A room of her own

 It's December 1st as I write this - to be posted on December 4th for 

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!

Warning : I will be writing about the responsibility of a writer during trying times. And by trying I mean when every woman, refugee, LGBTQIA2S, BIPOC, thinker, reader, and child's freedoms and rights are in peril. If this is not your cup of tea - then head to one of the other bloggers. No hard feelings. 

I have been dealing with an accelerated level of stress of late. My best friend since 1976 is in the hospital. She is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and will not be coming home again. This is not a new thing in my life but no matter that they call it the long goodbye - every part of it is torturous. I have another very close friend who is in physical peril (not my story to share). I have been spending time with each of them and trying to work with my grief around it all. Under that pain is the fear and grief that arose after the election down south. The casual regard people seem to hold for freedom, for democracy, is truly horrendous. Do not think this is a Canadian academically regarding another country's folly. It is the folly gaining ascendency in the world right now. Canada is poised to elect our own mobster soon. 

So what is my role as a writer in any of this? First of all - I think it is to not be flattened, to continue to be a witness to what is really occurring and not give up in hopelessness. The journalists will be and are being shut up now. If the regime follows the usual procedure, which was laid out for all by the sock puppet himself, then after the press will come the quashing of the intelligentsia. Education will suffer. Books are and will continue to be burned. Populations will be fed what the mobsters think if good for us (ie - good for them) to consume. And so I think as someone who uses words it is important to keep writing what I witness and what I think and feel about it.  

Secondly - writing is how I find out what I'm thinking and feeling. It is how I make sense of the world the best I can. I write to heal as well. I write to show others how they might consider what is happening. Yes, I write fiction, plays and poetry - but that is what they are made of. And more and more I'm turning to other forms of writing - this kind right here - the small personal essay. I write weekly on Substack - my newsletter is called Dispatches and in it I write about the personal and political - which are one taste to me. 

I've heard some 'content providers' - bloggers, substackers, youtube channel folk - say that they don't write about what is happening because they want their space (which might be about making miniature houses, crocheting tea cosies, writing poetry, learning how to salsa and so on) to be a safe place, free from contention. That's a choice people have to make for themselves, but if I go to my regular places - food writers or artists or makers - and they have failed to make even one statement about what has happened - even if it is just "I'm worried" or "I'm gutted" or whatever, then I'm quietly closing down my subscription or stopping my status as 'follower' because I do not feel 'safe' with people who fiddle while Rome burns. I feel like that is madness. 

My published novel The Crooked Knife was born of rage and frustration with our government and its implication in the environmental disaster in Labrador, and the continued discounting of our First Nation's peoples. My second one in the same series is about the rise of human trafficking, and the co-opting of the police force to support corporate interests over citizens. I use the medium of the mystery novel because it is an effective one to showcase the sort of issues that consume my interest. They aren't heavily didactic but they do involve real current ethics or lack of. I think I write with a good measure of equanimity and humour but they aren't books for people who want to cocoon in their own safe nests. 

Elie Wiesel

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented"

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people"

Benjamin Franklin

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are".