Almuna’s memoir elevates Black womens’ stories

Mary Hill-Wagner believes that as a writer, nothing is wasted. As a little girl, a love for writing was fostered with each book she read, but she was also increasingly made aware of the lack of literature that reflected the life she grew up knowing. Her new memoir, “Girlz ‘N the Hood,” is Hill-Wagner’s first stab at telling her story.

Hill-Wagner’s writing career began in high school as a newspaper editor. Graduating from Compton High School as valedictorian, she then went on to USC, writing for student publications including the Daily Trojan, and graduated with a B.A. in print journalism. 

Hill-Wagner reported for several newspapers around the country such as the Simi Valley Sun, Anaheim Bulletin, the Las Vegas Sun, Des Moines Register and Chicago Tribune while earning an M.A. from Ohio State University and Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She also taught as a journalism professor at several colleges and universities, including USC as a research assistant professor. 

“There’s a lot to learn about the theory about how media works, but it’s also good to have had your hands dirty,” said Hill-Wagner about her teaching experience. “I was able to bring that [expertise as a journalist] to the classroom, and according to my students, it made my class presentation unique.”

According to Hill-Wagner, inspiration for the memoir “Girlz ‘N the Hood,” published in September, was sparked by a USC undergraduate creative writing class taught by Clancy Sigal. The class was assigned to write about someone they personally admired. Hill-Wagner described being “amazed” that none of her classmates wrote about their parents, while she wrote about her mom. 

Sigal was intrigued by her writing. 

“He read [the essay], and he said, ‘You know, this could be a book’. And it was two, three pages. And I said, ‘No, I don’t really want to — I want to be a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. I don’t have time for books’. And he said, ‘Well, no, just think about it’,” Hill-Wagner said. 

Years later, after three careers, Hill-Wagner returned to the idea inspired by Sigal’s early encouragement. Compiling letters, journals and memories from her younger self and her mother, Hill-Wagner wrote the memoir — her first book — centered on her mother, a strong matriarchal figure determined to raise Hill-Wagner and her 10 other siblings in South Central. 

Jaynie Royal, publisher and editor-in-chief of Regal House Publishing, said the memoir’s style was like an invitation. 

“[The book] has an immediacy to it, which is really appealing,” Royal said. “Reading the work, you feel like you’re there with [Hill-Wagner]. Her mother feels like a warm embrace. She’s so full of heart, humor and joy, which is also marvelous and astonishing given the adversities that she faced and the challenges the family had to overcome.” 

While there have been movies and books about growing up as a Black man in America from films such as “Boyz ‘N the Hood” and “Straight Outta Compton,” there was “almost nothing about the women and the girls in the hood,” Hill-Wagner said. 

According to Hill-Wagner, she faced challenges in journalism as a Black woman and even while pitching the book. As a reporter, she strictly kept herself separate from the story at hand, even amid the provocation of others. But this memoir gave the opportunity to tell her story, one that she knows is important, while fostering confidence in her ability to tell it. 

“It’s not a fairy tale. So some bad stuff happens. There’s drugs; there’s guns; there’s violence. But there’s also hope,” Hill-Wagner said. “And I wanted to be the message also, not just a lot of stories about how terrible women and girls are treated, because we are treated terribly in the hood and places like that, but also the possibilities that are out there to survive it. I wanted that to be the story [as well].”

Andrea Somberg, Hill-Wagner’s literary agent at Harvey Klinger Literary Agency, said the memoir was an emotive portrayal of a family loving and staying together amid poverty, racism and tough circumstances. 

“They keep on meeting these challenges and how Mary, but, especially her mother, this amazing strong matriarch of a woman, is determined to take care of her babies, take care of her children and does such a heroic job,” Somberg said. “So much of heroism is just the day-to-day, just getting through life, and I think that is very much a story about everything heroism.”

Finishing the book was a challenge Hill-Wagner said, because it meant revisiting not only fond childhood moment with family members but also the tough ones. Yet as she finished the work, she said she felt unexpected closure about what her mother meant to her years later. It was like getting a piece of her back years after she had passed away. 

“It was a challenge to remember all these things. To remember the fun things is fine, but to remember the emotionally wrenching things [was] difficult. And then to put them down, that was very hard,” Hill-Wagner said. “I used to remember some of the things that happened to my mother with great sadness. But, the sadness is not as acute since finishing this book, so it’s helped me in that way.” 

In telling her story, Hill-Wagner wants this book to encourage more women and girls, especially Black women, to share their stories without the fear of judgment. 

“We have such a rich culture, but we’re afraid of being judged, by these outside forces, by men and by white people in particular, I think. And so we don’t tell our stories,” Hill-Wagner said. “But we become resentful if somebody else tells our stories. We’re part of the American experience, and we should be proud of that.”

Hill-Wagner is currently working on a fiction novel, which she describes as a different but more joyful experience compared to her nonfiction pieces.   

“Someone asked me, ‘Who’s [“Girlz ‘N the Hood”] for?’ And I said, ‘This book is for anybody who had a mother, and anybody who didn’t. Which is everybody, really.”