probably having to like earn some confidence.

Dantiel Moniz: Earn it and stumble and be okay with being like, Okay, that was a mess up. So what can I do next time? Instead of being like, Okay, well I'm on the floor, so now I have to stay here.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. I'm curious as someone who teaches now, d do you think we're doing young writers a disservice when we frame confidence as arrogance? How do you talk to your students about this?

Dantiel Moniz: I'll say what I actually say to them. I'm like, own your shit. It's the same thing. And when I talk to them about accepting feedback or like being in the same place, I said, I do not want you to take any feedback, including mine, that does not resonate with you. Yeah. But in order to actually understand what resonance is, it is a felt vibration in the body. It's something that strikes you, feels true before you think it's true. In order to have that space, though, you have to be so secure. And like the direction that you're heading, right? In order for anybody else to be useful to you, you have to know where you're going. How can anyone tell you where to go if they don't know? So I tell them the balance is being secure in that, but also being open to the possibilities of something else. Like ⁓ I'll say for myself, my my usual thing is just to be like a little bit tightened. You know what I mean? And I know that about myself. So I know that I need to give myself a moment with it. So if I have that tightening thing, I'll like stop and then I'll put it away for a second. Then I'll go back to it. I'm like, okay. So maybe not the thing you're saying to me, but what you are pointing out is that there's something amiss here. So now you you giving me that feedback is giving me something to push off of. So that confidence thing is like being really secure and like I know where I'm headed. And then the balance of not making it arrogance or something that harms you is like being open to the fact that you don't know all the answers. And if you are writing something, you should not know every single thing because then the thing that you're making is static. You want to be in collaboration with the story.

Jeff Olozia: Well, you've talked about imposter syndrome, especially when you came to Madison. You've talked about confidence. Then milk blood heat comes out and suddenly, you know, people are calling it one of the most exciting debuts of the year it came out. Did that feel the way you thought it would?

Dantiel Moniz: This is what I tell people all the time. I was like, it's horrible to not get what you want. And sometimes it feels horrible to get what you want. A book being published is like usually a whole new set of visibility for someone, like a new platform of visibility that you've never before had. And like not for some people. Some people are like already in the industry and they, you know, whatever. But for me, it literally was like, ⁓ my God, this is like the most visible I've ever been. And I actually remember the night before it was set to come out. You know, I've been waiting for this moment. It felt like it took forever because publishing is so slow. And then I had this moment where I like just sat on the floor and I was like, ⁓ my God, why did I do this? ⁓ my God. People are like I'm like, people are gonna read the book. Then I was like, people are gonna read the book. And ⁓ yeah, it was frightening. It was really scary. It was like, like once it's out there, it's out there and it's living and it's gonna meet the people it's gonna meet. And a book is not for everybody, which is one of the things that I've had to really come to. That like if you've written a book for everybody, what did you really write? ⁓ and so for me, I'm like, okay, if you don't like my book, maybe it's not for you, or maybe it's not for you right now. It was really scary. It was also really exciting, not gonna lie about it. I definitely remember like really wanting the 535, just cause like, you know, I I am an ambitious person. I don't feel entitled to anything, but I'm like, if I'm gonna be real, I want all the things. I want I want whatever. People will be like, Yeah, you can have. But I just remember my publicist coming one day and was saying, like, ⁓ Ruman Alam was saying something about he's writing something and he asked me how old you were. And I remember my head, I was like, ⁓ he asked about my age. And this is like months before I found out about it. But like my head was always, I was like, ⁓ he asked about my age. And then it turned out like he had nominated me for this. And I was like, I knew it. Shit.

Jeff Olozia: On your shit. Yeah. What changed for you from that experience? And what didn't change?

Dantiel Moniz: Yeah. What changed for me was I feel like I'm the type of person where I'm always trying to figure out like how are other people perceiving me, which makes sense to me, right? All of the systems that we live within, my particular visibility or invisibility at certain different times, you know what I mean? Hyper visibility. It's weird because I like am looking at myself, but I also have the second layer of trying to look at myself how another person would look at me. And I think that when you're a creative or you're producing or Any kind of thing like that, that can again really be a head fuck to always be thinking like, what are people thinking as you're trying to write real raw stuff that would prevent you? Like you might censor yourself. So I think like one of the things that it did, even though it's external, is like some of this external validation did give me like the permission to be like, okay, I can trust myself because this is what this work is born from. I was like, this is what I want to do. And it's for me at the end of the day. Like people ask the question all the time like, who is your reader? And you like, I'm not saying that you can't have multiple readers, you know, I do, but like at the end of the day, I'm like, well, my truest answer is like I'm writing for myself. And if I'm writing for myself in that way, and I'm collected to every living entity on the planet, then I'm also writing for other people. What hasn't changed? I still can't get myself to be in routine. I'm always like, I wanna write. And then I'll go over and do some other thing. I don't know. The resistance to starting. Still hasn't changed, unfortunately.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. I think that's valuable for people here too. You know, we get so much the advice of like right everyday

Dantiel Moniz: I don't, I never have. Sometimes, like if I'm really into it or like I'm a deadline girl. So you give me a deadline, then I'm like, Zoop. I just was like that in college. You know, ⁓ papers do. I'll wait till like two hours before the class, like do the paper. Like I'm still motivated that way, unfortunately.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. Well your next book, your second book, your your novel, Beholder, arrives in twenty twenty seven. First of all, congratulations. Thank you.

Dantiel Moniz: I think it's gonna be twenty twenty eight now.

Jeff Olozia: That is also illustrative of the ⁓ the publishing process. Does writing a second book feel different when you know that people are waiting for it?

Dantiel Moniz: Yes. Yes. So I'm gonna tell you something that Lauren Groff told me. ⁓ we were together in Key West and I had said that to her where I was like, ⁓ yeah, ⁓ you know, people always talk about the sophomore book or the second book being hard. You know, so anyway I said that to her. I was like, ⁓ yeah, it's just like a lot of pressure 'cause you know, people are waiting your book and she looked at me, she goes, Dante, nobody is waiting for any of our books and I was like, Okay, Lauren. I was like But then I was like, Well that's not exactly what I mean. I don't mean that anybody's waiting on the book. I mean they have expectations of the book, right? It's an obviously huge gap between zero and one books, right? Having one book opens up so many things. But I think there is a similarly large or larger gap between one book and two books because and I hope it's really small between two and three, but I think that's the last gap. I think once you do three books, you should be like solid. But ⁓ yeah, I think there's a lot because there are expectations now. And if your book did well in any way, shape, or form, then those expectations might be higher. Or like I don't know, you know what I mean? But yeah, the expectations exist. I also have the feeling of like, what if I choke? You hear a lot of stuff about like no one's second book is a good book. And I'm just like, is that real? Well, I'm gonna try to not do that. So many people. But I just feel like, yeah, it's very different in terms of the expectations. Expectations for myself. You know, I was a finalist for a lot of stuff, but I didn't win any things, right? And so part of me has the pressure on myself where it's like, Well, I wanna win this time.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. ⁓

Dantiel Moniz: You can't control that. Like, you know what I mean? And then being behind some of these doors, like with, you know, how these decisions are made, I'm like, sometimes it's not even about that anyway. But yeah, I think ⁓ it's scarier. It feels scarier to me because now I have this book and I want it to be a good representation of my growth. I just want to always be growing and I want it to be a parent. I will say I have a story that has like it really did change at least my mind frame in terms of like winning, losing this whole thing, ⁓ which is that

Jeff Olozia: Yeah.

Dantiel Moniz: When I was at the Pin Award, so I was my book was a finalist for two, right? So it was the ⁓ short story prize, and it was also up for the pen gene, which is like the big one of the evening, right? So I'm in these two categories. So the first one goes by I didn't win it. ⁓ and then so there's like an intermission. I remember just being in the bathroom and I'm like nervous because I'm like, you know, it doesn't feel great. Like, and also because I was the big prize, they made you like record yourself. And then like they play your snippets of you reading your thing like throughout the program. And so I'm like listening to my own voice. I'm like, ⁓ this is so terrible. This is the worst thing that I could that could have ever happened. And then I'm in the bathroom between, you know, awards and I'm just waiting. And this writer, and I wish I remember her name, but I'm just my brain doesn't work like that. But anyway, she's standing next to me and we're waiting for the bathroom. And she's just making small talks. She's like, ⁓ did your ⁓ did your award already go by? Are you waiting for it? I was like, Well, one of them did. And then she looked at me and she stopped. She goes, ⁓ She goes, I know who you are. And I was just like, ⁓ shit. I was like, okay. And then she was like, you know, I've been writing for a really long time. This is like my 20th book, and this is my first time at Penn. And then she just went into the bathroom and that was it. And then I went to the bathroom and I went back to my seat and I was like, this is my first book. Yeah. This is okay. Like, there's this fucking pressure on the debut, the debut. If you don't do it now, the debut. Life is long if you're lucky, right? A a book has a long life. Like people come to it at different times. Your career hopefully has a long life. This is my first book and I am in the room. And I'm not just in the room. I'm nominated for two fucking awards for my first book. It's okay. And so when then when I didn't win the second thing, Obviously I wanted to win it, but then I was like already in this jubilation place that I had a great time, had a great New York night. We went to like a five A. ⁓ diner. It was great. Yeah. And I had a really good time. And I and I if I hadn't met that woman who said that thing to me at that exact time, I probably would have been like, I wanna go home, I wanna go to bed, I'm done with New York forever.

Jeff Olozia: There was a a wonderful profile of you earlier this year in on Wisconsin magazine that I'm sure people read. ⁓ and there was a quote that you t something you told your students, and I hope I don't misquote you here. ⁓ you said a short story is a slice of something that represents the invisible whole around you. You also said that endings that feel more like windows. I I love that. How do you achieve that? where how do you know where a story should end?

Dantiel Moniz: Than doors.

Jeff Olozia: I'm thinking about stories in your book. Specifically, I'm thinking of thicker than water, where the two protagonists, two half siblings, they're going to spread the ashes of their father. I won't spoil anything, but like, you know, you would think that it would end with them spreading the ashes of their father, but it doesn't end in that place. How do you achieve that?

Dantiel Moniz: So a couple of things I want to say, which is one, thank you so much for saying that about the endings. Cause I think that that was like the primary like negative critique I got. It's like none of her endings have resolutions. They just end. And I'm like, no, no. I've I've asked you to do some work. Yeah. ⁓ I've given you everything you need to understand like what it is that goes past this last sentence. And that's what I mean by like windows versus doors. It's like something you look out at instead of exit completely. I hope. You know what I mean? And not everybody wants to do that work, and which is fine. This is the other thing. So you're asking me like how did I do that thing? For this book, every single one of those, I knew the ending first. And then it was like I was working my way towards that ending, or at least I knew the image kind of where I wanted to end. That is completely changed, having worked on novels for the last few years. Cause I've worked on not one but two. Only one has been like workable. But ⁓ I actually have a really sad feeling in my body that I don't know how to write a short story anymore. So like now I'm like, I can't tell you how I did it. Just I know that I did it at that time. But it started with the endings coming to me and being like, ⁓ this is something that I feel like ⁓ like so for that story in particular, for me, it's not about, even though that is the thing that these two siblings are going to go do, which is spread these ashes, what really is The point of that whole story is like the distance that is grown in their relationship, like how far away they are. And so like the last image is something like they're walking, they're like apart from each other, and she's like watching her brother and she's like, ⁓ they're at the distance where you can't tell if they're coming closer or they're moving further away. ⁓ and I just feel like that's like the whole point. That's the the energy of that story. And just like in real life, there is no neat ending for that. You know, likely they're not gonna fix their relationship overnight. This thing is not going to do what their mother had hoped it would do, which is bring them closer together. They're likely gonna do this thing, it's a chore, and then they're gonna keep drifting. Maybe. I mean, we don't know, right? But that's the whole point with these endings. We don't know, and I don't like it feels disingenuous to me to be writing so much about life and then to be like, I have the answer. The answer is in flux all the time. What do you think is going to happen to this person? Can they change it? Maybe, but we don't see it here. Yeah.

Jeff Olozia: I think that's something I love about short fiction, just saying like, here's a moment in time. You know, part of why I think I respond to your book so much is because it was clear to me that you are writing to an image. And I think there's something so cool about having an image in your head, saying, What does that image represent thematically? And how do I get there?

Dantiel Moniz: Yes. That's the fun part. Right. It's not just like, ⁓ I have this idea. Like obviously sometimes it comes with ⁓ ideas or conceptions of things, but that an image is an image unless you have the emotionality building up to make it mean something by the end. And like by the time people get to the end of my stories, what I hope is that that meaning, that feeling, whatever it is, reverberates all the way back to the beginning and they can see like how we got there and like My favorite things that happen to me when I'm reading and I'll go back and I'll read the beginning. I'm like, ⁓ I can see how you were taking me here the whole time. That's what I hope.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah, I think that really rewards multiple readings too. Yeah. Which is what you want with the great story collection.

Dantiel Moniz: And I want people to pay attention. So sometimes when people don't get it, I'm like, well, it could be a number of things, right? It's not for you, which is totally fine. I was like, or you weren't really paying attention. Like I I do think that I have like a problem a little bit when people are like, ⁓ read just short stories. It's for shorter attention spans. Like if you don't have enough time, I like, No, I think it's the opposite. I think you really have to be paying attention. That's why people are like, I don't get it. I don't understand short stories. Same with poetry, right? You just have to pay attention.

Jeff Olozia: It's also a cool thing about starting a career with the short story collection is that I

Dantiel Moniz: Which nobody wanted me to do.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah, I'm almost surprised it doesn't happen more often. I mean, I think it's a good way to establish somebody as like a writer's writer, you know, there's something about us all starting as short story writers for the most part and having a serious literary pedigree. And it's also a chance to say, like, here are all the themes I'm interested in. Maybe not all of them. Yeah. But a a group of them. Whereas with a novel, like y you get maybe three or four, you know, that you have to sort of dial in on. And that feels like a wonderful jumping off point. To build a career from.

Dantiel Moniz: You'd think. I think a lot of the all the stuff about that you hear about short stores, they don't sell the blah blah. I think they're self fulfilling prophecies because it's the market itself who's saying they don't sell. It's like, ⁓ they don't sell and then you don't put any publicity dollars behind it. So nobody knows about it. So of course no you know, nobody buys it. But when I say nobody wanted me to do it, I don't mean my direct team. Like I literally like my agent, you know, I I had maybe Half of these stories, and I was on like an Elizabeth George Grant. You know, I'm not good with unstructured time, which is another thing that I learned. So I was like, Yeah, I don't have to work for anybody and I can just do, you know, whatever I want. And then whatever I want was just like kind of misting around like a little breeze. And I was like, ⁓ you need to get to work. Like this is half over. But I was struggling with the novel. I had a lot of these already published. I I was almost finished. I knew I had a clear deadline. And I just was like, Hey, I know we meant for the novel to come out first, but I need to get paid. I need to like figure out what's next. Can we do the stories instead? And she was just immediately like, Yeah, that makes sense to you. It makes sense to me. And so then she curated my list to only send it out to editors that she knew valued the short story as an art form for itself rather than just as a vehicle for the novel. Do you know what I mean? That's awesome. And so then it fell into the right hands. It fell into like really enthusiastic hands. Like my my editor, Katie Rayan, is like, she's who's I'm working with on this next book and is like one of the people that I trust above all with my work and my my vision, right?

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. I think that's great. Because I've heard of the opposite happening too, where a publisher will buy someone's they'll give ⁓ a two book deal so that they can have the novel and then they put this the story collection out second and they put no power behind it.

Dantiel Moniz: And that's not how I'm like, I want you to value this is what I'm working on. If you don't like it or you don't want to, or you're scared about the the self-fulfilling prophecy of like the store stories, like that's fine, you can tell me that. Like that's fine. But let me go and work with somebody who actually doesn't feel that way and they're gonna put in the energy and effort to put the work out in a way that is meaningful in the world. And I do feel like that happened with Mogbati. I could not have imagined like that book doing what it did.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. I want to dig a little bit deeper in a theme. Yeah. You know, one thing that runs through so much of your work is this interest in mothers and daughters, parents and children, the way that families shape us. I think there are some like wonderful portraits of like just parents who are people with their own lives, you know, just something that I think takes us some time to learn. What keeps pulling you back to those relationships in your fiction?

Dantiel Moniz: So I say this a lot when I've talked about this book, but I I I literally didn't know that I was writing about motherhood and daughterhood at first. I thought I was just writing about like a more kind of larger theme of like, you know, what is the nature of good and evil? So like what happens if you have a choice that you wouldn't say was a good choice, but at that time is that character feels like that's their only recourse to getting justice, to protecting someone they love, to protecting themselves, whatever it is. And it was only after I finished what I thought was ⁓ a first draft of every story in the book that I kind of was like, ⁓ even the ones that aren't really about the mothers are about the mothers and like relationships. But yeah, I it took me a while to understand that as a theme. And then I will say that I have not let go of that theme yet. ⁓ yeah, this next novel that I'm writing is so totally about like I like the way you said that, like families and the way they shape us. I was just recently watching the ⁓ the Sean Combs P. Diddy documentary that's on Netflix about the whole case and everything that he did, you know, which was really I'm watching it because ⁓ it's so centered in New York and, you know, this upbringing and a part of my book is set there. There was one thing that one of the people being interviewed said, and he was basically like, you can be shaped by love or you can be shaped by pain. And it's very clear You know, it becomes very clear over time when somebody's shaped by pain and how their interactions were. And I just watched this like yesterday and it struck in my head, it like resonated in my whole body. And I was like, Yeah, that's kind of what I'm exploring. What is it like to be shaped by love or shaped by pain? And how does that influence how you literally are able to connect or not connect with everyone you're in your life, especially those people that are your family, right? So what I think is that exactly what you were saying, like sometimes it takes us a long time to understand that our people are s or like our parents are separate people, like separate from their roles of us. Yeah. ⁓ and sometimes people don't ⁓ ever do that. Right. And I think I had that moment pretty early on, relatively early on. I think I was like 22. And it was like my first moment of like looking at my mother. And we had like a really turbulent relationship, like basically when I turned 14. You know, like I I knew she loved me, but it like sometimes like it's like this love is not the love that I want. You know what I mean? Or like you know, it's it feels challenging. And it was like I was twenty-two and I was like, it's her first time on the earth. I literally put that, I gave it to one of my characters in one of those stories in the collection. ⁓ I think, ⁓ God I don't even remember The Hearts of Our Enemies, where she's like, It's her mother's first time on this earth. And, you know, maybe she's doing her best. Maybe her best isn't always good enough for me or like what I want. But it's like, I think that, you know, I don't know. I just putting that into perspective really made me think of my mother as a whole person. And and that's how I want to deal with like all my characters in the books too. Is like whether I agree with what they do, whether I would do what they did, I still want them to feel like people who at the end of the day, even if you're like, well, I wouldn't want my best friend to do that or blah, blah, blah, you could still be like, ⁓ but I can understand how they came to that decision. So Whatever's going on with me and mothers and daughters and everything, it's still there. I'm still doing it. There'll h there'll be a whole new book of like exploring that intergenerationally. So

Jeff Olozia: I remember like being in my first sort of adult relationship and realizing like, ⁓ my parents are two people in a relationship. And like that seems like such an obvious thing. But yeah, I think it takes getting a little bit of distance from childhood and also becoming an adult yourself. Yeah. you know, I hope you don't mind me going down this path. I know we don't know each other that well, but ⁓ I know that you lost your mom in twenty twenty two shortly after Milk Blood Heat came out. ⁓

Dantiel Moniz: Yeah.

Jeff Olozia: I also lost a parent several years ago. I think one thing that has surprised me was like how many assumptions I didn't realize were built around that person's continued existence. Yeah. You know, we have everything sort of slots into in a place. Did losing your mother change the way you understood yourself or writing?

Dantiel Moniz: Everything changed everything. I am not the same person that I was. It's one of those things that sounds really ⁓ obvious or maybe cliche when when you haven't experienced it yourself yet. No, everything completely different. Phew. Obliterated and like reform, like currently like reforming. I actually, when you were saying, like, ⁓ my parents were two people in relationship, I actually had the thing where I realized, ⁓ my parents loved each other. ⁓ they were in love. Cause I never I never knew that. Like my parents ⁓ were never married. They had me like really young. They were both 19. you know, so I was always used to like having them in separate spaces, you know what I mean? But I just remember like it was on the same day. It was actually the last time I'd seen my mother alive. I had gone back home. right before the Pin Awards, I went to Florida for a couple of days and then I flew to New York from Florida. But I was with my mom like earlier in the day and she was saying something about like, ⁓ I don't know, maybe like the last time that I felt really truly loved by anybody was like with your dad. And I remember like thinking in that moment, I was like, Wow, that's like sad. Y'all are so young and okay. And then later, very separately, my dad was like, ⁓ something, you know, when women are done with you, they're done with you. Like When I was in love, blah blah blah. And I don't think of him as that type of person. So I was like, who are you in love with? He was like, Your mother. And I was like, wait. I was like, Y'all loved each other? Wow. You know what I mean? But but yeah, I'm completely different in every sense of the word. It made me reexamine like my entire life. And again, brought her humanity ⁓ even more to the forefront to me. I mean, it's not great, you know what I mean? But also it's like it's life. It's one of those things that makes you realize, like, ⁓ this is what it is. Time passes, we die. Like that's it's fleeting. And what am I gonna what am I gonna do? What am I what am I here for? What's the thing that I wanna leave behind? Especially when I think about well, what are the things that my mother left behind? Not just physical objects, but like left behind in me. Do you know what I mean? Like what inside of me is of her?

Jeff Olozia: Has grief changed your relationship to memory or or maybe even the way that you write about mothers now?

Dantiel Moniz: One hundred percent. It's such a weird thing. Like I definitely feel like grief came in and opened me up and all these there's like no other way that you I mean, like I mean, I could see how people could avoid being open. It's such a scary and big process. And so like, ⁓ I think it it provides like a a depth to what I'm able to do. ⁓ I do think a part of what I'm here on this earth for too is to kind of Showcase these things that we would rather look away from, that we would rather keep silent, that we would rather because we we have shame about it or guilt about it or society has told us it's not okay. ⁓ I do think that's a part of my project. And so like having to look at myself in the aftermath of my mother's death, which floored me. I actually used to say all the time that like when I was a kid, again, because we had like a turbulent relationship, I used to be like, I don't know if I actually love my mother or if I'd feel obligated to love her. Like I don't how do you know that? And I and I could never voice that anybody because I'm like, that's not a question that you're allowed to say. Right. And then when she died, it was like an immediate like, ⁓ of course you love her. It would not feel like this if you didn't. Was it always easy? No. But like, of course you did. And so that was something that for me was like enlightening. And then it made me think about like all the ways that People go through the world maybe loving each other, but being afraid of that love in some way or shape or form. So they like w withhold themselves.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. But that was a beautiful answer. People have said like grief is an expression of all the love that you didn't get to express while that person was with us. I wish there was some way that we could while while they're here, you know, 'cause I think you're right, we sort of shut down and hold things in.

Dantiel Moniz: Shut down, hold it in. It's out of protection or out of fear, usually. I feel like, yeah, it definitely has changed me in my relationships. So I would assume it is changed me in my writing. I hope for the better. And I hope to be able to see that in some tangible way in this next book, which I am in the second draft of, which is terrible. Novels are terrible.

Jeff Olozia: It it is so intimidating. They're awful. Well, I want to put a button on this conversation. You have been an aspiring writer now. You've been an MFA student, an acclaimed debut author, a teacher. Now you're a novelist preparing to publish a second book. What do you understand about sustaining a writing life now that you couldn't have understood when you first arrived in Wisconsin?

Dantiel Moniz: That we really need to get comfortable with not knowing all of the answers. And I also think that that includes wanting to Google shit to death about how do I do, how do I do, how do I do. That's great. All of those answers and other people's practices and what other people are doing, all of that can be a foothold or a starting point. But I think like it's probably a detriment. To sit there and be like, okay, because this writer has this many prizes and this many this and they're this, that the way that they're doing it is exactly right. It's like that works for them, clearly. You can see that. I was like, but you need to figure out what works for you and you need to not be ⁓ timid about if what works for you is different from than what you've heard. I think that that's like the main thing that I have learned or am learning. ⁓ like you said, like when we're talking about earlier about the writing everyday thing, I'm like, That doesn't usually work for me. But what does work for me? What times of day work for me? What, you know, where what spaces do I need? What kind of boundaries do I need to put in place to take myself seriously? I think that's the other thing. I think because what we do, especially from the outside looking in, like if you have people that you're in a relationship with who are not writers specifically or other types of artists, it could look like, ⁓ you're being selfish or you're just being like you're not even do you don't do anything. You're just sitting there at that computer. I'm like, no, I am doing a a vast amount of mental work and it's sustaining energy. Like, are you ever just famished when you're writing or like that's why we need snacks? It's because it's like the the mental load is you're you're using so much energy. But I think like learning to take myself seriously, ⁓ which started for me in 2015 when I was like, I think I'm gonna apply to the MFA. And that it started from there. And then like anytime I've poured in energy and protected that space, it has not failed me yet. ⁓ and so, but just learning to like be able to identify with your own work without needing the validation of others and then also not letting once you get the validation of others, like that control, like, ⁓ no, and now if I don't do this, then that means I've fallen off or I've, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's all of balance. It's all trying to just ⁓ find equilibrium in your practice.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. You wanna do a quick speed round? That's okay. I mean we all are. Right or you're like you gave me a word count? Dante, do you have a favorite place in Madison?

Dantiel Moniz: Yeah, let's do it. I'm the worst at this. Yes, in Tenny Park there's a place where you have to pick through all these little trees and things to go. ⁓ maybe I shouldn't tell people that. I'm gonna tell you. It's a place in the park. It opens right up into the water if you go into Tinny Park and you're just right on the water and then the sun sets so beautifully there. So you can try to find it if you want to find it.

Jeff Olozia: Best piece of writing advice you've ever received.

Dantiel Moniz: If someone doesn't know where you're going, they can't help you get there.

Jeff Olozia: worst piece of writing advice you've ever received.

Dantiel Moniz: Right in the morning for me.

Jeff Olozia: How about a book that you return to over and over?

Dantiel Moniz: Okay, so it used to be White Oleander. That's like a formative text for me. But lately I've been returning over and over to Danielle Evans's the Office of Historical Corrections. ⁓ my gosh. She's so brilliant. She's a genius.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. Yeah. What's a short story you think everybody should read?

Dantiel Moniz: I've never read a short story in my life, Jeff. I've I've literally never have. ⁓ no. Okay. ⁓ Pilgrims by ⁓ my gosh, what's her name? I can see it. How to breathe underwater, Julie Oranger. So good. If you like the grotesque.

Jeff Olozia: Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah. You just mentioned this. What's your favorite treat while writing or after writing?

Dantiel Moniz: I like to have a matcha latte that I make at home that at my house. But like for food. I don't know, I'd just be eating Jeff. Okay. Okay. Anything that's, you know, tasty. Breads, cheese, I don't know.

Jeff Olozia: Last one. Yeah. What's something about Dante Lmonis that readers would be surprised to learn?

Dantiel Moniz: My work comes off as very serious, I think, but I'm very funny. I'm very like goofy, childlike. Like I'll go and skip with you in the park. I'll go and you know what I mean? So I think but I think maybe that makes sense why I write so heavy things 'cause you can't have I mean you can, some people do it, but ⁓ yeah, I'm not as like dark as like all of my writing may appear. Yeah.

Jeff Olozia: Yeah. Danteel, thanks so much for doing this. I appreciate Thanks.

Dantiel Moniz: So much, Jeff.

Jeff Olozia: That wraps things up. Another big thanks to my guest, Danteel Moniz, and thank you for tuning in. You can find Danteel online at Donteelwmoniz.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating or share it with a friend. It really helps. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes. They come out every Wednesday. You can reach me anytime at jeffaloisia.com slash writing forward. That's J-E-F-F-O-L-O-I-Z-I-A.com slash writing forward. I'd love to hear from you. This episode of Writing Forward was recorded at Madison Public Library with support from Dane Arts. It's produced, edited, and mixed by Anya Van Wagtenonk. The theme music is by the Lolo Ombre. Logos and episode art are by Tim Burton. Thanks again for listening. And the words of Quick Trip employees everywhere. See you next time.