Truth(s) in Non-Fiction

Behold, my wintertime plans. Books, chair. An eclectic mixture of fiction and non-fiction: books in aid of The Unprocessed Project (Kingsolver) and research for a fiction project; a few titles recommended by my husband and friends; and others that I've been meaning to read for quite some time (Mitchell, and Glover--check out Glover's lively, learned Numero Cinq Magazine--which bills itself as A Warm Place on a Cruel Web, and indeed, it is).

Do not be impressed by this pile of good intentions. I may never get through them all. My reading pace has slowed, inexplicably--February slush melts faster than I read--and other good books will come along to knock some of these out of the stack.

Non-fiction (NF), in its many guises, compels my attention these days. I'm afraid this post is long, so scroll, merrily scroll, to what interests you.
  

• Writing NF

Fiction production continues apace (see slush, above), but I've also been writing NF and finding it extremely rewarding. (Notice there's no C for Creative here? I mull that whole CNF thing over, I get it, but we never used to need the C before the NF; it's self-evident.) Spurred by an imaginary deadline earlier this month, I completed a new essay and submitted it. Now the waiting begins, but also the forgetting in order to work on something else. The best part of this particular piece was the way it came together: intensive drafting--forcing myself to finish the initial content-dump rather than being sidetracked for a year or two--followed by rapid precision-editing. I'm not sure where it will land, but I have a good feeling about this one.

Meanwhile, NEWS to share: a contract has been offered and signed and mailed back (please allow me to drag out this newsflash) for another essay of mine. It will be published in an anthology coming out this fall. More details will be available soon, but let me just say how excited I am to be part of a project that includes some very talented writers.

• Reading NF  

One of the books I began reading for research is Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, compiled and edited by Peter Orner. It is part of the Voice of Witness series published by McSweeney's Books (2008). I'm halfway through, reading two or three accounts daily, which is as much harsh reality as I can take in a day. 

As a record of lived experience--collecting the narratives a purposeful act of documentation--this book is utterly engrossing. As pleasure reading, I'm afraid I can't recommend it, because it will wear you down with sadness. The sheer weight of repetition is dispiriting--incident after incident of people with (usually just a little) power preying on those who have none. This is the human condition--I never used to believe that, but here's evidence. Read about the cleanup effort following Hurricane Katrina--when crews of undocumented Latino workers were shipped in, no questions asked, to work 18-hour days, only to have their wages stolen, or to face immigration raids (after the job was done, when they were no longer needed). Read about the church that imported African teachers for "missionary work" but actually used them as free domestic labour, held as prisoners, never given enough food to eat.

Addressing the undocumented millions is high political drama these days--a renewed priority since the 2012 presidential election, when the Latino vote finally came into its own. Reform plans are under way, both in the White House and in Congress . . . Dreamers dream, but meanwhile record numbers of deportations continue under the Obama administration. We can argue until we're breathless about why people migrate, legally or illegally, but the fact is that they live here, doing jobs most would rather not do. They are easy targets.  

From the book's forward by Luis Alberto Urrea: 

In listening lies wisdom. Decide whatever you want to decide. Put on your What Would Jesus Do bracelet and carry water around Arizona for the parched souls wandering in the desert, or put on your night vision goggles and get your lawn chair out on the Devil's Highway and hunt down some illegals. But first, inform yourself. I have been struggling to silence my own prejudices on this issue for years. I am trying to pay attention.

Here's more NF reading on this subject--just a selection of the articles hitting my screen recently (and I thank those who shared links on Facebook and Twitter, especially @LatinoRebels). These pieces ask serious questions about justice, about national myths of equal opportunity and upward mobility, about shattered illusions. Yes, hard work should be rewarded, but for many it never will be.

• New York Times Op-Ed Column by Frank Bruni, My Grandfather the Outlaw. Often people say, "let them come in legally, like my ancestors did"--when in fact, the border was much more porous in the past, and many earlier immigrants had no papers.
• On the 30th anniversary of the Migrant and Seasonal Worker Protection Act, farm worker advocates call for an end to continuing labour violations.
• Two new reports detail troubling government practices--hundreds of wrongful arrests and detentions, and monetary incentives that skew border patrol enforcement decisions. See Derailing Justice and Uncovering USBP.

Let us now shift gears, to the arts! To Canada!

Another book I’ve begun reading is R. Murray Schafer's autobiography (The Porcupine's Quill, 2012), entitled (who can resist this?) My Life on Earth & Elsewhere. Schafer, the acclaimed Canadian composer, educator and artist (the cover features his illustration), is the creator of Patria, an epic 12-cycle music/drama production, parts of which have been staged in the Haliburton Forest, of all places. In 2009 he premiered his new opera, The Children's Crusade, at Toronto's Luminato festival--and discussed the work in an interview found here. 

Schafer is intriguing on so many levels: the man who coined the term soundscape, the environmentalist, the rebel who, as a youth, got himself kicked out of the University of Toronto. I met him once several years ago, in the context of a job interview (so thankful I didn't get it!: wrong job/wrong time). He ended our final conversation by saying, very kindly, "Well, Laura, what will you do with your life now?”  

Read your book? 

• Developing NF

I'm not sure that's the right heading to encompass a college creative writing class taught by yours truly. But maybe it is--I don't really teach so much as help the students develop, both as readers and writers. We look at examples; we practice. Yesterday, after workshopping two earlier drafts, the class read their “final”—for me, nothing is ever final--pieces aloud. 

I'm so proud that I can't help blogging about the reading. This particular group of students defies all creative writing student stereotypes. For one thing, it's 100% male. While some of the students like to write or have past experience, I know that the main reason most have enrolled in this course is to fulfill elective requirements. They are taking various non-arts programs: law enforcement, social services, technology. So for this first assignment, a NF piece on any subject, I wasn't expecting Malcolm Gladwell. And yet.

And yet, so much great stuff emerged: a funny, Mark Twain-ish boyhood fishing trip; two travelogues; a first-hand report of a car accident and rescue; a devastating eyewitness (child narrator) account of a kid's fatal fall from an apartment window in 1976; a lovely meditation on how to inhabit your own life; a labour and delivery story!; and finally, a father-son day out on a field of battle--paintball battle, that is. (WHY is there no paintball literature? We have enough baseball novels! You read it here first: paintball is the new baseball.)     

Now, none of this writing is perfect, but I’m blown away by how good it is, how full of life. Everyone has a story to tell. Can I get an amen?