Archive for the ‘How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse’ Category

• HOW I DEFY A SINGLE STORY AND ADD TO THE SWELL OF STORIES THAT DEFY STEREOTYPES

  Date: 2018.09.08 | Category: How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, The Art of Writing | Response: 0

  HOW I DEFY A SINGLE STORY AND ADD

  TO THE SWELL OF STORIES THAT DEFY STEREOTYPES

  -IN THE MIX-

  How much simmering does it take for you to write a poem, a story, a blog post, or even a tweet or a response to a FB post?  How much anxiety?  How much shame?

  Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk, 2009, “The Danger of a single story,” states:  “The consequence of a single story is this: it robs people of dignity.  It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

  As a MFA student in a Creative Writing program, I often felt suffocated and angry because I felt there was only a single story being perpetuated: of what you needed to learn to be a writer, what you needed to write to be a writer, who you needed to be to be a writer, and who you needed to embrace (not contentiously disagree with).

  “The consequence of a single story is this: it robs people of dignity.”  The story when I attended graduate school was not inclusive.  It didn’t include my story.  It offered shame.  I was told “they didn’t teach me how to write.”  Perhaps not, but I wrote, and I graduated with a 4.0.  Yet, I experienced that my story was a thorn in the single story.

  As writers, we all have our particular story(ies).  In How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, LHP, 2017, we can read 24 particular stories.  These stories defy a single story; they embrace difference and for some of us, similarity.

  My story as a writer is that I don’t write every day, I may not write in a month or even a year.  I don’t write to be a writer.  I didn’t go to graduate school to be a writer; I went to prove to myself I was smart enough to earn a graduate degree.  What I write has more to do with finding myself, understanding myself/my mixed identity-and when I write is when I write, period.  And I didn’t go to graduate school to become a teacher.  I became a teacher because someone gave me an opportunity to be one and I accepted because I needed the paycheck.  I wasn’t a particularly good teacher, just like I’m not a particularly good writer-but I persisted: 1) because I needed the money, and 2) because, apparently, I was born to tell the truth, whether it served me well or not. But persistence doesn’t define pace, and for me, persistence, didn’t mean I was or am prolific.

  I am not one story.  My story is not a true story unless it envelops race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, etc.  My story wanders in and out of time and situations.  Currently my story is a story of aging.  It’s one of contemplation, of consideration.  I have written a few poems; poems that I didn’t write because I had to which is always the reason I have written in the past-out of urgency.  And I am writing a picture book, a gift to my grandson (and his parents) who is nonverbal and was diagnosed with autism at an early age.  I am imagining, by observing, what he might have to say to grandmas, to parents, and to caretakers.  I don’t have to write this book, I want to.

  My story is many stories; it could never be just one story.  And my many stories are just a drop in the swell of other writers’ stories.   I pray for dignity, not shame, for all of us who write whether every day, or whenever; who are published or not-who want to be or couldn’t care less; who are expert grammarians, or like me not so much; and who have not only the heart and determination, but the words and a way to articulate them to engage purposefully in social media-again, I’m not so skilled or articulate-or brave.  It’s all okay.

  Adichie says “stories matter.” I’d like to add, your story as a writer matters.  I remember being told a writer should take risks, not be a copy-cat, that to be unique is what really counts.  There might be some truth in that, depending on what your goals as a writer are/or are not, but maybe it’s not about taking risks, but just embracing who you are.

  I think I’ve written this story before.  Sometimes I have to remind myself.

   

  What is your story as a writer?  Feel free to share in comments.

   

  Sherry Quan Lee, September 8, 2018

• East Side Freedom Library reading January 27, 2018

  Date: 2018.02.02 | Category: Events, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, Writers Who Dare | Response: 0

  In  order of appearance:  Lori Young-Williams, Isela Xitlali Gomez R., Hei Kyong Kim, Chris Stark, Luis Lopez, Sherrie Fernandez Williams, Sagirah Shahid, and Brenda Bell Brown. In red shirt, Peter Rachleff, East Side Freedom Library, Co-Executive Director.
  

  

  

  Read the rest of this entry »

• Anya Achtenberg: “The Disobedient Writer”- A Writer Who Dares

  Date: 2017.11.28 | Category: How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, Writers Who Dare | Response: 0

  

  https://thedisobedientwriter.com/about/

  “If my house were burning down, I would grab artwork, my book, and the notebooks I wrote

  in Anya’s classes. If you’re looking for an average writing teacher or editor, go elsewhere.

  Anya resides in the upper stratosphere of creativity and, if you let her,

  will lift your writing to heights you never dreamed possible.

  I won the 2006 New Mexico Discovery Award, first prize in non-fiction,

  for a story I began in Anya’s class. I divide my writing into two phases:

  pre-Anya and post-Anya. There is no comparison.”–Amy Fisher

   

   

  http://anyaachtenberg.com/

  http://www.tupeloquarterly.com/if-by-anya-achtenberg/

  https://www.amazon.com/Anya-Achtenberg/e/B001JORV4Y

   

• Brenda Bell Brown, filmaker: a writer who dares!

  Date: 2017.10.15 | Category: GIFTS OF RESISTANCE 2017: creative writing, GIFTS OF RESISTANCE 2017: links, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, Writers Who Dare | Response: 1

  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5bvYObqLFwuQVhJSkVSck1nNGs/view?usp=sharing

  Click on the link above to see a film by Brenda Bell Brown.

   

  I am a writer an editor a social justice advocate, but I don’t have the answers.  But we all have stories.  And Writers Who Dare! are sharing theirs whether through the written word, spoken word, music, or film.  Will anyone listen?–Sherry Quan Lee, editor, How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse