Transcripts For CSPAN2 Arthur Miller Freedom To Write Lecture 20160702

Tweet us at book tv or post it on your facebook page. Good evening. Im the director, and on behalf of our staff, as you know we are finishing the festival week of programming with this lecture. This series focused on mexicos culture, mexicos politics. We had a fence on on drugs, mexican politics, cuba and we actually did a mexican category last night. Talking about this lecture tonight, this is the quintessential point of the festival. This is the Arthur Miller freedom to write lecture. We find work that is relevant to us in the recent years. The lecture has a symbolic place in the programming. Its actually in the last couple of years has been a remarkable occupation. I also have to mention that this year for the first time in the history of the festival, we collaborated collaborated and hopefully our collaboration will continue. Let me bring us the next speaker who will introduce our author. [applause] good evening and thank you to all of you for being here. The mission is to both celebrate and defend free expression. Celebration and defend. Its a powerful culmination. One of our proudest celebrations is the one we will close out tonight. The festival is a kaleidoscope of International Literature that from one week each spring bursts out of its skinny tube to transform new york city into a moving image of colorful words and personalities. On the defense side, the core classic work of penn is standing up for the loan and peril writer. The writer that sits in a jail cell punished by a regime. The riders who are the heroes of the soviet log, the salt mines of the african prison and the deathly camps of chinas cultural revolution. This very terror persists today. We defend an egyptian novelist who is facing a two year jail sentence for the crime of writing a sex scene. And in stoppable journalist jailed for the crime of exposing the corruption for exposing the president. A blogger was hacked to death for the crime of questioning islam. Thats the traditional work of penn. It is work we reinvent year on year and day on day with new tactics, more diverse constituencies, new ways to communicate and a fastgrowing audience of riders and their allies here in the u. S. And around the world. This didnt get as much press initially as president obamas jokes about about donald trump, but this year we brought that work to last nights White House Correspondent dinner where the pen and some of our cases were mentioned from the podium. Some key people are joining us in our mission to celebrate and defend. Celebrate and defending keeps is plenty busy. There are not enough to fulfill our core objective of realizing the freedom to write is a freedom that is not just endowed to all but enjoyed by all. For 12 years, the penn world voices festival has trained this light on riders whose work goes mostly on red not because they are in prison, but often for the simple reason that they speak and write in languages and about cultures other than our own. The festival has been one of the most potent antidotes to the tunnel vision that can inflict even the worlds most cosmopolitan literary community. But there are also unheard voices here in our own country. There is expression that we can neither celebrate nor defend unless we first talk to simply make it possible. There are stories, identities and ideas that have all the complexities and nuances of great literature or the most provocative sentiment. These are voices that have not yet had the safety or the support to speak out and be heard. The forces of racism, sexism, homophobia, zeno phobia, economic insecurity, unequal education, victimization, and intersectional form of marginalization have conspired to deny voice to whole swaths of our own society. Part of our calling to attend is to put a microphone in front of these voices. To vindicate a right to voice on behalf of those who need to be heard and we need to hear. This responsibility falls in the space between celebration and defense and is a foundation for both without realizing the right to voice, our celebrations risk being exclusive, self referential referential and plain old boring. Without realizing the right to voice, our defense risks rim forcing the privileges of those who speak most easily or most loudly. Thats where roxanne gaye comes in. Her writings, her teachings, and her talk have made feminism say for a new generation of women who found in her voice and inspiration to speak their own. She speaks for those who have had their voices blown away by acts of violence and allows them to reclaim what was routed. She hands the, opens the megaphone for an shares the stage with young feminists, activists, transgender individuals, those who have been violated and those who are just as, she puts it, messy. Im personally very grateful to anyone who is willing to defend those of us who are messy. Roxanne gaye inspires all of those voices do not just stand tall and speak out loud but to insist that they be joined on the stage by others who can help remake the mold and change the narrative. Now having earned award, high profile platforms and a fast expanding audience, she is determined to make her magnetic pull, the pulled, the pulled up pulled all of you into this room to bring forward a whole generation of readers and riders who may look and think nothing like her but who sees themselves in her defiant expression of individuality. Shes making it okay for a new generation to be themselves and talk out loud about what that entails. Her forthcoming books entitled hunger may make it safe for a new generation of women to eat and to look in the mirror. His goal was to hold over the channel of communication in the world and it was shortly after 911 at a time of stress, strain and vulnerability. Twelve years later, amid the most contentious election cycle and history, they are striving to hold open the channels of communication among and within our own diverse society. We are at a new time of stress, strain and vulnerability. We need the festival to help point the way through. To hold up the lantern and help us move forward. We will hear first from roxanne and she will be joined on stage by the poet and winner of the award for poetry and editor for culture at buzzfeed. After dialogue, we will open it up to the audience for question at the mics that you see at the front of the room. Roxanne gaye may be a feminist but shes the perfect lecture this year. [applause] [applause] wow. Hello new york i cant believe you came out in this shady weather. I was in my hotel and i was like no, but then i thought i could talk to about beyonce. [laughter] thank you all for coming out tonight. Im just going to say a few words, about, well youll will find out. What i want i want right now is a wooden baseball bat. Thank you. What i want is to feel the heft of that bat in my hand as i wrap the palm around the smooth lacquer candles. I want to stroll down the street to a catchy beat. What i want is to use that bat to start breaking stuff. Breaking glass with a window that feels cathartic. What i also want to right now is acknowledge this new temp or a reality that we are in, al, after lemonade. [applause] beyonces latest album, i want us all to understand that the game has changed. Lemonade is a work of art and it is a shining example of how amazing pop music can be. It is also a black woman story in her own words, from the first song through the last, she she talks about her marriage, the betrayal she has experienced at her husbands hand, her rage and the depths and ragged edges of her hurt, the strength she has found in other lack women, how she found her way to a place where she could forgive her husband because her love for him in their bond was that strong. I mean, she she is beyonce, our queen. She admits that she was cheated on, as fine as she was pitch she offers us humility. She dares to challenge the dominant cultural narrative about a what a woman must do if she is the victim. Each time i listen to this album i am stunned by the vulnerability that she displays. There is a moment during the song sand castles were her voice breaks and she sings and each time i hear that break and the grief pouring from her vocal cords, i want to punch jayz directly in the face. That is the power of good storytelling in song in fiction and essay and memoir. We react, we feel. This is also remarkable because it is deeply personal. The scenes she touches upon also invite us to feel seen and understood. She is saying, here is my truth, heres my life, my love, here is my blackness, heres heres my history. Here are the women i share this world with and the women who will live beyond me. She said here is my heart, whats left of us. She said show me your heart too. Generally, when we discuss the freedom to write, we are discussing freedom in the context of riders throughout the world who are in peerless positions of risking their lives to write what they believed to be necessary and true. As important as those discussions are, today i want to talk to you about the freedom to write the personal, the freedom to expose your self and make yourself vulnerable. For the past year have been writing about hunger. Im writing the book i never thought i would or could write, the book i dont want to write but that i need to write. When i think of how i expose myself in this book, i feel an equal mix of dread and tear and i get frustrated because im bringing this on myself because im choosing to write this book. Im choosing to peel back my skin to reveal the bloodied truth of me. Ive been dragging my heels on turning the book into my publisher because of what this book says about me, because i cannot control how people will respond or how they will see me, but by the power of beyonce, i, i will overcome my fear. [applause] i will try to get this damn thing done. While i think of myself as a fiction writer, first and probably more wellknown for my essays in which i tried to talk about this world that we live in while also drying for my own life. Im always trying to justify writing for my own life because really who am i . I am, despite what you might assume, a very private person, and i make careful choices about what i share about myself. As i finish hunger, ive been thinking about how i really have no choices when it comes to writing about my body. I am a private person, but i have a a very public body. I take up a lot of space because i am both tall and fat. People see my body and they think they know things about me. They make assumptions and they share their unsolicited opinions on the state of my body, what i should do with my body, what i should or should not put into my body, by living and breathing in this world, i am a public text. This is the reality of living in my body. I am trapped in a cage. The frustrating thing about cages is that you are trapped but you can see exactly what you want and you can reach out but only so far. It would be easy to pretend i am just fine with my body as it is. I am a feminist after all and i believe in doing away with rigid beauty standards that force women to conform to and realistic ideals but i believe we should have broader definitions of beauty that include diverse body types. I believe my selfworth doesnt reside solely in my appearance and then i leave my apartment and i have to face the world, and any empathy ive managed to accumulate for myself is ripped out of my heart. Feeling comfortable in my body isnt about beauty standards. It is not about ideals. It is about how i feel in my skin and bones from one day to the next. It is about the in order amount of bull shipped ideal with with from friends and family and stranglers alike. Im not comfortable. Everything is difficult. When i move around i feel every extra pound i am caring. When i walk for long periods of time my thighs eight, my feet ache, my lower back aches. When its hot i sweat profusely, mostly from my head and i feel selfconscious and find myself constantly wiping slapped my face and i feel like people are staring at me sweating and judging me for having an excess body that prepares to perspire so wantonly. My body empowers people to erase my gender. Diameter woman but woman but they do not see me as a woman. I am often mistaken for a man and it bothers me because i am large, but i am a woman. We have narrow ideas about femininity. When you are tall and wide you are presented as not woman. Race plays a part in this. Black women were never allowed our femininity. We were not allowed to be at peace and a black body. So my black body is a cage. My body is a cage of my own making and a cage that this society has reinforced and im still trying to find my way out of it. I have been trying to find that way out for almost 30 years. Maybe i should tell you that my body has a story and history. When i was 12 years old, i was raped. In truth, i dont know how to talk about rape or Sexual Violence when it comes to my own story. Its easier to say, something terrible top happened. Its easier to use the detached clinical language than it is to come out and say i was 12 years old and i was gang raped by a boy i thought i loved, and by a group of his friends. At 41 years old i tell myself this happened, its in the past. Of course this is only partly true. The past is still with me. The past is written on my body. The pastor sometimes feels like it might kill me. There is a before and after to my life. In the after, i was broken and shattered and silenced. I was numb, i was terrified. I carried the secret and i knew in my soul that what those boys did to me had to stay secret. I couldnt share the shame and humiliation of it. I was disgusting because i had allowed Disgusting Things to be done. I was not a girl, i was less than human, i was no longer a good catholic and i was going to hell. I couldnt let my parents see who or what i had become because then they would be disgusted to and they would discard me like the trash i knew myself to be and i would not only be nothing, i would have no one. In the after i was hollowed out eared i was determined to fill that void. I ate and i ate and i ate in the hopes that if i made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl i had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her but she is still there somewhere. She is still small and scared and ashamed and perhaps, by writing hunger, i am writing am writing my way back to her to tell her that everything that she has needed to hear for the past 29 years. My body is wildly undisciplined and i deny myself almost everything i desire. I desire the right for space in public trying to fold in on myself to make myself invisible even though it is grandly visible. I deny myself the right to a shared armrest because how dare i impose. Ideas nine myself entry into spaces that ive deemed inappropriate for a body like mine, mostly spaces inhabited by other people. I deny myself bright colors in my Clothing Choices even though i have a farmor diverse wardrobe when i first started doing speaking engagement before there were so many pictures of myself online, i would show show up at an event and organizers would out one event, a man asked me if he could help me. I said im the latino speaker. His eyes widened and he stammered, i guess im the man you are looking for. He was neither the first person nor the last to have such a reaction. People dont expect the writer will be speaking at their event to look like me. They dont know how to hide their shock when they realize that a reasonably successful writer is this overweight. The reactions hurt for so many reasons. They illustrate how Little People think of fat people. How they assume we are neither smart no nor capable if we have such unruly bodies. They put me in the position of having to say yes, i am roxanne k, gay, i am so sorry to disappoint you. The way i talk about myself make some people uncomfortable. They say im fat phobic and self loathing. I am neither of these things but i live in a world where the open hate nessa fat people is welcome and encouraged. Im a product of my environment. Often times the people i make uncomfortable by admitting i dont love being fat are what i like to call lane brian fat. They can still buy sizes that offer close up to size 26, 28. They know some of the challenges but they dont know the challenges of being really fat or as doctors call it super morbidly obese. I also believe that part of fat acceptance is accepting that some of us struggle with body image and havent yet reached a place of peace and self acceptance. The thing is, i do not hate myself even though the world thinks i should. I dont think im ugly or unlovable. All Things Considered i have a reasonable amount of selfesteem around the right people i feel strong and powerful and sometimes even sexy. I hate how people treat and perceive me. I hate how i am extraordinarily visible but invisible. I hate not fitting in so many places where i want to be. I hate how the larger my body grew the smaller my world became. In writing about my body and telling you about my body today, i am sharing my truth. I understand if that truth is not something you want to hear, the truth makes me uncomfortable too. But, i am also saying, here is my heart, whats left of it. Here i am finally freeing myself to be vulnerable and terribly human. Here i am reveling in that freedom. Look at what it has allowed me to create. Think you. [applause] oh my goodness. Thank you, that was beautiful. Hi everyone everyone. We are going to talk for a little bit and then we are going to open it up to q a. All i will say so that roxanne doesnt have to say it is when you step up to the mic, you need to ask a question no speeches, i dont want to hear how she made you feel. We all know how she made you feel because we feel to. [laughter] why are you so mean . Because if you get there, you dont ask a question. This is the the lemonade area. Anything is liable to happen. I want to say thank you because your work is about freedom and it is an offering that frees other people. It does come at a cost. It comes at a tremendous work. I was thinking about moving from an untamed space too bad feminist, how could you make any more of an offering to readers and now to hunger which you just spoke so beautifully about. Have you worked to kind of deal with negotiating the vulnerability and how you are making this offering . Every time i white something i just tell myself, okay, no, no ones going to read this. [laughter] for a long time that delusion was perfect. Increasingly i can no longer lie to myself like that. I do try to lie to myself and just say, im doing this for me. I just try to have found trees about what i will and wont write about. I do allow myself to have examples when my work is criticized and be like that bit is wrong. [laughter] then to separate the valid criticism from feeling like i am being criticized as a human being. When you put yourself out there you are going to be criticized, not only for how you suppress yourself but for how you exist. I work hard on separating the two. You feel like a bit of an avatar like roxanne gays name is on the book and then roxanne gay standing in front of this librarian in your speech are people who come into your life . You feel like its a bit of a separation . One of the things i wrote about was dont put me on a pedestal. I was Crystal Clear about that. You literally set it. Correct. Some people ignore that. Im working against the way the media represents my work. I try to stay true to hear who am and say what theyre representing is not necessarily my work, which you have to read before you can critique. Thats a sub tweet, its happening in realtime. I read a review of hunger that i havent turned in. What are people doing . They could eat one paragraph from the publishers marketing copy. I just had to get that out there. You have to take what i say at face value because thats what im saying. You cant ascribe your own narrative back to me. I am struggling a little bit with i dont want to be put on the pedestal which is that i dont mind being someone people can look up to. I very much respect that. Its uncomfortable and weird because im me and i spend a lot of time watching hgtv so i just think like, theres a lot happening on hgtv. The Property Brothers who i thought were lovers. [laughter] well, you never know. I tweet about hgtv so much that someone from hgtv emailed me. I was like now im living the dream. I try to not be put on the pedestal but also acknowledge and respect the people who see something in my work. I dont want to disavow them or disrespect them because i value that. Beautiful. We are going to be evoking lemonade. Get used to it. If donald trump is in the audience, prepare yourself. I was thinking about lemonade in the way she willingly puts herself in the context of generation, both invoking the mother and the image of seeing her round here and Serena Williams and younger models and actresses coming up after her. Do you see yourself in a lineages of riders who have regarded their body as a text, like you said . Absolutely. Especially Toni Morrison in the way she has written the black womans body and ive definitely tried to honor through the work that she has done in my own work , i think that is a woman and a writer and a black writer and a black woman writer and a queer writer, i look at at the riders who have come before me and recognize it is my responsibility to carry that work forward and mentor were younger riders so they can carry it forward. One of the challenges when you are in underrepresented person is that certain gatekeepers believe there can be only one. There is a high lander mentality what i really respected, among other things in lemonade, especially when she brought her peers into the video. Some of the women she brought into the video are women who have been publicly shamed from their bodies. People say lets not cry for them because theyre rich, famous and or beautiful, but money doesnt buy you freedom from pain and ridicule and freedom and money has never bought a black person freedom from being a target. I think when you achieve success you recognize where that success comes from and its not just hard work. I also noticed from riders or artists i admire, some never never find an occasion to speak about other artists they admire. Not to name names but its interesting to Pay Attention to. If your creative world is only you, then youre not very creative, and also, from me i learn a lot from my peers. First of all all im reading because im like whats the competition up to. Im patty, its fine. She got another piece in the new yorker, seriously . Also, you want to be part of the conversation. If youre not part of the conversation you cant contribute to it. I always try to get an idea of other people who are writing. What a time to be alive. And we can just go there, when acclaimed straight white male pops over and offers their new offering to the canon, they are praised as being doing work, civilization rests upon their shoulders. Im not saying this is a rant. When a woman of any kind of real serious offering, the best compliment gatekeepers will give is that shes finally following in the footsteps of these great white men who we look to. Were always seen as following and not leading. Also what we do the thing that they do, oh, thats what youre supposed to do, for example when white men write about themselves people are like thats groundbreaking. Like mouthguard, who i pronounces name wrong, thats fine, if you want to read his book go ahead, but that a obsessive chronicling of ones own life, when a woman does it its self indulging and diarist deck but when he does it its literary genius. [applause] we have to continue pointing out that the rules are different. Women are in a frustrating position where will we write from our lives the only thing were allowed to be experts on is our own life. Were not allowed to learn about Rocket Science and right about that. If you pitch Something Like that, people people are like do you want to write about Rocket Science and menstruation . [laughter] so even when we try to play by the rules, we are still backed into these very problematic corners. One thing thats interesting, i think people are very eager to say that we are in a transformative moment in media and publishing on these literary communities and that can be about diversity or equity, im interested because youve been working and mentoring and teaching for a very long time but the moment you enter this National Stage parallel to whatever we call this. Do you think things have changed in a way that will matter five years from now . Not yet. We havent changed. I think were just talking about it. Its so ridiculous. Not a week goes by when i read a piece about the problem of diversity and publishing. To be fair to the writers, theyre all very good, im not challenging them but we all have to get that check. Its like why do we keep talking about the problem when we know the problem is there. At this point in time publishers have to step up and do something and stop waiting for us to point the finger at them and say get your crab together. Its very frustrating. Often times the black woman will write me and say my agent tried to put my essay collection out on submission and they were told we are ready have a roxanne gay. As long as i keep hearing that story that a black woman cant sell her essay collection because an essay collection by a black woman already exists, no, the problem is not being solved. Its just hugely inferior trading. Meanwhile we still get these ridiculous books that are so bad and i read so many of them and i just think, we need one more thriller about a woman in europe, really . We dont have too many of those . We have to continue to hold publishing feet to the fire. Its difficult. Whats also frustrating is that all the people who i know who work in publishing are great. I just dont know where the disconnect is. I think about hollywood a lot which seems like, you know theres so much more money that its intractable. Perhaps sports would be the only thing more difficult to change. Even in hollywood people seem smart enough to say it doesnt make sense to walk up to any actor, even an an alist actor and say how are we going to solve the gender pay gap in hollywood, how are we going to solve the lack of representation. At least know to go to directors or producers or these major executives. In publishing, people are still asking ashley ford, roxanne gay and others. If thats all we can do is write a few books. If you are going to design a better more effective panel, what would we do . I would not put a panel around diversity. We dont need to panel this. Its been done. What i want is for publishers, for the next year, hire only people of color, thats it. Pay them a living wage which is a whole other issue, but i think it starts with a specific hiring initiative. Just think, i know its against the law, but other than that. You can do targeted hires and i think they need to do targeted hiring. Theres not a Publishing House that i spent time in that ive seen more than one or two people of color. Its really weird, and i live in indiana. To be in new york city and see that whitewashing is always disconcerting. Its like watching and the city. The series or the movie . The series. That took place in magical new york. That was where people of color just dont exist. Oh my goodness. Im so done with the diversity question. I was like thats it, im never doing another panel on diversity again. Im done talking about race. Well, no, no, im more interested now in problem solving and making people feel bad. Now that ive received this invitation im more likely to recommend other riders why think have a lot to say or dont get that kind of exposure or could use the experience. I guess this is really paranoid of me but whats the sense that sometimes when you decide to speak up about feminism or Police Brutality or diversity, the subject matters that are not just topics arent just trends beget to the core of whoever we are. Sometimes sometimes it seems like people are trying to keep asking you to talk about it and repeat yourself until you are exhausted into silence. Am i crazy . No i think youre crazy. No. I dont know the why of that. I think they think, lets just wear her out. Sometimes you have have a kid and you want them to go to bed so you think lets go run around the block ten times. I think its that mentality. Maybe if we tire her out, she will give up. That sounds like a cockroach. Not going anywhere. Im not planning on it. I mean im going to go to my hotel later. I saw you this weekend strolling through the hotel with many, an army of handsome men. I was like what was happening and then i saw a guy and it was like the weekend. I thought for at least three days. [inaudible] thats an oxymoron. She is the new yorker that tweeted that like an hour ago. So that i peered i tweeted that out in the middle of the week. She just won a pulitzer. I was so happy when i saw that. For tv criticism to be taken seriously and popculture criticism to be taking seriously, its a watershed moment. Lets talk about it. Your willingness to be yourself when so often were told thats not how youre supposed to be if you want to be a successful writer. You were doing this work and youre also doing it while writing about the bachelorette or the bachelor or outlander. Can you talk about what its like to be in the space thats a little easier and more fun . Its a little easier because i get to do more of what i want to do without having to justify. Ive always been interested in making criticism successful. I remember reading and thinking this is agony. It was just agony. I also recognize the brilliance of what they were saying, the merit merit. I just thought nobodys going to read this but me and 50 other people. We need to do something about that. Im also interested in pop culture because it touches almost everyones lives. It exists on us spectrum, its not like it exists on a silo on its own. I think that if we can change popculture, we could trickle up instead of trickling down. That doesnt work. Will he change the culture, more people look and see, okay, okay, theres diversity happening on television and we can be more accepting in our daytoday lives. Then politicians can see my constituents are fine with whatever diversity issue of the day. It just keeps moving upward. I think popculture, in a way is ground zero. Your criticism has done so much for this is such a subtle thing but when people feel the need to confess their guilty pleasure, you have willingly embraced it. She is so amazing. I love her. Her hair so shiny and her Perfect Little bod and she wears the same shirt every day but its a different color and she gets some custom made and she wont tell anyone where their custom made. Its on her website. The faq on her website is amazing. I like being comfortable admitting what i love and its okay to be excited about my husband channing or, oh his neck, let mice my teeth into that. We just exchanged phone numbers five minutes go. The best advice i ever got was when i was on the job market after i finish my ph d and my friend was like just be yourself. You dont want to pretend to be the person you were on the interview for the next 20 years because that could do me and if the job was forever. So i took that advice to heart as well because i was also, thats when i really started to write criticism seriously. I was just going to try to be myself. I had not been myself and i had just hidden myself from myself and from everyone. I was always paying playing a role. It was just exhausting. You just get to a point in your life where you just want to be me. I think you can be intelligent and also have these interest that some people would call lowbrow but i call awesome. We are about to take questions and answers. I have one more question for you. I know you are still working on hungry and take your time. The only person im rushing around is frank ocean. Everybody else can take as much time as you need with your art. He needs to hurry the hell up. Im writing a memoir too and it is a transformative intensely educational experience just writing it, before you can share with anyone. Is there something you have learned while working on this . Absolutely, ive learned how miserable ive been. If i could just put it on the page and be honest, i think it was the book that forced me to be honest with myself. It forced me to say roxanne, get it together. Its time to change. I dont know what that change is going to look like but i need to go into my past and excavate what was there. How did i get to this place with this body . I knew, but i didnt know. I didnt really look at it. This book has has forced me to look at it. Its the hardest thing ive ever had to write, but i also think its the best thing ive ever written. I didnt think i could top my novel. I actually dont have a lot of, this is great, what i write, but this book, its a, its a short book but its a good book. It says what i need to say. Its memoir. Its interesting. To turn the lens on yourself that much, i think this is the only memoir ill ever write. Its been extremely interesting. Im almost done. We can wait. If youre excited about this. [applause] okay, the moment of truth. Questions, we have have two microphones right here. We can see you now. We were talking a lot about being yourself and embracing yourself and being who you are. As a gay man, ive always asked struggled with that especially living in abu dhabi because there werent any other out queer people at my school. Im interested in a lot of things that are very typical for a gay person print i want to be a Fashion Designer and i like lady gaga. Its like the issue of the singlestory. I want to embrace myself but i dont want people to think of a gay person and only think of these stereotypes. I was wondering if you could shed some light on how. People are always going to think what you have to think. You can put up and go hunting and watch football all day and there are people who will still have narrow and stereotypical ideas about you. You are asking the wrong question. The question is how can you become more questionable with yourself. Its not other people, its you. Thank you. So now with the increasing policing of the body and the policing of the mind and your Statement Like are you being rational or are you being paranoid when a person of color expresses this feel of bodily harm. What you think can be done as someone who has read Something Like bad feminists to present ourselves from expressing ourselves for for the fear of harm to our body which cant be expressed within this rational framework. Again, we are not the problem. The the problem is the people who want to do harm onto brown and black and other, unruly bodies. They want need to see us as human. Theres nothing we can do to further establish our humanity beyond existing. They are the ones who have to adjust their rational framework. People of color are always saying what can we do. We cant do crab. Were fine. [laughter] so Kim Kardashian posted a nude selfie on her instagram. Is this body positivity or does it just promote the fake ideal body that isnt realistic for a number of people. I think its neither. I think its a marketing ploy. She was wearing nothing. Kim kardashian is one of those people who became famous for doing nothing except being very enterprising and making a sex tape. I actually like her. I think shes interesting and intelligent and i think kris jenner is really the mastermind behind all this, but all the kardashians, kim has really become attached. I dont know if shes promoting body positivity. I think shes promoting herself. She loves promoting herself. On the night that lemonade was released, she released all these provocative images. It was really just tragic. I was like just go. Its not your night, is not your month. Honestly, i dont know why anyone left their house. I havent even listen to that album yet. It was too soon. I think kim loves her body and she does promote body positivity but i dont think should does it because she cares about body positivity. I think she cares about making more money for the Kim Kardashian brand. Thank you. Youre welcome. Nice tshirt. Thank you. So i am the very early stages of my writing career and i kind of feel crazy, i feel delusional and im obsessed with origins stories right now. I want to know if there is anything absurd that you did early in your career, anybody who helped you to get where you are today. If you could say a name or Something Like that. Yes, i can give give you name, roxanne gay. I think along the way as a writer you have people who help you, but i wrote. The only thing thing you can do to help yourself is to write and put words on a page and be relentless in sending that work out into the world. I was rejected for years and years and i was like its the system. I was also still writing and just becoming better. Better as a writer and a thinker a teacher saw something in these stories that i would put in front of him and many thought i needed therapy so he took me to the counseling center, but he also encouraged me to be a writer and writer and he told me to write every day. At the time i was like he just gave me this most sacred piece of writing advice. Especially now i understand, every writer shares this advice. I have another mentor, her name is tre jones heard she is a beautiful writer and she taught me how to move through the world is a black woman writer to make sure im taking care of other black women riders, but the only person you need is you and then you also need some luck. Dont be discouraged, dont think youre crazy. You will be fine. You just have to know that when you get rejected, have a have a little cry about it, i do and then say where my sending this work next. Thank you. Youre welcome. These are great questions. Yes they are. Did people take them on their phones and have little notes . First welcome and no speeches, but i want to say thank you for giving hispanics a voice. Thank you for that. Im sorry, im very nervous. Its all good. You have a great necklace. Thank you. I really want to ask, can i give you a hug but i digress. I really just want to know where did you find your strength to write your first book to say i have a voice and its important and i can put it down on paper . Thats a great question. I think i just knew i had something to say that i had stayed silent for so long that i could stay silent no longer, and i just decided, you know what, this is who you are and its easier to be who you are then to be who you have pretended to be. I just dug deep i write and i wrote because i love it. I didnt think about anything happening with the writing. and are now my number one fans which is a freebie but also so charming so i would also say my family has given me the strength, just to know that i have them behind me. I am not alone in what i put out into the world. Thank you. C you are welcome. [applause] my question is about publishing and im new to this conversation so bear with me. You were talking about solutions to diversity and publishing. Is one of the solutions, i know that the tape Publishing Houses are on the rise as the market changes of people having Publishing Houses out of their homes and things, is that part of the solution and would you do that . No and no. I run a small press. I think its wonderful and i think its a great way to get books that might not find purchase elsewhere into the world but lets big publishing off the hook. That shifts the responsibility and i think for some people its a useful route but if you want your book to sell, i mean its so hard. Its so hard. Every week i would say probably hundreds of books are released on a weekly basis and theres a very small amount of space for those books to get attention and thats among the big five. For you to be a marginalized person and then to go to a marginalized subset of the Publishing Industry and think that is going to create change, i dont know that it is. I think we can point to an Eventual Success stories that abuse that model to achieve success but we are still talking about the inception. So i think its an alternative and one that needs to become more robust and more respected but ive dont think we should let big publishing off the hook. [applause] thank you. I guess my question is a little bit more technical in the bureaucracy of it all. I have encountered personally, it seems as though imposter syndrome and there is obviously a gender pay gap three times now for my last three jobs. So i guess my question is, how do i get the confidence beyond . I know what the problem is that the imposters and jim seems to come up every time. I had in the fight and i find a mentor ships but then it drops off and i dont know. Again you are asking how do i fix the problem that you are not the problem. There is nothing you can do other than believe in yourself. Imposter syndrome everyone suffers from it. Lord knows i do and you have to remind yourself and surround you with people who are going to reinforce that that you are valuable and what you have to say matters. You know in terms of the pay gap its infuriating. When i found out what one of my colleagues was making i just hit the roof because i thought it was a great negotiator and i was so proud of myself and im making 10,000 less than someone i out published on a daily basis, seriously . Academia matters, not in the real world. So the thing is there is unfortunately consequences for us when we try to advocate for april equal pay. Of course the numbers change depending on your ethnicity. You know their consequences and a lot of us cannot afford to not have a job and he cant afford to rock the boat so you have to, its a tough balance to citing how much you want to rock the boat. How much are you willing to rock the boat and before you rock the boat nature that you have an anchor of some kind and some savings and then go to your boss and say this is not acceptable. Again you are just in the horrible position and theres no convenient answer it and give you. This is why feminism matters and this is why we have to think very carefully about who we are going to elect in the fall. [applause] because when we have the right leaders and im not even talking about the presidency because on the democratic side either candidate is going to make things better or at least maintain the excellence of what our current president has done. [applause] but you need to vote in your local election and you need to vote in your state election because your congresspeople and your senators and your representatives, these are the people who are continuing to not pass equal pay amendments. [applause] even though its not as convenient or easy answer to start with building yourself a safety net, surrounding yourself with a support network and voting and being politically active. Thanks. You are welcome. [applause] hello. I just direct at my first feature last summer and it took so much out of me just because it was a lot of work and apparently editing or whatever but im dealing with postdepression and im just curious how do you move forward after that, after friendships have changed and money. Nothing is the same. Thats a great question. Post project depression is real. Saeed. C its real, devastating. I allow myself to be depressed and just wallow but then i start to think what would i have been working on if i wasnt doing this thing that consumed my life and for me its often fiction because nonfiction is really more demanding of the genre in which i write and so i allow myself to do what i want to do even if i dont, even if its not a project that i have sold or if its a project at all. I allow myself to do whatever and i will admit i am a knitter. At the knitting the same blanket for about 15 years now but its relaxing relaxing just to knit row after row into this neverending blanket. And so i just do that and i also try to reconnect with people in my life. I do tend to go into a column. I have actually been on the road for two years now and its pathetic what its done to my personal life. Thank god im in a longterm relationship. Its the only way we have survived it that im never home. So one of the things im looking for when i get time off in 2019 is reconnecting with my life and doing something that has nothing to do with writing. So do Something Different for while. Yeah. Thank you. Hi. This is a bit of a silly question but i follow you on twitter and ive seen some very angry, insecure people reacting to you and as a fan to ring it back im someone who feels like they are in the [applause] amen. I bow my head and put a hex on each one of them. [applause] how do you sort of a miser. You work when to stop engaging people when there are so many horrible people. How would you like us to express ourselves . [laughter] thats a really good question. I dont think im ever going to stop engaging but what it does get to be bad youll notice that i dont tweet for three or four days and thats why because is so toxic. No matter what i feel like its nice out today and someone will be like you are going to die tomorrow. Its crazy. You know, just be cool. Engage like a normal person because i am a normal person. You dont have to engage with these crazy people because nothing say for healthy is down that road. So many people on line are just fundamentally unwell and just sitting in their mothers basement covered in cheeto dust. [laughter] but i think be supportive. Well, they are. Be supportive and even though it sounds oftentimes when im being attacked people will say i love your writing. I know this is so immature and shallow but those tweets really do pick me up. They remind me that okay maybe im not the worst writer in the world after this man just told me that im the worst writer in the world. People think they dont matter but they do. I do see them and they do matter so be cool and be supportive and say hi. Nice dress. I did think of you when i was picking this out. [applause] jai also had a question about twitter. Theres one thing id love more than both of your work and its your twitter accounts and im just wondering what he thinks social media gives u. S. Writers and people engaging with culture , positive or negative . How do you engage with it . Rustin lives in middle american i joined twitter when i moved here. Twitter gave me in conversation that i could access. You know new york is frigid and a bit terrifying if you are an emerging writer or anyone looking to step in the conversation. Twitter struck me as very warm and kerry jones was a mentor of mine. She was on twitter when i joined so connecting to writers and artists all over the country in the world actually and thats an ongoing conversation. At its best at dinner party. Thats just always going on in some other room and if people are really just kick the mark on out. Thats the good stuff. Thats the good part. Thats the good part for me too that i live in the middle of american i have for the past 12 years. Have for most of my life. I am also shy and a loner but on twitter i can feel connected to other people and i can be the sassiest version of myself. It is me. A lot of people say you are exactly the same on line as you are in person than i say gatto because i dont have the energy to fake it. Sorry, im not mature. [laughter] so i just like the sense of community and connectedness and i i love when an awards show is on and everyone is leaving their thoughts like that hideous dress in that horrible speech. We can all watch together and collectively say what are these people talking about . This kitchen is tiny when you want a house of 100 feet. Your kitchen doesnt exist so i love that. The bad part is just you open yourself up to not criticism. I think criticism is important and the criticism that ive received i get upset about it at first, i do and a rant about its my friends. But its just a demeaning stuff, the cruel stuff and sometimes my girlfriend is like you need to stop engaging. I have her own now, well she gave it to me. She is the boss. When i tweet shoes like stopped talking to that guy. Stop trying to control me. Its interesting, so many questions that we have heard tonight have been centered and i feel this way, i feel delusional and that my crazy . Twitters such a wonderful way to challenge that because you can find yourself connecting in very unexpected and genuine ways. People are like i notice that too. But its hard because i think i have 24 to her followers that are in the forefront of my mind. Its literally thousands of people. I still think i have 100 twitter followers and some people say you have 112,000 followers. My parents follow me on twitter, i know mmr is the guys stop following me on twitter, its private. [laughter] thank you. Hi. Question is someone who writes a personal essay and memoir and everything ago through writing at how do you take care of herself while you are doing the work . This will be our last question. Thank you. Im not good at selfcare. I know its all the rage should talk about selfcare right now. The truth is im still figuring it out but i kept my made sure that i respect the boundaries that i have set for myself in terms of what i will and will not disclose in my work. Im so far past deadline its mortifying in ways that i cant even explain that ive allowed myself that time the clearly im dragging my heals because im not ready but then and i was like yes im on probation. So im also i will say and its not sure for everyone, and found in a position in my career where i can give myself some of the time that they need to put certain things out into the world. So im just trying to be patient with myself and recognize ive been doing a lot of work and ive had two books out in a year and forever for whatever reason i have a book this year and a book next year. Im just allowing myself to remember publishing and writing are two different things, and that im a writer first and an author second and the sometimes i can just step away from it all and this part im not good at yet but im going to get there. I can go on vacation. Im just doing what makes me feel good and i watch a lot of cable. Thats my happy place. I love cable. I love the range of channels, i love lifetime and id love the food network or they think the people running food network are so brilliant. They have a competition show and then they have a redemption competition show so its the same thing even though was the same cooks coming back. I just love it and its this neverending cook. You were hanging upside down and there is a shark biting you. Cutthroat kitchen which is on tonight, just groundbreaking television. So i really allow myself, and they dont feel guilty about it. Im going to watch the lifetime movie ive seen 17 times, and going to watch it again. What about you saeed . Everything she says. I try to embrace the time it takes. The moment i find a contract i feel terrified or want to finish the book as soon as possible but the body knows what the my nos and i have found that this past summer when i was on leave, i take up work when i can to work on it. When i try to rush i couldnt remember. I literally wouldnt be able to remember what came next in the memoir or i would misremember or would be a fragment so they next chapter would make sense. The home and they gave myself a couple of days and went for walker went swimming or something away from the desk it would come back and it would come back or clearly and i would be so grateful that i had just plowed ahead. So you know thats important and the one thing we are learning when you take a book out a lot of wonderful things happen. This is very wonderful but its also very intense and a very public experience. I appreciate the time i have to feel everything i need to feel on my own or with my editor or with my Close Friends so as best i can be, you want to be ready when you are out there. The worst thing to happen would be to rush through writing a memoir. When you walk through that door is not your book anymore. The lungs to the readers and this is your life you are talking about so take your time. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] one more round of applause. [applause] i love you. [applause] spin thank you roxanne, thank you saeed so much. Just to let you know they will both signed books in the lobby. Before you go without all the interns and volunteers this could not have happened. We could have made this works of thank you so much and the entire team, the hardworking American Team and the media, the family. The festivals general manager, please come on stage. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause] is hard to know how to live in a country that regularly tears itself apart along every possible ethnic and demographic boundary. The income gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Many people live in racially segregated communities that the elderly are closely sequestered from public life and rampage shootings happens so regularly that they only remain in the news cycle for a day or two. To make matters worse politicians occasionally accuse rivals of deliberately trying to harm their own country, charge so destructive most would probably have punished it as a form of treason. Its complete madness and the veterans know this dating combat soldiers all but ignore their differences of race religion and politics within their platoon. Its no wonder many of them get so depressed when i come home. Nextwave is that moons rare books and see Brigham Youngs copy of the book of mormon as was original copy of Thomas Paynes common sense. Ive been collecting rare books for the past 30 years. I decided to relocate to provo after selling my bookshop in dallas which also sold new books and the past 10 to 15 years bookstores sold new books have really suffered with the advent of ebooks and everything Going Digital but what i found is the interest in rare books has increased. My shop right now there are about a thousand books but in my inventory there are about 5000 books that i rotate looks through here and they specialize in four different areas. I specialize in rare bibles, bible from the past 500 years. Being in utahs specialize in early mormon books, classics in literature and Early American History. One of the items i enjoy collecting our bibles or really just text that belong to wellknown historical figures and being from utah one of the more popular items that id like to show people is Brigham Youngs copy of the book of mormon. Its housed in a nice protective clamshell, but this is according to Family Tradition this is the copy of the book of mormon that was on Brigham Youngs nightstand when he died in 1877 and if you opened up to the title page you can see Brigham Youngs signature. Another one of my, i enjoy Early American History and this is really one of the most important books printed in america pre1800 and its original copy of Thomas Paines common sense which was printed in philadelphia. The printer was robert l. It was on third street in philadelphia and if you go there today you will see a brass plaque saying here is where common sense was printed january 9, 1776. Now theres a little pamphlet. It is sewn together and is quite rare and it was printed three times in january of 1776. It has an interesting story because thomas aint went to robert l. And wanted to have this printed and he wanted the proceeds to buy at the soldiers mittens. After went through printing they had a falling out and so thomas paine allowed anybody to print. He lowered the price and said anybody could print and thats one reason the book is so wellknown and to this day has the designation of having the highest saturation of any book printed in america. My favorite find in the past year is a bible that the long to the man who wrote lord of the rings so i have j. R. R. Tolkiens copy of the bible and i had a nice protective case made for it but he had a very simple bible. It was printed in 1947 and this was in the middle of writing order the rings he was writing lord of the rings from 1937 to 1954 and you can see a beautiful wellknown recognizable signature in the front but what most interests me about this book is the fact that he annotated this book and made comments in the margin and here on the last page of john you can see his may king comments, comparing it to seven different versions of the bible. He is saying this is a better translation of the original greek and so j. R. R. Tolkien hoff dybul, the one he had while he was writing lord of the rings, just a thousand books in here are worth over 10 million. Actually there are few books worth over 1 million apiece although i have veaux as low as 100 but that is kind of the starting level of the books that i have. What i enjoy so much about the rare books, its the hunt. Its the treasure hunt. Its finding them and also realizing these older books are different. They have a different feel in a different look and often a different story often depending on who owned the books. Thats an added story within a story. This is the Perfect Place to keep these books because its fireproof, its humidity controlled and there is no uv light. This little book has a big story but if you are looking at it youll see that its in latin and this is something that could be overlooked unless you understand what the symbol lists. This little book has a great story but you have to know history. You have to understand the history of this time period to understand who owned this book so you almost have to do detective work. Now, you look at this and when you see this you see a crown so that makes you think royalty. Okay, well now you see the fleurdelis so you say thats french royalty but why do you see the two sides . This is because this person was married so this would be the queens copy. The king at the time was louis the 16th. This is the seal of Marie Antoinette and its in latin and you may not recognize the book and you may overlook that that if you know what Marie Antoinettes seal looked like he would be able to identify. There are a few of her books that have survived in private hands because when she was executed her libraries were absorbed into the French National library. This would have been a book that she carried with her and she would have had more more than one. This is something each year or so they were given new copies. Thats why she could have given us copy away and thats why its currently not in the French National library. And finally another fun book i have a Shakespeare Book that is quite rare. Shakespeare died in 1616 and 1623 his complete works were completely printed and began in 1632 and 1664 in 1685. Only about 250 of these copies have survived so there is maybe a thousand copies in the world. Of those thousand the vast majority, over 90 but i have a portfolio 1685. Even before you open the book you know that book has a story to tell. Its a stunning binding with working class. But its the complete works of shakespeare done in 1685 and i have it open to romeo and juliette. I will continue to collect books for the rest of my life. I have had people ask me,