Category / Reading

by Michael

Reading & Last Year’s Blog Interviews

I finished my second book for the year.  I’ve read Eula Biss’ Notes From No Man’s Land and Danielle Evans’ Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self.  They were treats and I found myself whispering thank yous to those ladies as I read! 

I hope to talk about these books later in a bit more detail, but if you’re into short stories and essays, do yourself a favor–purchase them, read them, and plan the next time when you’ll re-read them.  If you aren’t into short stories or essays–and I don’t get to read either very much–these works will entice and satisfy even your reading appetite.  I’m almost convinced enough to reimburse you if you don’t love those books.  But you’d have to take that up with my wife.

Nonetheless, finishing them got me thinking about the writers I read last year.  And I want to recommend again to you the following books, along with others by these authors.  I’m glad that these folks participated in blog interviews.  I’m keeping track of their work the best I can, and I hope you’re doing the same. 

  • Johnathan and Toni Alvarado discussed their book here, highlighting the meaning of marriage, leadership, and several strategies to strengthen relationships in general.
  • My interview with Lee H. Butler where he discussed fatherhood in compelling ways that will enrich both parents and non-parents.
  • In this post, Bernice McFadden talked about her latest novel, Glorious, as well as a few insightful comments about publishing and writers to watch.
  • Ravi Howard discusses his novel here and connects us to why we might remember history.
  • Donna Freitas talks about power, balance, and the possibility of healing when discussing her latest novel here.
by Michael

Read The Right Thing

When the 112th U.S. Congress read our Constitution, it chose to read the amended version of the document.  I love the amendments.  Amendments are necessary phrases that remind us of our country’s process and progress relative to being a beautiful democracy.  Amendments show us the distance between our history’s ugliness and its–at the time of the newly introduced phrases–growth away from that ugliness.  Amendments are noble and we need to keep them before the public which is the United States of America.  We should read the Constitution with those parts 11-27.

But when Congress stands up to read the historical document, it should read the document.  The one that says that people like me weren’t really people.  The one that says that I was sub-human.  The one that says that I didn’t count except as a piece of property for somebody else, somebody more powerful.  Maybe after that original reading they could have gone onto the better language.

The reasons I think that older document should have been read, perhaps with the amended version, are 1) because our country is too quick to forget its real past, particularly when single thinkers, workers and leaders have pulled us along the journey of justice and change in the face(s) of persecution to change; 2) because the current leadership can always choose, at whatever moment current is, to declare the updated version, even when that version revises history and relieves leaders of their continued responsibilities to advocate for this democratic experiment when it comes to marginal people like women and people of color; 3) because the experiences of people of color, namely Black people, strain from back then and stay with us right now; 4) because reading the old and new helps, forms and teaches the citizenry to be critical of its movement as a gracious people and as a people who pursue justice for everybody from the wealthy and the often-counted to the poor and the almost always discounted.

Scripture says in Nehemiah 7 that Ezra, a scribe, stood on a wooden platform and read the books of Moses to everyone who could understand.  While he read, everyone stood, watching the priest/scribe worship the Lord and proclaim.  While they listened, they wept.  They grieved at their heart bottoms and didn’t rejoice at the precious words until instructed by the Levites.  There was distance between what they were told in the Law and how they lived as a community.

It’s not that I need our Congress to remind itself of our history, and at the same time, I do need our Congress to do precisely that.  That body needs to remind itself in its own regular way of what it said and what our judiciary and executive branches enforced by legal requirement so that that body doesn’t dismiss the more sinister ways those now illegal actions toward us continue.

From the original–which you can gladly find here, at the U.S. Archives–small parts which jumped out at me that should have been read:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

What do you think?

by Michael

Christians and Muslims Talking About God and Serving The City

It’s not often that I’ll mention what’s happening or happened at my church, but this post is dedicated to an interesting event we held three weeks ago.  We hosted Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith and founder of the Interfaith Youth Core.  He came, along with a few of his staff, one of whom is a member of our church, and we were very glad to have them.

The event launched what our staff expects to be a long-term multi-faith dialogue.  We expect the conversation that Pastor Hong and Dr. Patel started then will eventuate into more discussion and action on what it means for Christians and Muslims to be in relationship, how we together can seek the good of the city, and how we can pursue justice, even while honoring and holding well our own very real differences of (theological) opinion.  We also are planning slowly how to respond to the many things which came up after that: the questions, the concerns, the issues for people in our congregation.  Last, we are planning how to take the next step to make the multi-faith dialogue multi-faith.  We’ve been thinking about how we can invite and envelope a leader from one of the Jewish traditions in order to have the same kinds of conversations, words leading to actions.

That said, I purchased two copies of Dr. Patel’s book, one to read and one to give away.  The book’s in my third reading pile and I’ll get to it by February if I stay the reading course.  So, I can’t review it.  My friend and coworker, David Swanson, has read and reviewed it though. 

Nonetheless, if you’d like to get a free copy, enter my little competition by Wednesday, midnight CST, and I’ll randomly choose a winner.  To enter, leave a comment about why you think telling stories about faith is important.

by Michael

Interview with Donna Freitas & Book Giveaway

Several months ago I read This Gorgeous Game and I contacted Donna Freitas to see if she would conduct a blog interview.  She graciously accepted.  As I told her, this novel was a treat to read.  It was an engaging, well-written story that covers a challenging topic.  It’s accessible for young readers, meaning youth and young adult readers, but the issues inside the covers are ones that anyone can relate to.  Here’s the cover flap copy:

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters has long dreamed of becoming a writer.  So she’s absolutely over the moon when her literary idol, the celebrated novelist and much-adored local priest Mark D. Brendan, selects her from hundreds of other applicants as the winner of the Emerging Writers High School Fiction Prize.  Now she gets to spend her summer evenings in a college fiction seminar at the nearby university, where dreamy college boys abound and Father Mark acts as her personal mentor.

But when Father Mark’s enthusiasm for Olivia’s writing develops into something more, Olivia quickly finds her emotions shifting from wonder to confusion and despair.  And as her wide-eyed innocence deteriorates, Olivia can’t help but ask–exactly what game is Father Mark placing, and how on earth can she get out of it?

This remarkable second novel by the author of The Possibilities of Sainthood, about overcoming the isolation that stems from victimization, is powerful, luminous, and impossible to put down.

If you’re interested in learning more about Ms. Freitas or her work, visit her website.  Here’s my interview with Professor Freitas.

You say in your acknowledgments that writing this story was a long, tedious journey.  What can you share about that journey?  Well, this was a dark story, its subject matter tough, and there are many friends and loved ones along the way who have been there for me and supported me with respect to my own experiences related to where the story came from. But, perhaps somewhat ironically, writing This Gorgeous Game was such a liberating experience. To tell Olivia’s story, and to bring her through this darkness to the other side, knowing that she would be okay and that there were so many people in her life that would be there before, during, and afterward, was pretty amazing in and of itself. My editor, Frances Foster, and everyone at FSG and Macmillan that supported This Gorgeous Game from start to finish and still now were pretty amazing, too. It’s funny (and wonderful, too) how something so dark can end up directing you toward joy eventually.

Olivia’s voice is clear and the story captures her experiences, her hopes, and some of her frustrations.  Can you talk about what helped you hear her voice and see her experience?  One of the most important aspects of This Gorgeous Game for me is Olivia’s voice. It came to me clear as a bell one day on my way home and I decided it was my job to follow it until she had nothing left to say. I think her voice is that of a girl who is stressed and scared and insecure about what she is experiencing and I hope readers can truly be in her head while they read. I suppose that is a terrible thing to wish on readers in some respects, but I want Olivia to come to life for people through her voice!

Among Olivia’s early lines is a passage about gratitude.  She wills herself gratitude and the story centers–maybe not quite centers–on her tension between thankfulness and fear, gratitude and confusion.  How did you walk that line and strengthen those tensions throughout the work?  Well, thank you for the compliment about the tension. I’m not sure I consciously tried to walk any lines, to be honest. My biggest job was to stay true to Olivia’s voice. The main thing I was aware of, though, was the fact that the reader was going to know that something was wrong and what was wrong, too, far before Olivia would ever do or say anything about what was happening to her. That meant that my job was to show the confusion that made Olivia stay silent for so long, even as she begins to fear what is really happening to her. I needed to convey the enormity of what it meant to accuse a priest of abuse, especially when he never did anything “technically” wrong—he just showed her an enormous amount of attention. This was a complicated thing to convey.

I read somewhere that you were interested or concerned about readers’ reception of your use of Thomas Merton.  What led you to use his writings and what would you like readers to know about him?  I am actually not a Merton fan, but I knew that he fell in love with a much, much younger woman shortly before he died and that they had an affair. In my mind, Father Mark (the priest in This Gorgeous Game), fancies himself as a Merton type—he is a famous writer, a priest, and in many other ways is a very private person—and he begins to see Olivia as his “M.”. I actually didn’t add the Merton parallel until after I’d finished the first draft, though.

Power is abused.  People are mistreated by individuals and by systems made up of people.  This story illuminates how that happens in one person’s life.  How do you see Olivia now that her story is written, being read, and being discussed?  How would you describe her?  Power certainly is abused all the time, and it is particularly awful (in my opinion) when someone abuses the power they have in relation to a person or a community’s faith in general, and faith in them particularly. I would describe Olivia as a totally innocent victim, a teen girl who was deeply involved in her family’s Church and faith tradition, as well as a gifted young person with lots of hopes and dreams. Father Mark preys on both these aspects of Olivia’s character, and when we are kids, we are so vulnerable in these areas of our life. I hope that people will talk about the events of the story as they happen; why it takes so long for Olivia to tell on Father Mark; what they wish would happen to Father Mark after the story is over; and also, how we can educate teens to not only be aware of sexual abuse, but the kind of abuse that is rather more elusive, that comes from the kind of manipulative, relentless attention Father Mark shows Olivia.

How do you balance your work as a teacher and your work writing?  Related to that, what kinds of connections do you see in the roles of writer and teacher?  Does one role equip you for the other?  I am not great at balancing! I wish I was better, but don’t we all need to be better? I would say that my nonfiction work (most recently, Sex and the Soul from Oxford University Press) is more directly in line with my teaching and concerns in the classroom. Almost all of my nonfiction research and writing comes from conversations I’ve had with my students or topics they seem interested in or wish they had more discussions about. My fiction in general is more personal, I think, even though I think (hope!) that it is useful in the classroom, too.

Has This Gorgeous Game come up in your classes or conversations with students?  If so, what has that meant to you?  Not yet—this is my first semester since the book came out, though. I don’t think my students even know I write novels to be honest!

I don’t know you well.  In fact, I’m only a new fan because of This Gorgeous Game.  But I’ll make an assumption to ask you this last question.  My assumption is that everyone has faith in something(s), even if faith is understood differently by different people.  Can you talk about what this story did for your faith?  You handled a bold story in a skillful way that makes me want to know how this good work worked on you if that makes sense.  Thanks for this question. Writing This Gorgeous Game was the closest I’ve ever come to an experience of grace, I think. I’ve never felt more empowered before, than when I was working on this book. Through this novel, I was able to take experiences in my own past that I’d buried somewhere deep and dark, and transform them into a story that is difficult, I know, but one about which I am proud. It has helped me to have faith in the possibility of healing even from life’s most painful moments.

What’s next for you and how can my readers keep in touch?  My third novel is coming out in September of 2011. It’s called The Survival Kit, and it’s about a girl named Rose whose mother has just died. On the day of the funeral, when her brother and father are arguing over Mom’s wishes, Rose escapes into her mother’s closet, looking at all the things her mother left behind. Hanging with Rose’s favorite dress of her mother, she finds something special that her Mom made for Rose: a survival kit. Inside the bag are items and tasks to help Rose get through this first year, and everything Rose finds inside is what ends up shaping the next twelve months. The story is uplifting and hopeful, I think! And the biggest storyline other than the items inside the kit is a romance, which I really enjoyed writing. The survival kit is based on something my mother used to make when she was alive.

People can contact me through my website, where they will find all my info!

To enter into the competition to win a free copy of This Gorgeous Game:

Post a comment offering one way we can educate teens about the dangers of sexual abuse or one way we can protect teens from such dangers.  Respond by midnight, Thursday, the 18th.

by Michael

Interview with Ravi Howard & Book Giveaway

As I’ve said in previous blog interviews, I hope you will look seriously at these conversations as ways and reasons to consider adding these works to your to-be-read pile!  I also hope they provide a slight window into the world of publishing from the author’s point of view.  I found Like Trees, Walking three years after it was published (in 2007), so there is time for you to get it still.  I appreciated this read and am grateful for Mr. Howard’s willingness to be on the blog.  First the backcover copy for the novel and then the interview.

Melanin helps to obscure some bruises, making them difficult to distinguish from the dark skin they’ve stained.  Under the strong light, all of the bruises that covered him head to toe were plain to see.  The defensive wounds that covered Michael’s palms appeared bold against the pale skin.  Seeing Michael’s hands and face, I thought of my schoolyard brawls.  After the fights I’d won, I remembered how the rush of victory dulled the pain of taken blows.  Then I thought of the fights I had lost, when I felt the pain of knuckles against my face and the hot rush of blood coming to the surface.  Those fights seemed important at the time, but we were all just kids.  There was nothing at stake besides pride or shame.

My Photo

Now, the interview.

Tell us about your writing process, your research, giving us a glimpse into what came before this novel’s publication a few years ago.  Like Trees, Walking is set in Mobile, Alabama.  Though I live here now, I was on the East Coast during the writing process.  I made multiple trips here to the local library, as well as other trips just to get a feel for local culture.  I wanted to be accurate with neighborhoods and street names, so I tried to learn as much as possible about local flavor to make the story feel more authentic. 

I worked in television production for much of that time, so most of the writing was done on weekends, evenings, and vacation time.  The challenge for any writer is finding a balance between work, personal lives, and writing.

You tell a story that is very much a part of the history of the United States , bringing before readers the ugly brutality of lynching.  How were you personally affected by the strong and hard pieces of the research and plot for the work?  I was most affected by the photographs and court testimony of the lynching.  It was hard to believe that crimes like the Donald murder happened as late as 1981.  I think any writer who lives with material for so long ends up with a personal connection to the subject matter.  I think the fact that I live in Mobile now makes certain elements of the crime scene and events more vivid because I travel the streets regularly.  I’ve also met journalists and citizens who were somehow involved with the case, directly or indirectly, so that makes the crime feel current.  People remember where they were when it happened.

Two central characters, Roy and Paul, are brothers.  Their relationship is playful and fun and enduring despite the big losses and fears in your novel.  They had different reactions to Michael Donald’s murder.  How did you develop their relationship as you wrote?  People deal with grief and trauma differently, and the brothers illustrated a small part of the emotional range.   While there is often a collective mood of a particular city, era, or event, fiction provides the opportunity to peel away characters and show the impact of moments and conflicts on individuals.  Sometimes responses can be reduced to norms or what is considered abnormal.  Through characters, readers and writers can explore a range of responses to everyday events and traumatic ones.

What audience did you write this for or who do you hope finds and reads Like Trees, Walking?  I really don’t write with an eye on the audience.  It’s hard to know who will like a work and who will not.   Performers can look out at the audience and know who’s there and who’s not, but our folks are in bookstores, libraries, or online.  I think that invisibility can be a good thing.  I’m open to anyone who wants to try the book, even the ones who end up not liking it.  I think the folks who are constantly reading are central to the mix, but we always need those folks who might not read that often.  It’s always helpful to the cause when people discuss their reading with others.  That’s the easiest way to spread the word and help a small audience develop into a big one.  

You live in Mobile , Alabama .  Tell us about the local reception of your book over the last few years.  I’ve been pleased with the reception of the book.   Prior to the publication of the book, the street where Michael Donald’s body was found was renamed for him.  A historical marker was added as well.  The city has been receptive to historical remembrances, even for something this tragic.  Mobile has had a different relationship to the Civil Rights Movement than other cities.  The violence associated with Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, and Anniston didn’t happen on the same scale in Mobile.  But people have been willing to discuss the event and its aftermath in various public forums.

I was struck that the main characters were young—thankful and struck.  I imagined how I would have interacted with this as a reader if I were the age of the characters, how much fun or sorrow-filled conversations with classmates might have been.  What would you like young people to discuss, to talk about, after reading this story?  I want young people to know that they can tell their own stories as well as anyone else.  Sometimes young people can look to older generations to explain their times to them.  It’s good for students to know that Dr. King was 26 during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  Claudette Colvin, one of the first women who protested before Rosa Parks, was a high school student.  Sit-ins were conducted by college students, and there were school-age children participating in marches.  Young people have always had a point of view, and they should feel empowered to write and read stories that reflect their perspectives.

How do you see the role for this history, and history like it, in our country today?  The experience of Michael Donald is relatively recent but probably forgotten.  Do you see this story pushing us to remember in particular ways?  I think the divisive racist rhetoric we’ve heard during this election cycle shows that people still exploit racial tensions.  History shows us that exploitation can lead to violence.  I think that we should remember recent history with the understanding that those kinds of incidents can still happen if people are allowed to belittle people of color and minimize our contributions to American culture.  

What are you working on these days, and how can my blog readers connect with you?  I’m working on a piece set in Montgomery in the 1950s.  It shows elements of civil rights history and music history, especially the life and influence of Nat Cole, who was born in Montgomery in 1919.

Readers can connect with me at www.ravihoward.com .  I’d be happy to hear from them.  Thanks for including me in your blog.

Please do visit Ravi’s website and pick up a copy of his novel.

If you would like to enter into my competition to get a free copy of Like Trees, Walking, post in the comments either a) an event, any event, in history that you’d like an author to write about in a novel or b) the name of a novel focusing on a particular event in history.  I’ll choose a winner on Saturday, November 6 so post a comment by Friday, November 5 at midnight, CST.

by Michael

Interview with Bernice McFadden & Book Giveaway

One of the hopes I have for this blog is to point to, highlight, and, if I can, scream about some of the things I’m reading.  Today’s interview is a third example of me telling you about books I’ve read through author interviews; the first is here and the second is here.   I want to commend to you Glorious. 

I asked Ms. Bernice McFadden if she would like to be interviewed and she graciously accepted.  I’m glad to bring my questions and her answers about Glorious, introducing you to this story and her work as a novelist.  The interview follows the back cover copy for Glorious:

Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era.  Blending fact and fiction, Glorious is the sotry of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid a true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

It is a novel informed by the question that is the title of Langston Hughes’s famous poem: What happens to a dream deferred?  Based on years of research, this heart-wrenching fictional account is given added resonance by factual events coupled with real and imagined larger-than-life characters.  Glorious is an audacious exploration into the nature of self-hatred, love, possession, ego, betrayal, and, finally, redemption.

Glorious

Now, the interview.

  • You wrote a great story, pulling from people of the past.  What’s the role of history in Glorious?  Do you think that you’ve used history as a character in your work?  When I write fiction that includes historical reference, I do so simply to inform my reader – black and white – of Black peoples role in history, because we as a people have been erased from said history. I do believe that history becomes a character in and of itself in my books.

 

  • There is a sense that you are telling several people’s stories.  For example, several writers from the Harlem Renaissance are featured.  Are there writers from that period who, if you will, 1) shaped the story with you and 2) who inspire your work?  I have been inspired by every factual character who appears in Glorious. Without their participation the story would not have been authentic and thus, would not have rang true with the readers.

 

  • Easter is the main character in Glorious.  She carries into the story hope, certainty, perseverance, and strength.  How did you develop her character?  How did you listen to her voice?  I allow my characters to tell their own stories. I do not force their hands and so I allow them to share with me and the world what they choose to share.

 

  • Sexuality, affection, and love play prominent roles in Glorious.  I would say the same for Sugar and This Bitter Earth.  For me, the love and intimacy I read in your pages add a natural and normal quality to the relationships in the stories.  My sense as a reader is that scenes like those you write give us a view of sexuality and love.  How do you think your work—this current one or the body of your work—helps readers image and see examples of love?  My depictions of love and sex are raw. Meaning, that I do not dress those emotions/actions up in order to make the reader comfortable. It is what it is – and that is exactly what I want the reader to walk away with – not some glamorized, Hollywood version of love and sex.

 

  • Give us a glimpse of how you found the publisher for Glorious.  I queried Akashic Books in the Spring of 2010 and they quickly responded, requesting a copy of the manuscript. I bumped into the publisher (Johnny Temple) at the Harlem Book Fair in July 2010. He told me that he still had not read the ms – but that one of his associates had, and loved it! In August 2010 I received and email from Johnny conveying his admiration for the work and his desire to publish it. The rest..as you know.. is Glorious literary history!

 

  • Your blog and your novels always include a highlight, emphasis, or reminder about communicators from before.  What other writers would you like to point readers to?  What titles should readers have on our shelves?  I am blessed to know a bevy of incredible writers! Donna Hill, Deberry and Grant, Bonnie Glover, Tina McElroy Ansa, Carleen Brice, Lori Thorps, Elizabeth Nunez and Stacey Patton- are some writers that readers should support and add to their collections!

 

  • What do writers who aspire to publish fiction need to know that they don’t?  Aspiring writers need to know that they will have to wear two hats. That of the creator and the marketing/publicity professional.

 

  • If I read you correctly, cultural memory is important to you.  What do you mean by cultural memory and why is it significant?  My slogan is: I write to breathe life back into memory. I say this because we (Af-Am’s) have been stricken from numerous pages of history books. In school are children are taught that our history begins with slavery. It’s an abomination!  It is of the utmost importance to know where we come from. Undertsanding our origins will place us firmley on a successful journey towards enlightement and success. If you believe you’ve come from nothing – it’s most likely you will become nothing. We come from greatness and we need to be aware of that!

 

  • What’s the last novel you read, and what’s the one you’re looking to read? What else is in your to-be-read pile?  I had the immense pleasure of reading Anna-in-Between by Elizabeth Nunez. I am very much looking forward to reading Perfect Peace, by Daniel Black.

 

  • How can my blog readers stay connected to you?  I am active on FB and my handle on Twitter is: queenazsa. Interested individuals can visit my cyber-home at: www.bernicemcfadden.com

Finally, I am giving away a new copy of Glorious!  All you need to do is post a comment, either recommending a book or posting the title of the last book you read by Sunday, 11:59PM, CST.  I will randomly select a winner on Monday.  Check in after that because I’ll announce who’s won and ask you to email me your mailing address.

by Michael

Writing in My Skin

I’m learning the publishing business as you may know from a few posts in the previous addresses.  Among the many things I’ve read is that there are many obstacles in a writer’s way when it comes to publishing. 

When you’re unpublished, there is a long list of things that could be or must be done to get published.  Platforms and marketing ability, good writing and better storytelling ability, a niche or an audience who’s waiting or developing around some of the things you’re saying.  It goes on and on. 

When I consider things, these are a few salient challenges for me in my road to publication:

1) Men don’t read.  At least that’s the prevailing thought in publishing.  Of course, I disagree but I understand that point.  A not-so recent article reintroduces the idea but it has sat inside industry meeting rooms for years.  In some mysterious way, this connects with me as a male writer.  I’m not writing for men (I’m writing for readers), but I am a man.  I don’t write romance in general, which is the strongest selling genre, a genre read and written mostly by women so far as publishers can tell.  So, my maleness–even though men have dominated publishing historically–is an issue as I approach a publishing career.  If I write what sells, my maleness can be a gift to romance or it can be suspicious to the largest readership.  But then my question becomes how do I write to men.  How do I write to continue to invite men and women into the pleasing world of reading?  That’s the point to me anyway.  Sure, selling is important, but cultivating love for words and reading is so much more impressive a goal.  Selling is a means.

2) I am a black man who writes.  It’s a challenge in the sense that, acknowledged or not, race and culture influence not only my writing process from start to finish but also how my stories are read by agents and editors who are my first readers, if you will.  I got a response from an agent earlier this year who said that my manuscript was strong but that they weren’t sure I could compete among my competitors.  My story was familiar, she said.  Of course I disagree.  There was no published title with the plot I was pitching, nothing has shown up on Publishing Marketplace, but that’s the feedback.  The publishing world has too many black writers writing about familiar plots with black characters.  That was hard to read and harder to think through, but it brought me to ethnic identity.  Writers like Tayari Jones and Bernice McFadden post insightful comments from time to time in this area. 

3) Finding a home is an issue.  I’m not talking about a publishing home but an audience.  I’ve thought a lot about my audience.  One of the most popular questions agents and publishers ask is “Who are you writing for?”  There is some disagreement on this.  Some but not much.  If you don’t know your answer as an unpublished writer, your work is probably not going to be accepted or contracted.  You’ve got to know your audience, write for your audience.  It’s possible to cross audiences, but one must know well the rules of those roads.  And usually a writer has to travel one path long enough until a publisher will trust that he can explore new grounds.

4) Your audience is often defined by someone else.  Audience relates to genres, and since genres are more rigid than flexible, a part of naming your audience is accepting established boundaries.  I can function in boundaries, but I already see my work as crossing lines.  It’s interesting to get some of the initial feedback from my freelance editor.  One thing I expect to talk with her about is the issue–after I digest the critique letter over the next few days.  I see the genre, understand the audience that generally comes along with that genre, but how do I write with integrity if I don’t quite fit?  Do I pay dues first?  Do I get that first or second or tenth book deal and then worry about these things?

That’s it for today, except this one last thing.

For your continued reading enjoyment, Rachel Deahl’s article in PW discusses men and publishing and Stephen King’s 2005 essay says everything you need to know about writing.

by Michael

Dealing with Difficult People

One of the best parts of attending our denomination’s January pastor’s conference is that we get free books.  Donors and publishers are extremely generous to ensure that every pastor has five or six books to carry home.  That usually includes a book on some aspect of biblical interpretation, theology, self-care, historical or contemporary issues, and some other interesting topic. 

Right now I’m reading Will and Spirit by one of my favorite authors, Gerald G. May, From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler, a superb recommendation I got from a literary agent’s blog.  And I’m reading The Me I Want to Be by John Orberg–the book I got at the conference earlier this year.  I’m reading Ortberg slowly but not because it isn’t good.  It is.

I’m reading slowly because the book is about personal growth, really spiritual growth.  And that’s slow work. 

Here’s a passage from Ortberg’s chapter entitled, “Find a Few Difficult People to Help You Grow” (p. 210-211).  He’s discussing when Jesus told his followers to do more than a Roman soldier could by law ask them to do.  If the soldier said walk the obligatory mile, you, at the end of the mile, offer to go further.  Go further with people in power.  Go further with difficult people and what happens?  You become more human, a better version of yourself:

Often when someone is difficult to me, I want to think of them as deliberately unlikable rather than as a real person with their own story.  A friend offered to introduce English essayist Charles Lamb to a man whom Lamb had disliked for a long time by hearsay.  “Don’t make me meet him,” Lamb said.  “I want to go on hating him, and I can’t do that to a man I know.”

We can give the gift of empathy.  We remember that the person we don’t like is also a human being.  We put ourselves in thier place.  We take the time to imagine how they feel, how they’re treated.  We ask what would help them become the best version of themselves, and in turn the interaction becomes an opportunity for me to practice becoming the best version of myself.  We actually need difficult people to reach our full potential.

Difficult people enable us to be better.  They aren’t simply to be ignored or rushed passed.  They are people, and when we treat them like people, we become better.  They may not.  They may persist in being difficult.  They may not change.  But we change.  We come closer to being what Ortberg calls, the best version of ourselves.

I’ve noticed that I like for people to change more than I like to change.  It’s easier for me to watch and push and encourage (or manipulate even) the movements of somebody else.  Especially when someone else is difficult.  But there’s something deeper when they don’t change.  Something scarier.  And that is my own change.

I spend a lot of good time thinking about how to help people change.  And that spent time is not a waste.  But it’s always harder and more painful to query my own insides.  After all, I am a pretty difficult person too.

by Michael

bell hooks on Writing and Gardner Taylor on Preaching

I’m pulling quotes from two of my favorite people, bell hooks and Dr. Gardner Calvin Taylor.  I consider preaching (or pastoring) and writing to be my two main works.  So, as I reflect on my labor, I offer you their thoughts.  First, bell hooks.

bell hooks is a writer, teacher, and lecturer, and her areas of strength and interest are the politics of race, class, and gender, sexuality and human relationships, and writing.  I suppose there are many others.  I’m drawing this quote from her book about writing, Remembered Rapture, a book every writer should have.  In this quote, professor hooks is talking about writing inside and despite the structures and strictures of the academy in the chapter, “dancing with words.”  You can see several synopses of her books at South End Press.

Writing to fulfill professional career expectations is not the same as writing that emerges as the fulfillment of a yearning to work with words when there is no clear benefit or reward, when it is the experience of writing that matters.  When writing is a desired and accepted calling, the writer is devoted, constant, and committed in a manner that is akin to monastic spiritual practice.  I am driven to write, compelled by a constant longing to choreograph, to bring words together in patterns and configurations that move the spirit.  As a writer, I seek that moment of ecstasy when I am dancing with words, moving in a circle of love so complete that like the mystical dervish who dances to be one with the Divine, I move toward the infinite.  That fulfillment can be realized whether I write poetry, a play, fiction, or critical essays.

Dr. Taylor served as Pastor of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, NY for 42 years before retiring twenty years ago.  His exemplary preaching style and content is instructive, but his words about the role and task for preachers is what I’m pulling from in this post.  The quote is from the Yale University Lyman Beecher Lecture Series in 1976.  The particular lecture is “Preaching the Whole Counsel of God.”  Dr. Taylor is speaking from a passage in the book of Ezekiel where the watchman’s role is discussed.

It is the watchman’s job to watch.  Such a person is expected to scan the hills and to peer toward the valleys with the eye straining to see the rim of the horizon.  On who is chosen to watch is freed from the regular occupational responsibilities of those who select him or her to be watchman…It is the watchman’s job to see, since for this cause came he or she to the appointed lookout tower.  The watchman has been given the vantage point of an elevated position in order to see.  The watchman has, likewise, no right to claim indifference or indolence or sleepiness, for he or she is spared many of the irksome annoyances of the workaday world.  The sentry has no right to claim poor vision, since the capacity to see, to see clearly and accurately, is one of the principal requirements of a watchman…There is little place for ranting by the preacher, but there is a very large place indeed for urgency and for an earnest, honest passion.  The stakes are high!

These are two people, among too many others, who anchor me in my work.  If you like, tell us who anchors you in yours?

by Michael

Interview with Lee Butler, Author of Listen My Son

I am a father.  And since the boy came in March–since we found out we were expecting, really–I’ve been looking for good information to strengthen myself as a parent.  I found one such resource in Listen My Son: Wisdom to Help African American Fathers by Lee H. Butler, Jr.  Dr. Butler is a professor of theology and psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life at the Chicago Theological Seminary. 

I asked Dr. Butler to consider being interviewed for the blog shortly after reading Listen My Son.  I’m pleased to have him answers on the blog.  I hesitate slightly to say so, but this book isn’t just for African Americans or just for men even if the content springs from the work of African American men.  I asked the professor about that, too.  I hope you’re interested enough to search out this resource for your own knowledge and appreciation. 

Questions

1) You and the other contributors are open about personal experiences as sons and as fathers.  What motivated you to write Listen, My Son?

Listen, My Son has been written by special invitation by the publisher, Abingdon Press, the publisher of the United Methodist Church.  I was intrigued by the invitation and motivated to write because African American manhood is an identity in transition.  I wanted to be able to make a contribution by encouraging a much needed discussion that will help us to develop a more positive self-understanding as Black men in America.

2) You worked with three colleagues on this work.  What was the writing process like, and how did you determine what you’d write and what the other contributors would offer?

The project design was mine.  Just as no one person can be all things to all people, I was clear I didn’t have the life experience to write about all topics.  Because I wanted this book to be readable and not a research project, I invited a few friends to join me in the project.  I developed the chapter outline, then I asked the others to write specific chapters that matched their lived experiences, which of course differed from my own.

3) Your contrast of sirehood and fatherhood is compelling and powerful.  Can you summarize the difference between these two marks of manhood and say a word or two about how men can “resist the selfish, immature legacy of sirehood”?

Responsibility and a commitment to relationship are what separate fatherhood and sirehood.  A father is not only one who takes responsibility for his actions, he takes responsibility to care for, provide for, nurture, and protect his children.  This deep sense of responsibility is guided by his commitment to being present and fully participate in every aspect of his children’s lives.  Many men understand responsibility to mean that we work hard to be good providers; but responsibility that is guided by relationship means that we work hard to give of ourselves those things that we have worked hard to provide.  It is our presence, participation, and active giving that makes all the difference in the world.  Fatherhood promotes responsibility and relationship.  Sirehood, on the other hand, is quite selfish and is only concerned about being served.  It is always focused on what the man desires to be given and his own personal satisfaction in being able to say he has children, even if he never does a thing for those children.  Resistance is an important concept for African American men.  We have come to believe that being the sire, “the king in his castle” is how we are to see ourselves.  The most noble of kings, however, is concerned about the well-being of all the people, not about what he can get by exploiting the people.  We have been exploited for so many generations, we must resist the temptation to do to others what has been done to us.  Our children are not to be our servants, they are to live as our sons and daughters who are most loved by us.

4) Parenting is full of surprises, surprises that are hard to prepare for.  How do you talk about mentoring and its impact in parenting?  And where can men find mentors as we seek to become better fathers?

Now there’s a question for everyday!  Each and everyday brings something new.  Children are constantly growing, changing, becoming new right before our eyes.  In this age of information and technology, we are everyday surprised by what our children are exposed to that we must become more aware of.  What I encourage men to see in the book is that none of us can go through life alone.  Mentoring is a good way of understanding that we all need support and must give support.  A mentoring relationship–and relationship is what is emphasized throughout the book–is a learning as we grow relationship.  There is a natural give-and-take that exists in mentoring relationship that allows both persons to give and receive gifts of life.  It is the ability to tell and listen to the stories of life’s ups and downs.  Also, finding mentors requires an openness to believe that another as a good word about life to share.  Becoming a good father means that a man is willing to sit down to tell and listen to stories that speak about the everyday up and down experiences of life.

5) Can you discuss an African American father’s impact upon his daughter’s life, what his role is, and how it is different from raising a son?

Before answering these question directly, I feel it very important to first say that we live in a male-preferred society that encourages men to see our value as men by fathering sons.  So strong is this feeling that many men feel disappointment at the birth of a daughter.  This feeling must be addressed and transformed before any of us can be true fathers to our daughters.  It is the father-daughter relationship that will help the daughter to know she is too important to be abused.  If that relationship is strong and truly loving, when she grows into full womanhood, she will not tolerate anyone treating her with less respect and dignity than her father treated her.  As a result, a father’s role in the life of his daughter is to nurture her to be strong and interdependent so she will know how to stand alone as well as stand in mutual respect and partnership with another.  Raising a son means we must teach him how to respect a girl/woman as another man’s daughter.

6) What would you like readers who are not fathers or who are not African American to take away from Listen, My Son?

To the readers who are not fathers, I have taken the attitude in the book to speak of the importance of every man to adopt a fathering attitude for himself as he relates to every child, to take a mentoring attitude as he relates to every other man.  We all, whether fathers or not, have a responsibility to the larger community.  This means we are mentors and guides for all for the maintenance of community life.  This is no less true for those who are not African American.  On the whole, the book helps men to understand more fully who we are, and it offers insights for women to know why we might think and act as we do. Continue reading →

by Michael

In Case You’re Considering Seminary

One of my favorite writers said that everyone is a theologian.  Not necessarily a professional theologian or an academic theologian, but a theologian still.  We all, in his thought, have an understanding of God and a way of communicating (i.e., speech to communicate) that understanding to others.  For people who spend a lot of time talking about God, there’s seminary.

Before going further, you should know this bit of biography since it anchors what I’ll say–people formed in other places, at other times, may have different wisdom.  I went to graduate school at Wheaton College, completed a program in theological studies and didn’t get enough.  I enjoyed what I was learning.  I signed up for more at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and enrolled in the MDiv program while I was serving at Sweet Holy Spirit, my home church.  I came to serve New Community, a multi-ethnic congregation in 2006.  I started teaching as an adjunct faculty member at my seminary, teaching and learning with people preparing to serve in the academy and the church.  I’ve been formed for my work as a minister since childhood.  I like my work, genuinely enjoy it.

As I prepare for another academic year, I’m thinking about the choice to enroll in seminary.  I’m looking forward to meeting a new group of students in a couple weeks.  I’m thinking about our classes, our schedule, and our stated goals.  I hope the students are considering some of these things, along with their reasons for starting seminary this fall.  So, if you are considering seminary, if you think it may be a path for you, sit with a few points, and tell me what you think:

1) Consider your life.  Do you have time, money, and the emotional health to study at the graduate level?  Does your family and friends have strong feelings about your decision?  Sometimes strong feelings mean support and love.  Sometimes it means the opposite.  But your life has to allow for your full participation in seminary.  Even with part-time programs, a seminary experience needs to add to you.  If you’re overworked already and won’t modify your life in order to take in what you learn, what’s happening to you, and how you’re understanding your life’s call, don’t do it.  No matter how many classes you take, when you’re giving yourself to this educational experience it will be formative.  If you aren’t being formed, something’s wrong.  Of course, you may need to cut things away from your life in order to start that formation.

2) Understand that the seminary is a place for graduate study of theology and its academic cousins.  It’s not Sunday School or Bible study.  It’s not a really rigorous small group.  It’s not a covenant group.  It’s grad school where you talk about God, God’s revelation and creation, people, you, and a lot in between.  You’ll have good conversations and interesting lectures.  You’ll be excited and intrigued and bored.  You’ll meet good friends.  You’ll write.  You’ll stay up late.  You’ll miss some important readings and perhaps even an assignment or two.  You’ll meet faculty and new students.  You’ll do all these things under the umbrella of an intellectually challenging syllabus.

3) You will write a lot.  If you’re a poor writer, you should prepare.  You can’t be good at everything, but you can grow, right?  If the schools before you don’t have strong supports for poor writers, get help before you go.  Get a tutor.  Take a writing class.  Learn how to communicate your ideas (about God no less) in written form.  You’ll need to be clear when you write, or you’ll spend much time struggling with assignments and poor grades.  Take your time.  You’re learning a new language in seminary, especially if you’re coming from a different career or from a program of study that wasn’t related.

4) Engage with people from other faith traditions.  A seminary is a place to train for ministry, historically parish (i.e., congregation, church) ministry.  The nature and character of seminary education has changed over the centuries.  It’s not been strictly the place to move into, hid inside, and eventually come out to a pulpit for a while.  One of the significant newer developments happening these days is around inter-religious dialogue and training for leaders.  This is something that the Association of Theological Schools, and other organizations, are thinking through.  Claremont School of Theology is changing its approach altogether in an innovative, and maybe scary way; read about it here in this recent article.  If you read this article, tell me what you think.

5) Think about, contemplate, and list your goals for seminary.  People go to seminary to change careers, to become stronger in faith, to learn particular topics, and a dozen other reasons.  Why are you going?  How will you know you’re learning or growing or wasting time?  What do you want out of the time?  You may come back to these questions throughout your course of study.  That’s good.  Reflect on these and similar questions ahead of time.  It may be that your goals are related to post-seminary life.  On the other hand, you may have no idea what life will be like once you’re finished.  This may drive you insane.  If it doesn’t, seminary will work hard to do just that.  Maybe.

I’m sure I have other thoughts about this, but this post is stretching too far down the page.

by Michael

The Night I Ignored My Son

A few months ago, I took up the task of reading about Sleep Habits.  Dawn’s middle was growing, and since I wasn’t stretching as fas as she, I decided to add this to my To-Do list.  This was right before the boy came.  When all I heard was that my life was over.  EJ told me to “Sleep now.  Get off the phone and go to bed right now.”  When everyone who knew me offered me the truth that I’d never sleep again.  People can be so cruel.  Even when right.

Well, a friend recommended the book.  In fact, several did.  And we have been digesting small pieces of the chapters.  I’m highlighting and quoting and telling my mother what the book says without saying I’m quoting a book because my mother will look at me like I’m still a bookworm and that she loves me for it.  But it’s been a small refuge to go to those pages, to learn that our kid isn’t as crazy as I’ve called him, to learn that mood impairment is to be expected–his and ours, and to be reminded that babies grow.  That they sleep.

As the kid grows older–and he’s only five months–I get to see him taking these little steps toward real sleep which have been outlined by smart people.  I see that he fits into the pattern, that his sleep needs are like other babies. 

The other night we tossed a milestone.  It started as an experiment.  It’s strange how the tiniest things become big deals when your body has almost adjusted to sleep deprivation.  I told Dawn that I was going to ignore the boy’s nighttime cry, to see what would happen.  We had been talking about doing this for more than a month, every since month three, but that day I got the guts. 

We sat there, like those other parents in the book, and Bryce started his call.  I could tell he was confused when he didn’t see me.  He cranked up, edging his tone up an octave.  He has a singer’s lungs, you see.  And he sang that night.  We sat together not moving.  It was easier for me than for my wife.  I’m used to ignoring people.  I’ve cultivated the ability to turn my attention to other things.  Incidentally, this was before I’d read Weissbluth’s section of 4-8 months where he says, “If you do not check on your baby, he will eventually fall asleep.”  Actually I read it three months ago, trying to read ahead, and forgot.  But I’m ahead of myself. 

We sat.  Bryce sang.  We waited.  The boy yelled. 

I said something about needing a sign for our door.  I was aware of our neighbors.  One young man had the gall to come to our door three weeks ago at 11:30PM.  “I heard the baby crying,” he said.  “Is everything okay?”  I didn’t recognize this man.  And I’m not used to people coming to my door at all, much less at 11:30 at night.  So, in response, I stood there for four seconds.  My kid blared a few feet away.  I wanted him to hear a baby.  I wanted him to think that a baby was in my house.  That babies cry.  I said, in the slowest possible manner, “We’re fine.”  And I closed the door on his confused face.  I was so proud that I didn’t deal more harshly with him.  Anyway, back to the milestone.  Bryce was crying, we were doing nothing, and after 13 minutes or so, he stopped.  Stopped like shut up.  Stopped like is he breathing.  Stopped like silence.  Went to sleep. 

In that moment–and I have to note them when they come–I figured that this parenting thing may be doable.  That I may just get out of it alive.  That was the first night where I felt good ignoring the boy.  Before that, even with my easy ability to close my ears without the earplugs I got for Father’s Day, I felt a twinge, a hint, a glimmer of guilt.  Not anymore.