Five Things I've Learned About Writing from the Margins of America
Live class May 5th. Archived version will be available!
One of my goals for this year was to somehow get back into teaching. Before MAID was published, I taught workshops that were based on the Business of Writing, and I have missed mentoring marginalized writers. I signed up for at least a dozen classes, and have been kind of lurking in those spaces, trying to figure out what other people are doing and what is actually useful or worth the money and time.
When
approached me about doing a session, I thought that might be a great way to get started on teaching a few things. Their format is two hours of talking about, literally, five things I’ve learned about a certain aspect of my job, and the session is recorded and available through their archives. (I watched several of their other classes and really enjoyed all of them, so I do recommend checking them out!) We settled on the topic of “Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing from the Margins of America,” which kind of goes along with what I’ve been writing about here.As I have been thinking about what to talk about tonight (tickets are available through their website), I kept thinking about the teaser for the Netflix series MAID:
This notion of asking “What’s the conflict?” and believing there isn’t one is, I think, where we start to tell ourselves that our stories don’t matter. Society wants us to believe that the important part of the story is the success story; the part about the woman who has everything. But MAID wouldn’t have been interesting, or touched so many lives, without telling my story through Alex and Maddy. It revealed the stories of the lives of workers who make that success possible.
Writing from the margins has a vital role in growing empathy and compassion in our nation, but to me it has always been about visibility. It’s telling the stories that usually don’t make the mainstream media, and making space for them to be heard.
When I started out as a freelance writer, and when I was writing my first memoir, MAID, I had to be reminded all the time that the things about my life—mainly food and housing insecurity—that I thought weren’t all that interesting actually were what people desperately needed to hear. The people who lived in poverty could read it and feel less alone, and possibly be inspired to tell their own story. The people who had no experience in the margins could shed some judgements and assumptions about the folks who cleaned up after them and see how hard they work to make ends meet.
To me, that’s always been the most powerful part of the story, where space is created for others to become visible, and doors are opened for more narratives to make it to the mainstream. I want people who are struggling to learn how to share their personal narratives, and others to create space and learn how to support them so they can be heard.
I hope to see some of you tonight! If you sign up using the code SUBSTACK10 you’ll get $10 off the ticket price.
Until next time.
xo,
-step.
Many people recommended MAID to me. Oh, you must watch this show. I couldn’t make it through the first episode. My friends asked why. I said, because that was my life. Why would I watch that. I’m sorry you had experience that. I’m am glad you were strong enough to write your memoir. I hope I have the courage to finish mine.
It's hard to know on this side of heaven, the impact your writing has on all of us! Keep going!