00:01:00.000Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is
00:01:15.180Anne Foster. And before we get into today's episode, I do want to remind you that coming
00:01:19.160up this Friday, Friday, February 7th, I'm going to be in Fort Myers, Florida, and I have
00:01:25.280the time to do. I made the time to have a meetup of listeners of this podcast. So if you are there
00:01:31.820and you want to hang out Fort Myers, Florida this Friday, February 7th, just fill out the form at
00:01:36.320vulgarhistory.com slash meetup. Um, and let me know, let me know if you're around and then I'll
00:01:42.580know how many of us there are and then we can make a plan of where to meet. So stay tuned for a future
00:01:48.000live event slash meetup information. There's something coming up in March, but I'll talk to
00:01:52.480you about that in a few weeks. Anyway, Vulgar History. I'm so excited by today's guest and by
00:01:59.280today's topic. When I'm thinking of people to talk about for this podcast, I mean, I'm really
00:02:04.020grateful. I've got a huge document of suggestions from all of you, from people that you've heard
00:02:09.100about or you've encountered. There's so many people that I know will be great podcast people
00:02:13.140to talk about, but I'm always looking for that lesser known women from history, especially
00:02:18.940especially people from marginalized communities especially people who were really famous in their0.51
00:02:24.260era and now aren't anymore and you know when you do a random search like the same names always come
00:02:30.800up when you're like women from history it's always like Cleopatra Queen Victoria and it's like yeah
00:02:34.760but who are the like next level like if we want to get go deeper and that is what today's guest0.99
00:02:41.640did and she found just she went down a historical rabbit hole not even looking for this woman and0.99
00:02:46.360she found her. And now she's, she's written this amazing book. So Tiffany L. Warren is the author
00:02:51.800I'm talking with today. And her new book is called The Unexpected Diva. And so this is a book that
00:02:57.780tells the story of a black opera singer named Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who lived in the US
00:03:04.480before the civil war. She was super famous at the time and she's so little known now. And I thought
00:03:11.840the timing of it is great. Like the book was just published last month, February. It's February.
00:03:16.180it's black history month and just as as tiffany as she talks about in this interview like it was
00:03:22.580really important for her to to share this story she explains like how she came across the story
00:03:27.500and how important it is to her but also sharing stories of black joy and triumph i think is so
00:03:34.180important because there are often this time period like the time period of like pre-civil war even
00:03:40.320Civil War, American history. There's so many stories of, of just the torment and the degradation
00:03:49.000and all these horrible, horrible things that were happening to, to the black community at the time.
00:03:53.660And then this story, this true story that inspired Tiffany's novel of Elizabeth Taylor
00:03:58.400Greenfield is, it's an interesting, and it's such a, I'm just so excited to have learned about
00:04:04.300Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield because of Tiffany's book. I'm so happy Tiffany almost stumbled into
00:04:08.760learning about this herself. And honestly, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna step aside so you can listen
00:04:12.700to Tiffany explain everything because she's so passionate about this story. And I think it's
00:04:17.100such an important story. And so please enjoy this conversation between myself and Tiffany L. Warren.
00:04:26.040So today we're joined by Tiffany L. Warren, author of the amazing new novel, The Unexpected Diva.
00:04:32.720Welcome, Tiffany. Thank you. I'm really excited to talk to you both about your
00:04:38.740book which is great and also about the the woman who inspired it and I read your whole book start
00:04:45.180to finish then I read you know that the note at the end you were you explained in there how you
00:04:49.260heard about her so can you explain how you came across this story in the first place so let me
00:04:54.740just first say I have been obsessed with opera and opera music since I went to see the Phantom
00:05:03.620of the Opera when I was 18. I took a bus trip. That was a big thing in the 90s, bus trips. I'm
00:05:10.960from Cleveland and we would go on bus trips all over the place. So we took a bus trip to Toronto
00:05:15.980to see the Phantom of the Opera. And so after that, I just really was obsessed with opera music,
00:05:22.880opera singers. And I had read a book a few years before that by Anne Rice called Pride of Heaven
00:05:29.100about the famous Castrati. So I'd started writing like short pieces, short stories and novels about
00:05:37.440opera singers. So I had a novel that I had written called A Multitude of Sins about an opera singer.
00:05:46.160This was completely fiction. It wasn't about a real person in history. And my agent was about
00:05:51.520to start shopping it. But I was working on another historical fiction about Yolande Du Bois, which
00:05:57.840actually is my next novel that's coming out. And I found when I was researching her father that he
00:06:04.420had a very short-lived record company called Black Swan Records. And that record company was,
00:06:11.300the name of it was paying homage to Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was known as the Black
00:06:16.400Swan. And I was like, well, who is she? And doing historical fiction, like you often fall down
00:06:25.040rabbit holes. And so I fell down this rabbit hole and spent all day learning about Elizabeth
00:06:33.200Taylor Greenfield. And I told my agent, I said, okay, wait, stop. We're not going to shop a
00:06:39.480multitude of sins. I don't want to shop that because I don't want to shop an opera singer
00:06:45.900story about a completely fictional character when we have this amazing real person who existed.
00:06:52.420it. I want to write about her. And so that's how it all started. And I just went off to the racist
00:06:59.080writing a proposal about this amazing woman. Everything about her story. Like I read,
00:07:09.080I read the Wikipedia first just to be like, who is this? You know, before I got my hands in a copy
00:07:13.000of your book. And if I hadn't done that, I'd be like, she's making this up. There's no way this
00:07:16.620can be true but i know every time i thought that i'm like no that's that is her story so set the
00:07:22.700scene elizabeth where under what circumstances was she born like the year i know is debatable
00:07:29.780but like kind of what what what was up in america at the time when she was born right so elizabeth
00:07:35.400taylor greenfield was born enslaved um on a mississippi plantation and it's so amazing the
00:07:42.760circumstances, how she came, she just fell into this amazing situation. So her mistress was
00:07:51.860Elizabeth H. Greenfield, and she was a widow. And when her husband died, she decided to free all the
00:08:01.780slaves on the plantation. And during that time in Mississippi, when you freed slaves, they could not
00:08:09.420stay in America. They did not want all these people who had formerly been enslaved to now be
00:08:16.780free because there were too many of them. There were not enough owners to then contend with people
00:08:25.340that they had formerly beaten and mistreated. They did not want them in America. So the idea was
00:08:32.640send them to Liberia. And why specifically Liberia? Well, Liberia was created as a place
00:08:43.320to send formerly enslaved people. A bunch of, you know, people, wealthy folks got together
00:08:52.440and created this colony in Africa, this place to send. That's why it's called Liberia.
00:09:02.000I had no idea. Oh, my God. OK, thank you. So they created this place to send the manumitted slaves. And so Elizabeth H. Greenfield, which this is so amazing how she did this because it flies in the face of patriarchy.
00:09:21.740And so we have to think about how Eliza, the character from the book, how she was raised. She was raised by this woman. And we don't know why she stayed behind when the rest of her family went to Africa.
00:09:33.860but she instead of remarrying after her husband died and she was an old woman right she was in
00:09:42.920her 80s so she didn't remarry she sent all these people and she set them up because they they had
00:09:49.820to go with some funds to Africa or they wouldn't have survived so she sent them and it flies in0.99
00:09:57.100the face of patriarchy because she she gave them part of her husband's wealth, sent them to Africa.1.00
00:10:04.160Then she didn't stay in Mississippi. She herself relocated to Philadelphia with the rest of the0.97
00:10:10.920abolitionists to, you know, Pennsylvania, a free state. And then she raised Eliza in this community
00:10:18.400where all there were so many free black people who were doing amazing things on the Underground
00:10:24.400Railroad. She educated Eliza. And so when we look at the amazing things that she was able to
00:10:32.460accomplish Eliza in her life, we have to remember who raised her. This woman who was really one of
00:10:38.580the first feminists, she did some amazing things herself. So she was raised by a woman who did not0.99
00:10:44.880care about the patriarchy. She raised Eliza to be exactly who she was, someone who did not care1.00
00:10:56.580about, you know, societal norms. She did exactly what she needed to do.
00:11:06.080I was just looking up. I took a picture of this page of your book. There's a part where a character
00:11:10.480says um your life is full of well-intentioned white people most of us have not been so lucky0.88
00:11:17.180and i thought it's true right like the fact like this is where she was raised like that was
00:11:22.460that was a blessing and like thank goodness that's in this situation that she was able to
00:11:27.620be in a situation where she was raised like you described by this outside the norm for that time
00:11:34.000or for our time by this woman so eliza was able to be educated and then it turns out she's got0.65
00:11:38.660this amazing singing talent. Can you talk about that? Oh, absolutely. So Eliza had a three octave
00:11:45.820voice. And I read a comment that someone made that, oh, well, for a classically trained singer,
00:11:55.900a three octave voice is not, you know, all that uncommon. It was uncommon in 1850. Now,
00:12:04.080Of course, in today's time, there are ways to train vocalists that, you know, can pull that out of them.
00:12:13.160But in 1850, this was raw talent, right?
00:12:19.180And she had a three octave voice and it was unheard of.0.99
00:12:23.940The next best thing to Eliza's voice was Jenny Lind, who everyone knew her, the Swedish Nightingale.1.00
00:12:31.800She was, you know, pretty big time.1.00
00:12:34.080And she had a two and a half octave range. Eliza had three. And she was spectacular. When people heard her voice, they thought it was a trick. She had this deep baritone where she could sing songs that were meant as duets.0.99
00:12:51.480So Eliza would sing the male part and the female part. So she had an earth shattering soprano and the deep baritone of a man. And so her voice was just outstanding. And it was a gift.
00:13:07.200And she trusted in that gift to make room for her, which is the major theme of the book, that wherever she went, she expected that gift to open doors.
00:13:21.840It was a faith journey for her every step of the way.
00:13:25.520Well, and just saying like, like truly like the meaning of like this is a gift.
00:13:29.080It's like this because she hadn't had the training like she was growing up.
00:13:32.380And again, like in this situation where she had she wasn't enslaved, like she was surrounded in this community by abolitionists, by the free black community, which was such a benefit to her.
00:13:42.140But she just could sing like that is just her talent.
00:13:45.840Like she wasn't especially towards the beginning, not really well trained.
00:13:53.300Can you tell the story of how she was sort of discovered on this steamship?
00:13:58.260Right. So she had had some vocal lessons.
00:14:01.440She had had some vocal lessons, but she her dream was to get more lessons in Europe.
00:14:07.460What during that time, all of the major vocalists like the opera singers that were on the world stage were trained in Italy and in France.
00:14:18.340And of course, that was not afforded to her because only because of the color of her skin.
00:14:23.500She had the funds to do it. But, you know, that was not afforded to her because she was a black woman.0.90
00:14:30.640And so that was her dream. Now, when Elizabeth H. Greenfield, her benefactor, passed away, she was left a sizable fortune. And again, that was her benefactors, you know, she did not care about the patriarchy.
00:14:49.620She was going to leave her ward a fortune. She did not care. And of course, the patriarchy said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, we're going to contest this. You're not going to leave a formerly enslaved person as a wealthy woman able to, you know, chart her own course.0.98
00:15:10.920And so it was contested. The case remained in court for many, many, many, many years. And in the meantime, Eliza had to survive. She had to live. And so she decides, and we don't know why she decided to get on that steamer to Buffalo, but she had a chance encounter with a woman named Elektra Potter on the steamship.
00:15:38.920She sang for her and the lecturer was like, oh, no, honey, somebody's got to hear this voice.
00:15:43.940And so that's another well-intentioned white person who found her way into history by being an ally for Eliza.0.99
00:15:54.440She she had her Eliza sing at her house for all of these elite, wealthy people in Buffalo.0.97
00:16:03.060And Eliza's career took off after that. And it was a whirlwind after that. She was able to do a tour in the United States, and then she toured the UK.
00:16:15.900And along the way, there were, of course, pitfalls and the promoter, the concert promoters that she dealt with, charlatans.
00:16:28.180And so the book talks about how Eliza deals with so many things that today's Black women continue to deal with, having her body policed, being compared with her white peers, being criticized in the reviews, having her talent questioned.
00:16:58.180Lots of things that you would think in 2025, in 2025, we're calling it DEI hires. But in 1850, it was the same thing. It was questioned. Is she is she really this gifted when she actually was?
00:17:14.120well and speaking of comparing her to her to like to jenny lind who is the swedish nightingale right
00:17:20.640so allies is called the black swan and i don't know what did you learn about how that name came
00:17:28.300about or where how she started being known as that so that nickname actually came from a review
00:17:34.240of one of her very first concerts uh a newspaper reviewer uh and they did it not to be you know
00:17:43.620It was complimentary. They were saying, well, what do we need the Swedish nightingale for? Because we have this American, like who needs the Swedish nightingale? Give us the black swan. Right. You know, and Eliza in the book, she's like, I mean, swans aren't even black. Like, what are we doing here?
00:18:05.180you know um and in real life eliza kept trying to get away from that name
00:18:13.260and couldn't um because you know once a thing hits the media it sticks even in 1850 just like
00:18:22.000it is today like when something goes viral it sticks and in the 1850s uh viral meant it hit
00:18:28.840the newspapers so it stuck um and she she was uh at some point she just accepted it
00:18:35.120but her hairstyle too right she sort of presented herself right yes so she decided to lean into it
00:18:43.140so she changed her hairstyle fashioned it after jenny lynn she was like you know if they're gonna
00:18:49.340call me this i might as well lean into it um and and i thought that was so humorous there's actually
00:18:56.460a rendition of a photograph that where she's wearing the hairstyle, the Jenny Lind
00:19:06.740hairstyle that it just tickled me to see that because I was like, oh, she leaned all the way
00:19:13.200in. I love Eliza's spirit. Like she's such a spunky. Like when I saw that, I was like, I have0.99
00:19:21.640to put this in a book. Like when I saw that image, I was like, oh, I have to put that in the book.
00:19:26.460Like how that came about, like I had to create that because that was just that tickled me so much to see that because, you know, she experienced so many microaggressions and she was able to navigate that and still find success.
00:19:48.560And sometimes it's hard because sometimes you can get burdened down by that. And she found a way to rise above it and to still be triumphant. I heard a quote by the late Nikki Giovanni, and she talked about how Black women, even in times of heavy darkness and oppression, find ways to be joyful.
00:20:17.860She lived in a time of heavy oppression.0.61
00:20:21.740The Black women in the country, the majority of them, when she lived, were still in chains.
00:20:27.640And Eliza gave people a reason for hope.
00:20:32.500She was talked about in the Frederick Douglass newspapers, and not always in complimentary terms, because, you know, lots of activists thought that she could be doing more.
00:20:42.840but she gave people a reason for hope and so we still find ways to be joyful and triumphant and
00:20:51.580even during times of oppression and i think that eliza's story is evidence of that well and you
00:21:00.420talk again i think it's in the afternote in your book about how you sort of piece together
00:21:03.980because there's not a lot of act there's not you know journals there's not diaries there's not
00:21:08.580letters but you're looking at where did she perform and what was happening in those cities
00:21:12.740and what might have happened and just to just so the listeners know like to be clear like this is
00:21:17.180pre-american civil war when she's doing this like this is this is the time period talking about it's
00:21:22.620like the 1850s in america and she's touring around um can you tell the story about um she was doing
00:21:29.560a concert and then black people were forbidden from attending it oh absolutely so i i like to
00:21:35.720call Alessa the Beyonce of the antebellum because she is touring pre-Civil War. And0.97
00:21:42.480most of the theaters where she performed, there were all white audiences because Black people0.91
00:21:50.340were not allowed to attend the shows. And there were some where they allowed her to have separate0.82
00:21:57.660concerts with Black people. There were some where they allowed Black people to come,
00:22:02.700but they had to be, you know, up in the rafters where they could hardly see.1.00
00:22:07.860So there were some shows that they were allowed to attend, but most of the shows were all0.84
00:22:14.940white because Black people were not allowed to attend.
00:22:19.180And so because of that, Eliza got caught a lot of flack from the activists who felt like
00:22:30.980You can be pushing for integration of the audiences. And Eliza had to grow into her activism. And I love that in the story, she was able to choose how the kind of activist that she wanted to be and that she didn't allow anyone to chart her path for her.
00:22:54.380She wrote her own story. And that's what any good heroine is going to do. She's not going to let
00:23:01.080anybody write her own story. She's a diva, you know, unexpected or otherwise. She wrote her own0.74
00:23:08.220story. And that's what I love. I saw you say that before, that she's the Beyonce of the antebellum.
00:23:14.420And just having that in my head, it's just like, yeah, because it's a touring, like she's so she's
00:23:18.780this incredible gift that she has that she's sharing. And as you described it, like she grows
00:23:23.560into her activism which we've seen with Beyonce as well and how that has got people you know to
00:23:30.680go from like I'm a similar age to Beyonce I feel like I grew up watching her just like achieve and1.00
00:23:36.060achieve and achieve um and at first it's like oh Destiny's Child this is nice like single ladies
00:23:40.280everyone's like oh yeah and by everyone I mean white people um like we love her yeah she's great0.61
00:23:46.120and then suddenly she does like a black power salute and people are like wait a minute wait a0.95
00:23:51.240And now she does like black is king. She like she's grown into really expressing herself like and her blackness in the way that suddenly people who were fans are like, oh, wait, what's happening? And I felt like Eliza did a similar thing.
00:24:05.060oh yeah she progresses yeah yeah yep she totally did and and that's it shouldn't have been a
00:24:13.280surprise but I think a lot of her her white allies probably were surprised by that but I think
00:24:23.460some of them encouraged her in that way particularly Harriet Beecher Stowe who the
00:24:30.800writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin she absolutely I think would have encouraged Eliza along that path
00:24:40.800because she for sure thought that Eliza was proof of what of what she was positing in her books that
00:24:50.940Black people were more than enslaved people that they could they had more to offer society
00:24:59.360And whether or not you agree with Uncle Tom's cabin, she had good intentions and what, and there are, Eliza was irritated with Harriet on multiple occasions in the book. And I want people to enjoy those moments when they read it. So no spoilers, but, you know, she was certainly well intentioned and she had Eliza's best interest at heart.
00:25:26.000But you're right. I do believe when Eliza grew into her activism that some of her white benefactors were like, hold on, wait a minute now. What's going on? But Eliza grew as a Black woman.
00:25:37.340And I think the things that happened around her, she started to see and experience things that made her understand, particularly there's a concert that happens in New York that really impacts her like, I am a Black woman in this space.
00:26:23.480Because she's experiencing these things, but then she knows that other Black people, what their situation is like, and she's in a position where she can advocate.
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00:30:24.120Like, of course, I created the conversation because that conversation is not documented.
00:30:28.920But what happened there, the choice of music, that truly happened.
00:30:36.360So Eliza was just an amazing woman and being able to document her story, even through historical fiction, I think, just brings attention to someone who should she should not be a hidden figure.
00:30:51.660I cannot understand why she is, but she shouldn't be.
00:30:56.380Yeah. Do you know, I did an episode a few months ago about Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier de Saint George, and how his story is being reclaimed. And I feel like Eliza is like the American version of that.
00:31:11.600Someone who is so talented, somebody who was unusual for the situation, like a Black person excelling in this way, who is so famous in her era and then just completely forgotten.
00:31:24.820yes and she all of the the the black opera singers that we know and love like leontine
00:31:33.800price and marian anderson they stand on her shoulders and so we her name should be a household
00:31:39.940name um just like theirs and and i'm hoping um that it becomes so i i'm i really hope that
00:31:49.820well and again like you were just talking about the like performance for queen victoria and stuff
00:31:54.320And that was something where I'm like, you couldn't make the story up.
00:32:14.880And so your novel takes place in sort of this important time period
00:32:18.240where she goes, where she becomes a professional singer
00:32:21.500and then kind of moving into her activism.
00:32:23.300And she lived for quite a while after that.
00:32:26.160Can you talk about just what I read about it, like in your in your afterward, but just like she moved into philanthropy and really being a mentor to other black singers?
00:32:36.200Yes. So she had a huge cause, her cause, her biggest cause after her first tour because she did tour again.
00:32:44.380But after her first tour, her biggest cause was Black orphanages, because even though her family, you know, moved to Liberia after Elizabeth H. Greenfield died, she was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan, right?
00:33:02.780She didn't have any family to speak of in the United States. And she did lots of fundraisers for orphans in the United States, black orphans.
00:33:15.940And she did many, many fundraisers for black soldiers during the Civil War. She she did tours in black churches.
00:33:26.340She raised lots of funds for Black churches.
00:33:29.600She also mentored young Black opera singers.
00:34:00.560She was a member of that church when she died in 1876.
00:34:03.880So Eliza became a member of the community that nurtured her.
00:34:08.880She became a fixture in that community.
00:34:12.080So I love that she did that because that community gave her the lift that she needed to become the black swan.
00:34:22.340And so she poured back into it. And that is just the thing that is big with black people.
00:34:29.280We are big about our communities. And I love that Eliza went back home after after everything that she did.
00:34:38.420She went right back home to the place where it all started. And she took everything that she had learned going around the world and she brought it back to day one.
00:34:50.940And the first place where I went to research Eliza was a program book about her life.
00:34:59.540Clearly, it was written for a concert.
00:35:02.060And there's nothing mentioned in the program book really about the Black community, because
00:35:08.540like I said, most of her, the people that went to her concert were white folks.
00:35:13.300So they probably didn't care about that.
00:35:16.000It had a lot to do with Elizabeth H. Greenfield and the doctor who was her neighbor that helped
00:35:23.160her get singing lessons. It talked about all the white people that were in her life, but it didn't
00:35:27.700talk about the Black community that she was definitely a part of. But Eliza, when she came
00:35:35.500back home, she was not a part of the Quaker community when she came back home. She was part
00:35:41.720of the Black community. She was part of Shiloh Baptist Church, which let me know that she was
00:35:48.180a part of that community before. And so that's why I made sure that even though in my research
00:35:55.860of Eliza, it was hard for me to find these people like, you know, Michigan Street Baptist Church
00:36:03.240in Buffalo. I did not know that Eliza was part of that community. That's all fiction. But I assumed
00:36:10.900because i know black people i i know us that when she went to buffalo for her singing lesson she1.00
00:36:18.200would have found the black people because that's what we do we need something to eat that's made
00:36:22.940by black people so we are going to find us wherever we go and i purposely found historical1.00
00:36:30.840black churches um and put them in the novel michigan street baptist church is a historic
00:36:36.920Black church in Buffalo that was built by, it was one of the first Black churches that wasn't
00:36:44.120donated by white people. It was built by the congregants. They raised their own money and
00:36:51.500they built the church. And so with my historical fiction, I make sure, especially to find these
00:36:59.960little nuggets of important Black history, and I put it in there. So I had a lot of fun doing that.
00:37:07.980Just, I was like, okay, in this city, what are the unknown, little known Black history facts?1.00
00:37:14.520Because we read for entertainment, for sure. So it's got to be a juicy story. Like, I got to put0.54
00:37:21.400Charles in there. We didn't talk about Charles. We can talk about him in a minute.
00:37:24.280Oh, there's some love interest in this book.
00:39:07.160but she was a very young woman in her 20s.
00:39:11.220And so of course she's going to want romance.0.96
00:39:15.760what young woman doesn't want romance. And so when she meets this fine organ player at Michigan
00:39:23.680Street Baptist Church, I mean, listen, I, in my mind, he was looking like a young Idris Elba.
00:39:30.460So he was fine. And he had to come along for the journey. And Charles and Eliza had lots of fun
00:39:41.460on this tour and but we have to still think about the time period we were in like there were
00:39:48.140cultural rules and norms and societal norms that you were not just running around you know
00:39:57.600having random encounters with men like there was not access to birth control where was that0.99
00:40:05.940You know, she couldn't get pregnant because that was not a thing. There was no access to abortion. There were many things that kind of put limits upon what she could and could not have in the way of romance if she wanted a career, which is why women were, their sexuality was not free.0.99
00:40:32.060she didn't have a lot of freedoms there but she did definitely find ways to have fun with Charles0.70
00:40:39.320and so that was an exploration that I had a lot of fun with in the book and I definitely wanted1.00
00:40:47.880to give space for that in this book and I wanted Eliza because she was raised by a woman that was0.98
00:40:55.800a feminist I wanted her to not be trapped by patriarchal norms I didn't want her to be trapped0.94
00:41:06.060by that and I didn't want her to have to choose marriage when she wanted to be an opera singer0.99
00:41:17.540And we know that she did become an opera singer, but I didn't want her to have to not have love. So I enjoyed Charles through this book and I think Eliza enjoyed him too.
00:41:35.800It's such a good relationship to read about. They're both just such passionate people and about music and about each other.
00:41:47.280But yeah, I mean, also like you're faced with the, you know, the fact of this real woman's life, which is like we know she didn't get married.
00:41:54.760And for a woman in that time and place, that was a choice to like that was an unusual choice.
00:42:01.580Very unusual, very, very unusual for a woman to stay unmarried.
00:42:05.940And to be honest, during a time when the Fugitive Slave Act was a thing, it was not necessarily a safe choice for Eliza.
00:42:17.940I think the Fugitive Slave Act was, you know, plantation owners could come from the South and kidnap Black folks, whether they were free or enslaved.
00:42:35.940and take them and put them on plantations that the movie and book 12 years a slave is exactly
00:42:42.640about that um about a man who was kidnapped and he was free and so folks were afraid of that and
00:42:54.220eliza marriage could help prevent that you had a family it was harder to kidnap someone who was in
00:43:04.360a family who had, you know, a place in the community. So being a single Black unattached1.00
00:43:12.340woman was not necessarily the smart option. Now, being a famous Black woman could maybe be a1.00
00:43:23.920protection. And so that was the path she chose. Being famous could maybe keep her from being,0.93
00:43:32.040you can't kidnap the black swan so that was her her thought it just I mean clearly it's coming
00:43:38.740across in everything you're saying like you had so much fun researching this like filling in these
00:43:44.160gaps like you were you were given a gift really of just like here's the bare outline of this
00:43:48.900woman's life and we know she did this and this and this and then you get to fill in the blanks
00:43:52.480and clearly that was so fun for you I listen I did so I've been writing for 20 years right
00:44:00.400And I am a storyteller at heart. I've been writing for longer than 20 years, but professionally for 20 years. I'm a storyteller at heart. I love to put my protagonist at peril, like dangling them off cliffs. That is my favorite thing to do.
00:44:17.820What I will say about Eliza's story in particular, because there were such sketchy details, I really enjoyed discovering Eliza's why.
00:44:32.700And that's the why that I created as a storyteller.
00:44:37.440It was so much fun coming up with that.
00:44:41.820And I enjoy doing that with all of my characters, but historical fiction just, it has really opened up something new and exciting for me, a new journey in my writing, and I'm really enjoying it.
00:44:58.060I just, I'm working on the edits now for my second historical fiction, and this one is even more exciting than my journey with Eliza.
00:45:07.920So I'm really, really, it just feels brand new. It has echoes for me to the beginning of my writing career, which started in 2003. So I just, it's not that my writing career had become kind of routine, but I mean, I could, you know, bust out a novel in six months.
00:45:30.720I had been researching my novel that I'm editing. Now I've researched that for over a year. It took
00:45:38.900another year to write it. That hadn't been a thing. So this feels different. And it's hard to
00:45:49.580do something different when you've been doing a thing for over 20 years for it to feel fresh and
00:45:55.580new. It's kind of exciting. So I like that. Well, and just to bring it back to what you wrote in
00:46:02.100your end note, you're talking about part of why you're excited to share this story. So you're
00:46:06.720saying to celebrate Black joy where it exists in America's history. Our stories did not begin on
00:46:13.920the shores of America, but when we were empowered and allowed to flourish, often greatness ensued.
00:46:18.320So like, it's a happy story. Yes. And I think that's so important. Yes. Because so many stories
00:46:25.520from this time period, in particular, the antebellum, are stories of oppression and
00:46:32.080stories of violence toward Black bodies. And there's not a lot of Black joy in this time period,0.86
00:46:40.660in the antebellum. And to find this gem of a story during a very, very dark period and not just0.99
00:46:51.560Black history in American history. This was a dark period for America. And this is a gem0.94
00:47:01.280of Black joy in a very dark period. And I just feel blessed to be just the scribe of just
00:47:14.680this very triumphant tale. I feel very blessed to have written this down.
00:47:21.560And this episode, it's going to be coming out just at the beginning of February, which is, of course, Black History Month.0.81
00:47:26.460So I think the timing, the timing cannot be better.
00:47:30.000And so if people want to keep up like we were talking before we were recording, you're doing you're doing events, you're doing readings.
00:47:35.940Like, how can people follow you and find out how they can attend some of those events if they're in a city where you're going?
00:47:41.860Yes, please follow me on Instagram and Facebook.
00:47:46.000I'm on Instagram at Tiffany L. Warren and on Facebook at author Tiffany L. Warren all of my
00:47:54.860stuff is there and I'm my website is Tiffany L. Warren dot com and I'm there you can find out all
00:48:01.760of my my tour schedule there I'm doing events all over the place so please come out and see me
00:48:41.320Amazing story. And I want you to know about Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield in real life. I want you to research her. I want you to see the photos of her. I wish a recording of her voice existed.
00:48:58.800I was reading the book and I was just like, I was like, is there, there has to be no, but so I was just trying to imagine it. Yeah.
00:49:04.500No, the technology to record our voice did not exist at the time, but we can imagine it. I imagined it. There are track listings of what she sang in her concert. So as I wrote the book, I did listen to some of the songs that she sang by, you know, recorded by other artists to kind of get a feel for what she sang.
00:49:26.720and, you know, learn about her, who she was