This is an email from The Stories.
Jan 30, 2017
Come On, Rise Up
Dear Members (and New Friends):
You’ll note this letter is open to the public, not private like the usual weekly letters I send only to members. I want to let more people know about The Stories and how to become a member for as little as $5 a month. And I thank those of you who joined up early, without knowing exactly how The Stories would play out! This is a one-woman shop and a tiny independent business run on the platform and with the assistance of a much bigger independent business. (By the way, next week’s letter will be members-only once more and will include details on a members-only initiative/event/cool thing. Stay tuned).
If you’re not yet a member but you enjoy true stories told well by wonderful writers: learn what we’re about and then join us!
Your contribution pays for me to pay our authors, and it also pays for things like postage stamps, printing supplies, an on-the-go battery pack for my phone so that I can be sure to have access to the Medium app for editing and publishing when I’m away from my laptop.
Guess what else it helps with? Ye ole wifi bill. Oh, and I bought a mousepad that has that special resting thing so my wrists don’t get blown out from all this typing. It helps. (Anyone with wrist stretching advice for busy writers and editors, bring it on at thestorymedium@gmail.com!)
Thank you so much for your support for this zine, where we tell real stories (two or three per week) and tell them well. I apologize for not having a private video for you for The Stories Volume 6 (it’s been six weeks since we started this thing!) but I hope that the loss of me rambling goofily for this particular week shall not be too keenly felt.
This past week has been, to put it plainly, hellish for Americans of conscience, for many folks abroad, and most especially I’m sure for immigrants and visitors negatively affected by the actions of President Trump. I wrote something about it this week, “Welcome to the Dictator Playbook.” I don’t add my own voice to The Stories every week but this week I sure as hell did.
In this atmosphere it feels more important than ever to tell true stories, and to tell them well. To share and witness real stories is truly a political act, even if those stories never mention the word “politics” once.
With that in mind, I invite you to read “Lessons” by Andie Park. It’s about her experience growing up a Korean-American girl in the South, but as with so many narratives of children who grow up in many worlds, I feel certain it will resonate with people from many, many backgrounds. It certainly did with me.
I had already decided to publish Andie’s work when I had a conversation with a young businesswoman originally from a small, mostly-white American town. She told me that since she grew up in a fairly homogenous place with people who looked like her and had her accent and skin color and general background, she developed empathy and compassion for folks from other cultures by, of all things, reading fiction by authors from far away, set in their far-flung lands.
Fiction! Who knew? (Lots of people, as it happens).
Now, as you know, I’m quite a fan of nonfiction personal narratives (and the harder-nosed work of journalism). I’m actually heading into my second week of teaching a personal essay class online, something I’ve done a few times before and that helps me put my MA in Education to a bit of use. But I don’t read nearly as much fiction as I’d like.
I’m a novelist who doesn’t read enough fiction.
Oy.
Anyway, I was surprised. This young businesswoman said that reading fiction took her on journeys to places she never would’ve or could’ve visited as a young person. We spoke about compassion, and how compassion requires imagination. To feel compassion for someone, you’ve first got to put in the effort of imagining you’re in her shoes. And indeed, it does take effort. To me, the ultimate act of laziness and entitlement is expressed in the racism and selfishness of people who refuse to put in the effort of listening to others and imagining how it feels to be someone else. When I catch myself engaging in this reprehensible laziness, I check myself (or sometimes others check me, and then I eat humble pie a minute and pick myself back up).
It was quite a wakeup call for me to listen to her and think, “Oh, shit. That’s actually what she’s talking about. Developing compassion.” And that opened her mind up to seek travel and friendships and more knowledge. Of course, this never would’ve been possible if she hadn’t been capable of compassion in the first place, but most humans are capable of compassion. Very few are hardwired to be incapable of feeling empathy. I suppose the latter situation might work out very well for a megalomaniac with a lot of money and endless privilege who curb-stomps his way to, I don’t know, a position with a lot of power that affects hundreds of millions of people at home and billions more abroad.
Just a theory.
We’ve also got “dreams i’ve had since donald trump was elected president of the unites states” by P. Claire Dodson. When the shit hits the fan and whirls and whirls, sometimes poetry is the only thing that makes sense. I love this weird and sad little piece.
This Thursday, February 2, I’ll be reading and talking at an event at the Los Angeles Public Library’s historic downtown branch called “3 Writers on Fear and Loathing.” It’s currently closed to reservations (we sold out! I mean, it’s free, but still) but you can get on the standby list. And I bought the other authors’ books, and I greatly look forward to reading them.
Thanks so much. I’ll close with this, from Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata. I’m trying to meditate on it this week when I can make my unruly and not-mindful mind focus for just a moment. Here’s hoping.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here…And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your own soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Striving alongside you,
EIC, The Stories
