An Interview with Dewan Aiken
D. Aiken is a disabled Navy veteran, memoirist, and founder of DeltaTango Press™, an independent publishing company rooted in legacy and truth. His writing explores generational trauma, identity, and Southern Black life with brutal honesty and redemptive hope. Through Buncombe and other works, Aiken uses storytelling to confront silence and elevate the stories often left in the margins. He currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he continues building both SauceGAME™ and DeltaTango Press with his wife, Tenè.
What inspired you to start writing this book?
I started writing Buncombe because I needed to say out loud what nobody ever had the courage to say around me. The silence was generational, heavy, and toxic. Writing became the only way I could exhale the weight of what I’d lived through and try to turn pain into purpose. This book is more than memory. It’s a reckoning, a release, and a record. I wanted my kids and their kids to know who I really was and where I really came from, not some watered-down version. This isn’t about blame. It’s about truth.
Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
It came quick, but it carried weight. Buncombe is the county in North Carolina where most of the story takes place, but it’s also a stand-in for the emotional weight of growing up in a place where beauty and brokenness lived side by side. The name holds history, trauma, and survival all in one word. I didn’t need to overthink it. That place shaped me.
Describe your dream book cover.
The real one comes close. A sepia-toned image of my childhood house at 54 Merrimon Avenue. Weathered porch. A front door that held too many secrets. I didn’t want anything flashy. Just the truth. Raw and unedited, like the story itself. If I could add anything, maybe ghosted silhouettes of the people who lived inside, standing in the shadows.
If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?
“Count Me Out” by Kendrick Lamar
“Walk With Me” by Curtis Mayfield
“River” by Leon Bridges
“Strange Fruit” by Nina Simone
“Blessed” by Jill Scott
“Shine On” by Rapsody
Each one of these speaks to something inside this book. Pain, hope, history, resilience.
What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?
Right now, I’m revisiting Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Heavy by Kiese Laymon. Both feel like cousins to what I’m doing. They remind me it’s okay to tell the truth, even when it’s ugly. I also bounce between scripture and Baldwin when I need to ground myself.
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I’m a disabled Navy veteran. I’ve worked in federal government and corporate logistics. These days, I own a sauce and seasonings company, a publishing imprint and still work for the VA. What most people don’t know is I used to write music under the name SquarerootZ. Words have always been how I survived. Whether it was rhymes or now, reflection.
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
I think I was writing before I even knew what writing was. I just didn’t have the confidence to claim it. I was influenced by hip-hop, soul music, and sermons more than books at first. Once I got older, Baldwin, Sonia Sanchez, and Maya Angelou cracked my mind wide open. But my biggest influence? Silence. The kind that keeps Black families sick. I write because silence kills.
Where is your favorite place to write?
I’m not precious about location. I write wherever there’s room for honesty. Sometimes that’s in the kitchen before sunrise. Sometimes it’s in my car. When it hits, it hits and I follow it.
What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?
Stop waiting for permission. Your story matters, even if nobody claps when you tell it. Write like someone’s life depends on it, because it might.
What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?
That healing is possible, but only if you face the truth. I want people to walk away understanding that generational pain doesn’t get better by ignoring it. It gets better when somebody decides to tell the story, even if their voice shakes.
Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.
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