HOW I DEFY A SINGLE STORY AND ADD<\/p>\n
TO THE SWELL OF STORIES THAT DEFY STEREOTYPES<\/p>\n
-IN THE MIX-<\/em><\/p>\n 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?\u00a0 How much anxiety?\u00a0 How much shame?<\/p>\n Chimamanda Adichie\u2019s TED Talk, 2009, \u201cThe Danger of a single story,\u201d states:\u00a0 \u201cThe consequence of a single story is this: it robs people of dignity. \u00a0It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.\u201d<\/p>\n 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: <\/em>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).<\/p>\n \u201cThe consequence of a single story is this: it robs people of dignity.\u201d\u00a0 The story when I attended graduate school was not inclusive.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t include my story.\u00a0 It offered shame.\u00a0 I was told \u201cthey didn\u2019t teach me how to write.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps not, but I wrote, and I graduated with a 4.0.\u00a0 Yet, I experienced that my story was a thorn in the single story<\/em>.<\/p>\n As writers, we all have our particular story(ies).\u00a0 In How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse, LHP, 2017, <\/em>we can read 24 particular stories.\u00a0 These stories defy a single story<\/em>; they embrace difference and for some of us, similarity.<\/p>\n My story as a writer is that I don\u2019t write every day, I may not write in a month or even a year.\u00a0 I don\u2019t write to be a writer<\/em>.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t go to graduate school to be a writer; I went to prove to myself I was smart enough to earn a graduate degree.\u00a0 What I write has more to do with finding myself, understanding myself\/my mixed identity-and when I write is when I write, period.\u00a0 And I didn\u2019t go to graduate school to become a teacher.\u00a0 I became a teacher because someone gave me an opportunity to be one and I accepted because I needed the paycheck.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t a particularly good teacher, just like I\u2019m 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\u2019t define pace, and for me, persistence, didn\u2019t mean I was or am prolific.<\/p>\n I am not one story.\u00a0 My story is not a true story unless it envelops race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, etc.\u00a0 My story wanders in and out of time and situations.\u00a0 Currently my story is a story of aging.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of contemplation, of consideration.\u00a0 I have written a few poems; poems that I didn\u2019t write because I had to which is always the reason I have written in the past-out of urgency.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I am imagining, by observing, what he might have to say to grandmas, to parents, and to caretakers.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have to write this book, I want to.<\/p>\n My story is many stories; it could never be just one story.\u00a0 And my many stories are just a drop in the swell of other writers\u2019 stories.\u00a0 \u00a0I 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\u2019t 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\u2019m not so skilled or articulate-or brave.\u00a0 It\u2019s all okay.<\/p>\n Adichie says \u201cstories matter.\u201d I\u2019d like to add, your story as a writer matters. \u00a0I remember being told a writer should take risks, not be a copy-cat, that to be unique is what really counts.\u00a0 There might be some truth in that, depending on what your goals as a writer are\/or are not, but maybe it\u2019s not about taking risks, but just embracing who you are.<\/p>\n I think I\u2019ve written this story before.\u00a0 Sometimes I have to remind myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is your story as a writer?\u00a0 Feel free to share in comments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sherry Quan Lee, September 8, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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?\u00a0 How much anxiety?\u00a0 …<\/p>\n