You only get one chance for a first impression, so here’s mine. My life has been one continuous journey of improbability rendered possible. From birth to present its been a ‘shaking my head’ experience. The essence of it all is what makes me a writer. Inside my head, I think, everything that I have ever done, everything that I have ever had, has led me to this; the author of ‘The Knowing’.
What inspired you to write ‘The Knowing’?
For as long as I could remember, my mom loved to tell ghost stories. Stories that made me shiver in fear even as I begged to hear them. They frightened me to the point that I could not sleep without a light on and kept myself shrouded beneath my covers, afraid of the dark and every sound within it. It was a delicious fear.
One of the stories she told often was my favorite.
She and my dad migrated from Louisiana and got a room in single room occupancy. With me curled in a ball at her feet, she told how every night the bed in the room would begin to shake and a horrible smell would fill the room. Later, she was told how the man who had the room before them had murdered his wife.
When I got older and heard Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Telltale Heart’ I found it reminiscent of the story my mom had told me. In the tradition of Poe, when I had children of my own, I told the story embellishing it and leaving them shivering in terror.
So, I always knew how the story would end. Many years later, as a writing student, I turned it into a short story. When I read an excerpt from it in class, someone asked how a person could murder his wife that way. For me, the questions were, who was he; how did he get there? Without me realizing it, those questions led to many short stories. While working on my thesis, I discovered that I had more material on my ghost story than I did on my original thesis. Clyde and Cora and Fannie showed up in my head and demanded their story be told. It then became my thesis and eventually my first novel.
If your book were turned into a movie or tv series, who would you want to play the main character and why?
If ‘The Knowing’, became a movie or tv series then I would want Viola Davis to play the character of Cora. Cora is a character composed of opposite, often in conflict with herself and others. She is strong yet weak and vulnerable. She is courageous yet frightened. She is gifted with spiritual endowments yet steeped in a Christian Religion which causes an internal struggle for her. Based on her own interviews and the characters she has rendered on the screen both large and small to date, Viola Davis has the ability to bring all of these facets of Cora into play. She embraces the epitome of the culture of the women she portrays therefore I think she could bring Cora to the screen with the force of character that she demands.
What’s the strangest or funniest research you’ve ever done for a book?
It was the first time I had ever used the Newberry library in Chicago. The library was established in 1887. It was massive and intimidating, an institution of knowledge that ignites the feeling of inadequacy upon entrance. I was lead to a room with a vault that housed books so old they looked like the pages might crumble. I was ecstatic, looking forward to researching evil spirits and possession. Taking one book from the stack I had assembled, I placed it in front of me and it literally fell open of its own volition. Looking down at the page, I felt fingers of fear crawling down my spine, my skin itching as though a current ran just beneath the surface. The page contained a warning about individuals who had the ability to channel spirits between worlds, cautioning that they were often unaware of their ability, signaling to the unknown like radio antennae. It warned of those demonic spirits who wait at the gate for a portal to be opened for them by an unsuspecting person gifted with discernment. Once the demon spirits enter, there is no turning them back. A shrill warning alarm sounded in my spirit, and I leaped up from the table, fleeing the room and ultimately the library. I tried to convince myself the whole time that I had imagined the whole thing, but I wasn’t taking any chances. To many experiences in my past had presaged my own spiritual discernment.
If you were a character in one of your books, shat kind of role would you play and how would you contribute to the story?
I would be a family member of Cora’s, someone who possessed the Knowing as well, just not as much as Cora does. I would be available to talk with Cora about the things no one else could understand, share the frustration of knowing when people would die and not being able to share the information. I would be the person who knew what it felt like to be other, providing Cora with a sounding board for the conflict she felt about Clyde. My character would understand what it felt like to have your fear reside next to your courage and not be able to share it with anyone. Cora has spent her life giving to those around her while not receiving what she needs to nurture her.
Share one interesting or quirky fact about yourself that readers may not know.
I am a person who grew up loving horror stories. I read Creepy magazine and Vampirella. Stephan King was one of my favorite authors for years. I can read it all; slash, kill, slay, dismember, haunt, terrorize. All of those are my wheelhouse. I can write it with wild abandon! I am all into it. But I can’t watch any of it! Yep, I’ve got my eyes squeezed shut if I’m even in the room. Who knew?!!!!
If you could choose a fictional world to live in which one would it be and why?
There is a series by Christopher Mitchell called ‘The Magelands Origins,’ which featured a black ruling family, the Holdfasts. In this fantasy world, the family had an ancestral land where they reigned and were exceedingly powerful. They were also born with extraordinary powers. And they were exceptional warriors! I loved this blending of supernatural, magical and fantasy elements with a hint of Africa blended into the mix. Too often, people of color are excluded from these worlds, or they are in a secondary or even tertiary role but not functioning as major characters. The world was so appealing to me that I read every volume in the series and was sad when it ended.
If you could have, a superpower for a day what would you choose and how would you choose it?
The superpower that I would choose would be the power of healing. It would be capable of not only healing myself from injury and or disease but to heal others as well. My power would be unlimited so that I could heal thousands at a time. My blood could then be used to make a serum that could be utilized after my powers were gone and continue to heal.
If you could step into the shoes of one of your characters for a day, who would it be and what would you do?
I would step into Joe’s shoes on the day that he left Cora alone and went to work in the fields. He tortures himself for not having been there, for not protecting the woman he loves. Here, for example is a creative reimagining of him making a different choice: ‘Something ain’t right,’ he thought as he walked from the bedroom taking in the sight of Cora at the stove. As always he admired her profile, longing to embrace her but afraid of being rebuffed. He sensed an undercurrent of fear just below the surface of her calm exterior and he wondered what was causing it. He thought about asking her, the words dancing around inside his mouth, stopping behind his teeth.’ This Joe would have asked more probing questions and ascertained if she needed help whether she wanted to accept it or not. This Joe would have been the man who kept her safe.
If you had to choose a different career outside of writing, what would it be and why?
Someone once said, ‘Those who can do and those who can’t teach.’ Enough said! If I could not write than I would teach, providing children the opportunity to grow into the writers of the future. Everything I have has been the result of the teachers who have invested in my life and my spirit. They encouraged my imagination as they read me stories and introduced me to the fascinating world of books. Writers read and writers write. Over the years they brought great writers to me and pointed the way to libraries and bookstores. So yes, I would teach, happily.
How can we find out more about you and your book?
You can find out more about me and ‘The Knowing,’ at blackodysseymedia.net, wordsmithing2911.com, facebook@nehemiahplace, instagram@boykinwordsmith. The Knowing is available for preorder and will be available for sale at Amazon.com, Target, Walmart, Kensington Books, Barnes and Noble, BAM!booksamillion, audible and more.

Carolyn Mitchell Boykin was born in Rayville, Louisiana and raised in Chicago Illinois. Enamored of reading from the moment she could decipher meaning from words, Carolyn discovered Edgar Allen Poe in the sixth grade when her teacher began reading his stories aloud to the class. Later that year she won her first award for writing.
Fan fiction and short stories would take Carolyn through puberty. At the behest of her English teacher, when she was sixteen, Carolyn became a member of Urban Gateways Writer’s Workshop for two years. After a tumultuous journey through a passionate life which included raising children, a happy marriage, 25 years of teaching and implementing an enrichment program for underserved children on the West side of Chicago, Carolyn embarked on the road to a master’s degree in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her graduate thesis evolved into her first novel.
Cora was born with a veil. She has the ability to discern spirits and wield the power of both the dark and the light, as well as the ability to heal. Her grandmother Mi called it “the Knowing.” Cora has carried it as both a prophetic blessing and a curse, struggling under the burden…until one decision changes her world. Possessed with a healer’s compulsion to help, she cannot turn away when Fannie arrives on her doorstep, ripped, torn, and hanging precariously on the knifes edge of death. As torn at the birth of her child, Clyde, as she was at his conception, Fannie believes she has been chosen as the vessel for this coming savior.
In this tale of magical realism and spiritual folklore, Clyde and Cora are bound by a contract from which neither can be extricated except by the destruction of the other. Will Clyde succumb to his nature…or will he be a victim of a war he’s not ready to fight?