My true belief is that a good writer can become whoever he or she wants to be.  No matter you are a gay white male from Poughkeepsie.  If you are worth your kosher salt, you can become an indigenous 12 year old girl from the inner Brazilian rain forest.  Somehow, you've done your research, gone into the trance that is writing, and pulled from that great mind of creativity.  There she is, in her perfection, this character we can all believe in.

I don't like the criticism that an African American woman can't write a white man or a white man can't write an African American woman.  that a straight white woman can't write a gay Latino man.  We start from the place of humanness, open our net, and write.

Now, some people just can't write.  Some people don't open that net.  some people stay in the place they are--holding fast and firm to their cultures and beliefs--and don't move enough to be able to write away from themselves.  It's not that this can't be done.  These folks just can't do it.

Give the same assignment to a skilled writer (be a four-year-old boy, now) and the writer can open, sink, and provide.

I'm having a light, happy summer festival of reading.  Actually, I was having that festival until my four classes started this week.  The music has stopped, and they are taking down the tents as I speak.  However, back a few days ago, I was plowing through Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels.

Granted, I am not from Botswana.  I am not a a Zimbabwe born Scottish man trying to channel a thirty-five year old Botswana woman.  I have never been to any part of Africa.  Actually, I am afraid of Africa (mostly because of snakes, scorpions, and diseases caught from various insects, not to mention bloody political coups and relentless drought and famine.).  But when I am reading these novels, I do not see or hear or feel the white male writer but the characters he's creating.  I am sure someone will take him to task for something, but in the world he's creating in the books, I'm there in the story with the main characters, feeling, I think, what they wold feel in the situations as they occur.

This is the miracle of writing, I think.  this ability to bring readers along into an imaginary, real world. 

As a reader, my promise to the writers of the books I pick up is that I will let you try to go anywhere.  I will let you become whoever you want to become.  Yes, I will make sure you are doing it, but once you show me the way, the clear, true way, I will follow.

Jessica