If you’re like me, and you’re just starting to consider the perfect agent to represent your novel about a world-famous black female space diver who scours our solar system for space junk, then you may want to enter the “Dear Lucky Agent Contest.” The first place winner receives a consultation from an agent—and there’s no entry free! ✌
I was talking to a new friend who, like me, is here at the Vermont Studio Center, working on her writing. My friend told me that she’s in contact with a very famous poet who writes her a letter of recommendation for fellowships, retreats, etc. any time she needs one. I was—am—surprised by this. I’ve always been reluctant to ask other writers, even writers I knew well, for letters because I felt that they must be busy working on their writing, and my request would feel like an intrusion. Thus, I don’t apply to many things unless it is something I really, really want.
Established writers, what are your thoughts when emerging writers ask you for letters? Are you bothered by such requests or do you feel the more timid emerging writers are simply selling ourselves short?
I am filled with serious gratitude for the wonderfully supportive and engaging community of writers/artists who share their work & dreams with the world! :) #love #joy #gratitude #feeling good
(The Vermont Studio Center’s very talented visual artists held their open studios today. Amazing, original work. This was followed by a reading from creative writers whose poems, novels, and essays I admire. It feels soooo good to listen to thoughtful, innovative work!)
(What Black writers can’t write about—or 13 ways of looking at Black literature)
1. Interracial Sex (Romantic)
2. Interracial Sex (Freaky)
3. Black characters who have skin the color of food-- I once wanted to write about a character who had skin the exact color of a McDonald’s chocolate soft-serve milkshake but my workshop vetoed the description
6. Barack Obama
9. Homophobia
12. The lives of Black women
13. The lives of Black men
So tell me, am I missing anything?
Okay–Van Jordan, the Idris Elba of poetry, is participating in the Hurston-Wright workshop, along with novelist Mat Johnson. I’ve read both Jordan & Johnson’s work and both are amazing writers, so this should be a worthwhile experience (wish I could go, but I’ve got a wedding to plan & it’s sucking up all my $$$. ) Tuition, which is only $389 for the whole weekend, is due February 19.
Most writers hear a lot of Nos.
There’s the Fast No: A rejection just a couple of days after you send off your manuscript.
There’s the Slow No: A rejection months—or even years—after you send something off (This is pretty bad; after a year of no response, when I had basically forgotten I’d sent off a story, one publication rejected me twice, for the same story, in the same week. I guess they really hated it.)
And finally, there’s the Passive-Aggressive No: This No looks like an acceptance because your piece was actually accepted, and it’s only until months–or years later–when the publication never actually publishes your work that you discover that you’ve been rejected yet again.
I believe that good work does eventually get published, and when I’m not drowning in self pity (kidding, kidding) I try to use rejection as a chance to revaluate and revisit my work, and hopefully, make it stronger. And in the event that I can’t find someone to publish the work, but I feel the story or novel is strong enough to go out into the world, I think there’s nothing wrong with self-publishing. Below, you’ll find my essay about self-publishing—why we should be open to reading self-published work and why it may be particularly valuable for writers of color. (Writers who are not of color should note that I wrote an entire essay about self-publishing in New York without ever once bringing up Walt Whitman.) Enjoy!
“Get my book–$1. $1 for the whole thing. Read the back. Good story for only $1.”
I first saw him at last summer’s West Indian Day Festival–a corn-rolled man in his early twenties, backpack full of books trying to tempt passersby to buy his latest novel. The man made me take notice: I’d seen people on the street before selling their $1 poems (that is, the price = $1 per poem), but an entire novel was a bargain–and this young author knew it. He’d get right in your face, his head so close you could smell his hair grease, walking up to people and waiving his book under their faces, telling them in an ominous voice to buy his book or they’d regret it. I couldn’t help but smile at this young writer’s aggressive self-confidence as he metaphorically thumbed his nose at all the major bookstores.
You know major bookstores. Major bookstores have “colored” book sections, an “African-American interest” or “Latino Interest” implying that only persons of color are interested in reading books by authors of color, or worse yet, that the books that we colored read can be confined to one tiny section. But I see us all the time reading—on subways, brownstone stoops, those cute little outdoor cafes–our heads tucked into novels, newspapers, semi-inspirational books on how to get ahead.
And so as this young writer’s T.A.S.M: A Mystery Novel competed with national flags, jewelry, oxtails, Michael Jackson t-shirts and Obama hats for people’s spending dollars, I felt that there was something noble about what he was trying to do. A lot of my friends complain self-published literature is too ghetto, too lacking nuisance, but at least these writers have a chance of getting read, and that’s more than many writers can say. In the past, we’ve been supportive—too supportive—of traditional avenues that could care less about our culture or our art.
We know the value of creativity and reinvention because we already did this for hip-hop—we took the classic R&B of our parents, appreciated its artistry, and used it to create wondrous new art. I hope that today we’re doing the same for literature.
My neighbors from Brooklyn publish books, travel, write books together, and just generally have a good time. Each day, this loving couple experiences the life I hope to one day live.
Visit them at http://www.brettbooks.com/bretts.shtml.
Are there subjects black writers can’t write about?
I’m thinking about this after meeting one of my former students for dinner. She asked me about a story I had written, a story featuring a character loosely based on her. 
I tried to publish the story in a couple of different journals, but now I wonder if I should have. There’s a reason that story got rejected, and as a writer, it’s my job to figure out why.
A couple of possibilities: the end of the story features a rape, a rape that takes place within the black community, and perhaps there are some topics, because of history, because of more subtle—but still present—racial stereotypes, that black writers just need to leave alone? Or, perhaps, more likely, I simply do not have the skills (the depth and maturity) to write about this subject in a complex, truthful way?
There’s an argument to be made that black writers just shouldn’t go there. The first time I read Sapphire’s Push, I wondered if I were witnessing the Jim Trueblood-ing of literature (those of you who have read Invisible Man know what I’m talking about). We live in a society that still views black men as violent, dangerous, and overly sexual (and black women as emasculating, evil, jezebels), and music, movies, and magazines continuously pound those images into our heads. So it makes sense that we want to want to guard our images, to explore other truths, to tell the myriad other stories—stories of black men and women who fiercely love their families, who seek dignity and respect—that aren’t being told.
But do we leave behind the stories that don’t show us in a “positive” light? Truthfully, part of the reason that some “positive” books and movies about black people don’t receive widespread attention is that they’re not well-told; they don’t “keep it real” (the night I met a former student for dinner, one person in our party said that she fell asleep at a recent viewing of a “positive” black movie.) People are full of contradictions, and those contradictions are what make life interesting. Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi—these are people who made wondrous contributions to society, despite their personal failings. Shining a glowing light on black folks doesn’t generate good art, and it doesn’t begin to erase centuries of racial oppression. Our humanity comes not from creating work that is “positive” or “negative,” but by demonstrating fairness and honesty in our writing.
How do we do that? If we compare Sapphire’s Push with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, we find answers. Both Push and The Bluest Eye deal with incest in the black community, but Morrison provides the MacTeer family, an in-tact working-class black family, and Claudia, a narrator who has just enough emotional distance from the main character’s (Pecola Breedlove) rape to provide depth and insight. We also get chapters in which Morrison explores Cholly’s thought process–why would he want to rape his own daughter? (So much so that when we read The Bluest Eye in high school, a student in my class grew upset with Morrison for “defending” Cholly.)
Still, do black writers have to have the genius of a Toni Morrison to write about sensitive topics? When I wrote my story, I struggled with creating competing several images of black men and masculinity in one short story. I’ll probably revise this story a few more times before I send it out again because, ultimately, I think the balancing act black writers commit to—this questioning of how to keep it real and show black people in a range of situations and development—makes our writing stronger, our stories richer. I’m also trying to be more gentle in my criticism of Sapphire, and other black writers. I know that, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, these writers are trying to tell their truths and write the best story they can, in the best way they know how.
So black writers are still climbing the racial mountain. But my favorite essay in the world—Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”–always gives me hope:
If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
For black writers, our commitment to our humanity is part of our craftsmanship.
For years, I’ve thought I was alone in my hatred of Alex Trebek. I’d watch Jeopardy, the condescending/evil smirk Alex would give contestants whenever they would risk all their $$ on the Daily Double and get it wrong (and despite that smug look, I’m sure that deep down, Alex knew he didn’t know the answer either!).
My boyfriend, who is great at Jeopardy, thinks I’m crazy: “Who doesn’t like Alex Trebek? He’s the best game show host since Bob Barker. And he’s Canadian. Who doesn’t like Canadians?”
There not too many things I actually dislike. In fact, I am in love with several things that others find annoying—scotch tape, the sound of loud-clackity shoes approaching, people who talk loudly on cell phones (as long as they’re saying something interesting that I can work into a future story).
And so when I say there are two things that I hate, I mean it! I hate Alex Trebek,and I hate mayonnaise!
One of the joys of social networking sites is that you can find out you’re not alone:
From a Twitterer named @HEALTHANFITNESS: Do you know that I hate Alex Trebek? I really, really hate him.
From a Twitterer called @dino_rider: Hate this guy so much.
And last but not least, from an @PhilthePill: Alex Trebek is kind of a Dick.
Whenever I get down about the violence and anger in the world, it always feels good to remind myself of all of the truly wonderful, kind, and generous people I know. Today, I’m celebrating Ify Amobi,
Pushpa Parekh, Brian Morton, Tzarina Prater, Phyllis van Slyck, Peter McKay, and my father, Ron Spencer. All of you are genuinely good, and doing good things, and I hope you can feel the positive energy I’m sending your way! :)
