[stylist] A New Member

[John Lee Clark]

Shelley:

Aside from my six-year run as publisher of my own publishing operation, I
have been involved in the publishing world for twelve years.  I've worked
with many, many writers, about half of them hearing sighted and the other
deaf sighted with a few deafblind.  While the quality of the writing always
plays a role in whether or not something gets published, the deaf writers'
writing from the deaf perspective is always, always an advantage.

No, I don't mean one needs to make a conscious effort to write "about" being
deaf, in the didactic sense.  Just write about life--love, crime, family,
whatever--but through deaf eyes, drawing from the deaf writer's own
observations and sensations.  Ha Jin, the well-known writer, made the point
in his latest book that there are too many writers who write about stuff
they learned in a secondhand fashion, and readers can pick it up, even
though they may not be conscious.  The writer's describing his or her own
genuine observations and experiences for the purpose of describing things is
very important and lends the work with an aura of, a vibe exuding
authenticity.

So that's one benefit of writing exactly what you know.  Another boon to any
writer is any type of outsiderhood.  If you look back on the annals of
literature, those who are "different" from the establishment population but
don't write from that different perspective don't get published often, or if
they do, their work wears off quickly and they are forgotten.  Take the
example of Thomas Caldwell, who was deaf, but wrote as if he wasn't.  Who
knows him now?  Or take Richard Wright, a wonderful and groundbreaking
African American writer.  All of his books are still in print, except one,
and that was the only book he wrote about only white people.

You understand, there are tens of thousands sighted people writing and
trying to get published.  So I cannot imagine any use in adding more of the
same types of material to that pot.  There are only a limited number of
genres and plots, and they all have been done over and over again.  But if
you're blind, and you're privileged to have different sensations and a
different touch in your observations, that's quite a blessing and will help
your work stand out amidst the awful racket of the same old, same old that
editors endure reading through week after week.

Now, my deaf writer friends, they all have found their most important and
rewarding publishing credits through their deaf material.  Many of them,
before they started workring with me, wrote only mainstream stuff, thinking
they would have a better chance.  Not so.  Take Raymond Luczak: He has
written over forty plays, but only twelve with deaf characters.  Thirteen of
his plays have been produced.  All twelve deaf plays and one not make up the
thirteen, leaving the rest of his "hearing" plays still collecting dust.  He
has written four novels, only one with deaf characters.  No surprise: The
three mainstream works remain unpublished and the deaf one won a prestigious
fellowship and also a national first-novel contest and will be coming out
soon.  Raymond's "hearing" stuff is good and worthy of publication, but the
problem is that there are so many equally good stuff these days, because
there are so many well-trained writers from all those MFA programs.  Those
who get published are the ones with unique voices, original twists, or those
who bring to the reader authentic tastes of different worlds.

I once got a story from a good deaf writer.  It was about the Titanic.  A
couple gets separated at the end, the woman rowed away while the man sinks
with the ship.  It was wonderfully researched and detailed.  The writing was
smooth and luminous.  In all the fundamental areas, it was a superb story.
But it was never picked up, and the deaf writer could not understand why
not, since it was one of her very best efforts.  The reason, of course, is
that the Titanic as the backdrop for a love story has been done to death.
It was already worn threadbare even before that movie with Leo and Kate.  

But what if the couple was deaf?  They wake up because of the great
commotion outside their room sending vibrations to them.  They ask each
other what's going on.  Outside their room, they see people running.  They
try to get someone to write to them on a notepad, but they're all panicked.
So they have to investigate, and gradually, from all the visual information,
they begin to understand.  A sailor tries to put the deaf woman in line for
getting on a lifeboat, but she doesn't want to be separated from her
husband.  All sorts of misunderstandings, issues, correctives, etc. occur.
And at the end, a twist on the classic separation thing: The deaf woman
decides to sink with her husband, so strong is their bond with each other as
they come from a small community and the deaf woman cannot imagine venturing
out on her own amidst all those hearing strangers.  

Now, isn't that a much better story?  A blind couple on the Titanic would
likewise be much better than the mainstream version and would definitely
stand out!

Incidentally, some of the hearing writers I've worked with but who have
connectins to the Deaf world, they also have found greater success in
publishing their work relating to the Deaf world as opposed to their more
mainstream fare.  Take Morgan Grayce Willow, an ASL interpreter.  Her
biggest book credit is her work on interpreting.  Her most prestigious
magazine credit is for her essay "Double Language," about her experiences as
an interpreter.  She has published other stuff, but with much more
difficulty and less compensation.  Or take Pia Taavila, a wonderful poet and
professor of English, who is the daughter of deaf parents, or a CODA as we
call people like her--Children of Deaf Adults.  She has written both
mainstream stuff and stuff having to do with her upbringing in a Deaf home
and her continued link with the Deaf community.  You guessed it again: Her
Deaf-related poems are more readily published and get higher praise.

It is not that they can't get published without the deaf material.  They can
and have.  But it is against greater, much greater odds that they do.  Here
and there, they are able to be heard, able to be distinguished from the rest
clamoring for the same editor's attention.  And it's not that writing from a
different perspective will automatically get you published.  The writing
still has to be good.  But it is a huge advantage in arresting the editor's
attention, curiosity, and interest.

I don't know how the deaf writers could possibly try to write mainstream
stuff, or how you could avoid writing as a blind writer, but I never could,
never wanted to.  It feels fake and contrived to me.  It would take too much
effort to pretend, to write about auditory things I never heard, to write
visual descriptions of what I have never seen.  I am of the opinion that
"'catering" to the mainstream audience is self-defeating, because there are
many writers that produce mainstream stuff and it's not like they're
"catering" but they're genuine because they ARE mainstream.  I have always
written straight from who and what I am.  And I am not complaining about my
inability to write mainstream stuff because I've been published in POETRY
magazine twice, while there are thousands of poets who can only dream about
ever getting there; I've been published in McSWEENEY'S, America's most hip
literary journal; I've won all those awards; my work has been broadcast on
radio, including on the "Poem of the Day" program on Martha Stewart; I'm
being interviewed by someone from The New Yorker right now; I've been a
featured poet at an international cultural arts festival, flown there
first-class and with all expenses paid . . .   so I guess I must be doing
something right.

No, that was not to brag at all.  That was purely to make my point, to make
my case for writing from a different angle, and to encourage you and others
to try doing that.  Hey, it can't hurt to try, can it?

John 

 



 

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