Shimmering Tongues: Nina Sharma on Love, Race, and Narrative

On February 17, 2025, the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale hosted a book talk featuring author Nina Sharma discussing her memoir, The Way You Make Me Feel: Love in Black and Brown. Organized by Nafeesa Syeed, Lecturer in English and Associate Research Scholar at the South Asian Studies Council, the event was co-sponsored by the South Asian Studies Council, Afro-American Cultural Center, Council on African Studies, Asian American Cultural Center, and American Studies at Yale.

Sharma, an acclaimed writer and performer of South Asian descent, has been featured in The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Literature, and more. Her essays in The Way You Make Me Feel circle around her relationship with her African American partner, Quincy, and reckon with caste, race, colorism, and mental health. The event at Yale brought her into discussion with Garry Bertholf, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Wesleyan University, and Elishevlyne Eliason, a senior studying American Studies and French at Yale.

Sharma began with a reading from her essay “Year 1,” not included in the book, which is about her first year in the MFA in Writing program at Columbia University. Her older, white, male professor would ask her, “But have you experienced any racism before, really?” She unpacked the implications of that “really,” illustrating how such carelessness, doubt, and disbelief in lived experiences can be stored in one little word. Beyond writing, she learned strategies for self-protection—how to shorten conversations, deflect microaggressions, and recognize gaslighting. She called for dismantling workshop models that tokenize race, sexuality, and class as niche, extraordinary experiences.

Sharma followed with a reading from “Shithole Country Clubs,” a piece exploring her search for a wedding venue that met South Asian cultural requirements. She connected this experience to her father’s affiliation with Trump National Golf Club, revealing the double standard of social exclusivity—we hate it but we want in. The essay’s rhythm was centered on a powerful repetition of the phrase “members only,” infusing in her piece unspoken but ubiquitous barriers.

Professor Garry Bertoff then steered the conversation toward music’s influence in Sharma’s work. He described her writing as having a lyrical, almost synesthetic quality, likening her body of essays to a mixtape. Sharma, whose father was a musician, recounted how her upbringing shaped her artistic voice. Community music gatherings, ‘90s hip-hop, and MTV mixtapes all contributed to her understanding of language as fluid—English interwoven with Punjabi and Hindi, a “shimmering tongue.” She linked this idea to Black music’s tradition of sampling and recombination, seeing language as an evolving soundscape.

The conversation continued, moving to a discussion of the role of Black feminism in shaping Sharma’s work. Citing Audre Lorde, Sharma responded to Elishevlyne’s question on how the way she writes herself has changed: “Your silence will not protect you.” In MFA workshops, sharing her personal stories felt like an act of self-exposure, but she found solidarity in spaces with other marginalized voices. Beyond spaces of affirmation, she looks for spaces where everyone can push each other’s narratives further, without the impositions of stereotype or white gaze, making space for complexity.

The conversation turned to love, romance, and solidarity. Bertoff asked how Sharma navigates the intersection of race, queerness, and politics in her writing. She humorously embraced the topic of sex writing, advocating for an embodied, unfiltered approach. A rom-com enthusiast, she questioned mainstream depictions of Black and Brown love, referencing Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala as a formative film. Unlike escapist white rom-coms, Sharma argued, BIPOC and queer love stories serve as sites of cultural memory and resistance.

Sharma critiqued the expectation that narratives about race should center pain. While pain is a reality, she insisted on exploring joy, humor, and the mundane moments that make up full lives. She referenced Lorde’s concept of the erotic as a force for personal and collective transformation, considering how noticing differences can reshape social dynamics.

When a student in the audience asked about solidarity in moments of misunderstanding, particularly regarding colorism, Sharma likened this process to improv—thriving on imperfection and discomfort. She recalled Audre Lorde’s evolving stance on Palestine, illustrating how solidarity is a journey rather than a fixed position.

When Bertholf asked about repetition and serialization in narrative strategy, Sharma credited her husband Quincy, a poet, jazz enthusiast, and her first reader, for sharpening her storytelling. Repetition, she noted, is both musical and structural, storing meaning in rhythm. She described her process of weaving personal and historical narratives, inspired by poetry’s ability to layer meaning.

The event closed with a discussion of what’s next. Sharma reflected on how, upon finishing her book, it still felt incomplete—reinforcing her belief that imperfection is integral to creative work. She described her writing practice as “getting into the blindspot,” getting uncomfortable, and reinforcing her words with important scholars and music. She continues to explore mental health, a thread she now realizes deserves more space. Looking forward, she plans to embrace satire, finding joy in storytelling not just as survival, but as play.

The evening’s discussion was a testament to Sharma’s wit, depth, and commitment to complicating dominant narratives. Through humor, music, and history, she offers a vision of love—Black, Brown, and boundless.