Toni Wi: writer; editor; prospective PhD student
Sloane Leong: cartoonist, artist, writer (Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Native American and European ancestry)
Sascha Stronach: writer
Darcie Little Badger: writer, PhD in oceanography
Rebecca Roanhorse: writer, Campbell, Nebula, and Hugo Award-winning (LOVED Trail of Lightning)
Sloane Leong: cartoonist, artist, writer (Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Native American and European ancestry)
Sascha Stronach: writer
Darcie Little Badger: writer, PhD in oceanography
Rebecca Roanhorse: writer, Campbell, Nebula, and Hugo Award-winning (LOVED Trail of Lightning)
This would have been the first event on my list were I going!
However, I’m adding another pair of guests here – my Mind Guests: Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors and workshop leaders. After following various leads, articles, and commentaries by other writers, I reached their “workshop book” WRITING THE OTHER, A Practical Approach.
In 1992, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, “One of our classmates opined that it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Better not to even try.”(WRITING THE OTHER: A Practical Approach, Aqueduct Press, 2005; p 6)
It seemed to Ms. Shawl “to be taking the easy way out.” This led her to write the essay, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere” (Speculations, October 1999; retrieved from: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/04/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere/)
“Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe! I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf’s monochrome futures.” (It can certainly be said of Children's Literature at this moment...)
It was certainly mine – though I occasionally tried to slip in a name that was not typically given to Caucasian newborns, like “Candace”, “Dejario”, and “Ozaawindib” – and as much of a cultural referent as I could in a short story.
After writing my novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS, and sending it in eventually to be evaluated at BAEN BOOKS, it has been sitting in my computer, awaiting a rewrite for a couple of years now. In it, my main character is white and Ojibwe. Where I live, the Ojibwe are the predominant indigenous people, though there are Dakota as well. The Dakota lost the war with the Ojibwe a long time ago, so, I wanted to create a character who was not me – I wanted to attempt to be a transracial writer.
The first roadblock I slammed into was an objection to Noah’s bi-cultural name. His first was a popular American name (though actually, Wiki (with infallible accuracy, and interested solely in passing correct, factual, and totally and completely bias-free information) points out that “in view of the Sumerian/Babylonian source of the flood story”, it was Hebrew only secondarily after being stolen from Sumer and Babylon…)
At any rate, Noah’s last name is Bemisemagak and the editor commented that it was too long and he’d just skipped over it...
Really? I get irritated when people refuse to believe that my name is Guy! (I have been subjected to a quick query of “more likely” alternatives: “Greg? Gary? Grant? (any my personal favorite) God?”
So, let’s trample on an indigenous name by noting that it’s too long and we’ll just skip over it...
Admittedly, I was weak on the history when I wrote it. Since then, however, I’ve read THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY and a poetry collection by Ojibwe author and poet, Richard Wagamese, (resided in British Columbia, Canada), EMBERS: One Ojibwe’s Meditations.
I absolutely do not claim familiarity with the Ojibwe people, though I have passed through the skeletal remnants of their vast lands; I’ve secretly rejoiced at their prosperity and the white community’s vast irritation when, “Minnesota tribes were the first in the nation to negotiate and sign gaming compacts with a state government.” (https://mnindiangamingassoc.com/about-miga/history-of-indian-gaming/. My home also holds a far darker record – not only the largest execution of Dakota in the state’s microscopic history, but “The mass hanging of 38 Dakota men was conducted on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota; it was the largest mass execution in United States history.”
I have a profound motivation to include “the other” in my writing. I’m trying to sell a short story that also takes place at this time, with Director Bemisemagak, but I haven’t had any luck yet. I wrote a contemporary YA novel, VICTORY OF FISTS in which Langston Hughes Jones is a biracial teen who is a genius, has anger issues, and works to deal with them by writing poetry. My agent tried 17 markets, all of them rejected it for reasons other than “a big, old, fat, white guy can’t possibly [be allowed] to write about a biracial teenager!!!!!” But it was clear that I was flying into the gathering hurricane that's roaring through YA, children's, and speculative fiction publishing as people who are leaders attempt to do IMMEDIATELY (and with fanfare) what should have been done wholesale decades ago.
While I hesitate to speculate, I wonder if the REST of the publishing community holds Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward’s enthusiasm for bofwhigs (Big Old Fat White Guys) like myself trying to include POC in my narratives? I think it’s important that POCs begin to appear in stories in the proportion in which they are in a society. While there may or may not be enough writers who are POC to cover that need, I’ll continue to include characters who are POC in my writing – whether people notice it or not. Larry Henry, the main character in my story, “Kamsahamnida, America”, was supposed to be black, based on Robert Henry Lawrence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Lawrence_Jr.), First African-American astronaut, died before ever going into space. Robert Henry Lawrence? The Henry’s obvious; Larry is short for Lawrence…nah? *sigh*
I don't want to appropriate culture, I’m want to be part of the effort to ensure that hidden people who made the world are drawn forward to take their real place in history, in today’s world, and in the future worlds. For context, I've worked in a multicultural, average high school as a counselor for the past ten years; if you went there and asked around, others would speak for my behavior and character -- otherwise, you have no idea if I'm writing fiction or fact.
Shawl & Ward conclude with the following, “Tom Wolfe spoke at a Press Club lunch on the subject of ‘writing what you know.’ His point was that this is great advice, but that as writers it’s our job to continually know more…So welcome the Beautiful Strangers. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes with them. Do your best, and you’ll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion.”
In my writing, I'm working hard to do this. I'm working to become transracial and antiracist. I am a work in progress.
Programme Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image:
However, I’m adding another pair of guests here – my Mind Guests: Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors and workshop leaders. After following various leads, articles, and commentaries by other writers, I reached their “workshop book” WRITING THE OTHER, A Practical Approach.
In 1992, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, “One of our classmates opined that it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Better not to even try.”(WRITING THE OTHER: A Practical Approach, Aqueduct Press, 2005; p 6)
It seemed to Ms. Shawl “to be taking the easy way out.” This led her to write the essay, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere” (Speculations, October 1999; retrieved from: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/04/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere/)
“Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe! I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf’s monochrome futures.” (It can certainly be said of Children's Literature at this moment...)
It was certainly mine – though I occasionally tried to slip in a name that was not typically given to Caucasian newborns, like “Candace”, “Dejario”, and “Ozaawindib” – and as much of a cultural referent as I could in a short story.
After writing my novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS, and sending it in eventually to be evaluated at BAEN BOOKS, it has been sitting in my computer, awaiting a rewrite for a couple of years now. In it, my main character is white and Ojibwe. Where I live, the Ojibwe are the predominant indigenous people, though there are Dakota as well. The Dakota lost the war with the Ojibwe a long time ago, so, I wanted to create a character who was not me – I wanted to attempt to be a transracial writer.
The first roadblock I slammed into was an objection to Noah’s bi-cultural name. His first was a popular American name (though actually, Wiki (with infallible accuracy, and interested solely in passing correct, factual, and totally and completely bias-free information) points out that “in view of the Sumerian/Babylonian source of the flood story”, it was Hebrew only secondarily after being stolen from Sumer and Babylon…)
At any rate, Noah’s last name is Bemisemagak and the editor commented that it was too long and he’d just skipped over it...
Really? I get irritated when people refuse to believe that my name is Guy! (I have been subjected to a quick query of “more likely” alternatives: “Greg? Gary? Grant? (any my personal favorite) God?”
So, let’s trample on an indigenous name by noting that it’s too long and we’ll just skip over it...
Admittedly, I was weak on the history when I wrote it. Since then, however, I’ve read THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY and a poetry collection by Ojibwe author and poet, Richard Wagamese, (resided in British Columbia, Canada), EMBERS: One Ojibwe’s Meditations.
I absolutely do not claim familiarity with the Ojibwe people, though I have passed through the skeletal remnants of their vast lands; I’ve secretly rejoiced at their prosperity and the white community’s vast irritation when, “Minnesota tribes were the first in the nation to negotiate and sign gaming compacts with a state government.” (https://mnindiangamingassoc.com/about-miga/history-of-indian-gaming/. My home also holds a far darker record – not only the largest execution of Dakota in the state’s microscopic history, but “The mass hanging of 38 Dakota men was conducted on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota; it was the largest mass execution in United States history.”
I have a profound motivation to include “the other” in my writing. I’m trying to sell a short story that also takes place at this time, with Director Bemisemagak, but I haven’t had any luck yet. I wrote a contemporary YA novel, VICTORY OF FISTS in which Langston Hughes Jones is a biracial teen who is a genius, has anger issues, and works to deal with them by writing poetry. My agent tried 17 markets, all of them rejected it for reasons other than “a big, old, fat, white guy can’t possibly [be allowed] to write about a biracial teenager!!!!!” But it was clear that I was flying into the gathering hurricane that's roaring through YA, children's, and speculative fiction publishing as people who are leaders attempt to do IMMEDIATELY (and with fanfare) what should have been done wholesale decades ago.
While I hesitate to speculate, I wonder if the REST of the publishing community holds Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward’s enthusiasm for bofwhigs (Big Old Fat White Guys) like myself trying to include POC in my narratives? I think it’s important that POCs begin to appear in stories in the proportion in which they are in a society. While there may or may not be enough writers who are POC to cover that need, I’ll continue to include characters who are POC in my writing – whether people notice it or not. Larry Henry, the main character in my story, “Kamsahamnida, America”, was supposed to be black, based on Robert Henry Lawrence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Lawrence_Jr.), First African-American astronaut, died before ever going into space. Robert Henry Lawrence? The Henry’s obvious; Larry is short for Lawrence…nah? *sigh*
I don't want to appropriate culture, I’m want to be part of the effort to ensure that hidden people who made the world are drawn forward to take their real place in history, in today’s world, and in the future worlds. For context, I've worked in a multicultural, average high school as a counselor for the past ten years; if you went there and asked around, others would speak for my behavior and character -- otherwise, you have no idea if I'm writing fiction or fact.
Shawl & Ward conclude with the following, “Tom Wolfe spoke at a Press Club lunch on the subject of ‘writing what you know.’ His point was that this is great advice, but that as writers it’s our job to continually know more…So welcome the Beautiful Strangers. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes with them. Do your best, and you’ll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion.”
In my writing, I'm working hard to do this. I'm working to become transracial and antiracist. I am a work in progress.
Programme Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image:
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