Our Storytelling Trek Blog #3

ilene
Aug 2
4 min read

Updated: Aug 9

NABS Talking: On The Road with Ilene and Queen

Documenting Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellows

By: Ilene Evans

Editor: Karen "Queen Nur" Abdul-Malik

Jazmine LeBlanc, South Arts Recipient Books, Bikes, and BiblioBurros

Come! Take a walk with us around the And Then Books bookshop with Jazmine LeBlanc, in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

Jazmine is an intrepid Chattanooga-based storyteller and adventurer. Lookout Mountain hovers over the city with all its history, both ancient and modern. One look at the mountain captures the fierce love of nature, history, and the people that clarifies Jazmine’s work.

The center of Jazmine’s world is story – She tells stories in traditional ways, going to schools with folktales and stories. But she also embraces modern technologies and uses multimedia and film to help her voice rise above the fray. She is the winner of the NAACP Image Award, award-winning producer and storyteller. Jazmine won the Mid-South Emmy for her film, How to Sue the Klan. It is about a civil case of five Black women who set a legal precedent across the United States in the fight against organized hate.

The Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellowship award has helped Jazmine garner professional development she has been planning and hire an assistant to increase her booking capacity. Jazmine’s curiosity and willingness to expand her practice is endless.

Jazmine’s energy matches her curiosity and creative vision. She is proficient in multiple artistic disciplines which make her world-rich and varied. She may call such things hobbies, but the speed at which she masters them tells a different story. Community building is one of the payoffs of so many interests. “…After the interview [I] woke up thinking about the countless hobbies I forgot to mention, like book restoration, and foraging and completely forgot all my physical hobbies, like jump rope, rowing, functional fitness competitions, the skateboard I found last week on the side of the road and have been cruising the empty parking lot with trying to get back my skateboarding skills, and my hobby of trying to learn all the cool things I didn’t know how to do as a child, like Rubik’s Cube (I can solve in sub 2 minutes) and juggling.” Let’s add jewelry, candle making, filmmaking, graphic design, crochet, knitting, weaving, sewing, hiking, biking, cooking, childrearing, and all the time telling stories, creating stories, sharing other people’s stories, authored books, building a neighborhood library, and now a bookstore. Jazmine is a master craftswoman in many areas.

Her love for her neighbors and their children is reflected in the ELLA library. ELLA stands for East Lake Language and Arts. The community arts organization sits within a black and brown neighborhood and serves the families there year round. One familiar visitor to the neighborhood is the biblioburro – a symbol that announces that the library is open and invites them in. Of course, there is a book behind the name. The Biblioburro is based on a true story from Colombia. The story mirrors Jazmine’s passion to bring books, learning, literacy, and a love for story to all children, no matter how remote they are. We were introduced to the charming burro housed behind the library, he is fitted with shelves to carry books and wheels to roll along the paved pathways of the neighborhood.

Her example inspires and connects so many different kinds of people. The power of Blackstorytelling, which involves the audience, teaches the audience, prepares the audience, reminds the audience, guides and comforts the audience, hardens for hard truths and times and gives creative solutions to damaging problems. All these are part of the fierce warrior storyteller that is Jazmine.

“And Then Books, what does that mean", I asked. Jazmine showed us a graphic novel that she wrote, illustrated in part by her and her husband and a Nigerian artist. The book is an expression of their wonder and whimsy – moving into new genres of storytelling – anime and manga and graphic novels. The story has an open ending, inviting the reader to keep the story going, imagine the ending, create their own chance to say,…. “and then”… so The name of the store is to build the creative adventurer who says, “what’s next?, and then.., did you know?, how about that?” She has just completed making all the books in the store online for a searchable catalogue.

We happened to arrive on the very day another of her projects was going public. The documentary film, The Undiscovered Class, was having a screening of the final version. As a producer, Jazmine worked with director, Pablo Mazariegos. It is a story about the first graduating class at Chattanooga Preparatory School, an all-boys charter school set in the urban center where many have turned to drugs, theft, violence with little hope of living past their teens. The success of the first graduating class is met with one challenge after another. It is a real life victory celebration. It opened on May 12, 2026. Jazmine is busy!