Thoughts for Banned Book Week
I've been giving a lot of thought to the subject of book banning lately. Much of it comes from supporting halseanderson and Sarah Ockler, and #SpeakLoudly. But I've also always been a person who didn't want to be told how to think, despite being a "good girl." I was very good at keeping my thoughts to myself.
One of those thoughts was about the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said in his "I Have a Dream" speech, that he dreamt of a day when this country would live up to the words of the Constitution, "That all men are created equal." The way he emphasized that "all" has stayed with me to this day. It is one of my core beliefs.
If we are all created equal, then no one of us has more say than another in what we should read or write. But also, no one of us--black, white, brown, man, woman, gay, straight, bi, trans--is worth more than any other of us. Books can show us how it feels to be someone else, can convince us of that basic equality in ways that no other media can, because, as I've said before, books let us into someone else's head in a way no other form of art can.
Poster from Langdon Public Library, Newington, NH http://www.langdonlibrary.org/?p=27
But I have a personal reason for thinking extra hard about banned books this year.
I'm not like joknowles, who recently said that she doesn't think about her books being banned or challenged until it happens. I've been aware that my wip, my beloved StT, is going to push some people's buttons. It involves crossdressing and a Gay-Straight Alliance, and a high school prom. Two of the people whose buttons it may push are my parents. Since my head came out of the clouds of inspiration, I've given a lot of thought to when I want to talk to them about this project, to share it with them.
But there is no way I can not write this novel. It is my passion. For two-plus months it took over practically every waking hour, not to mention almost every thought I had. It is still front and center in my life. The teen who've read the first few pages have said they want to read more. I'm writing for them, and for all the other teens out there for whom these issues are very real. Because, until a teenage boy can walk down the halls of his high school in heels and a skirt (and I am using the masculine pronoun most deliberately) and receive no more than a comment on his outfit's color coordination, or lack thereof, we will not have a world where all men are regarded as being created equal. Until gays and lesbians can go to the same prom as everyone else in every town where there is a junior prom, we will not have a world where all men and women are treated as if they were in fact created equal.
Knowing that this work may well be challenged, but knowing as well that there are young people out there who will see themselves in it, I'm bringing to it everything I've got as a writer. Hence the goal of pants to match the fab boot:
I'm thinking strategically now that I'm revising, testing scenes and characters, increasing conflicts. I'm not a football fan, but a football expression expresses my goal when I work on this novel: "leaving it all on the field." Only when I do that will I be fully honoring my future readers and the two men who inspired me.
We write the stories we need to write. Readers should be able to find the stories they need to read, for all the reasons they may need to read them.
What about you? If you knew that what you are writing would be challenged, would that change the way you write?
Tomorrow it's back to tailoring those baggy pants.