writer of all sorts of things
I have been taken to task about a previous post I made regarding inequality and poverty. I hope to set the record straight soon but I would like to request permission to quote from the person in question before I post it.
Hey, we all have our ideological blinders…and our faulty memories…including perfect ol’ me.
Now, I realize not everybody loves dogs dressed up in human clothes, but aren’t Linus the Cowboy and Cowgirl Weimereiner two of the cutest dang things you ever did see? If you care to vote for the best dog picture of all, go here. And not to SWAY anybody in their vote, but the weimerener is one of Jamaica’s half-sisters. (Jamaica’s my dog, the cutest dog in the world ever.)
I am reading Ariel Gore’s How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead because, of course, my daily angst is all about how I’m not a famous writer yet. It’s a great book. Read it. You can buy it directly from Ariel herself at Yo Mama’s Bookshop and she will make more money than if you buy it from Amazon or in your bookstore. That way, you are supporting your local artist (or not so local, if you don’t live anywhere near Portland) instead of the evil corporation that is, in this case, Three Rivers Press (a division of Random House, which is also my publisher, and WHOM I LOVE.) I love Ariel’s DIY philosphy which pervades every page of the book. She’s not saying, “Don’t go with the big presses,” she’s simply pointing out the myriad of ways (yes, Ariel, I used the word myriad!) to get your writing out into this world.
Here’s my problem with books like this one: Now I want to be an anarchist! Now I want to create and print hip zines and declare my allegiance to the underworld! Now I want to become a radical feminist lesbian communist revolutionary and publish things that really change the world!
Only my problem is, I don’t know anybody in the underworld. Unless you count the homeless teenagers I work with every Friday afternoon in San Francisco’s Haight district.
And frankly, I’ve never been good at revolution: I was never into the punk scene; I have always been pretty straight (with some bi inklings on occasion, like when I kissed a girl on the neck and thought, “Wow, she smells really nice,” but that sure never flowered into full-on gay fruition); and unfortunately for my image, I never joined a revolutionary movement (but I am pretty damn sure I would look sexy in fatigues, holding a machine gun. SEE ABOVE & BELOW!). 
I’m just this pacifist, who isn’t very radical about it though I kind of want to be; a truly terrible Catholic–at least, any conservative Catholic would be pretty much appalled by my viewpoints which I won’t list here for fear of appalling a number of conservative Catholics who read my blog regularly, but they’re probably all the things they’d guess at anyway, that anybody reading this would guess at; an advocate for immigrants and a lover of all things African except, of course, genocide and kleptocracies; recognized by some as a hippie, others as a lover of reggae & Afro-pop & indie music; and obsessed with studying liberation movements of all kind, especially those that link religion with Marxism, or religion with violent revolution.
Probably the weirdest thing about me is how much I like teenagers, whether they’re dorky, goth, depressed, cool, smart, not so smart, suicidal, druggies, pretend druggies, alternative, mainstream, artsy-fartsy, science-geek, etc etc so on and so forth. The only teenagers I don’t like are cheerleaders, which I have tried to get over so I could like Claire of save the cheerleader, save the world fame.
And that, of course, is all part of Ariel’s message in the end: just be your own quirky self, gravy stains on your T-shirt and all.
Yeah, so I guess I won’t be going the way of radical revolutionary anytime soon. But I am becoming a publisher, or rather, I have become a publisher, and I hope to venture into the world of ezines and zines in the next couple of months, and in the meantime, I keep writing my stuff for publication in traditional formats.
It’s all part of feeding the beast.
My article on “Bilingual Books for Kids” was just published in New Pages. You can read it here.
A few years ago, I got myself into an uncomfortable argument with a graduate student who was a Communist sympathizer. This graduate student–we’ll call him Bill–had never traveled outside of the United States. But he kept insisting that the level of poverty experienced by Americans in urban areas was equal to or WORSE THAN the level of poverty experienced by people in India.
 Now, poverty is one of the issues I’m interested in and one of the conditions I’m interested in alleviating. Further, I have traveled to India–spent three months there in 1995–and so I knew, far better than Bill, that the level of poverty here in the United States cannot in any reasonable way be compared to the level of poverty in India. They are not even in the same league. Saying that the poorest of the poor in America are as poor as the poorest of the poor in India (excepting the chronically homeless who, I might point out, still have resources that the poorest in India completely lack) is kind of like saying that getting pricked by the head of needle is as painful as getting run over by a semi-truck.
I mean, come on. This guy’s ideology was so entrenched–he was so determined to insist that the U.S. and all its systems were completely and utterly evil–that he couldn’t look facts in the face. We all do that to some extent, but sometimes our ideology can lead us to making absolutely absurd statements.
Unfortunately, my insistence that the poverty experienced by poor Indians was far greater than the poverty experienced by poor Americans ruined our friendship.
This article reports that the UN recently found that some major U.S. cities, including New York & Atlanta, have levels of inequality that rival levels of inequality in some cities in Africa. While this doesn’t surprise me at all, I find the report misleading. What it doesn’t offer is the idea that when comparing the gap between levels of income, you can’t in any way indicate the relative nature of poverty that is actually occuring. In other words, the poorest families in the United States (excepting the chronically homeless) don’t come anywhere close to reaching the level of poverty experienced by the poorest families in African cities. This report merely says that a family in Atlanta that makes $12,000 a year compared to another family in Atlanta that makes $12 million a year has the same gap that a family in Joburg making $12 a year has in comparison to the family in Joburg making $1.2 million a year. The family in Atlanta making $12,000 a year has far more resources available to them with food stamps and welfare and other food banks than the family in Joburg making $12 a year. And the family in Atlanta is not living in a one-room, mud-floor shack built out of discarded boxes and sheets of metal, lacking clean sources of water or electricity, and without access to a sewage system.
So the disparity in income levels may be the same–but it doesn’t actually explain the poverty that is experienced by folks in Africa, which we in America do not experience (except, as noted before, in the case of the chronically homeless.) What would be really interesting to do is compare the level of poverty experienced by that family making $12 a year in Joburg with the level of poverty experienced by that family in Atlanta making $12,000 a year. This would be a more true and accurate picture of how people around the world actually experience poverty.
Now, having said all that, of course I find it horrific that the family in Atlanta does not have sufficient income to meet their needs. And having said that, I would like to say that I think it is as important to fix the problems with poverty here just as much as it’s important to fix the problems with poverty over there. And having said that, I would like to also say that naturally race is part of the reason why there is such a poverty gap in the U.S. and until we fix the racism that lingers in our various institutions and governmental systems and the people of America itself, we will never eradicate poverty in the U.S.
I just don’t think it’s very useful or helpful or honest to try to make comparisons that distort the true picture.
I had a two hour long conversation today with the editor of a small publishing company here in the Bay Area that specializes in science fiction. We were discussing the nature of y. a. literature, and I said that I think I write y.a. literature for two reasons. “It was what I loved to read as a kid, and I never stopped loving to read it,” I said. “And I guess that’s really the only reason I write y.a. literature. But when someone asks me why, and I feel compelled to give a writerly answer, I say, ‘Teenagers change more in one month than most adults do in a year or even two years. Who wouldn’t find that kind of time period exciting to write about?’”
I just had to quote his response! I’m not naming him because I’m not sure he wants to be quoted but first he talked about how the concept of homosexuality was never bizarre to him because he first encountered it in science fiction literature when he was in fourth grade. So by the time he actually met gays and lesbians and transgendered folks, they felt familiar to him. I would have to say likewise to all sorts of concepts we meet in books for the first time–concepts like redemption, and acceptance of others, and joy-pain-sorrow.
“The truth is,” he said, “books are transformative and subversive. By publishing books, I’m doing the work of God.”
My previous post about The Cool Kids reminded me of the panel I organized for REFORMA’s National Conference in September. The panel consisted of the only 3 y.a. writers that I am aware of who have ever had a published young adult novel set in El Paso, Texas–J.L. Powers (me), Benjamin Alire Saenz, and Claudia Guadalupe Martinez; more depressing still, or perhaps more exhilarating still if you want to be unique, we are among only a handful-and-a-half of y.a. writers who have set our novels on the U.S.-Mexico Border. We were discussing why there are so few novels for teenagers that are set on the peripheries of our nation. Now, by peripheries, I don’t mean necessarily the borders, because teenagers in Minnesota are still growing up in mainstream society, whereas teenagers in El Paso are definitely not!
Benjamin Alire Saenz began to get quite excited as he discussed how the gatekeepers in the book world–agents, editors, publishers, and then librarians, teachers, and booksellers–have ghettoized literature about latinos set in a predominantly latino world such as El Paso. He mentioned how one of his books received a review that said something like “even though Saenz’s novel is set in El Paso, its themes resonate with the human condition, with things people everywhere grapple with.” (I’m paraphrasing.) Ben wanted to know why nobody ever writes a book review that says “even though so-and-so’s novel is set in New York, its themes resonate…etc. etc.” Ben sure knows how to stick it to The Man! I love the fact that he has remained faithful to his values, of writing about Latinos, of writing about El Paso, from El Paso. That fame and fortune aren’t why he writes.
I’m still young enough that fame and fortune seem elusively tantalizing. But when I really reflect on it, it’s nice not to be completely in the limelight. I remember remarking to Sara Zarr once that I wished my books sold as well as hers, and got as many reviews as hers, and she just said, “Careful what you wish for.” Touche!
Every once in awhile, something will remind me that I’m not one of The Cool Kids.
Now, there are Cool Kids in every group, in every organization, in every sort of subculture, and I have to admit, I’m always on the outside looking in.Â
 Okay, that’s a lie. In college, I was part of the Cool Kids for a brief period of time. Of course, I was a Cool Kid in a totally Un-cool organization, on the complete and utter periphery of college life, and when I think about how much pride I had, and how shabbily I treated people who were even more peripheral than I was, I kinda wish I’d been one of the Geeks or Losers or Wallflowers instead.
Right now, I’m reminded that there are lots of Cool Kids in the y.a. writer world and not only am I not part of Their World, I’m not even on their radar! It feels really pathetic sometimes when I read their blogs, knowing they don’t even know mine exists–which is why I don’t read their blogs all that often, because I like to feel Important. I guess eating a little humble pie never hurt anybody.
This weekend, I had three appearances at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison. Here I am, appearing on a panel with (from left to right) Marlene Kim Connor Lynch of Connor Literary Agency, Nichole Shields of Connor Literary Agency, Marcela Landres (editorial consultant), Jessica Powers of Catalyst Book Press, and Ken Waldman, Alaska’s Fiddling Poet and author of Are You Famous? Touring America With Alaska’s Fiddling Poet, published by Catalyst Book Press.
I subscribe to This American Life’s podcast. This week, they had a great show that defines all the economic and financial terms most of us aren’t familiar with, and explains in blow-by-blow detail why everybody’s been panicking about the economy even though from the ground view, everything seems fine. It’s well worth an hour of your time. It’s called Another Frightening Show About the Economy, and you can listen to it for free until next Sunday if you follow the link I provided on the title.
