Posts Tagged ‘How Dare We! Write’

• 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

• Michael Kleber-Diggs, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse

  Date: 2018.07.03 | Category: Words of Wisdom | Response: 0

  “In spite of countless examples to the contrary—Baldwin, Hughes,

  Ellison, Morrison, Walker, Angelou, James (and who could hope to fill

  such lofty shoes?)—I didn’t think my voice would be valued in the

  world. In many ways I still don’t. To the extent that I go forward

  anyway, I do so as a result of that helplessness I described earlier. It’s

  not that I feel the world hungers for my stories. It’s not that I think

  most of what I want to write about is as valued in mainstream

  publishing as other stories are. It’s more that I’m resolved to sing my

  songs anyway, and I’m content to sing them to those in the world who

  want to hear them.”

  — Michael Kleber-Diggs, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse

• Anaïs Deal-Márquez, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse

  Date: 2018.07.03 | Category: Words of Wisdom | Response: 0

  “In my case, I’m unapologetic about playing with language, disrupting whiteness and the privilege it brings with it. My writing is not about making others feel comfortable. I write because our stories and our bodies have been made to be silent for too long, yet we’re still here.”

  — Anaïs Deal-Márquez, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse

• Marcie Rendon, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse

  Date: 2018.07.03 | Category: Words of Wisdom | Response: 0

  “There is nothing more life-affirming, writer-validating than having

  your audience, your people, the ones who look like you, the ones who

  have lived a similar experience, crack up laughing, wipe a tear from

  their eye, or elbow the person next to them in a “hey, that’s us” kind

  of way.”

  —Marcie Rendon, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse