Viola T.
asked
Ryan Gebhart:
Hi Ryan, I started reading the first few pages of your book to see if I wanted to order it for my elementary school library. I got tripped up by the term "fatty in her fifties." It is very hard for us moms, sisters, aunties, and grandmas to live up to the magazine photo-shopped images of women as it is. I have a sense of humor, but I'd be embarrassed for my son to read that and I'd be hurt if he laughed?
Ryan Gebhart
Hi Viola,
Thank you for considering my story for your school, which is a huge honor! Given Tyson's sometimes choice vocabulary, I will fully understand if you decide not to include BEARS into your library. Your concerns are completely warranted and I will do my best to express my thoughts on the matter at hand.
My decisions to have Tyson speak and act in his manner did not come easily. I spent three years constructing his character, his voice, his wants and needs. He is very much flawed. He poses to impress his friends and that sometimes is reflected in his inner (and casual) thoughts. Tyson is starting his thirteenth year with many entrenched biases and stereotypes simply because he doesn't know any better. I believe this is common to some extent among most, if not all, thirteen-year-olds.
Not to be so blunt, but I don't think I've ever met a politically correct thirteen year old. Middle school is quite a chaotic, almost Darwinian period in a young person's life. Tyson, being lower on the social pecking order, is going to be naturally inclined on picking on other people whom he feels are beneath him (which, in his case would lead him to casually call out someone as a "fatty in her fifties"). It's not a good thing, to be sure, but it is sadly reality. One of my worldbuilding aims was to construct a story based in our biased and judgmental times. Bear in mind, this same reality comes to bite Tyson in the butt later on, as the people he once thought were his friends judge him on his own socially perceived lesser merits.
I did not attempt to create a hero with Tyson. As the story opens, he says and thinks the wrong things. He judges people who he has no right to judge. But as the story progresses, I'd like to believe my character experiences events that make him more humble and empathetic and less judgmental. Because as Tyson puts it in the resolution, no matter our background: "we're all doomed to be adults."
I understand and appreciate your concerns regarding Tyson's casual sizeism as the story opens. Young readers may very well laugh at those opening comments and I cannot change that, and that responsibility is completely on me. As an author, I try my hardest to omit my personal views and construct characters with identities separate from my own. It can be quite a difficult task. I very much believe that in the United States we live in a sexist, racist, homophobic, sizeist society. My goal wasn't to reflect my own progressive views or to change or fix society and its biases in this book, but rather be representative of it. I simply wanted to tell a story that took place in this cruel world. One of (my many) goals with this book was to show a character trying to survive in the kind of dog-eat-dog judgmental environment that kids live in today.
I did not create a perfect book. Even with all the explanations I just gave, I still believe that I could have done better. I could have been more sensitive and aware. I hope you (and all readers) will judge my work not on a few lines in the book's opening, but on the text as a whole.
Thank you so much for reaching out. It has been a true honor to be a part of this community, and I'm learning so much with each passing day on how to be a better writer and a more empathetic human being.
roar.
Ryan Gebhart
Thank you for considering my story for your school, which is a huge honor! Given Tyson's sometimes choice vocabulary, I will fully understand if you decide not to include BEARS into your library. Your concerns are completely warranted and I will do my best to express my thoughts on the matter at hand.
My decisions to have Tyson speak and act in his manner did not come easily. I spent three years constructing his character, his voice, his wants and needs. He is very much flawed. He poses to impress his friends and that sometimes is reflected in his inner (and casual) thoughts. Tyson is starting his thirteenth year with many entrenched biases and stereotypes simply because he doesn't know any better. I believe this is common to some extent among most, if not all, thirteen-year-olds.
Not to be so blunt, but I don't think I've ever met a politically correct thirteen year old. Middle school is quite a chaotic, almost Darwinian period in a young person's life. Tyson, being lower on the social pecking order, is going to be naturally inclined on picking on other people whom he feels are beneath him (which, in his case would lead him to casually call out someone as a "fatty in her fifties"). It's not a good thing, to be sure, but it is sadly reality. One of my worldbuilding aims was to construct a story based in our biased and judgmental times. Bear in mind, this same reality comes to bite Tyson in the butt later on, as the people he once thought were his friends judge him on his own socially perceived lesser merits.
I did not attempt to create a hero with Tyson. As the story opens, he says and thinks the wrong things. He judges people who he has no right to judge. But as the story progresses, I'd like to believe my character experiences events that make him more humble and empathetic and less judgmental. Because as Tyson puts it in the resolution, no matter our background: "we're all doomed to be adults."
I understand and appreciate your concerns regarding Tyson's casual sizeism as the story opens. Young readers may very well laugh at those opening comments and I cannot change that, and that responsibility is completely on me. As an author, I try my hardest to omit my personal views and construct characters with identities separate from my own. It can be quite a difficult task. I very much believe that in the United States we live in a sexist, racist, homophobic, sizeist society. My goal wasn't to reflect my own progressive views or to change or fix society and its biases in this book, but rather be representative of it. I simply wanted to tell a story that took place in this cruel world. One of (my many) goals with this book was to show a character trying to survive in the kind of dog-eat-dog judgmental environment that kids live in today.
I did not create a perfect book. Even with all the explanations I just gave, I still believe that I could have done better. I could have been more sensitive and aware. I hope you (and all readers) will judge my work not on a few lines in the book's opening, but on the text as a whole.
Thank you so much for reaching out. It has been a true honor to be a part of this community, and I'm learning so much with each passing day on how to be a better writer and a more empathetic human being.
roar.
Ryan Gebhart
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