Reading “Diversely”…

I always feel late to whatever’s trending on TikTok. Admittedly, it’s an app that overwhelmed me when I first created a profile because it seemed like the videos just never stopped playing. But once I got the hang of things, it hasn’t been so bad. And recently, because I’m challenging myself to try different creative things, I’ve been watching a lot more of them to get a sense of how different people will try different things.

An interesting thing, though, is that my “Following” tab is still showing me videos from 4, 5, and even 6 months ago because I just simply hadn’t been using the app for a long, long time. So the discussion around reading diversely is by now old news for most avid TikTok users, it’s been fairly fresh for me.

And yet at the same time, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had this conversation – a person who occupies more than one privilege (cis, white, abled, etc.) suddenly feels threatened because they’re being required to consider a vastly different perspective. Happened in my undergrad days, in seminary, and even in my MFA program from a supposedly “progressive” school.

In this recent TikTok (or rather, #BookTok) discussion, creators were responding to a racist rant from another creator (who might also be an author?) who basically said that she doesn’t feel the need to actively engage with books outside her own demographic. Of course, she did not respond well to the pushback and showed her true colors – that her critics were obsessed with race, which is usually only said when one doesn’t know anything about racism or how it works.

Now, nearly every response video I had seen dissected these comments effortlessly because, like I said above, it’s nothing new. Cis, abled white folks have been saying things like this for decades – at least publically; privately they’ve probably been saying it for much longer. Some talked about the practicality of reading from more than one perspective to enhance your own, even if race isn’t a factor. Others highlighted that “diversity” should never equal “non-white”; there’s diversity amongst queer writers, disabled writers, non-Black people of color (hi), etc. It’s actually been pretty nice to see so many allies step up and educate bigoted folks about all these issues while not talking over marginalized creators. It’s taken off a lot of labor for these creators.

Yet what I have a hard time wrapping my mind around is the fact that this person (and people like her) was never placed in a situation where she had to imagine herself into the story. Somewhere in one of my journals from middle school (between the ages of 12 and 14, mind you) is an entry of where I wrote about making the conscious decision to no longer daydream about myself as a white person, and that I would imagine myself from then on as the person I saw in the mirror. And when I think back to what could have possibly influenced my imagination to only depict myself as white, I was obviously only ever exposed to white media – TV commercials, TV shows, books where every character was assumed to be white (because any non-white character who might have been mentioned was always written with a stereotype), and the fact that we had been taught almost exclusively white American history.

Even now, over 20 years later, I still struggle to cast myself into my own imagination. More often than not, I have to literally look in the mirror as I’m having a daydream just to get the right sense of myself in my imagination. And yet there are people out there for whom this isn’t a necessity – that they can simply read a story knowing full well that it was made with them in mind. The first time where I didn’t have to do this was when I read Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony… as a senior in college.

At 22 years old, I had encountered a book with characters who looked like me for the first time.

My hope for those who are genuinely reading diversely not for the sake of scoring brownie points for being seen as “progressive,” but because they want to broaden their understanding of what it’s like to be in a space that wasn’t made for them, is that you don’t make it a tourist stop. Read diversely so often that it’s no longer a novelty that you’re reading a Black author, or an Indigenous author, or a disabled author, or a queer author, etc. Because many things can change; publishers can start publishing more stories from under-represented demographics, educators can switch up their curriculums to include more diverse voices, and fewer books would get banned because of someone else’s bigotry.

But more importantly, there will be fewer kids who have to grow up like I did (and, all things considered, I had it relatively easy). And maybe more of our stories can get told.

My Weekend Reading 2.23.24

In an effort to de-stress and quell my anxiety while also refocusing on shit that actually matters, I thought I’d share what I’m reading this weekend.

Or at least trying to read.

The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin
After binging through her Broken Earth trilogy, Jemisin has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Two days ago I finished The Killing Moon, the first in her Dreamblood duology, and immediately plunged into its sequel. There are many things I love about Jemisin’s world-building, but she has an incredible way of tying the lore into the current narrative and from multiple perspectives and expressions. Not only do you get the mythology told from different perspectives, but you also get multiple interpretations of the mythology even within similar expressions. Mix this with prose that’s almost lyrical in points, dialogue that makes you feel a part of the conversation, and character development so rich it’s like a freshly cut onion because it leaves you crying from its potency, and you get a series of stories that you feel sacreligious in putting down. So yeah, I’m hoping to get lost in this book.

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
This novel has been so vivid in detail that I’ve often had to reread portions to fully saturate the setting. It’s been a slow read for that and the fact that its content brings back some memories of my early childhood. But at about 100 pages in, it’s good. If you’ve ever listened to the story told in Tracey Chapman’s song “Fast Car,” this novel feels like a longer form of that song.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
I made the mistake of speed-reading through this during my MFA program, so I’m reading it again, but allowing myself to absorb his words. Baldwin’s prose is often poetic, but always incising through the bullshit of white supremacist societies. It’s hard to read his works and not come away thinking differently about everything.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis
Like I said at the start, I’m trying to refocus and pay greater attention to the things in life that actually matter. Davis’ work has always disrupted my thinking in tremendous ways, and while I don’t expect too much of that from this book, I look forward to being refreshed with wisdom from a veteran in liberation struggles. The subtitle reads “Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundation of a Movement,” which should stand out to the self-described allies who continue to balk at showing support for Palestine. If you only became an “activist” after George Floyd, I’m glad you’re getting involved, but trust that there’s more to learn. I can already tell that this book is a great place to start.

Taking advantage of a coupon and a sale this week, I also picked up a couple more books that I don’t think I’ll get to this weekend, but I hope to read soon: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat (a Palestinian author) and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (with one of the coolest book designs). I don’t know if I’ll write reviews for any of these books just yet, but I imagine I’ll be writing about them for some time.

A quick update about my own content creation projects; I’ve fully removed everything from Substack because of their hesitation to de-platform Nazi content. Since I hadn’t really gotten going over there, it wasn’t much of a loss to leave. But I am hoping to build a whole new site dedicated to a weekly newsletter as well as sharing many of my projects. If you’d like to find out more, please subscribe to this blog so that you can catch all my updates. And if you’re looking to financially support my work, I have a Ko-Fi page set up as well. My long-term goal is to make the switch from regular, hourly wage jobs to doing creative stuff full time, and I have so many project ideas. Your support is greatly appreciated!

(Feel free to let me know what you’re reading in the comments, too!)

The Right Fit? Or a Good Fit?

Job hunting fucking sucks.

Not only do I have to suddenly pretend that I care about corporate interests, but I have to adopt a certain voice that carries the intimation that I am sincere about caring about those corporate interests. Like when Starbucks customers sometimes asked me what it’s like working there, I’d be expected to talk about the great benefits, better pay, and positive work environment. In those moments, I had to forget how often it was I consoled a barista who was crying in the back, or how we were expected to churn out the same sales numbers when a couple people called out (arguably because they didn’t want to cry in the back at work… again).

Truthfully, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed a job, I have never cared more about the company’s sales or public image than about mine and my coworkers’ wellbeing. I just haven’t. And I never will.

But not having a steady means of income is messing with my mind. Not only do I have to deal with judgement from others for leaving a job I grew to hate with no backup plan, but I have to juggle expenses. Tonight I had a PB&J for the third night in a row because I have three bills going out this week that will take pretty much everything I have left. And the shitty thing I’m trying not to focus on is that even if I had stayed at Starbucks, I’d likely still be in this situation because they cut my hours. So not only would I still be eating PB&Js, but I’d be way more exhausted than I am now.

So why the hell did I tell a friend who offered me a job that it wouldn’t work out? It had full time hours and even offered OT pay. “You can work whatever you want,” he told me. All I had to do was take a quick drug test (job involves operating a lot of heavy machinery), and show up on time. And it’s a job I’ve worked before, so there would be virtually no training involved. All things considered, for what I need right now, it would be a good fit.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the right fit.

I left Starbucks not just because I was tired of the entitled customers or wearing myself out for some millionaire CEO. I left because it was no longer a viable option for what I want to be doing in life. Do I wish I had something else lined up? Sure, but I actually had something lined up after I left my last job, as I did the job before that and the job before that.

All my adult life, albeit somewhat waylayed by a few college degrees, I have left one job to the next thinking I’d finally be able to do the things I want to do – I’d be able to write the stories I wanted to, or spend my weekends reading. And each time I wound up disappointed (again), that regardless of how hard I worked, we still weren’t making enough. Or I had underestimated the level of exhaustion I’d feel after coming home.

Each job offered new promises and instead delivered the same struggles. And when, in late 2017, a former manager told me that what I was experiencing was the result of “being stuck taking low-paying jobs,” I started to believe her, despite the insulting undertone. I really was stuck.

Truthfully I’m still stuck. I don’t know the formula for landing that salaried desk job that covers all my main expenses and allows me some time off to go watch some hockey games once in a while or pursue my dreams of being a published author on the side. I thought it was having a college degree, then I was told I needed more experience… or another degree. Then I got that degree and was told I needed more experience… or another degree. So it turns out I wasn’t just stuck taking low-paying jobs, I was stuck believing that what worked for others would work for me.

One positive side to unemployment is being able to catch up on the stacks of magazines I’ve collected over the last couple of years. Today I was reading through last July/August’s issue of WIRED and there’s an article on Taika Waititi, the eccentric writer/director/actor who’s churned out some incredible stories over the past few years. As the article’s author, Jennifer Kahn, highlights, Taika didn’t attend any film school, and that most of his projects are conducted intuitively. He aims for something new, something different, so when he’s working for an EP who wants something formulaic and safe, “he will agree to everything [they say] and then simply do what he wants. As he put it, ‘It’s literally me trying to not do whatever the grown-ups say,’” (50).

I’m not saying I’m aiming to be successful like Taika – that would take some serious luck and I feel like I’ve used up a lot already. But I am saying that maybe it’s time I stop listening to what the proverbial grown-ups tell me to do and simply pursue what I want to do. Start choosing the right fit over a good fit.

I guess I’m writing all of this to say you’ll probably see me doing a lot of self-promos over the next few weeks and months. Either that or I’ll cave and take another good fit and you won’t see me for a few months.

C’est la vie or whatever.

In the Bag: August 2022

A few years ago, I started what I had hoped would become a series highlighting the various texts I read through my MFA program. As things unfolded, though, I simply did not have the energy or time to push another 500-1,000 words out about the things I was reading. (Part of our assignments back then was to write annotations on the books we read to highlight specific elements of the text that pertain to our own writing. It used a lot of brain power).

I don’t really have much more time or energy these days, but I do have a more consistent schedule. Last week I got the promotion I applied for within Starbucks (now becoming a shift supervisor for my store) and a few weeks ago, my fiancé got transferred to a job location within walking distance, which helped cut down on the extra driving we had to do.

Needless to say, our schedules are about as stable as they’re ever going to get.

Which means I can actually start to schedule out time for myself to read, write, and just create stuff I want to create. Leaving my second job at the end of March has done wonders for my creative energy and now I want to try to focus that onto a couple projects. One way of achieving that is to try (again) taking time on a monthly basis to share what I’m reading, and maybe a few initial thoughts on each book.

Ideally I’d like to write posts like this on a weekly basis, but I’m not a fast reader. For instance, I just finished a nearly-400-page book that I thoroughly enjoyed; I was literally reading it every day. It still took me two weeks. So it’s probably better for me to write these on a semi-monthly basis for now.

With that in mind, there are several books I’ve got in my bag this month; The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope, The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings, Calling For A Blanket Dance: A Novel by Oscar Hokeah, and Nightcrawling: A Novel by Leila Mottley. The books by Leslye Penelope and Alex Jennings were recommendations from another author whose debut novel, A Master of Djinn, sparked my recent resurgence in reading: P. Djèlí Clark. I rarely get the desire to write a review about the books I read (even if I really love them), but Clark’s novel was an incredible read. Oscar Hokeah is actually a Twitter mutual from my @ScribalPractice account, so I’m extremely excited to read what he wrote. And Mottley’s novel is the rare New Yorker recommendation (that I have also seen praised by respected Twitter mutuals) and I just had to try it out.

In addition to A Master of Djinn, I’ve also finished several other books that I thoroughly loved and for which I will likely outline some small reviews in the coming days/weeks. But for now, I’m starting with what’s in my bag and going from there.

So what are you reading?

A Question for Writers/Journal-ers…

As part of this semester’s workload, we’re to utilize a journal as a space to interact with what we’re reading. Though it kind of feels like busy work to make sure that we’re still critically engaged with other sources of creativity, it has been a helpful space to connect my work with what I read. But in order to help myself better engage with the reading, I developed a journal guide.

It’s several simple questions and only one of them asks specifically about the reading, but it’s helped me be self-reflective – and not just for where I am creatively, but also where I am emotionally. And in tandem with questions about how I’m feeling emotionally, one of my questions is about my physical environment and to focus on specific details – like sitting at my kitchen table while the coffee’s brewing and a lawn-mower is rolling by outside. I focus on all the sensory detail that I can and I think it’s helped in my writing.

But this type of guidance through a journal is usually one that I try to avoid.

Back when it was safe to wander aimlessly through Barnes and Noble, I remember thumbing through some of the journals they had on display to see writing prompts or questions. Maybe it was because I didn’t like the questions or maybe it was because I felt targeted with the whole marketing scheme, but these journals annoyed me. I might admire the cover or the way the pages feel when you flipped through them, but the fact these questions were printed almost on every page or every few pages was too much. I needed something a little more personal, but also something flexible.

It just didn’t occur to me until this semester that I could create my own guided journal if I wanted.

But it has me wondering what other writers and/or journal-ers think about these guided journals? Has this been the best way for you to engage with writing? What have been the pros and cons in your experience?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Reading Better to Write Better…

In 2009, I took an intermediate Creative Writing class on fiction. As an English major, I wasn’t actually required to take any Creative Writing courses, but I wanted to because I wanted to be a writer (that was why I chose English as my major in the first place; I love to read and write). As a sort of icebreaker for this class, our professor had us write short essays about what had piqued our interest in this class and what kind of fiction we enjoyed reading. At the time, I was really into Dan Brown’s novels (Angels & Demons, Deception Point, DaVinci Code, etc.), so that’s what I said. And I’ll never forget her comment: “His books are… entertaining.”

So much said with three little dots.

As the term went on, she expanded more on those three little dots: that the kind of writing we were striving for in that class would not produce a Dan Brown style of anything. Instead we were seeking beyond tropes, clichés, and formulaic storylines. We weren’t going to limit ourselves to linear methods of storytelling or allow the settings of our stories with their exhaustive, verbose details distract from the emotional resonance of our characters. We were striving for human moments, not fabricated ones.

For a long time after this class, though, I had suddenly garnered the label of a literary snob – I was no longer interested in pop-culture books intended to sell millions of copies. And for a short while, I took pride in the label because to me it meant that I was willing to be challenged by what I read. But reflecting back over what I read and what I wrote, I don’t think it was about being a snob. It wasn’t a matter of “quality literature” (said with a fake British accent and while pushing the bridge of my imaginary glasses back up my nose) vs. garbage; it was about writing engaged stories vs. disconnected drivel. It was about entering into my most vulnerable state to sit with the emotions that I’d then cast into characters.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t read Dan Brown style novels because, honestly, I’ve read pretty much every novel he’s written. They’re fun to read and he’s good at creating a storyline that allows you to escape for a moment, to get lost in the story. But what I am saying is that if I’m committed to improving my writing, then I must be committed to improving my reading. If I want my writing to engage with the emotional growth of my characters, then what I read must reflect that. If I want my writing to engage with political realities and nuances, then what I read must reflect that. And if I want my writing to engage my own sense of vulnerability, then the writers I read from must reflect that.

Reading better to write better often means reading from those writers who aren’t well known and have unconventional storytelling methods. Some of the most inspiring books I’ve read have been ones that subverted tropes, had no formulaic sense, and weren’t told in linear fashions. Without trying, they changed the way I think about writing and while I don’t know if my writing is now a better quality for having read those books, I know that it is more engaged. And that, to me, is quality writing.

So, what are you reading?