Dayjha McMillan was one of our Fall 2025 Digital Residents. As a part of this program, we do Q&As with our residents to feature them, their work, and their words. See our Q&A with Dayjha below, and explore more Spotlights here.
TSW: What is a question you’re asking yourself these days, and what is a question you or your work is asking of your reader?
Dayjha McMillan: The definition of “possessed” is to be influenced or controlled by: an evil spirit, a passion, an idea. Another definition is to own. The other definition is mad or crazed.
I’ve been toying with this idea of possession for years before researching its definition. It’s one of my favorite writing themes because of the multi-faceted nature of the word.
The question that is begging to be asked, perhaps not answered, is can benefic spirits “possess” you too? And does the meaning of the word, possessed, shapeshift if it’s being considered as all of the above?
TSW: What’s a mantra or motto that you have in mind these days when you are writing or creating? Is there a writing routine or ritual that keeps you beginning?
DM: “A novel, like all written things, is a piece of music, the language demanding you make a sound as you read it. Writing one, then, is like remembering a song you’ve never heard before.” — Alexander Chee in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel.
I just completed his brilliant book of essays. In his chapter, 100 Things About Writing A Novel, that quote is number three out of a hundred. As I’m, honestly, just beginning to understand the skeleton of the memoir I’m working on, reading this lifted my creative fog. There is much I don’t yet know about where my novel wants to take me. I’d be remiss to miss the journey if I remain adamant about where I think the project should go. By understanding my writing as music and not thought, as body and not brain, it helps me drop into a larger creative vibration. There are a plethora of ways to feel creation, even as a writer.
I am working on honoring my novel writing by honoring my spirit, my physical, and other creative endeavors as a means of keeping the creative gates open! “To remember a song I’ve never heard before.” Rituals that support this include: journaling every morning, pulling tarot cards, moving my body every day, drinking water before coffee (lol), reading every night before bed, and dedicating every Friday and Sunday to my creative writing.
TSW: What motivates you to keep beginning, and/or, what is a story that gave you permission to tell yours?
DM: I’m deciding to share a book list! I fell in love with reading, first. Books, as a whole, bring me such joy. This list, naturally, are primarily memoirs but I wanted to include a few books from other genres that also gave me permission to tell my story. The books listed will stay with me forever and undoubtedly will shape my writing for years to come.
1. The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
2. Heavy by Kiese Laymon
3. The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rijas Contreras
4. The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
5. They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
6. What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
7 . Red Paint by Sasha LaPointe
8. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
9. Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
10. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
The next list are books on my To Be Read list!
1. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
2. Covert Joy by Clarice Lispector
3. Making a Whore by Vũ Trọng Phụng
4. The Perishing by Natashia Deón
5. Blood in My Eye by George Jackson
6. The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
7 . My Education by Susan Choi
8. The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét
