Indigenous authors come together to discuss the craft of writing, how
they build futures and alternate worlds through an indigenous lens, their
creative process and current projects.
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)
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, childrens, 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 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.
