On Monday, January 18th from 2-3p.m., soon-to-be MAW Alumna Karen Gormandy and I will facilitate a community response to the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Hudson River Museum. We will consider the transformative power of letters, specifically, Dr. King’s remarkable Letter from Birmingham Jail, and letters in the larger sense of words. Karen shared the event with her network of friends and fellow writers and one, Lewis, from Seattle, WA, “not only found Dr. King’s letter on the internet and read it, but composed an entire set of questions about race.” Lewis’ questions, and Karen’s responses, are both thought-provoking and compelling. With their permission, I am reproducing the entire exchange here. The original questions appear in regular type; Karen’s answers are in italics. Read on, and join in.

Is Dr. King comparing himself to Paul as a saint or does he feel that what he was writing about was as great as Paul’s reason?

I believe he was comparing himself to Paul as a messenger.  While it is important to remember Dr. King in the context of himself as a minister and a deeply religious man, at the same time it is important to remove it from that context and not jump to the conclusion that he presented himself as a singular god-anointed messenger. His message was universal. The difference  (as he himself stated) was  a bottom up pluralistic platform. I like to think more in terms of oppression v. justice, with the tenets of Christianity — freedom, justice, etc., as the platform.

Do you think his mention of the millennium in 1963 refers to the United States moving into the future and that Dr. King had a greater vision for the country and not just the Civil Rights Movement?

Yes, I do.  He was quick to mention the changes in Asia, the Caribbean and Africa etc.   By Asia, it was more India and the conditions of caste and colonialism. I think he was inclusive of all men and saw  the infinite possibilities of freedom — case in point our president.  

Are racial injustices the same now as then or have they “evolved”? Have racial injustices changed, lessened or grown with Barack Obama as president? Do African Americans as individuals feel differently in the U.S. with Barack Obama as president?

It is different!   But not enough change yet.  There are still people who believe that our president is an anomaly and that black people are inherently less inclined to be intellectually capable or sophisticated enough to grasp complex concepts.  They place all his smarts as coming from the white side of his family.

While his presidency makes people pause more, and rethink their notions,  it hasn’t trickled down yet nor become global.  We still have to prove ourselves every day.  

Is it a fact of life for African American children to deal with and be changed by racism so early in their lives or can it be somehow cushioned? Can a community guide them through childhood to cope with racism while keeping a healthy view of themselves and humanity?

It makes a great deal of difference if children are not saddled with the burden of negative beliefs and low expectations. Being viewed as incompetent and incapable before they are even out of the crib, having to prove their worthiness as citizens on a daily basis (sometimes not even knowing what that means) is deeply damaging.  It can be “cushioned”  if they have the tools that are available to carry them through — EDUCATION! 

Do you think it’s necessary to believe in God and morality for justice to succeed and have a truly lawful society or is this specifically for the religious leaders?

No, I personally am a humanist, agnostic.  Yet I believe that people can be good, can spread kindness without god.

Has black nationalism changed and how?

I don’t really know.  I guess the answer may be yes,  since I don’t see people joining organizations like the NAACP in droves anymore.  On paper “blackness”  is not an issue.  But when you look at issues like black men in prison, the dropout rate of black children in schools, then you have to look at being black as a factor.

What’s happening now that I as a white moderate am not recognizing and missing?

The fact that you are even taking the time to engage is a hugely important step.  Here are a few things that popped into my head:

As a black person — I have no desire to be white. 

I am not reacting against being black when I am angry,  injustice always makes me angry. I am not being white when I am articulate,  I am not being white when I am score higher than my whiter classmates on exams. I do not see by blackness as something to shove down anybody’s throat or to deny, to shed, or to want to change.    

I don’t blame anyone when I am told they do not think of me as black or when they overcompensate and try to engage about what music they like or some other thing.  It is just plain not knowing how to connect.  People are different.  Black is a race and covers global cultures, black Ugandan is not the same as black Caribbean, black Somalian is not the same as black African American, Koreans are not Chinese, Japanese are not Koreans!    

So, you Lewis, who already gets this — ROCK! 

How are the churches of all religions now? Are people leaving the church in droves or is there a resurgence? I don’t have any current facts on this.

I know I am.  I am no longer interested in turning over my future or basing my beliefs upon institutionalized thinking. I’d rather not know, have life be a mystery rather than harbor a false belief or espouse a hubris that can be overtly harmful or exclude others. Tolerance is a wide wide net.  I have yet to find any religion that possesses one wide enough.

Is freedom in the United States different than in the rest of the world? How was freedom expressed by the native Americans and how did they view it? Is Freedom itself an idea or a natural living thing?

Freedom… I think this country is great in its collective belief in freedom.  Yet the boundaries of where one man’s freedom trespasses on his neighbor’s continues to be contentious.  In terms of the native people — it is the modern world’s greatest heartache that our lifestyle infringed upon their freedom.

I don’t think freedom is an idea.  It is part of our psyche, like our imagination, our creativity and our instinct to survive, without freedom, all of these are suppressed.

What is the “sacred heritage”? 

The right to be free and to be treated with dignity.

What are the current “means” and “ends”? Are they moral or immoral or combinations? Which are effective and lasting?

I don’t know.  I would hope whatever they are that they can be both moral and lasting.   I do not believe the end justifies the means.  It is never good to set a negative precedent and cite success as a selling point.  The fallout always has larger consequences.

WRITING TIPS FROM THE JOURNALIST’S TOOLBAG

BY MARK LUNGARIELLO

American author Russell Lynes once said, “Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.” With all due respect to Mr. Lynes, journalism and fiction aren’t far removed from each other – in fact, thinking like a reporter can directly enhance your prose.

Find the “gravedigger” in your fiction
Most know of the “gravedigger approach” to journalism, named after New York City reporter Jimmy Breslin’s article on the JFK funeral. Prior to the assassinated president’s interment, his body lay at the Capitol Rotunda. Hundreds of the media watched and reported as celebrities, dignitaries and family mourned the loss. Away from the hubbub was Breslin, who went to Arlington National Cemetery and interviewed the man digging Kennedy’s grave.

Find the “gravedigger” in your fiction. Giving a different perspective resonates louder and longer than tackling a story from the obvious angle. Take a look and you’ll notice that many of the best stories ever written are tales of large, universal life moments as experienced by “the common man.”

Count your words and every word will count
Journalists are often required to tell intricate, complicated stories in 500-1,000 words. Further, reporters’ jobs have them condense heady topics and technical statistics into quickly-consumed, easily-digestible bites. Let words tell the narrative, not distract the reader from it. Kill the adjectives, bury the unnecessary details and in the end your prose will snap, crackle and pop.

Just think of the old cliché “less is more.” It only took those three words to sum up this whole paragraph.

Being objective doesn’t mean you’re not saying anything worthwhile
Even the most “fair and balanced” journalists have their opinions on things. Objectivity does not mean you are sitting on the sidelines as an issue unfolds. The idea is to let the reader come to the conclusion on their own. Besides, if you have to explain the meaning behind your narrative, chances are the narrative itself isn’t strong enough. Also remember that quotes and people can often outline a theme for you without you having to be ham-fisted about it.

Use this approach in your prose by never spoon-feeding your audience. If they’re sophisticated enough to read your work, then they’re smart enough to know where you’re going without needing you to write them out directions.

Cut through the meat and get to the bone
When reporters pitch articles, editors commonly ask, “what’s the story here?” Think of it this way – a journalist attends a mayoral press conference on a law that makes wearing hats illegal. The story to write is clearly not the press conference itself. Maybe the story is about the impacts of the law on the local haberdashery or even those with receding hairlines. Maybe it’s about the mental stability of the mayor.

In fiction, like journalism, a writer must always ask themselves what the story is. If you’re not focused, just imagine how Joe and Jane Reader feel.

Get to the point
They often say in newspapers and magazines that the majority of readers read only the first four paragraphs then move on. In prose, a writer gets more slack to win over a reader but the lesson is the same: Don’t confuse your readers and get to the point. Let them in on “the joke.” Have them know – or at least think they know – what your story is about from the moment they put on their bifocals.

TRANSLATION, POETRY AND ART OF FICTION

BY MARTHA COOLEY

“Is that how you’d say ‘for sure’ in Italian?”

“What does ‘cheer’ mean in English—not in the ‘hurrah’ sense but the sense having to do with a pleasant feeling?”

“What does ‘Liberty’ mean, in this line here?  What—a decorative style?  Well, why don’t Italians use ‘Art Deco’ instead of something so silly-sounding?”

 The foregoing are snippets of conversations between myself and my Italian co-translator.  We’re translating the collected poems of a wonderful Italian poet, Giampiero Neri, who has just published a new volume of poetry, Paesaggi Inospiti (Inhospitable Landscapes) at the age of 81.  Lauded in his homeland but little-known in the United States, Neri writes about what he calls the “natural theater”: nature’s quiet stage, incessantly dramatic and mysterious.  In his quietly moving poems, natural and human actors coexist, often uneasily, in settings of beauty, folly, and cruelty.  

 The work of translation is sometimes maddening and always stimulating.  I speak good but not fluent Italian; my co-translator speaks good but not fluent English.  We’ve spent countless hours talking about the imperfect tense, prepositions, slang, and context (some of Neri’s poems allude to the Second World War).  And we talk all the time about sound: the poems’ music in Italian, and how to convey it in English.

 My co-translator also happens to be my husband.  Added to the experience of translation is thus that of deepening our linguistic, cultural, and emotional bonds.  We marvel at how much we’ve learned about our separate languages, about ourselves, and about poetry—and how entertaining the education’s been for us both. 

 I’m a fiction writer who’s written poetry since I was a teenager but have published very little of it.  I consider myself a constant (in the joint senses of continuous and loyal) apprentice-poet.  As a novelist and story-maker, I cannot imagine producing my own work without reading poetry regularly: it’s always in my head and ears.  And as a teacher, I’m forever urging my fiction students to read more poetry—to read it aloud, read it daily, read it to other people (or to domestic animals, if humans can’t be drummed up).  Everything a fiction writer needs to know about selection of details, about compression, and about diction can be found in poetry.  Plus so, so much else…

 Because Neri often writes prose-poems, my task as a translator sometimes seems simpler than it might otherwise.  This makes me realize that fiction writers as well as poets ought to practice the art of translating poetry.  A fiction writer who speaks, say, a reasonable amount of French might want to have a go at the prose-poems of Baudelaire; a Spanish speaker might want to try translating Gabriela Mistral.  Working with a fellow-translator (spouse, friend, or amiable stranger—amiability’s important, as arguments are likely!) is exhilarating.  And for the writer of fiction, what’s learned is sure to be multifaceted and long-lasting, as poet-translators have known all along.

 (A translation by Martha Cooley and Antonio Romani of Giampiero Neri’s poem “Pseudocavallo” [“Pseudohorse”] can be found in AGNI 69, Spring 2009.)

Plotting in Your Sleep
Jane K. Cleland

The great American author, Edna St. Vincent Millay, once wrote that she couldn’t get the woman onto the porch. What she meant, of course, was that she couldn’t figure out an organically sound reason for the character to do as the plot demanded.

I struggle with this situation all the time. Plotting a mystery is, for me, a combination of architecture and sleight of hand. I lay the foundation, plan the structure, and use language to entice my readers to pay attention to something over here while something else is happening over there, unnoticed. In order for this complex process to flow seamlessly, I need to create characters whose actions mesh with the plot’s development.

It’s hard. If I have a boorish man, for instance, who blusters and creates awkward moments, certainly my readers will focus on him. But if, later, the plot demands that the character finesse something, I’m sunk. A boorish man who blusters would never finesse anything. Reconciling these two needs—a solid, architecturally sound plot and actions driven not by the plot’s needs but by the characters’ personalities is, for me, the most challenging part of writing.

How do I do it? I don’t know. I don’t know why, when I’m mentally outlining the plot, I know that a certain female character is well-dressed and socially savvy. The fact that she is, however, becomes important later in the plot—she hosts a ladies’ luncheon. It’s a good thing she’s that sort of woman because I needed her to host that event—but I didn’t know that the luncheon would occur when I started to write the book—at least not consciously.

Sometimes the pre-planted facts are part of a larger story arc. For instance, in the first Josie Prescott Antiques Murder, Consigned to Death, a young, beautiful woman named Gretchen shows up on Josie’s doorstep begging for a job. In an uncharacteristically impulsive move for a methodical gal like Josie, she hires her—and thanks her lucky stars from that day forward. Yet an aura of mystery surrounds Gretchen. For instance, she never reveals personal information. When another character asks her if she’s going home for the holidays, Gretchen answers, “Home is where the heart is!” In the just released fourth book in the series, Killer Keepsakes, Gretchen disappears.

From a plotting of view, the question is simple… did I purposefully create a mystery surrounding Gretchen? The answer is equally simple… you betcha! But the secret Gretchen was guarding and the means Josie uses to discover it changed. Why? I don’t know. With 20-20 hindsight, I could enumerate the advantages of the revised secret—it’s more urgent (always a good thing a mystery), more frightening (ditto), and more dramatic (ditto again). But the change wasn’t consciously made. It was just one of those things that magically occurs in the midst of the writing process. I needed a reason—a better reason—for Gretchen to have disappeared; thus I needed a new secret. At first, I felt despondent. I couldn’t think of a new secret. Then I went to sleep. And bingo, I woke up with all the pieces in place.

I’ve concluded that much of the intricacy of plotting occurs on some unconscious level. I don’t know if this approach works for every author, but for me, when I need to resolve something, I get the problem clear in my head just before I go to sleep, and when I awaken—I have the answer. Sleeping on it, for me, actually works when I need to figure out how to get the woman onto the porch, determine whether a certain male character should be a boor or a certain female character stylish, or select a new, more deadly, secret. Night, night, now.

Your thoughts? I’d love to hear how plotting works for you. And I hope to meet you at Writers Week in June 2009.

[Excerpts from the books and book club discussion questions are available at www.janecleland.net]

For a writer, passion is more than just caring about the subject we have in front of us. It is the relentless pursuit of that subject, for the truth that is revealed to us in the mysterious process of writing. Writing is a process of discovery, and powerful writing is not letting go of a subject until you have made it your own, until you “know it” –which is what I think is really meant, by the way, by “write what you know.”  When we are passionate about knowing our subject, understanding our character, we write powerfully–whether we are writing an essay, a short story, a poem, or a magazine article about travel to Fiji. 

Everything we write is informed by everything we think. And at some point in all writing a moment comes when the thought process becomes difficult, or uncomfortable, or even unpleasant . We all know where these moments are—they are when you suddenly take a break because the dog is barking, or you decide this is the moment to make that third cup of coffee. These moments–moments when we want to “duck the issue”–are marked in our manuscripts by telltale signs: three asterisks, a sudden gap in time, sentences like “he was silent,” “she looked away,” “I don’t know why it appealed to me.”  Not to say that these turns aren’t sometimes called for; they may be. But examine them carefully. Many times they will represent a moment when we, the author, have come head to head with a truth that must be pursued in order to “bring our writing to the next level,” but which we shy away from, even if subconsciously. Here is where passion must overrule reason–if we are to make the most of our opportunities as writers!