tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post2461768636349083103..comments2023-07-12T07:59:47.173-04:00Comments on A Writer's Journey: A Right to Write?Lyn Fairchild Hawkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308501118724743991noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-16602216826974248572008-08-29T22:28:00.000-04:002008-08-29T22:28:00.000-04:00Thank you! I try to keep my eyes peeled and ears r...Thank you! I try to keep my eyes peeled and ears ready, hoping that my observations are fair snapshots of what I find so fascinating in all our human behaviors. I need to pick up Memoirs.Lyn Fairchild Hawkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13308501118724743991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-38530506478374261702008-08-25T08:13:00.000-04:002008-08-25T08:13:00.000-04:00…then there’s Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha....…then there’s Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. The author is not female nor is he Japanese. He did do ten years of research to write the book. <BR/><BR/> Lyn, your teaching experience in public and private schools gives you the right to write Midrift. As a teacher, you walked the path with kids and parents from all kinds of backgrounds. You are keen observer and an amazing writer. Congratulations on the publication of Midrift. Keep on, keeping on!<BR/><BR/> Best wishes, YMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-29270350710090167362008-08-23T20:38:00.000-04:002008-08-23T20:38:00.000-04:00Bob, your comment about integrity is an important ...Bob, your comment about integrity is an important one. One of the ways you define is through "copious amounts of research" and I think you can view research as taking many forms: poring through primary and secondary texts; interviewing; listening; reflecting. Like you, I didn't take the task lightly. I thought for a long time about Black English Vernacular and its million forms (I assume BEV emerges different from every soul, including whites who wish they were black). I thought a long time about my character Antoinette Mabry's upbringing, her schooling, her current employment, and why she would choose the words she does. I also spent a week as part of a NEH grant studying civil rights history and pedagogy in Jackson, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee. I have many favorite African-American authors whom I respect deeply, including Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, and Terry McMillan. I've had long conversations with many friends and colleagues over the years about race, racism, multicultual literature, affirmative action, civil rights, and many other issues. All of these experiences fuse into a hunt to understand. Also, re: multicultural literature - my novel grapples with that issue and the canon in high schools and how teachers, students, and parents respond to a mandate to "multiculturalize" it, when that call began in the late 80's, early 90's.<BR/><BR/>Nancy, you talk about empathy and the need to follow your heart. I think when people put their politics before art they aren't listening to the soul, and the soul says, There are no boundaries. I would hope someone of a different race would write about a particular white woman of a particular age in a particular place (like 40 year-old me living in Chapel Hill, NC - white girl who ain't a Southerner, ain't really a Californian, ain't a Coloradan, ain't a Belgian -- who's lived all these places and can't be categorized but CAN be captured on a page and hey, I dare someone to do that so I can star in someone's novel! <BR/><BR/>Randy, your points about honesty and empathy...agreed, and I think I've wrestled with that challenge fair to middlin' but I do want to have blind spots pointed out by others, and grow from this writing experience. I was initially hurt by my writers' group challenges to the BEV but I went back and found that I had written language too stereotypically. I also really tried to empathize -- not in a bleeding-heart way -- but because this voice inside me, this intention, was to let a voice be heard. The voice insisted on speaking and the story flowed out of me and kept coming back to me, demanding I revisit every line. In that way, intentions were as pure (perhaps not as the driven snow but who's as good as that). :-)<BR/><BR/>Thanks to everyone for commenting!<BR/><BR/>LynLyn Fairchild Hawkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13308501118724743991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-18727917325414870362008-08-23T18:59:00.000-04:002008-08-23T18:59:00.000-04:00Lyn, While the road to Hell . . ., I do believe t...Lyn, While the road to Hell . . ., I do believe that intentions matter. If a writer's intention (in this case your intention) is to be truthful to the experience of the character--and unless it is a science fiction story based on a totally imaginary world--the real life experience that such a character would have, then not only do you have a "right," you have an obligation to write. <BR/><BR/>There are any number of excellent books of reporting, memoir, and history that can give one the details of others' lives. Only fiction can provide an internal story, one that leads to greater empathy. So if a writer has found an honest voice, the writer's own demographic reality is immaterial. Of course, finding the honest voice of a character who has a different life based on societal hierarchy is a huge challenge. But isn't writing full of those?Randy Yalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11882461475930310820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-35412181137150753222008-08-23T18:40:00.000-04:002008-08-23T18:40:00.000-04:00Lyn: "A Right to Write?"should never be a question...Lyn: "A Right to Write?"should never be a question unless you're plagarizing someone's work. How would we, as writers, ever develop a character? I write from the viewpoint of men and women, young and old. Does that mean, because I'm not a man, I cannot write from a male viewpoint? Ridiculous! <BR/>I've had characters murder another character. I've never committed the act myself, so are we to say, "If you haven't done it, you cannot write about it? Rubbish!Racism, religious bias, writing only about our "corner of the world" doesn't get it. We learn from the experience of "walking in another's shoes." Erase the doubters and keep doing your thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-43741447224602391102008-08-23T18:17:00.000-04:002008-08-23T18:17:00.000-04:00Sherman Alexie, the writer of northwestern Native ...Sherman Alexie, the writer of northwestern Native American extraction, castigated Tony Hillerman, among others, who write from the Native American POV. Alexie's complaint has been similar to that of your writer's group member. <BR/>But Hillerman writes from two agendas, if you will. First, his stories are mysteries taking place in the Southwest. And he tries to share what he's learned from authentic Native Americans about their cultures. (I, for one, enjoy the former agenda and learn from the latter.) <BR/>There are two things wrong with this sort of complaint. The first is that writers shouldn't be limited to what they know from personal experience. I, for instance, am currently writing about a rarely seen (in fiction) aspect of WWII- the Eastern Front. I don't know beans about that from experience, but I've spent some four years researching it. And I've interviewed numerous people who did have the experience I'm writing about. Integrity is the main ingredient in writing, and I felt I needed copious amounts of research to speak to my subject with proper authenticity and integrity. If a writer can put hand to keyboard with proper integrity, I don't think harm has been done.<BR/>The second concern I have with this sort of complaint (and here I suppose I'm playing the curmudgeon) is in what you call the "protectionist" viewpoint. This has cropped up as literature has become more multicultural, and as people of previously submerged cultures begin to be published widely. That these cultures are now being read about from the perspective of their own members is laudable. Even when their writing isn't as developed as NY editors would like all writing to be, I suppose it's a good thing to see it in print. But when these folks start to complain that I shouldn't be allowed to write from a Slav's perspective, or a Hindi's, or even from a black American's, then we're seeing the dark side of multiculturalism. <BR/>To the contrary, I would say it's possible for someone - from China, for instance - to write about America, as Ha Jin has done, from a perspective impossible for Americans to conceive of, and in a way all Americans can learn from.<BR/>Artists are and always have been at the forefront of social re-positioning, and that's because they've been free of the constraints of politics. If we're going to let multiculturalism handcuff us as artists, then society won't continue to have the benefit of art's vision as a catalyst of worldwide social development.Gridley Fireshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17936267059744060669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-22638639946331680512008-08-23T13:15:00.000-04:002008-08-23T13:15:00.000-04:00Hi, Archibald,I think this is a really complex iss...Hi, Archibald,<BR/><BR/>I think this is a really complex issue. I think what you are interpreting as narrowness is true for some but not for the folks who gave me this advice. If anything, I would call it a "protectionist" viewpoint, a caution against exercising speech that's a little too free. That said, I believe a lot of good comes from walking in the shoes of others via fiction and then sharing it with the world, as long as I, the author, am open to a particular black woman trying to walk in a particular white woman's shoes. Note the word "particular" -- if the fictional individual isn't unique, then s/he's a stereotype, and the question for my story is, Did I eschew stereotype as much as possible and forge something new?<BR/><BR/>The challenge of course is that some stereotypes are true: white people can be bad dancers, across a population; white people can ask stupid questions of people of color; white people can be racists. Easier to speak of my own race than others -- I don't need to invoke stereotypes of other races here. So, did I show that nuanced view of more than one race in this story (or, is it possible I showed this particular black character showing racism toward white characters, who themselves were caricatures?) That's also worth asking!<BR/><BR/>I'll be curious to see what readers think and whether or not they see what to me the story is really about. <BR/><BR/>Thanks for your thoughts!<BR/><BR/>LynLyn Fairchild Hawkshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13308501118724743991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6124799008909325766.post-12874484363385593532008-08-23T10:46:00.000-04:002008-08-23T10:46:00.000-04:00Lyn:If someone criticizes one' right to write from...Lyn:<BR/><BR/>If someone criticizes one' right to write from a different perspecitve, he or she should get a life. What a narrow point of view those people must have. Who are they to pontificate about this?<BR/><BR/>One does not have to live an experience to be an expert about it. Different views provide the texture and nuance to such experiences.<BR/><BR/>The right to write is protected by the first amendment so tell those critics to learn their history.<BR/><BR/>ArchibaldAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com