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On Representation and Cultural "Visibility"

Going into my second semester of grad school, my friend had talked about the importance of use getting at least one POC advisor to work with through our 4 semesters... and I hadn't really thought about it too much. I brought this up to my first sem advisor (a WOC) when we had a recap meeting and she said: well, I thought it was a good thing we were paired for that exact reason!

Hmmm.... Well, my second sem advisor was a white lady and I loved her and she did a lot to understand my inclusion of QPOC in my work--which was especially prevalent in my last packet of the semester. Which was great because I was secretly nervous about her asking about why I chose to have the two leads to be QPOC. But she never made me feel obligated to defend my identity and just rolled with helping me to the best of her ability.

My third semester, I had a Black woman as my advisor. And she was lovely and most of her help had nothing to do with representation and more to do with my crit thesis and my form. She was lovely and made me think deeply about everything and I'm grateful I got to work with her.

Which brings me to my new, my last advisor of grad school. Another white lady, who is relatively adored by everybody. Everybody, including my POC friends, told me that I was super lucky to work with her on my creative thesis. And I agree! Weird and spooky is her thing and this thing is totally in this realm. Well, I've been thinking because I just got my first feedback letter on my first 40 pages... and one of the questions she had was to ask how the MC's cultural identity affected her position at school and how it affected her life in general.

At first, I was thinking: Well, I'm sorry, [advisor], but you're not going to get a lot of deep-seeded cultural stuff in this book because that's not how I was raised. It's not about her cultural identity and how it intersects with her faith. It's about ghosts in a church!

And then I sat down for a while. I was writing out answers to the other questions. Two pages of questions and answers before coming back to this question about culture. Then I realized, my MC's culture is on the page. It's in soft whispers and prayers when she wants things. It's in her obedience and docile-ness to authority. It's in her tense relationship with her mother and how she specifically navigates this. It's in the family barbeques and ever present aunts and uncles.

But my advisor doesn't see this as cultural identity because she's not a part of this culture. She sees this as character quirks.

And I go back to my friend's statement last July: Don't you think that it's important for us to be paired with POC advisors? Well, I suppose it is. Especially for the softer moments when I can afford to not make this a big thing about culture for any of my characters. Sometimes you just want a big group of gals chasing ghosts without making it about their culture. (Am I going to be asked about how the one white girl in the group... how her culture affects her character? Probably not.)

Sorry, [friend], that it took me over a year to find a way to agree with you. :')

#gradblr #thinking #mfa creative writing #mfac #creative thesis

"Each creative thesis includes a critical introduction, in which you "place" your own writing in a context which illuminates the work in terms of its genre and artistic goals."

Because I keep battling the same demons when I try to narrow this down, is there a single film, novel, short story or poetry collection that calls to mind my work? What is the connection?

[Previous idea: films of Lars von Trier/dogme 95 - perspective and taboo]

I'm open to talking about style and/or content. My collection is mostly queer stories, a lot of coming of age themes, a lot of revisionist themes (fairy tales, myth, Patriarchal Narrative). I have some poetry and a lot of short stories (some are reworked fanfics...) So... HELP?

#thesis #creative thesis #help #help?