#ru freeman

[fiercynn]

“Life Line to Gaza”: A Poem by Ru Freeman

I just arrived home Gaza [insert heart emoji] I took my family to the beach it was lovely [insert no news from the US] [insert news from Ele

not a palestinian poet but a poet and writer who has long been an ally to the palestinian cause. ru freeman is a sri lankan and american writer, poet, and activist, and among her other work she edited a 2015 anthology called extraordinary rendition: american writers on palestine. i had a borrowed copy from a friend for about a week and only got to read a few of the pieces but i remember them being really excellent

[dis-contented]

I just finished reading a book titled A Disobedient Girl written by Ru Freeman, and holy shit? I really, really cried at the end. Its been ages since a book had me do that. There were many plot twists through the book, but the twist at the end made me physically feel it, it was a real blow, both because of the realisation of how the stories of the two main characters intertwine, and because they both deserved so much more. Just gonna go cry myself to sleep now 😅 but if you're looking for a book to read, I highly recommend.

[loveinquotesposts]

https://loveinquotes.com/he-was-with-me-beside-me-inside-me-and-i-did-not-care-that-my-children-were-asleep-alone-at-home-or-that-the-neighbors-might-come-to-know-he-burned-the-fear-out-of-me-until-all-was-left-was-desi/

He was with me, beside me, inside me, and I did not care that my children were asleep, alone at home, or that the neighbors might come to know. He burned the fear out of me until all was left was desire. ― Ru Freeman, A Disobedient Girl

[auntlute]

VCU English - Visiting Writers LeAnne Howe and Ru Freeman March 23, 2017 – 7PM VCU Cabell Library 

VCU Visiting Writers: LeAnne Howe (Choctalking on Other Realities) & Ru Freeman (On Sal Mal Lane) will be reading from their works tomorrow 3/23 at 7:00 PM. LeAnne Howe (Choctaw)’s Choctalking on Other Realities was the winner of the inaugural 2014 MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. Freeman is the 2014 winner of the Sister Mariella Gable Award for Fiction and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman. 

 This event is free and open to the public. Visit the VCU Visiting Writers page for more details. 

[mttbll]

The history is not the story. This is what I believe. Richard Bausch once said, 'Bad politics hurt human beings and good writers report that damage.' (i.e., not the politics, the damage.) We disagree on the extent to which a writer him/herself should throw themselves into the political fray—I do, routinely, he does not. But we agree on this point that you don’t write about politics, you write about what it does to people.

Ru Freeman

[profeminist]

“There aren’t a lot of you out there”: What? Let’s fix our female Asian-American writer blind spot now

Who says Asian American women aren't writing fiction? "We are everywhere if you only look!"

"This summer, I traveled around the U.S. to promote my debut novel, “Everything I Never Told You.”  At one university where I’d been invited to speak, I asked the professor hosting me how he’d found me. He admitted he’d needed an Asian American woman fiction writer to balance his speaker lineup. “There aren’t a lot of you out there,” he said, with evident embarrassment.

Many universities and events deliberately try to select diverse speakers, and I think it’s a fine way to expose audiences to writers of different backgrounds. But I was startled to hear there weren’t many Asian American women fiction writers.  Off the top of my head, I could think of several dozen.

Early on, 2014 was designated the “Year of Reading Women.” Partly inspired by the annual VIDA count — which for four straight years has shown a huge gender disparity in major literary publications — the #ReadWomen2014 movement encouraged readers to do just that.

In May, Book Expo America was widely criticized when the initial lineup for BookCon, its public event, contained virtually no women and virtually no people of color.  The#WeNeedDiverseBooks Campaign arose in response, to promote greater diversity in children’s and YA literature. (Full disclosure: I took part in a BookCon panel myself, in the awkward position of a woman of color who had actually been invited months before the controversy.)

In other words, in 2014, we might have expected awareness of women writers and writers of color to be on the rise.  And I still hope it is, on the whole.  Yet there it was, that statement I heard surprisingly often: “There just aren’t many Asian American women writers.”

Several years ago, frustrated by similar remarks about authors of color, the writer and critic Roxane Gay compiled a list of them, aptly titled “We Are Many. We Are Everywhere.” Inspired by Gay’s list, I put out a call on Twitter for names of Asian American women writers. Within hours, I was deluged with suggestions.  Even after I narrowed the focus to authors who had published a book of fiction — the type of speaker most venues seek — the list swelled into the hundreds."

Read the full piece, and see the list of Asian American women writers here

[mttbll]

I think that a single identifier for a writer is simply to be deeply connected to the truth, and to serve nothing else—to treat it as something sort of sacred. In my deepest alone moments, I think that writing is a sacred act and that's why it is in some ways a violation to do it. And that's why you should do it with the most truthfulness you can. Even if you're writing a cartoon, it just shouldn't be a lie. That being said, to be good is an ideal. I don't know how to be good. I know I shouldn't kick a dog, never mind a child. But after that it gets complicated. I don't know how to sort the day. I like that moment before you know who you are, when you wake up in the morning and you don't really know who you are yet. Almost everything you do after that is wrong. Just about everything. The cup of coffee, the toast, it involves a series of wrongs, and I don't know how to extricate myself from that. I try to attempt to do less of them, but how to not do any of them, how to be completely good—not even completely good—how to just be good enough: I don't know.

Jamaica Kincaid, as interviewed by Ru Freeman in the new issue of Pen America

[derica]

Interview with Jamaica Kincaid by Ru Freeman

Was there ever anyone so unabashed and articulate in her account of herself as Jamaica Kincaid in interview? This is the candour of a woman unafraid of facing up to her own contradictions and shortcomings, despite her fame and reputation. At some point I want to write about what this all means (something to do with confidence, commitment to inquiry and concomitant vulnerability), but for now I content myself with avidly archiving all her video and written interviews. Here she is in conversation with Ru Freeman, talking about her latest book See Now Then and much more.

on writing and/as thinking & failing to think

"For me writing a novel is to think, to turn it over, to see how it feels, how it is, trying to understand the essence of something. And then I get up from the desk and I've totally failed. But I'm not afraid to go back the next day and sit in the same chair and try again."

on Britain as the "Mother Country"

"The figure of the mother playing such a big role in my imagination must come from my interest in power and how it gets arranged. And that the central powerful image in my history is of course Mother Country [...] We talk about the Mother Country, and it's not just a phrase, it's a powerful influence in our imagination. And it's not a coincidence that for instance a book like Annie John which talks so much about the relationship between the child and the mother, is really talking about the relationship between the colony and the mother country which is this imbalance of power, this sort of violation of the Mother Country against the colonies and the colonies perhaps [] having little protestations. But the figure of the mother that plays such a powerful part in my fiction is really trying to understand that image, and that existence ... this horrible power that we have modified and made acceptable in the form of mother."

on land and its legacies

"One of the things that we never do in the landscape I'm from, is relax on it. No one I know  growing up, ever goes to the beach for a holiday. It's a landscape that horrible memories for us."

on A Small Place

"it was the first thing I wrote in which I began to understand that there was a certain truth, and however upsetting it would be to other people, I needed to say it.  In fact, when Antiguan people read that book - and it was banned in Antigua for a while - they would say to me, 'everything you said is  true, but did you have to say it?'

on literary style

"For me I don't really have any style or any literary thing, all I have is the words to say it - to quote a wonderful book - that's all I want, are the words to say it, and I will hunt down, spend a long time, looking for the words to say it and will use the word again and again."

on telling the truth

"I think the notions regarding fiction, non-fiction, essay and so on, are lost on me. I just want to say something, and I want the thing I'm saying to be true. The form can be fiction, the form can be non-fiction, but it has to have a truth. A lie in my mind is a singular thing, it's like a lump of coal. On the other hand, the truth is conflicted, it is opposition, it opposes itself, it destroys itself even though it rises to live again. It's eternal because it's true. That's all I want, is to say something true." 

on punning on Outkast lyrics in See Now Then 

"I felt really so delighted with myself"

on being called angry

"Had I anticipated all this I would have called myself Norman Mailer, and worn a Norman Mailer outfit. I mean, Norman Mailer stabbed his wife, and no one calls him angry."