Authenticity in Our Stories
Yesterday, a brown box appeared on my porch, and it didn't have that oh so familiar Amazon smile. So, I wondered what was in it. I opened it, and there it was: Soup Stories--my latest creative writing collection in print, complete with soft suede-like cover. The third of my creative writing collections:
This morning, I got to perform a few of these pieces at Occidental College, as a guest, alongside fellow poet Vashine, in Don Kingfisher Campbell's writing class, which is a part of an academic camp for high school students. The students asked great questions and were really engaged. It felt good to be in a classroom. It felt good to be performing.
A plethora of likes, loves, and wows along with comments came in on my Facebook announcement about the collection, which is subtitled A Reconstructed Memoir. I'm blown away by the support I am feeling. Hopefully it remains once the collection is read! A private message also came in from an old friend: "I better not be in that book." I understand this concern, and I think I may be a bit Taylor Swift in my writing style in this sense: My friends may recognize themselves in my work, but because I don't have the notoriety of Swift, that friend is the only person likely to do any recognizing. As I told my old friend, while there is a lot of truth in the collection, it isn't objectively true, by any means.
That exchange got me thinking about authenticity in my creative work. Would I be better served to only write fiction? To take myself entirely out of my written and performed world? Some would answer yes. This idea takes me back to graduate school, when we were learning about different methods and methodologies for conducting research. In some ways, stepping back, taking yourself out of the research is the way to the most"objective" results. Unfortunately, humans are pretty much incapable of objectivity, due to our collection of lived experiences, paradigms, interpretations, etc. So, there are methodologies that encourage and methods that allow complete subjectivity in peer-reviewed research. Go too far in that direction, and we may risk naval-gazing, of course. So, researchers are always pushing and pulling at the edges to find the most authentic and legitimate way to study their chosen subject.
My collection (of poetry and flash) is indeed a memoir. I have grown in ways expressed in the pieces. Not everything happened just the way I think it did, and not everything I wrote happened to me. The authenticity lies in the lessons I did actually learn both inside of and outside of the soup and salad restaurant that felt more like home than anywhere else for a decade of my life. I am excited it is in print, and hope you will read it! You can order it here!
