Q&A with Nyasha Williams and Sidney Rose McCall

 

Nyasha Williams

 

 

Nyasha Williams and Sidney Rose McCall are the authors of the new children's picture book Once Upon a Kwanzaa.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write Once Upon a Kwanzaa?

 

Nyasha: Once Upon a Kwanzaa had been a brainchild of mine and Sidney’s for a while. We were both beginning to center the holiday more and more in our own lives, and for me, that meant a full transition with my husband from celebrating Christmas to celebrating Kwanzaa.

 

That shift opened up so much for us; it gave us a deeper grounding in Ancestral traditions, a more intentional way of moving through the season, and a framework for daily living.

 

I wanted to bring that same sense of rootedness and possibility to children through story, so they can grow up seeing Kwanzaa not just as a holiday, but as a guide for life.

Sidney Rose McCall

 

Sidney: Looking back, Once Upon a Kwanzaa feels like a dream born of kismet.

 

At the time of the dream’s beginnings, I was still situated in Historic Eatonville – the oldest self-governing Black town in the United States and childhood hometown of the Harlem Renaissance author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

 

As an intern-turned-museum interpreter at the Hurston Museum, one of the programs I helped put together was a “Kwanzaa with Zora” series wherein different creatives, land stewards, and thinkers from across the Black Diaspora gathered (virtually) to share how Kwanzaa’s teachings and principles resonated with their work and the legacy of the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

 

This program brought me back into communion with the wintering holiday that my own family once celebrated annually (alongside our regular Juneteenth-on-Independence-Day gatherings).

 

As Juneteenth finally transformed into a federally recognized holiday, Nyasha and I began dreaming up the potentials of cultural holidays serving as vehicles and entry points for folks looking to gather in more community-minded ways.

 

Just as Juneteenth offered people lessons on the histories of slavery, abolition, and freedom, Kwanzaa held the possibility of teaching everyone, especially our youngest readers, how to build up their communities with everyday principles and practices rooted in self-discovery, restorative learning, and collective joy and justice.

 

Q: How did the two of you collaborate on the project, and what do you think Sawyer Cloud's illustrations add to the book?

 

Nyasha: What’s really powerful about my collaboration with Sidney is that we’ve never actually met in real life, yet we have this synergy between us when it comes to creating. There’s an ease and flow in how we work together, and that synergy has allowed us to birth projects like Once Upon a Kwanzaa.

 

We traded ideas back and forth together structuring drafts, layered in imagery, and really treated the process like weaving with each of us adding threads until the tapestry felt whole. We trusted each other’s voices, and that balance shows up in the final book.

 

As for Sawyer, this is actually the third book of mine that she’s illustrated, and I’ve loved her work for many years now. I feel deeply grateful that she’s chosen to bring her artistry to my words again and again. Her illustrations have this whimsical, magical quality that always reminds me of Miyazaki’s work.

 

With Once Upon a Kwanzaa, she captures both the groundedness of tradition and the dreaminess of possibility. The visuals make the principles feel alive and accessible for children. It’s vibrant, alive, and perfectly aligned with the heart of the holiday.

 

Sidney: Nyasha and I first met (virtually) back during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we deepened our friendship over our shared dreams of crafting creative spaces for ourselves and our respective communities, Once Upon a Kwanzaa brought us together not as organizers or co-hosts, but as storytellers.

 

While I leaned on Nyasha’s experience as a published author, the ebb and flow of our storyboarding, character crafting, and artistic renderings allowed for us to balance and enhance our strengths to create this immersive story.

 

At times, it felt like we were working on a communal quilt, carefully sewing patchworked ideas and passed down memories to the page. In other moments, our collaboration reminded me of a cooking session as we swapped recipes and rhymes over our screens and flooded each other's phones with voice memos and notes.

 

Bringing Sawyer into the project felt natural and added even more magic to the creative process. Her eye for color and her commitment to creating characters that are both individual and ensemble, kin and community, past and future, transformed the narrative into a tapestry of many stories splashed across the pages.  

 

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says, “This age-appropriate primer offers a vibrant perspective on values many all over the world have long held while offering newcomers a refreshingly inviting seat at that kinara-lit table.” What do you think of that description?

 

Nyasha: I really love that description because it reflects both what the book is and what I personally needed when I first came to Kwanzaa.

 

When my partner and I started celebrating, it began really small. We didn’t know where to begin and we weren’t sure how to pronounce all of the principles, or what order the candles should be lit in. It was all new to us.

 

That’s a huge part of why Once Upon a Kwanzaa felt so necessary to me. I wanted it to be a beautiful guide and an offering for families who might be in that same place, stepping into Kwanzaa for the first time, a little unsure, but deeply curious and open.

 

And beyond that, I see the book as an entry point, a kickoff into all that Kwanzaa can be when it becomes part of your daily practice.

 

Sidney: The description fills me with soul deep joy and gratitude. While still a relatively young holiday, the principles, traditions, and histories that Kwanzaa exemplifies transcend generations across the Diaspora that have travelled along the Atlantic Ocean.

 

So much of this work is about holding space with elders, young folks, grown folks, and future ancestors both within our family spaces and beyond.

 

Q: What do you hope kids (and adults) take away from the book?

 

Nyasha: Sidney and I are in the middle of creating lesson plans for Once Upon a Kwanzaa that will span from Pre-K through university.

 

That’s because I truly believe picture books are for everybody; each person receives the message they need at the level they’re at, depending on where they are in their life journey.

 

A Pre-K student might take something very practical and tangible from the book, while an older reader may uncover deeper layers of meaning and richness.

 

At the heart of the lesson plans, and really the book itself, are the seven principles of Kwanzaa. We’re centering them in relation to dreaming: dreaming for ourselves, for our classrooms, for our communities, and ultimately for the collective, for the world.

 

I see Once Upon a Kwanzaa as a blueprint, a beautiful tool in our liberation toolbox. It invites us to imagine and act toward a more liberated state of being.

 

Especially in a time when the world feels so heavy and so many people are asking, “What can I do? How can I make a difference?”, Kwanzaa offers both grounding and direction. It reminds us that we do have ways to move, to shift, and to dream our way forward together.

 

Sidney: What I hope young readers and grown folks alike can absorb and appreciate about Once Upon a Kwanzaa is the power, potentials, and possibilities that arise from the holiday’s seven principles.

 

This story is both a celebration of multigenerational joys and dreams and a homegoing of deeper memories that transcend middle passages.

 

Kwanzaa is a collection born of the futurepast — a space of the shared histories, recipes, memories, technologies, and magic of the past times that press upon the present. We belong to that past just as much as we belong to the many futures we have yet to unfold and form.

 

Kwanzaa encourages all of us to sojourn and search for our communities, both past and future – and just as the future belongs to the children of tomorrow, the past is theirs to recover, to remember, to reimagine, and to reclaim.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

Nyasha: Right now, I’m focused on expanding the world of Once Upon a Kwanzaa. Beyond that, I’m working on graphic novels, middle-grade stories, screenplays, and building out my publishing company, Fire + Honey.

 

I’m also deeply committed to creating supports in community that are rooted in Ancestral wisdom and liberation: spaces, programs, and projects that help people connect to their history, their creativity, and their power to dream and role toward our collective freedom.

 

Sidney: Currently, I am working with Nyasha on a few new stories, recipes, and lessons for Once Upon a Kwanzaa. 

 

Beyond our collaboration, there is a fantasy novel in the making alongside several history narratives I plan to convert into a collection for young readers.

 

This upcoming season, my educational platform on Patreon (www.patreon.com/uprootedgarden), where I craft lessons and writings that “upRoot” our miseducation about the past to inform our everyday practices and restorative learning, will continue to expand across the digital world.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

Nyasha: I think one thing I’d love people to know is how deeply I view storytelling as a key in our liberation.

 

Everything I create, from Once Upon a Kwanzaa to my graphic novels, street plays, and projects at Fire & Honey Press, is rooted in the idea that our stories, our principles, and our Ancestral wisdom can guide us in building freer, more connected communities.

 

Sidney and I have also created some really fun ways for people to engage with the book and the holiday itself. We’ve made playlists for each principle, and we have podcast episodes where we dig into conversations about the principles together all available on our Substacks.

 

I want readers and audiences of all ages to know that when you engage with these stories, you’re stepping into a practice of dreaming, creating, and acting toward a world where we all have room to thrive.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. This Q&A was conducted in partnership with Nyasha Williams and Sidney Rose McCall. Enter this contest for the chance to win one of five hardcover copies of Once Upon a Kwanzaa! One grand prize winner will receive the book plus a complete Kwanzaa Celebration Kit—featuring a Kwanzaa Advent, Kinara, and ceremonial candles—to honor your family’s heritage and create meaningful traditions.