Joyce Thompson's Blog
November 6, 2013
How Dare Joyce Write Archer?
Just found a generous and challenging review of How to Greet Strangers on Goodreads. It calls out the elephant in the living room: How dare a white female writer speak for and as an HIV positive black drag queen?
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
How Dare Joyce Write Archer?
Just found a generous and challenging review of How to Greet Strangers on Goodreads. It calls out the elephant in the living room: How dare a white female writer speak for and as an HIV positive black drag queen?
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
February 19, 2013
I Want to Be a Paperback Writer!
When I was 21 and looking for a job in publishing, I had three offers:
Typing at Doubleday
Showing out of town authors a good time for Viking
Being a copywriter for Dover Books, way down on Varick Street
I chose number #3.
My job title had “writer” in it, and I knew that’s what I meant to be, even though I wasn’t sure when I applied just what a copywriter does. Too, there was the dress code. Dover didn’t care if I wore jeans to work. If I’d chosen either of the midtown houses, I would have ended up spending too much of my tiny salary on clothes.
Finally, my boss at Dover would be Everett Bleiler, the most erudite human being I’ve ever met. Though he was a shy man, quick to blush and slow to meet one’s eyes, asking him the right string of questions of a mid-afternoon could tease forth an impromptu lecture on any one of the dozen or so subjects of which he had post-doctorate level knowledge—history, medicine, natural history, cartography, music, art, architecture, classics, literature, mathematics, the occult or, his specialty, ghost stories. His official title was VP of Marketing, but it was he, really, who shaped the Dover list and secured the often rare editions it reprinted as elegant, affordable paperbacks.
I have no doubt I learned more about more subjects in the year I worked for him than in the previous four on an Ivy League campus. Looking back, I’m pretty sure that’s where I began to develop my interviewer skills. I know it was Everett and his red pen that taught me once and for all never to dangle a participle. More important, he instilled in me something of his own unique ethos of publishing--a combination of refined taste, curatorial zeal and economic populism that contrasts starkly with the prevailing profit-driven culture machine.
I got to hold in my hands an 1789 hand-colored copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience—one Everett Bleiler had tracked down and purchased in order to reprint. That experience gave me the almost mystical conviction that good work trumps form factor, that what is worthy will rise again. In the course of re-publishing Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings for The Yellow Book (1894-1897) as a Dover art book, Everett held forth on the idea that the proliferation of independent publishing ventures marks a time of cultural renewal.
I can still see him in the writers’ bullpen outside his glass-walled cubicle, a stout, owlish man with hair like white feathers, white sleeves rolled up and shirt tail hanging out, glasses sliding toward the end of his nose, imparting his values to the next generation.
Not too many years later, my first two novels were among the first paperback original “literature” that Avon Books published, an initiative that won them the Carey-Thomas Award for Innovative Publishing. (One, The Blue Chair, they presumed to reprint a couple of years later in their Bard classics line.) Both of my short story collections came from small presses. Using production skills I learned working for an educational publisher In Boston, I co-founded a collective to publish a quarterly poetry and fiction tabloid called Dark Horse. We set the type on IBM Selectrics borrowed from our day jobs, did paste up ourselves far into the night and hawked the paper outside the Boston Art Museum on Sundays, when admission was free. For ten years, we rotated editorship and provided an outlet for emerging writers.
Now my sixth novel is coming out as a trade paperback and as an e-book. Thanks to Lethe Press, both editions are elegant and affordable. And I am old enough to know that all editions of all books are ephemeral, the vector that passes story mind to mind.
I’m proud to be a Paperback Writer, one more time.
Typing at Doubleday
Showing out of town authors a good time for Viking
Being a copywriter for Dover Books, way down on Varick Street
I chose number #3.
My job title had “writer” in it, and I knew that’s what I meant to be, even though I wasn’t sure when I applied just what a copywriter does. Too, there was the dress code. Dover didn’t care if I wore jeans to work. If I’d chosen either of the midtown houses, I would have ended up spending too much of my tiny salary on clothes.
Finally, my boss at Dover would be Everett Bleiler, the most erudite human being I’ve ever met. Though he was a shy man, quick to blush and slow to meet one’s eyes, asking him the right string of questions of a mid-afternoon could tease forth an impromptu lecture on any one of the dozen or so subjects of which he had post-doctorate level knowledge—history, medicine, natural history, cartography, music, art, architecture, classics, literature, mathematics, the occult or, his specialty, ghost stories. His official title was VP of Marketing, but it was he, really, who shaped the Dover list and secured the often rare editions it reprinted as elegant, affordable paperbacks.
I have no doubt I learned more about more subjects in the year I worked for him than in the previous four on an Ivy League campus. Looking back, I’m pretty sure that’s where I began to develop my interviewer skills. I know it was Everett and his red pen that taught me once and for all never to dangle a participle. More important, he instilled in me something of his own unique ethos of publishing--a combination of refined taste, curatorial zeal and economic populism that contrasts starkly with the prevailing profit-driven culture machine.
I got to hold in my hands an 1789 hand-colored copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience—one Everett Bleiler had tracked down and purchased in order to reprint. That experience gave me the almost mystical conviction that good work trumps form factor, that what is worthy will rise again. In the course of re-publishing Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings for The Yellow Book (1894-1897) as a Dover art book, Everett held forth on the idea that the proliferation of independent publishing ventures marks a time of cultural renewal.
I can still see him in the writers’ bullpen outside his glass-walled cubicle, a stout, owlish man with hair like white feathers, white sleeves rolled up and shirt tail hanging out, glasses sliding toward the end of his nose, imparting his values to the next generation.
Not too many years later, my first two novels were among the first paperback original “literature” that Avon Books published, an initiative that won them the Carey-Thomas Award for Innovative Publishing. (One, The Blue Chair, they presumed to reprint a couple of years later in their Bard classics line.) Both of my short story collections came from small presses. Using production skills I learned working for an educational publisher In Boston, I co-founded a collective to publish a quarterly poetry and fiction tabloid called Dark Horse. We set the type on IBM Selectrics borrowed from our day jobs, did paste up ourselves far into the night and hawked the paper outside the Boston Art Museum on Sundays, when admission was free. For ten years, we rotated editorship and provided an outlet for emerging writers.
Now my sixth novel is coming out as a trade paperback and as an e-book. Thanks to Lethe Press, both editions are elegant and affordable. And I am old enough to know that all editions of all books are ephemeral, the vector that passes story mind to mind.
I’m proud to be a Paperback Writer, one more time.
February 6, 2013
The Students-Made-Good Shelf: Seeking Contributions
I used to tell my students I had two special shelves, one for my own published work and another, of which I’m equally proud, for the published work of people who’ve studied with me. I asked folks to let me know when they had stories or books coming out. For a while, some did.
Given that I’m a person prone to jumping off time cliffs, parachuting out of one life venue into another, it’s been a little hard to keep track of me over the years. Only when I joined Facebook in 2009 did I have a chance to catch up with some of my former students and learn how their careers have unfolded since we last talked. In fact, most of the generous pre-pub quotes for HOW TO GREET STRANGERS come from these students-made-good.
Given that Goodreads invites me to create an idiosyncratic bookshelf, and given that social media lets me cast a wide net, I decided to try to build out my students’ shelf.
Think of it as an aberrant genealogy project, with some necessary caveats:
I don’t claim credit for the talent of others, only hail its passage through my life
Most of these folks have worked with many more teachers than me
I remember breathtaking work by students who didn’t carry on with writing—the people on this shelf cared deeply and worked hard, sometimes against great odds
Children often surpass the accomplishments of their parents
I would especially love to know if any of the storytellers I taught when they were very young—at Centrum’s high school and fifth grade conferences, in Oregon’s Talented and Gifted high school writers’ conferences, through Poets in the Schools or in my children’s classrooms have made writing part of their lives’ work.
Let the shelf begin with this list of former students I know have published books (and one who’s been publishing the work of others for the last twenty years). If you are one or if you know of others, leave a comment on this blog post or write me at archer@archerbarron.com.
I've started the shelf and called it Students-Made-Good. Please help to fill it up.
To be shelved, in no particular order: Ellen Howard, Karen Karbo, Collins Hemingway, Alix Wilber, Kevin Canty, Phil Margolin, Teresa Jordan, Andrew Himes, Karl Marlantes, Dick Couch, Scott Sparling, Rebecca Wells, Richard Paul Russo, Kelly Jurgensen, Glimmer Train Co-founder and Editor, Susan Burmeister-Brown.
Given that I’m a person prone to jumping off time cliffs, parachuting out of one life venue into another, it’s been a little hard to keep track of me over the years. Only when I joined Facebook in 2009 did I have a chance to catch up with some of my former students and learn how their careers have unfolded since we last talked. In fact, most of the generous pre-pub quotes for HOW TO GREET STRANGERS come from these students-made-good.
Given that Goodreads invites me to create an idiosyncratic bookshelf, and given that social media lets me cast a wide net, I decided to try to build out my students’ shelf.
Think of it as an aberrant genealogy project, with some necessary caveats:
I don’t claim credit for the talent of others, only hail its passage through my life
Most of these folks have worked with many more teachers than me
I remember breathtaking work by students who didn’t carry on with writing—the people on this shelf cared deeply and worked hard, sometimes against great odds
Children often surpass the accomplishments of their parents
I would especially love to know if any of the storytellers I taught when they were very young—at Centrum’s high school and fifth grade conferences, in Oregon’s Talented and Gifted high school writers’ conferences, through Poets in the Schools or in my children’s classrooms have made writing part of their lives’ work.
Let the shelf begin with this list of former students I know have published books (and one who’s been publishing the work of others for the last twenty years). If you are one or if you know of others, leave a comment on this blog post or write me at archer@archerbarron.com.
I've started the shelf and called it Students-Made-Good. Please help to fill it up.
To be shelved, in no particular order: Ellen Howard, Karen Karbo, Collins Hemingway, Alix Wilber, Kevin Canty, Phil Margolin, Teresa Jordan, Andrew Himes, Karl Marlantes, Dick Couch, Scott Sparling, Rebecca Wells, Richard Paul Russo, Kelly Jurgensen, Glimmer Train Co-founder and Editor, Susan Burmeister-Brown.
