Interview with Ty Chapman

Stokes: The Brief Career of the NBA’s First Black Superstar, a picture book written in collaboration with John Coy, tells the story of Maurice Stokes, the NBA’s first Black superstar whose fame was perhaps diminished due to a career-ending injury. Tartarus, Chapman’s debut poetry collection, was published by Button Poetry this past February (2024). 

Ty spoke with the Under Review editor Terry Horstman in May 2024 about the Timberwolves’ 2024 playoff run,  basketball, and writing in general. The interview was conducted in person, and the transcript has been edited for clarity.

Ty Chapman

Ty Chapman is an author and poet based in Minnesota. He is the author of Sarah Rising (Beaming 2022); Looking for Happy, a Minnesota Book Award finalist (Beaming 2023); Stokes, written with John Coy (Lerner 2024); James Finds the Beat (Free Spirit 2024); and Tartarus (Button Poetry 2024). Ty was a 2024 Cave Canem fellow; a 2022 Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellow; a Mirrors & Windows fellow; and a Mentor Series fellow. He holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Terry Horstman started playing basketball as a child in Minneapolis and grew up to become the all-time lowest scoring player in the history of Minnesota high school hoops. A dubious record, but one that can never be broken. His writing has been published by or forthcoming from Flagrant Magazine, The Next, The McNeese Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, The Growler, Eater, USA TODAY Sports Media Group, Unplugg’d, and he once Googled ‘submission guidelines for The New Yorker.’ He is a graduate of the MFA in creative writing program at Hamline University, a co-founding editor of the Under Review, a co-host of the Belligerent Beavs podcast, and a co-many other things. He lives and writes in Northeast Minneapolis.

Terry Horstman: Before we get into your work and your books, you and I are great friends and we were also both at Game Six..and the Minnesota Timberwolves, your Minnesota Timberwolves—

Ty Chapman: OUR Minnesota Timberwolves indeed—

HORSTMAN: —beat the Denver Nuggets by 45 points. The largest margin of victory by a team facing elimination since 1956. When the Minneapolis Lakers, who appear in your latest book, beat the St. Louis Hawks by 46 points in a Game Six situation, so you and I can talk about the Timberwolves and it's completely relevant. So we're just gonna talk about the Timberwolves for two hours. We're not going to talk about writing at all. 

CHAPMAN: Forget my books. We’re starting a podcast actually.

HORSTMAN: Maybe we should. The whole series felt poetic but let's start with what your Game Six experience was.

CHAPMAN: It was so incredible. Being in that stadium and noticing the shift in crowd excitement. I'm used to going to the Target Center to see whatever team James Harden was on and the Timberwolves fans being really subdued—a lot of empty seats, folks leaving early—and so to be there for Game Six, and to just have it be noise and vibration from tip-off to literally walking out the front doors was bonkers, and Ant is HIM. Ant is arriving.

HORSTMAN: We probably need to talk about James Harden just a little bit because I know that's your man. How did James Harden become your favorite player? And how is Anthony Edwards coming close to maybe matching him, maybe overtaking him? Harden’s not gonna play forever. 

CHAPMAN: I'm from Texas originally. I was born there. And so there was a certain point where I was like, well I'm not going to be a Timberwolves fan. So what team? I was eyeing the Texas teams and I just really enjoyed James Harden's approach to the game, which I know is a controversial statement. But he's a genius. I mean, he was never the fastest. He was never the most athletic on the floor. He was never the biggest. He was just crafty. And he knew how to manipulate the referees. He knew how to manipulate and run offenses, whether it's him scoring 60 points or whether it's him dishing to his teammates. He had a control of the game that I just hadn't seen with a lot of players previously. And the step-back three is really fun, right? And Ant. Ant is the most compelling person to potentially steal my love away from James Harden. And there's a mentality with Anthony Edwards that I have only seen in Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. You could say Jimmy Butler, just that mentality, but not impact. I think he has the potential to be really, really, really special. And in that way, and him being here, I almost can't not be a fan.

HORSTMAN: He does have that kind of element to him. A[nother] person that you and I both look up to a lot, Hanif Abdurraqib, wrote a poem and appeared in a Timberwolves playoff hype video, which seemed like just the great literary basketball crossover that we've been waiting for. The number of text messages I got from both pockets of my life: basketball fans who have never read a book were like, do you know this dude who’s in this playoff video? And then all those writers who have never watched a basketball game before, were like, I didn't know Hanif was a Timberwolves fan! It kind of felt right down the middle of things we love. That brought a lot of joy. I felt like it blessed the playoffs in a really special way.

CHAPMAN: Yeah, I would say so. I think Hanif in some ways embodies a lot of what the Under Review does and a lot of what I try to do with my writing of finding that marriage between literature and basketball. And I think historically there's been a separation there or at least maybe folks haven't taken sports writing as seriously or what have you. But seeing Hanif on that stage as a writer, and as a writer deeply concerned with sport, was a really special moment and honestly added another goal to my ever-growing list.

HORSTMAN: Ty Chapman: Incredible poet, incredible writer, incredible human. the Under Review has published your work in past issues. Your latest book is Stokes:The Brief Career of the NBA’s First Black Superstar, written with John Coy, who I know is a longtime friend of yours, and illustrated by Lonnie Ollivierre. I'm somewhat familiar with Maurice Stokes as a player. But I think a lot of readers in general and even readers of tUR aren't as familiar with [his story]. What is the elevator pitch for this book?

CHAPMAN: His is the story of a generationally great basketball player who not a lot of people know about because he suffered a career-  ending, and eventually life-ending, injury in the middle of a game. Before his injury, people now talk about him as being LeBron James before LeBron James, in that he was rebounding, getting assists, scoring, and extremely athletic. Stokes was a model that we didn't see for many more years and that shaped the league as we see it today. It’s truly a tragedy that his story isn't more known. [Co-author] John Coy made it his mission to get this story out more, and thankfully looped me and on that process pretty early on. The book itself ends up being partially about a career ending injury but also about how the NBA community rallied together to help take care of a fallen player. At the time, there was no—and this is escaping an elevator pitch, the conciseness is being lost—no real health care or procedures for NBA players and they were barely getting paid anything. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. And so when Stokes got injured, and when he was paralyzed from the neck down, he was just kind of out of luck until the NBA community came together and hosted an all-star game at this hotel to help raise money for his care.

HORSTMAN: John was the one who initially brought you the idea to collaborate on this story. Did you think, John Coy and basketball, where do I sign?

CHAPMAN: I think John had had this idea rattling in his mind for a while and wasn't sure about some of the execution of it and also felt it would be appropriate to collaborate on it since it's a story about collaboration inherently. It's a story about teamwork. It's a story about a community coming together. And so, John, very early in my career when I first published Sarah Rising, even before that actually, was a friend and mentor to me. We would go on walks and he told me about the industry. We’d just sort of chop it up. We would talk about the NBA every single walk. And so it felt like some kind of basketball-themed collaboration was an inevitability. So when he asked me, Yes, it was very much like, John? Basketball? Of course. 

HORSTMAN: I was curious about the form. You write in a lot of different areas: poetry, picture books, theater, and all kinds of stuff. So how did you and John know that a picture book was the way to tell Stokes’s story, was the way to get the message across? 

CHAPMAN: I think particularly with stories about historically great Black people, I really enjoy those being in picture book form, particularly right now, as we are facing a record number of book bans as Black narratives are being intentionally removed from libraries, intentionally being withheld from children. I feel pretty passionately about telling true stories about great Black people and making those stories readily available to young folks. And so if this were my story, if John hadn't approached me with this and I were just thinking on my own, what do I want the Stokes story to look like, it would still be a picture book. And in fact, writing this book with John has inspired a great number of additional biographies, some of which may be related to basketball.

HORSTMAN: Not that you're ever writing to get a book banned intentionally, but since there are so many books being banned right now, are you ever conscious that it could be?  You still need to tell the story truly and fully, but [can you avoid doing] the mental gymnastics of trying to make sure it gets to as many young readers as possible while knowing that these assholes will come forward at some point, even though it's a tale of community and overcoming dreadful injuries? How does that work when it's on your mind as you're working?

CHAPMAN: I try to make sure that it isn't, honestly. Because I think if I concern myself too much with what other people's reactions are going to be to the work that I write, I think it has the potential to keep me from writing the things that I want to write and the things that I think are important to write. So I'm always writing with the young reader in mind. As far as who's going to ban my book, who isn't. They'll find a reason no matter what I do. So I try not to let it into my creative process if I can help it.

HORSTMAN: So the process is the process, and that only makes it more important to create great work for young readers, and not-young readers. That's why I think picture books are great. They are clearly for everyone. Is there any difference in your writing process when you’re writing a picture book versus writing poetry? I know you write more prose in your grad school pursuits as well. Is there any difference in how you approach doing that? A small thing, like the room you write in, and mentally as well. Do you write what you think the overarching approach is and we'll figure out this form later? Or do you start with form first? And see how an idea fits into the form?

CHAPMAN: I think it varies a little bit. Sometimes I'll have a really cool idea and then sort of do that dance of alright, what form is best? Where do I put this? Picture books and poetry feel much more in relation to each other than prose and picture books or prose and poetry. When I'm writing a picture book, I'm aware of a lot of the same considerations as far as whitespace, as far as line breaks, as far as the musicality of the written word. So I'm concerned with a lot of the same things. I think there are a couple of differences in writing picture books: one, I'm much more—and not that I don't care about my adult reader—but I am much more careful with my child reader. I always want to leave them with feelings of hope, even if the subject matter is heavy. I always want to handle any sensitive topic I bring up in a children's book with care. With adults, I'm a little bit less concerned about that. We're all humans. I still try to care for my adult readers, but I'm less careful. The adult reader is still in my considerations. I'm still writing to an audience. Often I'm writing to Black people. I think early in my career, I found myself, at times, writing to educate white people, and that is something that I have leaned away from. Certainly the reader is still a part of my considerations. But there is a little bit more freedom there. There is more freedom to be myself and to engage in nihilism and to engage in, am I doing anything right now? To engage in, Is this poem screaming into the void? Will this change anything? Are we all doomed? Those aren't spaces I'd explore in a children's book necessarily. But they feel appropriate to engage in for an adult audience, especially because I think so many of us are grappling with those same questions. I started asking some of those questions at [age] 10. [laughs] But the picture book audience isn't grappling with those questions.

I also think when I'm sitting down to write a picture book the first thing I do is number the page 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8 – figure out the page breaks for the manuscript, and I'll outline that way. And then I'll get into actually writing the verse of it. Whereas with poetry, I'm just sitting down with a notebook and either letting the Muse take me or I’m writing in a very specific structure. So I think there are formal differences and there's also differences in tone and aboutness.

HORSTMAN:  What changed from earlier in your career when it was, I’m writing to educate white people, and now, I'm writing to Black people, but also not necessarily with a specific agenda. I'm just here. I'm Ty, writing my stuff to Black people. Obviously non-Black people are invited to be part of this, but also, it's not specifically with that audience in mind. 

CHAPMAN: A good deal of that came about from just realizing there are already books doing that. There are a plethora of books that white folks concerned with learning about anti-racism can read. I don't feel the need to make more of those. And also, I think it came from reading more and talking to more of the folks who have been direct inspirations for my work, talking to people like Danez [Smith], talking to people like Douglas Kearney, and realizing more and more that it's not my responsibility to educate. If my art can do anything I want for it, I want it to help someone go on in the way that art has helped me go on in the past. I'd like for some of my work to be the spark that ignites rebellion and revolution. I'm deeply concerned with those themes. And I'm not going to write work like that if I’m trying to educate a white audience. 

HORSTMAN: What are some examples of words that when you read them, sparked rebellion or revolution within you? Maybe when you hadn’t written as much, or put your creative soul out into the world as much, what were some of those pieces of work that made that similar spark in you the way you're hoping to spark in others?

CHAPMAN: Certainly Danez Smith comes to mind. They're a dear friend of mine, but before that, they were an author in the community writing really incredible work that was deeply interested  in resistance, in Black pain, in Black joy, in all of those intersections and nuances. Also Ross Gay. I do heavily prescribe to the idea that joy and love are radical, revolutionary, rebellious acts. So in that way, I say a big word like rebellion or revolution and people might think I mean violence in the streets. And we can have a conversation as to whether that's needed sometimes, but I do also think loving, in a society that wants us to be very concerned with output, and with labor, is inherently a revolutionary act. And so Ross Gay’s work, in all of its fun nuances—there are lots of nuances. I do think sometimes he gets pigeonholed into being the joy guy, but there's a lot more there. Anyway. Danez's work, Ross's work, Jericho Brown’s work was really, really big for me. Those are to name a few.

HORSTMAN: One of the reasons why I love Anthony Edwards is because of the joy that's inherent in his game. And it's a joy that I don't think you necessarily saw with Jordan or Kobe (he’s getting the Jordan/Kobe comparison now).  A friend of mine who is Black and is also a Timberwolves fan pointed out that it's so rare that we let Black people be joyful publicly and it was hard for him to learn how to be outwardly happy. I look at Anthony Edwards who is all, I’m a competitor and I want to break you but also I'm gonna have so much fun. I think it does send the right message to all young people who are watching the games and want to be basketball players and also want to be artists and writers, that that is a way you can go about carrying yourself. 

CHAPMAN: Absolutely. One of my favorite things about him is how he refuses to be contained. Speaking to that idea of how rare it is that you're “allowed” to be happy and joyful outwardly, publicly as a Black person: there's an element of Anthony Edwards that refuses to be confined by NBA protocol, by what's appropriate or professional to say in these certain settings, which is really refreshing. You see guys like LeBron James. I love LeBron. He's very good at politicking. He's very good at being the face of the league, and he knows how to do that well. Anthony Edwards is not as concerned with that and is deeply concerned with having a good time and winning games. And that is a mentality that I both can relate to and deeply appreciate.

HORSTMAN: On the same note, how do you refuse to be contained as a writer?

CHAPMAN: Word. [laughs] When I first published Sarah Rising, people really loved it. The people who it was for really rapped with it. And pretty immediately, whether it's big name reviewers, [or] random people commenting online, people were concerned that the subject matter was too much for kids, that we shouldn't be having conversations about the realities of our world with children.

HORSTMAN: Children, of course, live in a different world. 

CHAPMAN: They live in a different world where it's only unicorns and rainbows and sunshine, and they cannot possibly be impacted by these big things. Yes, correct. I remember I had a moment where I thought to myself, whoa, okay, people don't want this. Should I start making goofy books about T-Rexes and unicorns? There was a part of me that was like, I do have bills to pay. Maybe I can do both. Should I just start pumping these books out? Ultimately I arrived at “fuck that.” I’ve had a great time saying “fuck that.” I've had a great time continuing to write Black stories and Black stories concerned with civil rights issues and revolution and not being super concerned about who gets what star or who feels what way about the book, as long as it gets to the people it's meant to get to, I'm happy with that. And so in that way, I think I refuse to be contained.

HORSTMAN:  Every book nerd who's also a sports nerd has drawn the parallels between sports and writing. Where I think writing is a little bit different than athletics is that writing is always done almost entirely in the shadows. Because writing is such an act of solitude, that “fuck that” declaration is for you and only you. That’s not to say that ambition and discipline and athletic pursuits aren’t inherently for yourself. Writing is just so insular. Where else do you draw inspiration from? I watch a lot of old basketball documentaries, especially when I'm blocked. What are some examples of times when you’ve been stuck on a project and then saw this person do this outstanding thing in some athletic [context] and then it reshaped the way you thought about it. 

CHAPMAN: I’m so glad you asked this question. My brain just shot like seven different ways. I wish I had a very specific event or moment to speak to because that would be really fun and exciting. What I'll say instead is that especially when I was on the road in the pursuit of being published, when I had all these stories and I wasn't seeing them in the world the way I wanted them to, one of the people I drew inspiration from, most especially after his passing, was Kobe Bryant. I went back and watched old interviews of Kobe talking about not just the work ethic but the consistency that he had to approach his job with in order to reach the level that he did. I'm inherently a competitive person. I don't mean that to say I'm competing with other writers, but I compete with myself a lot. Like how can I make this poetry collection better? How can I make this book better? How can I make sure that whatever I write next is better than what I wrote a year ago? In that way, I've always really connected with the Kobe Bryants of the league, the Michael Jordans of the league, not in terms of their greatness, but in terms of their dedication to craft when nobody's looking. That's something that I've certainly taken away from basketball, and from sports in general. I think that is universal to sports and to goal-setting in general. 

James Harden is a great study in not being afraid to be yourself and not being afraid to put yourself in what you think is the best situation to succeed. So if I am having a bad time with a publisher, I will leave. If I'm having a hard time with an institution, I will go somewhere that is able to take care of me better. I think what James Harden has taught me more than anything, is to take care of myself and to go where I'm appreciated. 

HORSTMAN: That's a great picture book you just wrote right there. We can have the galley ready tomorrow. 

[Laughing]

You've talked a bit about the technical process of writing a picture book versus poetry, and I'm interested in the connection to the visual experience in both. Where there is obvious connection between words and illustration in a picture book, that same relationship is often present in your poetry. Your collection Tartarus revolves around three sectioned poems of the same title that draw on the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's work. There are also several poems in the collection that break convention and are more abstract visually—like paintings. Talk about these poems in general and the connection between visual art and your work.

CHAPMAN: I think this fascination I have with mixing writing with visuals goes back to my theater days. Working as a full-time puppeteer back in 2019, I got a taste for collaborative storytelling, as well as writing for an inherently visual form. I love the ways that the visual can support or even contrast the written narrative, often achieving greater comedic or dramatic payoff. Particularly with forms that thrive on a certain stringentness with word economy, it can be fun to let the visual elements of a piece do some lifting. 

Speaking more specifically to the title poem(s,) Tartarus, I have long been devastated and fascinated by the evergreen nature of Basquiat's work. A lot of the themes and sorrows he was grappling with in his work remain just as true and insidious today. So, in speaking to a history much older and larger than either of us, I found it intriguing to have a multigenerational conversation with a Black visual artist who passed away before I was born. In sitting with his work, I found my mind was often swept to this hellish landscape—one full of viscera and demons and resistance and hope. In sitting with Basquiat's work, I was pushed to new visuals and places (namely, Tartarus.)

The visually abstract poems in the collection were fascinating experiments for me. They were an opportunity to play with language, chaos, sound, and white space in ways I hadn't before. It's a space that Douglas Kearney creates in often, leading to unique, rich, and visually stunning poems; and it's a space I'm intrigued to continue tinkering in. 

Whether it's a picture book or a poem, I'll continue to play in this space of marrying poetics to visual art. And in fact, I am currently! While I can't get too detail heavy at this time, my dear friend Ari Tison and I are co-editing a poetry anthology about the past, present, and future of policing worldwide. While I can't get into specifics, we'll be working with a visual artist to craft art that speaks with the poems. 

HORSTMAN: I love this news! Can you speak more to this idea of collaboration versus competition?  We touched on this a little, but I have talked to a number of writers who either came from an athletic background or are sports fans, and experience a level of competitiveness in their business or their area of publishing. I think these people seem to have the most healthy relationship with the competitiveness that is inherent in publishing.  For me, hearing about another writer’s success pushes me to pursue my writing work harder. It’s not necessarily that we are against each other. We're all just kind of contributing to the same scoreboard.  We all want dope work to be in the world and whatever gets it out there is a net positive.

CHAPMAN: I saw online the other day that Neil Gaiman said something like, every good thing that happened to me in my career happens because another writer put in a good word for me. We're not against each other. We're not adversaries. At the same time, publishing does try to pit us against each other and it's really insidious and really gross. And I think a lot of people lose themselves in that really quickly. I think a lot of people adopt a it's me versus every other author mentality. I don't think that's the most effective strategy.

But also to your point about sports and healthy competition. I mean, yes, I think so too. Like I see friends do really cool things. And my first thought is, Hell yeah, that's great. I love that for them. And then my second thought, is, and how can I do that? And it's not because I don't want that person to have that but it's because I am a competitor. Even playing pickup at the park, whenever I step onto the court, I have a mentality of, I am the best player here and I'm going to beat whoever is in front of me. I try to approach writing with that same vigor. I think sports helps with being an inherently competitive person and knowing how to handle that appropriately.

HORSTMAN: And in writing, “whoever is in front of [you]” isn’t your fellow writers—it’s gatekeepers.

CHAPMAN: Yes, absolutely. 

HORSTMAN: Agents who don’t want to sign you or publishers who don't want to publish [you] are not like your homie who just published a great book.

CHAPMAN: I’m not out here like, “I gotta beat Danez!” [Laughing] No one should be out here like that. But I am out here saying, I'm going to show you all exactly who I am and why I do what I do.

HORSTMAN: [After I got my MFA] we were all submitting essays and shit together for the first time. The essays I was first writing then were about getting cut from basketball, while my best friends were making [the team]. I heard complaining about [rejections], and I was like, I’ve felt this before.

CHAPMAN: I wasn't particularly good at basketball in high school. I didn't play a lot of it. I really discovered basketball as an adult. You asked me if I remembered my first rejection and I realize I don't. And I realize that's something I've learned from basketball: I don't remember my last miss. I only think of the next shot. When I'm on the court, to the best of my ability I'm trying to delete misses and blocked shots. I'm just like, Alright, next shot. And that's honestly how I approach publishing. That's how I approached querying: All right, next agent. That's how I approach being on submission now. Recently an editor passed on a book. Great! Who's up next? Basketball also really taught me work ethic. Growing up, I would always gravitate towards things I was naturally good at. I would shy away from anything that required work. And so I didn't develop a work ethic until like my mid 20s. I learned a lot of that through being horrific at basketball in high school.

Across the board, I'm endlessly inspired both by writers and athletes. In terms of the level of dedication they put towards their crafts. There's the real-time adjustments you have to make as a basketball player: I'm going for a layup and it's not working. Okay, let me switch up and try it from the right. No, you're there. Okay, I'm gonna pass it out to my homies in the corner. I feel like those are some of the real-time adjustments of writing: This metaphor isn't working. What else can I try? What spaghetti can I throw at the wall? This character's dialogue is stiff. What exercise can I do to try to free that up? The comparisons are really endless. There's a similar level of dedication and a similar level of creativity and flexibility I think that athletes and writers both carry. One gets paid more than the other, but they have similar skill sets.

[Laughing]

HORSTMAN: Spoiler alert, kids. Writers don't get paid as much as athletes. Sorry.