Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:25 Yep.
Speaker 2 00:00:25 And we're back. Hello everyone. I'm Dave and you are Michael. Hi Michael. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 00:00:29 Hi, Dave. Thank you
Speaker 2 00:00:30 For having me. Michael is back with a book out by Queen of Swords Press. We love them local publishers. We've had the team from the Queen here. Michael's part of that group. Uh, and now he's back with a fantastic fantastical novel, um, called Last Car two
Speaker 1 00:00:49 Aun
Speaker 2 00:00:49 Aun Station. Okay. We're gonna, we'd like to start with a reading here. Sure. On right, on radio. But before we do that, this book needs some setup. We'll let, let's get an overview of the book from you and then set us up for your reading.
Speaker 1 00:01:03 Sure. So, so this book is, um, like you said, it's set uptown circa 2007 or so. So there are things in this book that are now gone. Uh, what we have here is the protagonist, the main protagonist, may Malvo, is, uh, working a case. She works for Child Protective Services and her case has drawn her into the supernatural. Um, so the reading I'm gonna do, she's already figured out that she has gotten drawn into it. Phantom Street cars have shown up and
Speaker 2 00:01:32 It's so wild.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 I know. I just,
Speaker 2 00:01:33 It's so great, guys. You gotta read this.
Speaker 1 00:01:35 Then I can go on about the Streetcar system. I learned so much about the old streetcar system here. Yeah. Don't get me started. Yeah. But <laugh>. But, uh, but she's in uptown, um, and she's gone out to have some food. She's been intercepted by Jill, who is sort of her, her work wife at work. And they're kind of fumbling toward the relationship. Yeah. So they've, they've gone out, they've had some food and now they're about to leave and things start to go off the rail. And this is kind of where we get Jill involved too.
Speaker 2 00:02:02 Okay.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 Walk you home. Jill asked Rising from her chair. She checked to make sure her cup was secure. Mae stood with her and pulled on her coat. They both moved toward the door cups of coffee in hand. You don't have to. Maybe I want to, I have to catch a bus at Uptown Station, so it's on my way. Besides, you still haven't answered my question. Jill held the door open for May. The cold air grabbed both women with brutal embrace shit. Jill shriek stiff October wind's rushing up to greet them. Dun Brothers was closer to the bus station too. Maye said Lafa at her friend's discomfort. Hush. You. Aren't you freezing? Maye took a drink from her coffee and this, this is nothing. I was thinking about breaking out the grill. You are weird. So, are we on for tomorrow night? May gave her answer. A woman's thought she had enjoyed herself, and in truth, she needed some normalcy.
Speaker 1 00:02:56 Okay. Where do you want to go? I was, was thinking that barbecue place in Calhoun Square may gave Jill a faux horrified look barbecue this early in the relationship. We've both been out together bunches of time. I'm gonna hold you to mid relationship dating rules. Besides, wasn't it just you that was talking about grilling the wind rose up in buffeted them, been in the lightweight maple trees along the avenue dangerously and knocking the lighter Maye into Jill. As Maye studied herself on Jill's arm, she heard the faint strains of Roy Orson singing. I drove All Night from the passing car. She followed the vehicle with her eyes and found herself looking at four figures trailing her in Jill, about a half a block behind them, Maye shivered as she watched them, there was something wrong with the way they walked. Their gate seemed stiff and forced as she watched the wind blew back the hood of one of the men.
Speaker 1 00:03:47 He had ears similar to those on the dog on the top of his head. The creature quickly grabbed his hood and pulled it back over its head, but not before Mesa. A long white snout Jill. I see them. Let's make for the transit station. It'll still be full of people even this late. There might even be a transit cop nearby. May knew a transit cop would not be able to handle what was following them, but she did not have a better plan. Okay. She said softly. The two women picked up their pace, may resisted the urge to look behind her, partially because she knew that if she did, she might panic and break into a run and something told her running would be disastrous. She noticed Jill reached inside her coat and withdraw. Middle rod may recognize that as a telescoping baton. She sincerely hoped they did not have to try to fight their way out of a confrontation.
Speaker 1 00:04:33 The more show, because she still had not replaced her pepper spray crossed Jill said. As they reached the corner of 28th, grabbing Mae's hand, the two women dove into the crosswalk, may chance to glance over her shoulder. The pursuers were picking up the pace, closing rapidly despite their awkward gates. They raced along the sidewalk unmindful of the other pedestrians indignant protests as the four crashed in pursuit of May. And Jill, they're gaining may cried stations right there will jump the 21 bus. It drops off at my place. They clamor on if the bus, as the driver was closing the door, trying to catch their breath and ignoring the disgruntled looks they were receiving, they fished out their bus passes, paid May Kip a watch up the window, the four figures, skid it to a halt at the transit station and watch the bus pull away red eyes glowing from beneath their hoods.
Speaker 2 00:05:20 That was Michael Miriam reading from his latest novel last car to a noon station out from Queen of Swords press. Michael, uh, do we call this science fiction fantasy? Uh, uh, this is genres I'm not totally familiar with. So
Speaker 1 00:05:35 This is, this is urban fantasy. Urban
Speaker 2 00:05:37 Fantasy.
Speaker 1 00:05:37 Urban fantasy. So basically urban fantasy is you take a very normal sitting like Minneapolis uptown circa 2007. Okay. And you add a fantastical element to it. Cool. Um, it, it's, it's a fairly established sub-genre of fantasy fiction at
Speaker 2 00:05:53 This point. Well, I loved it and, uh, I was having a conversation with our colleague and friend Josh last week. This is not the type of novel I would typically read mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, or have someone on. But I was introduced to you folks at Queen of Sorts and I enjoyed the heck out of this book. And, uh, love the urban fantasy link up. Um, and I wanna start with the first sentence in your introduction. Sure. This, this book is a love letter. Yes. So tell us what you mean by that.
Speaker 1 00:06:18 So, so I'm a transplant. Uh, I'm not from Minnesota originally. Same. I moved, moved up here. Same, yep. Uh, from Oklahoma in 1999. Okay. And I am the sort of person when I lived someplace, I wanna learn everything about it. And we knew we were settling here in the Twin Cities. Um, we were renting a place in Edina at the time. It's, and, um, so, so I set out to really just kind of learn the city mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and I'm a, I'm a transit user. I'm a bus rider. I'm legally blind, so I go everywhere on transit. Yeah. So you really get to know the city really well when you, when you ride the bus, you ride the trains. Sure. You walk around. Yeah. Um, but as I was researching this city, I discovered that it had had this incredible streetcar system at one time. Yeah. Like one of the premier streetcar systems in the world. Yeah. And I just got very deeply interested in that and, and just flew through myself into learning everything I could about it and, and, and what happened and why we lost it in General Motors, and don't get me started. Right.
Speaker 2 00:07:23 <laugh>. Oh God.
Speaker 1 00:07:23 Yes. And uh, and like, there's a very famous photograph of these two men, and I don't remember who exactly they are. I think one of them was the head of the transit system and the other one had something to do with gm and they're shaking hands as a streetcar. Burns behind them. Yeah. And every time I see that, my, my blood pressure goes up a little bit. Yeah. Um, and so, so I set out, because I'm, cuz I'm kind of a lazy writer too, and I don't necessarily wanna create whole worlds out of whole cloth. Ah, I, I, I was using the Twin Cities as, as my, um, backdrop Sure. And it's, it's its own character. Like every city has its own own vibe mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, and so this book really did kind of become a, a, a love letter to this place that I had moved to mm-hmm. <affirmative> and very quickly fell in love with mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, in Minneapolis, St. Paul, even some of its suburbs Yeah. <laugh> and, uh, of course, yeah. And to that lost street car system. Right. And, and yeah. So, so this is, yeah. This, this is kind of my love letter to this town that I, I've have adopted
Speaker 2 00:08:21 Like many listeners, readers, uh, I'm sure they're like me. Uh, I love reading about places that I know in fiction. It's a gas. And, uh, this book is, uh, just rip roaring fun in that regard. Speaking of place, who said something that made me think about the way authors often talk about characters, which is to say characters take over a story mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and they, they tell me what to do, or they, you know, they sort of make things happen mm-hmm. <affirmative> what, however that happens. Um, I was wondering about that with place when you said a story in, in Minneapolis like you did or some place mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, maybe this is a push, but Michael does, does the city ever tell you what to do? Does the place ever sort of shape the story for you?
Speaker 1 00:09:01 See the, yeah. The thing is, at least in what I do as an urban fantasy author, um, the place, so Minneapolis or whatever, is as much a character as any of the other characters. Um, I I'm working on a novel right now where I dive even more deeply into that. Um, it's a, it doesn't even have a title. We just call it the Baseball Source Service novel. Um,
Speaker 2 00:09:24 I'm already interested
Speaker 1 00:09:26 <laugh>. And, um, she travels to like all the old baseball parks, both the ones that still exist, the ones that are gone, she can call up the ghost of the old parks, Ooh,
Speaker 2 00:09:34 I'm
Speaker 1 00:09:35 Loving this. And so, so Minneapolis, twin Cities, St. Pauls Saints Millers twins, that becomes almost another character, you know? So, so cool. So yeah, I'm super happy with it. If I could just, you know, finish it and get it
Speaker 2 00:09:51 Up. I'm excited. We're gonna have you back for that. You'll let me know <laugh>, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna have one of our other local writers, a a big baseball writer and fan. Um, we're gonna have you on together, both of you. And, uh, it, we're gonna have a blast.
Speaker 1 00:10:01 That sounds great.
Speaker 2 00:10:02 Yeah. That's gonna be a blast. Okay. So, um, something else we need to talk about to establish sort of a baseline for this story for folks is Welsh mythology. Yes. It's, it's in this novel mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, the title, uh, a noon spelled a n w w n, if I have that. Right, right. That's obviously a Welsh word. And it wouldn't be obvious to me if I hadn't read the novel <laugh>. So, uh, why Welsh? And, um, then I wanna explore a little more how the mythology shows up in the story.
Speaker 1 00:10:29 Sure. So, so there was a couple of things that were at play with Welsh mythology. Um, a lot of urban fantasy uses very generic Celtic mythology. So sort of a irony, Scottish kind of mythology. It's sometimes very much a muddle. Um, and so I want it to stay away from that, as it were. It's kind of been done in the Twin Cities before. Really? Um, I bull wrote a novel in the eighties called War for the Oaks. So if you enjoyed last call, you should go out and get war for the Oaks too. I think you'd enjoyed a lot
Speaker 2 00:11:02 Both for the
Speaker 1 00:11:02 Oaks. Okay, guys. Um, but, uh, and the other thing is, is that that is my, um, that is my family genetic background. Okay. So I, like, I can trace them back to Pembrokeshire and Wales. My wife is the same. That is her genetic family background. We come from Welsh people When you do, we, I did a 23 ame and I am the most British is British Islander person living in America who was ever from the British Isles who lives in America, apparently. Yeah. That's just where they all came from. And then like, one person from like Turkey, and I'm <laugh> and I'm like, did you get lost? What, what happened? <laugh>. But so that was why that I went with Welsh mythology is I wanted to do something. Nobody, nobody was doing it, uh, in urban fantasy. And, and it was, you know, mine and my wife's background.
Speaker 2 00:11:48 So I'm gonna ask you a similar question to what I asked you about place. Okay. Did you go dipping into Wels Smith's mythology? Define what you need? Or did wel Welsh, whatever I said Welsh mythology inspire you also
Speaker 1 00:11:58 A a little bit of both. Okay. Um, I, I had already been pretty deep into Welsh mythology. Mythology in general interests me mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and if you go back to the original, say our arturian legends, those are all Welsh, those all came, uh, out of a book called the Mabin Mabin. My Wife is gonna smack me when
Speaker 2 00:12:18 I Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:12:19 <laugh> as I just stumbled over it. But those are the old tales. The stuff that came later from Mallory and, and the Frenchman, whose name I forget now. Um, those, those are almost like fanfic, uh, of the original art theory and interesting tales. And so, so that's where you get a lot of these Welsh characters like LD and Lear and, and people like that. Huh. Uh, gep, the, the leader of the Wild Hunt. Okay. Uh, in Welsh mythology. So,
Speaker 2 00:12:48 So your stories, your gods, your fairies and phase and everything else, where did you pull those from and what, what, what, how did they fit into this
Speaker 1 00:12:56 Corpus? So, so yeah. So yeah, I just, I just basically pulled them, uh, from Welsh mythology. My theory was in, in, and this sort of follows, I guess the Neil Gaon theory that you see in American Gods is that as the immigrants came over here, they brought their faith with them. They brought, they brought their creatures and they brought their beliefs and they brought their thoughts with them. And so those became part of the fabric here. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, okay, well if I was a, if I was a Welsh fan and I was living in the Twin Cities, where would I set up camp? And mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I ended up choosing, um, lake Harriet also because, um, I don't know if, if you've been on it, but there's a, uh, you, so you're nodding. You have, so there's a, there's, uh, the Minnesota, uh, transit Museum runs some street cars still in the city during the summer.
Speaker 2 00:13:44 Yeah. And I love it. I've been on it. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:13:46 God, that's, that's, that was really the first time I saw a streetcar. I was, now I talked about it in the introduction, how was Yeah. Standing there. And I heard it and I turned around and I looked at it and I had this thought, and I had the thought that as long as one real streetcar continues to run in the Twin Cities, all of them run somewhere under reality. Cool. So, cuz that's how fantasy riders think. By
Speaker 2 00:14:05 The way, <laugh>, there's one out in Excelsior also, by the
Speaker 1 00:14:07 Way. Yeah. Yeah. It's,
Speaker 2 00:14:09 It's, I've been on that one too. I love trains. Uh, <laugh>. Now I've lost my train of thought. That's okay. That was, no, no pun intended. Oh, let's talk about the characters. Me and Jill, me and Jill, where'd they come from? And I'll have a follow up. Go ahead. Where'd they come from? Okay,
Speaker 1 00:14:23 So, so I, you know, I just, I had to kind of just brainstorm them a little bit. Um, I'm trying to remember where I came up with May, cuz May was the start mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I think part of the, where, what I came up with, with May was I was thinking to myself is that I didn't want, you know, May's short and she's thin and she's got kind of length blonde hair, and she's not classically beautiful. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like so many, so many fantasy protagonists are, are conventionally and classically beautiful. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and May, if you saw her on the street, she would be cute as a button. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, uh, and, and so I wanted to start with that. I wanted to start with somebody who wasn't, you know, classically beautiful mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then from there I just kind of kept layering onto her. Like, I don't even know when I decided to make her an attorney at Child Protective Services. Really, it just seemed to
Speaker 2 00:15:11 Work at that. It's so core of the story. It's amazing. It's
Speaker 1 00:15:13 So core of the story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then I realized that she needed a buddy. Um, cuz I'm a big fan of like buddy movies. Sure. You know, road movies, buddy movies. Okay. She needs a buddy. Uh, I'm not real interested in doing the other thing that you see a lot in, in urban fantasy and ya fantasy is the love triangle thing. You know, there's one, you know, one her and two Hammer vice versa and whatever. I'm like, I'm not interested in doing that. Okay. So, so if we're, if we're gonna have a little bit of romance, and that's kind of an integral part of urban fantasy, but there's not gonna be a, is it this one? Is it this one? Is it gonna pick this one? No, we're, I'm gonna pick the person and we're just gonna slowly move them toward each other.
Speaker 1 00:15:50 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> as they deal with the wackiness that goes on. And so then I wanted Jill to, I had me set. So I'm like, okay, so now Jill needs to logically be in the same place she is mm-hmm. <affirmative> so that they, you know, have a frame of reference. Right. And then as I was layering on the story, I realized, well, she is my gateway to our antagonist. You know, she's related to the antagonist themselves. She has none of them know that until about midway through the novel. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. But so that I was able to use her like that.
Speaker 2 00:16:18 Yeah. I've taken too many literature courses to remember, but a conversation is often how well an author of a certain gender handles characters of another gender or genders mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and you, you were a little brave here, I think, uh, and you did it beautifully. I, you know, coming from where I sit, I thought you handled it well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, did you feel particularly challenged by that? Or did you ever stop and consider maybe I shouldn't do
Speaker 1 00:16:45 This? No, I, I knew I was, I knew I could potentially be treading in, in dangerous ground. I mean, I, I, at the time I wrote this, I don't know, X number of years ago, you know, I was a middle-aged, still am, but was, you know, a middle-aged mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>, ces hat white male. Yeah. And, and you know, my, my protagonist is one's a lesbian and one's bisexual. Right. And, and, and, uh, I think part of the reason I I was fairly comfortable doing it though, is I, I was basically raised by wild feral women <laugh>. Um, so my, my, my, my mother, uh, my, my parents split up when I was very, very small, like 10 months old mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I really didn't meet my father until my teen years. And so, so there was my mother who was sometimes a God I love her.
Speaker 1 00:17:34 She was such a cautionary tale sometimes though, <laugh>, um, she's totally, that, that sixties hippie generation mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so I was raised kind of by her and by my grandmother, um, you know, who was a greatest generation depression era woman. The, the aunties. Um, and so basically, yeah, I, I was, I was brought up by a whole bunch of, you know, they would, at that time, they would not have realized that they were feminists, but that's exactly what they were. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, they, they were all of them. And, and all of them had husbands, sometimes plural as they went along in the years. But, um, but they were all very strong-minded, very independent women. So I had that Yeah. Really to base off of mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know,
Speaker 2 00:18:17 Stephen King tells us we all need, if you write, um, and most a lot of people do who listen to this, um, you need an ideal reader. Do you have, do you have an ideal reader? Does you have someone check you?
Speaker 1 00:18:29 Um, so, so my wife actually got this book first a lot of times ba basically when I write something, I I'm writing it for myself to start with mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like I'm my first audience, and then usually my wife, who is a very avid reader, is my second audience at that point. Okay. Um, and so that's kind of where we start. And then, and then obviously I have a writing group, like, but like, my ideal reader, I mean, in a lot of ways, Katherine Loff, the, the publisher at Queen of Swords Yeah. Is sort of the ideal reader Okay. For this book. Great. You know? Yeah. You know, somebody who likes fast-paced action adventure mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, a little bit of romance doesn't care that that little bit of romances, couple of women, you know, we just, we just go on.
Speaker 2 00:19:11 So Yeah. Yeah. I love those characters. I love the relationship, Michael. It really, really worked for me. Um, you mentioned writing groups, uh, uh, folks, colleagues, we need to have a show on writing groups sometime, because the tales that could be told. I I've had people say never join a writing group. And then of course others say, well, yet I have a writing group, but I love them. We could have fun. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so, uh, we're gonna be running out of time soon. I wanna remind people that we are speaking with Michael Miriam, author of Last Car to a Noon Station and many other books. Michael, let's take the few minutes that we have left here to at least have you talk a little bit about some of your other books that you've written, people who love Urban Fantasy and other sorts of, uh, similar types of genre books, if you will, or type of genre. Um, yeah, we love your work. So tell us
Speaker 1 00:19:55 About your work. Yeah, so, um, so if you like Last Car, I also have another, uh, novel, uh, called Old Bloods Fate. It's also sit in the Twin Cities. Uh, it's an urban fantasy book. Um, it, it's, it was, it was my poor child book, my publisher, they published it, it came out and three days later the publisher just went belly up. Oh, wow. Um, but I had written in my contract that if they went belly up, I got the production files. Oh. So I was able to keep it in print, um,
Speaker 2 00:20:23 As a prot tip for you out there. Kids?
Speaker 1 00:20:25 Yes. Put, oh, gosh, yes. Here's a pro tip. Put in your contract that you at le at the minimum have the option to buy your production files. Oh, yeah. Like, I, I had a, a book out with Harlequin, and Harlequin wasn't gonna just give them to me, but I did get the clause to be able to buy them if I wanted to buy them. Okay. Um, so, so do that. Most publishers are okay with that. Make sure you understand your right. Right. Reversions mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so that, um, I do a series, uh, it's a, we call it, oh gosh, steam, uh, six Guns in Sorcery and
Speaker 2 00:20:54 So Cool. Six Guns in Sorcery. This sounds
Speaker 1 00:20:56 Great. And it's weird Westerns and steampunk. Um, so it's awesome stuff. Sit in like the, uh, I think the earliest book is said about 1876. Uh, I'm working on one right now, about 1899. Uh, gets into the box of rebellion a little bit. Oh, wow. Um, and those are just, they're a lot of fun for me to write. They're mostly small novella length things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, they're kind of pulp on some levels. Cool. You know, and you better. Yeah. And so I really enjoy them. I just, I've, I've got one that it weird westerns came back this year. And so a book that I had written in 2017 that had been doing okay and doing okay. Suddenly got a ton of attraction this year. Huh. So, like, it's going into story bundle next year. And I'm
Speaker 2 00:21:38 Like, so Wow. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 00:21:39 Thank you. Um, so that's, those are the most things that, uh, I'm doing. I'm doing some playwriting. I've, I've had some stuff produced on stage here in the Twin Cities. Yeah. Um, I've done Fringe not in a few years now. Awesome. Um,
Speaker 2 00:21:52 We're lucky. We're lucky to have you here from Oklahoma. Yeah. Yeah. So is there a Michael miriam.com or something? People
Speaker 1 00:21:57 Can find you? There is, yes, it is. Uh, actually Michael miriam.com. All lower case <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:22:04 Good guess, Dave. Well done Yankee. You. Uh,
Speaker 1 00:22:06 Now it took me a while to get that I had Michael miriam.net for the longest time because somebody was squatting, squatting on.com. Oh. And my brother-in-law, who's, uh, an an IT security guy at the time, he, he messaged me and said, Hey, dot com came open, you want it? And I'm like, yes. Nice. We're going to buy that. We're gonna buy that right now. Nice. Because yes, somebody was squatting it.
Speaker 2 00:22:25 That's M E R R I A M. Yep. Ladies
Speaker 1 00:22:28 And gentlemen, like on the dictionary,
Speaker 2 00:22:29 We're down to our last minute. Uh, so what's up next? What are you working on next, Mike?
Speaker 1 00:22:34 Um, so I'm working on that baseball source service novel. I also have a, uh, all women weird Western Magnificent Seven, so Oh, yes. So, so the bring it, the, the women, the, the mercenaries are, are all women. And it's because there is a creature that they have to fight that it's sort of like, uh, a siren or, uh, a laurel I rock. And so, ah, and so the, the men folk really cannot deal with this creature so that women in the town have to go out and find women mercenaries in like 1877, which, you know, not necessarily easy. Yeah. But, uh, but it's been a lot of fun to put together. It's, it's, it's close to final draft. It's going to be going to my writing group pretty soon for them to
Speaker 2 00:23:14 Pick apart. I'd love to be able to talk to you longer and talk to you about where you get your ideas and how, and how you nurse them along, because, uh, amazing. It sounds fantastic. Uh, everyone, this was Michael Miriam of Last Car to a Noon Station out now, and many other books. Please give him a read. And now this Thanks, Michael.
Speaker 3 00:24:31 Um, this is from the introduction to my book, uh, stranger's Journey. The earliest essays in this book were written just before Barack Hussein Obama was elected president, bringing some diluted to declare a post racial America. I write this introduction just after the 2016 election in a nation where Michael Brown and Ferguson Verge Baltimore and Black Lives Matter are now juxtaposed against the rampant racism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, and sexism of Donald Trump's selection. How does the book on creative writing fit into such a context? Some might believe such matters have little to do with teaching creative writing. In part, what I hope I've written here will convince this group to reexamine their beliefs. To explain a little what I mean by this, let me cite Jeff Chang, the Asian American critic who wrote The hugely influential Can't Stop, won't stop A history of the Hip hop generation in his second book, who We Be The Colorization of America Chang examines issues of race over the last 50 years, the post-civil rights era within the context of cultural change.
Speaker 3 00:25:46 In his introduction, he writes, here is where artists and those who work and play in the culture enter. They help people to see what cannot yet be seen, hear the unheard, tell the untold they make change feel not just possible, but inevitable. But another way, political change is the last manifestation of cultural shifts that have already occurred. As everyone now knows, sometime around 2040 or sooner, we will no longer have a white majority. No racial group will constitute the majority artists of color who were recreating the past, exploring our present and creating our future. Know what it means to be a racial minority in America. This knowledge is embedded within our identities, experiences, and imaginations. We speak and write from that knowledge, that knowledge is out there for white artists to share. But whether they will avail themselves as that knowledge is another question one they'll have to answer if they're going to prepare themselves for the America that is surely coming and is in many ways already here.
Speaker 4 00:26:57 Thank you. You're listening to David Murra reading from his newest book, A Stranger's Journey, race, identity and Narrative Craft in Writing. He's a prolific contributor to the literary landscape with two memoirs turning Japanese memoirs of a sensei, and where the body meets memory and odyssey of race, sexuality, and identity. A novel famous suicides of the Japanese Empire, and four books of poetry. In addition to Mira's writing, he's taught at Vona, the Loft, the Stone Coast MFA program, the University of Oregon, the University of Minnesota, and other institutions as well. David, it's so great to have you here. No, thank you for Anthony. Yeah. So this book is, is definitely a hybrid of sorts. It's a part memoir, part textbook. Um, and I wonder, was it hard to find a home for it? Um, as in a press who might honor its, um, resistance to easy classification?
Speaker 3 00:27:54 Well, it was rejected by two, two presses I sent it to. And, um, even when I, when I was accepted by University of Georgia, I had to go through a couple readers. And what was interesting is I had written a number of essays on issues of narrative craft and writing, and some essays on the issues of race and identity and, uh, in writing too. And they wanted more of the issues of essays on race and identity, which I was happy to do because I, I had sort of felt like it, the book might not be accepted if I did too much about that. Huh. And it actually turned out that, um, it certainly made the book better. Um, I was able to develop a more lengthy argument for why the issues of race ought to be essential to the teaching of creative writing in 2018.
Speaker 3 00:28:50 Um, and then that leads into some of the issues, especially in the issues of memoir about how people articulate their identities and how race and ethnicity and the whole idea of belonging to any sort of group class gender orientation region, um, becomes a, a way of talking about the self. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> And I found that when, when students aren't really aware of their identities or haven't investigated them, they, they, they write oftentimes very much on the surface of their experience. They, they're not, they don't have the tools to get the depth of, uh, the experiences that they've had and how they've come to identify themselves in the world.
Speaker 4 00:29:42 Hmm. Yeah. And it's really interesting that you mentioned students because as a, as a fellow educator and also an instructor of creative writing, I'm, I'm particularly interested in some of the chapters that, um, talk about MFA programs, but they seem to talk to both students and instructors. It seems like you do a great job of, of sort of toggling between these two different audiences. Um, and the student in me was thrilled, uh, by the transparency of this. Um, but I have to admit, the instructor in me felt a bit exposed, like, uh, like one of my students accidentally got a hold of the teacher's manual or something. Um, but then again, I thought that this behind the scenes, uh, work, um, that you were exposing is really the point of it. Um, care to comment on on that.
Speaker 3 00:30:30 Well, I mean, I think the whole teaching of creative writing sometimes I feel is problematic in America for many different reasons. Um, and you know, in in the book, I, I actually talk about it, this isn't actually creative writing, but David Foster Wallace's encounter with, uh, black students in his composition class who, uh, grew up speaking standard black English, and their first essays would be written in standard black English. And I sort of critique some of the ways that Foster Wallace deals with these students and really doesn't understand, uh, where they're coming from, why they may distrust him, and why when he says, I'm gonna teach you standard white English. Some of them reacted negatively mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it wasn't, you know, I make the point that it wasn't, because it wasn't part of his job to teach him standard white English, but it was how he dealt with the students.
Speaker 3 00:31:34 And since creative writing is such a personal thing, um, and comes from the students from a, a very personal place, if you're exploring these issues of identity with students, you have to be prepared. And I feel like a lot of times, uh, writing instructors are more like, no, you, you're supposed to learn from me. I'm supposed to tell you what to do. You're supposed to listen to me. Huh. And it's not a dialogue. And it, I can't teach a student really to move to a better place in their writing. Oftentimes, if I don't know more about who the student is, I can't just look at their writing because oftentimes they're things that they don't quite know how to articulate that are missing from the writing that I can only find out by getting to know who they are. Or I can, there's only there's points where I can't find out where the spot of resistance inside them is until I talk with them about their lives.
Speaker 4 00:32:39 That's a big difference between being an editor and being a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so tell us about some of the other authors that you discussed in the book. Uh, you mentioned David Foster Wallace, um, I think, uh, Juno Diaz's most frequently referenced and at least, uh, four of the chapters. So do you imagine, um, one of Diaz's works as a, a companion to the, to the text or,
Speaker 3 00:33:03 Yes. I mean, I, his book is short stories ju June o Diaz has said that his book of short stories is sort of like a toolkit and, uh, especially for younger writers of color. And I sort of try to unlock some of the, the tools inside that work, but also in his, his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the brief History of Oscar. Wow. I use it as a way of looking at the issue of who is the narrator telling the story too. And oftentimes, uh, emerging writers of color are worried like, I have to tell this story to a white audience, or I don't want to tell the story for a white audience, but if I don't tell it to the white and make these things clear to a white audience, then I'm not gonna get published. And what Diaz does in the brief wonders history as Oscar Wow, is the narrator of The Tale Union tells it to a Dominican audience, an audience of the same generation of immigrants that Diaz comes out of, who either came to the United States early enough so that they're fluent in English, or were born here.
Speaker 3 00:34:16 And he doesn't explain things. He doesn't explain things that his Dominican audience wouldn't understand. Now, somebody might think, well, well, he should explain things, but, but you know, I've, I've talked to him. And if you look at the Heart of Darkness, when Marlo is sitting on, on the tems and he's telling a story to, uh, a lawyer or banker who are all sailors, right? He's telling it to a certain group. It just happens to be a sort of middle class, upper middle class, white British group. And he's not ex, he's not explaining anything to that group on, uh, on the ship, uh, that they all, they have a common knowledge, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's no different. And, uh, the idea that that, and I contrast that with, with a novel White Tiger, uh, by, uh, art dga who, um, who tells whose narrator tells the story to the premiere of China. So it's about India, and he has to explain everything in India that the premier of China wouldn't know. So the economy of explanation, there is a high economy of explanation in the brief history of Oscar wa Diaz's comedy explanation is not as great because his audience understands a lot of things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then it's like we, the reader who aren't Dominican are like listening in on this conversation.
Speaker 3 00:35:46 It's a little complicated,
Speaker 4 00:35:47 But <laugh> No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm following. And, and it's enjoyable. You know, I, I kind of wanted to, uh, uh, hide and read for the next year, just yeah. Um, getting reminders of some of the story great stories that I love, but also getting sort of some hints at some other stories that I haven't, haven't spent time with yet. So, really appreciated that. Um, do you think you could read us an another excerpt?
Speaker 3 00:36:11 Okay. Um, part of the book, I, I deal with issues of narrative construction, and I go back to Campbell's, the, the, uh, hero's journey and how it's used and, and how actually the hero's journey parallels the construction of a a three Act play. So, um, here is I at the end, I talk about just the writer's, how the writer's journey is like the hero's journey in working on a book. Almost always, we come to a moment of crisis and doubt. This is the point where we wonder if we're ever going to complete the work we have started. We fear that the work is no good, or there'll be lack the ability to finish the task. We're uncertain about where to go next, or how to fix a crucial problem. We meet various forms of rejection or criticism, both from others and from ourselves. We may even stop writing and feel the well has run dry.
Speaker 3 00:37:13 When other writers come to me at such moments, I try to remind them of a certain fundamental truth about the journeys we take with our writing. I repeat a simple premise. We start writing a book to become the person who can finish the book. The person who starts the book is not the same person who completes it. We must grow and transform ourselves into that person. The process of writing is part of that growth and transformation. We don't get determined beforehand. We don't get to determine beforehand the length or difficulty of the process. This is such a crucial point. I'll repeat it. We don't get to determine the length or difficulty of the process of finishing a book. We can only refuse or ascent to it.
Speaker 4 00:37:57 Thank you. David. You're listening to David Murra Reading from A Stranger's Journey on Right On Radio. Um, I, I am really, uh, interested in the sections where you talk about fiction, but I'm also interested in, in what you read from that last section of the book, which is, um, more of a immersion of, of all of these ideas sort of coming together. Um, but I want to talk about story a little bit. Is it okay to back up? Yeah. Um, so you write, uh, you write in your, in the collection, there's always a gap between the intent of our actions and the results in reference to, uh, characters journeys. So, um, what's one of your favorite stories that illuminates this gap?
Speaker 3 00:38:45 Um, I think Stan's story, you, you think of illuminates this gap because if, if, uh, I, I'll use a, a story of in the book where I, I talk about, uh, a character of Azizi packers in her story drinking coffee elsewhere, where she sets out when she gets, she, she comes from a poorer section of Baltimore, so the narrator's black and, and, uh, she's gotten into Yale. And when she gets to Yale, she feels this tremendous sense of cultural displacement and a sense of like, I, I don't know if I belong here. And she's sort of a mistro. She, she, she, she wants to push everybody away. And so the, the, her goal is to push everybody away. But she ends up in this, um, uh, relationship with a white Canadian, uh, female student. And the whole story is like her intent to push her away.
Speaker 3 00:39:50 And then the, this, the relationship begins to grow more intimate. And, and, but when the white student comes out as a lesbian, she doesn't wanna be a lesbian. So she pushes her away and she starts, she, and part of it, she doesn't tell the truth about herself. And one of the, the gaps that happen in stories that people should use is, uh, we, we often lie when we get in difficult situations, and a lie is really attempt to control the world. Right. And eventually lies are exposed, or we hope so in the current political climate. And when the lies lies, David Mammon has this, has this saying, each, uh, every play begins with the lie. When the lie is exposed, the play is over. So the lie is an attempt to control reality and control others. But reality always works differently than you think it's gonna work. People find out about the lie, or they question something, and then you have to tell another lie. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then they question some more, and you have to tell another lie. And you've got the string of lies that you're, you're trying to keep up, like balls in the air and suddenly there's too many balls up and they all fall down. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 4 00:41:10 <laugh>. Um, so in terms of, of narrative structure and how that plays out, I mean, you focus primarily on, on linear narratives in this. And I recognize that in the context of this book, that that's, um, those are sort of teachable moments. Um, but I wondered if, uh, you know, this, this narrative structure and exposing that that gap and all the opportunities that exist out there, if there's a, a sequel in the works for this book to talk about other sort of narrative structures,
Speaker 3 00:41:41 Um, I could do that, but I'm not, the sequel to this book is actually not gonna be on creative writing. I'm working on a book of essays on race. So this book, part of this book is about issues of race and identity and creative writing. And the next book is really about, um, the issues of race in general and how we define race, and, uh, the ways in which the way we are set up to talk about race in this culture in a way that is purposefully denies race and denies the way race work, racism works in our society. Cuz we have a definition of racism, which is a, a definition of somebody consciously discriminating and declaring that they hate other people because of their belonging to a certain group. Well, that's not the way racism works in the society, because first of all, people often act with racist motives, but they know they're not supposed to say it.
Speaker 3 00:42:49 So, like in South Dakota, when you, when you propose a law which says, okay, we need voter IDs where everybody has a address. So it's like, okay, we're just trying to make a bureaucratic thing. But the only place in South Dakota where people don't have a street address is the Native American reservation. So there's a real racist reason behind that, uh, rule that everybody should have an address, but it's disguised. The other way racism works in our society is people have unconscious bias. So they can't even declare it to themselves, but they act with bias. And then racism is also caused by systems and of beliefs and practices. And so we can't, we can't get at it if you just talk about one individual and one individual openly declaring that they're racist and openly declaring that they're discriminating. So we've defined racism in a way which actually doesn't cover any of the ways, most of the ways that racism actually works in our society. And so what lawyers will tell you is if you set the terms of a definition and you set the terms of the argument, you've already won the argument. And that's what goes on in our society about issues of race.
Speaker 4 00:44:15 You know, it's, I'm, I'm, I'm now a little stumped because I, I wanted to ask more questions about creative writing, but I feel like, go back to that. Yeah. I feel so. Um, but I'm, I'm thinking a lot about what you're saying here and in the context of those two audiences that you address in this book that we, we talked about about earlier. Um, you mentioned in the book that that, you know, in addition to their tuition, there's an emotional and social toll that students, in particular students of color pay mm-hmm. <affirmative> when they, when they study creative writing. Yeah. And, um, I, I think about it a lot because I, I teach at a community college, and I think, um, I think about my students often where I think the student body is much more diverse at a community college than it is at most state colleges and private colleges further down the line.
Speaker 4 00:45:02 So then I think this, this, uh, toll that students are paying must be happening so much sooner than we're willing to acknowledge and, um, and, uh, and, and the roles that we're all playing in, in, in that extra cost and extra burden for students. I just wonder, you know, you started this work with instruction on creative writing, and you're thinking about moving in this direction of, um, of how we talk about race. And it seems like the art that comes out of all of this work, um, is, is what's, what's really what we're really getting after here. And so, uh, I guess I don't know what I'm saying here.
Speaker 3 00:45:44 Well, here, here's one way of talking about it. You know, Richard Wright, that black and white America are engaged in an argument over the description of reality. So what is literature literature's an attempt to describe our reality? So why wouldn't that argument carry on into literature, right. And the, the issues over race and the issues over writing. It, it, it's like when oftentimes when writers of color bring in their stories, they're told, or their poems are told, that's political, that's not aesthetic. Well, who gets to define what is political, what is aesthetic? When white writers don't identify their characters racially, they go, oh, well that's just, that's just the way we do it. It's actually a political position. It's saying, my, my being white is not important to who I am. My being white is not important to my experience. Well, you can believe that, but don't tell me that it's not a political position, it's an aesthetic.
