Grateful

Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. A quick Skype phone call home on the big day to listen to the familiar cheer of my family setting out to eat and then walk, or nap off, my favorite meal of the year.

The cliche pops up before I can stop it: There are no words to describe....  how it feels to long for home.

Is there something you long for that seems to be out of reach sometimes?

This has been a year of learning curves, so I am grateful for you. Grateful for needs met, for the power of and energy of common causes like #girleffect. Grateful for the chance to explore and ask questions, define and redefine, for conversations and simple pleasures.

Love,
Rose

Voice lessons from a hybrid ambassador

HYBRID AMBASSADORS: a blog-ring project of Dialogue2010
You met our multinational cultural innovators this spring in a roundtable discussion of hybrid life at expat+HAREM. Now in these interconnected blog posts they share reactions to a recent polarizing book promotion at SheWrites. Join the discussion on Twitter using #HybridAmbassadors or #Dialogue2010

Every day, from my Twitter stream to my blog reader, there’s a controversial topic that captures my attention. Poised on the edge of typing in a heated response or writing a blog post in reaction, my surety wavers. I’m at a precipice, knowing that if I chose to go further, I commit publicly to an idea or a belief that is part of a larger mosaic of my online identity.

I acknowledge that my words could leave a trail of anger and resentment or a digital footprint of critical thinking, empathy, and support.

Can I admit that sometimes I don't know when to jump in or when to watch from the sidelines? That insecurity surfaces when I feel my voice isn't loud enough? Or would be silenced before it is given a chance to be heard?

Case in point a Countdown to Publication post on SheWrites by author Lori L. Tharps. The platform gives Lori, and other selected writers, an audience of 10,000 plus women with whom to share their progress marketing and publishing their books. In Wanted: White Ambassadors to Help Me Cross Over, Lori appeals to white women to promote her book because of the publishing industry's failure to market their writers of color to white audiences. Segregated bookshelves are a reality. SheWrites Advisory Board member and author Tayari Jones writes about 'The Colored Section' in a guest post on Maud Newton, part of a reader-led discussion.

The problem was the how, not why, though there are so many resources for authors promoting their work through platform building that I was surprised by the entreaty. Like this on artistic revolution, this on writers of the future, and this on interactions being personal, not business. Not surprising is that people read Lori's post and reacted personally. 

When some people spoke up about the awkward, jocular tone of the post, their reaction was interpreted as being an attempt to humiliate the author, an unwillingness to support her, and a reluctance to engage in a discussion on race. Others pointed out they wanted to help Lori, but were critical of her casual conclusion that 'if you're white and you like these authors, you might like my book, and if you do, your other white friends might like it, too.' Those critics were seen as infringing on Lori's right to free speech. Only those who heartily agreed to tell their white friends about the book were applauded. Anyone who brought up alternative ways to spread the word about her work was called a 'detractor' and told to keep their thoughts to themselves. The comment section was rife with disquiet. 

Featured homepage content, like Countdown to Publication, is considered proprietary to SheWrites. "White Ambassadors" is on its Facebook Wall and was included in its newsletter. Lori's post is endorsed by SheWrites at the same time that their second credo is "community has the power to nurture and sustain creativity."

What if what is perceived as a negative comment is actually a call to action by people who want to support you? Why the slap on the wrist by other commenters to the people who wanted to bring in a perspective they felt was missing from the post?

***

Lori L. Tharps's forthcoming novel Substitute Me is about two women with lives that are in contrast - in other words, rich/poor, black/white, though it's claimed neither to be a 'black' or 'white' story, but a story about women. She describes it as a tale of "modern-day motherhood" that "all women can relate to." 

There's no way all mothers everywhere get along and have the same ideas of motherhood. And if the book's about womanhood, why the outdated idea that women and babies always go together in the same sentence? For a writer who's steeped in the nuances of being outside the dominant majority, has traveled the world, married a Spaniard, is raising biracial kids, wrote the acclaimed Kinky Gazpacho and co-authored Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, the generalizations about who her readers might be are surprising. As Chimamanda Adichie says, the problem with stereotypes is not that they aren't true, but that they are "half the story," and the single story "emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we are similar."

I didn't comment. Fear of being lambasted by other SheWrites members stopped me. One contrarian was called "uncivil" for objecting to the breezy, cheeky feel of the post. It could have been an enlightening dialogue on publishing and 'culture collide,' like on Lori's interesting and contemplative blog, but instead it was on upholding polarity as a life and work model.  The publishing industry has changed and it means more authors can take matters into their own hands instead of relying on traditional publishing models. Being resigned to "the way things are" is a sign of not believing in your own power.  If you want word of mouth promotion, you need your readers to love your voice and not feel alienated by it.

Hybrids know what it is like to not fit in anywhere, or to have a delicate sense of fitting in at any one time.

Maybe that's why the White Ambassadors post stings so much - it makes the worn out conjecture that everyone subscribes to a binary way of life. It is a bleak reminder that assumption about inclusion in a group based on the color of one's skin is still the elephant in the room. 

At the Women and Work conference held in March in Turin, Italy, on the anniversary of the first women's conference in 1910, I joined more than twenty women bloggers from emerging nations to talk about ways to bridge our differences through social media. Rather than deepen divisions, we mapped new territory with excitement and first-hand experience that unifying can lead to change and growth. Which is why I'm speaking up. This is in my own neighborhood, after all. I'm using my voice to draw attention to what I think was a missed opportunity to garner wide-ranging perspectives and to forge one's own path instead of doing the expected. 

I'm sorry, Lori, I didn't do what you asked. I went out and told all of my friends about your book. 

More thoughts on this subject from fellow HYBRID AMBASSADORS:
Catherine Yiğit's Special-ism
Anastasia Ashman's Great White People Book Club
Sezin Koehler's Whites Only?
Tara Lutman Ağaçayak's Circles
Catherine Bayar's Thicker Skin
Judith van Praag's We Write History Today
Elmira Bayraslı's The Color of Writing
Jocelyn Eikenburg's The Problem with "Chinese Food"

In Stereo: Dialogue2010 Live

Post Update:

Dialogue2010: The inaugural Art is Dialogue conversation between 9 cultural innovators on art, culture, and hybrid identity on February 28, 2010 facilitated by me and hosted by expat+HAREM is now live!

Inspired by my post on "Mapping the Imagination" at expat+HAREM, our conversation created a living definition of hybrid identity and how one's worldview literally shifts as a result of location.

Listen to the podcast here.
Read the complete transcript here.

Join in with your own comments and thoughts using Twitter hashtag #dialogue2010 or on expat+HAREM. 

Last night I jumped three times over a fire smoldering on the sidewalk, buried a hastily scrawled wish into the ground by a single pink rose in the garden, and squeezed myself into the blue plastic seat of a swing set to celebrate the Turkish festival of Hıdrellez on May 5. Tara reminded me of it in her post on wishes, and after my husband told me the neighbor ladies were inviting me to participate in this annual ritual, I couldn't resist leaving the house at midnight to honor the meeting of Hızır and Ilyas on earth along with two late-middle aged neighbors and two reluctant teen girls. Were there traditions like this in America, they asked me? The air was chilly and it was thrilling to think four women under the moon had the power to invoke their dreams to make them real.

This week I launched my first podcast and Love, Rose is now available for download in a reader or iTunes! Stay tuned for unabashedly explorative podcasts on the intersection of art and domesticity, excerpts of short fiction, and conversations held as part of Art is Dialogue, including Dialogue2010 hosted by expat+HAREM in late February. I hope you'll listen along!

Verbal footprints

Home prints / photo by Rose Deniz

Sezin described us as 'intimate strangers,' Anastasia a 'carillon,' each person's comments creating a verbal percussion. The nine women who gathered on Sunday to participate in Dialogue2010 astounded me with their clarity of vision, their engagement with creativity, their willingness to bend and flex through identity and language challenges, and their alignment with their core. A year or two ago, I created my vision statement, or what Gwen Bell would describe as a 'personal manifesto,' and these three words have shaped the work I've done since: manifest creative potential. In starting Art is Dialogue and moderating this discussion, I felt that come to life. I felt synchronicty with people I've yet to meet in real life, bonded through a willingness to live a meaningful life at the crossroads. 

How do you manifest your creative potential?

The blog responses to the dialogue have left me speechless. I invite you to dip into the syncopated words of the women who made it happen. As more posts and feedback become available, I'll post updates.

Being grounded is overrated -- Furthering the Worldwide Cultural Conversation

What determines your present orbit, and how does it change your self-view?

Conversational Crossroads -- Love, Rose

Mapping my hybrid life on a personal, passion level involves drawings, notations, and novel writing.

What is a Turquoise Poppy? -- Tara Lutman Agacayak

Turquoise Poppy is about allowing your circumstances to guide your path while staying true to your inner compass.
Fear of Flying -- Sezin.org

My fear of flying signals my time to stay put, my time to understand how it feels to have wings while remaining grounded.
Path finder -- Love, Rose
What language do you use to describe your trajectory?
Ring my bell -- Furthering the Worldwide Cultural Conversation
What comes first, the hybrid self or the hybrid life? Are our most resonant peers made or born?
Talking Point -- Skaian Gates
I found myself asking through the day were we sharing our hybrid lives because of our creativity or because of our experience of being expats.
A Thousand Ways -- Tales from Turkey
I've connected with 9 women with crazy, joyful, challenging hybrid lives so like my own. Lives that seem to hinge on one particular characteristic we all share - creativity.
Intimate Strangers -- Sezin.org
Dialogue 2010 was a meeting of kindreds, as women, as hybrids, as artists, as dreamers, believers.
Mapping My Worldview -- Skaian Gates
Two snapshots placed side-by-side to show how my worldview has changed.
What an Expat Leaves Behind - Judith van Praag
The expat hybrid lifestyle forms an audible cloud

Podcast availability will be made public this spring. In the meantime, join the discussion on Twitter using #dialogue2010, visit this Squidoo lens for up to the minute information, and join the Dialogue2010 Facebook page for future event information.

Conversational crossroads

Mapping my hybrid life on a personal, passion level involves drawings, notations, and novel writing. The stuff I do daily. When it connects with others, like in conversation with the 10 cultural innovators I'll be talking to on Feb 28 as part of Dialogue2010 at expat+HAREM, it becomes multi-dimensional, an elixir of dynamic change and inspiration. In talking about abandoning the map to live more fully, dialogue becomes art.

Anastasia Ashman, expat+HAREM producer, identifies a crucial element of what happens when identity is fluid, when location, desire, and being in the present are invited to shape a meaningful life: "a wider orbit around the inner me" is allowed to emerge. That is what I hope will be explored in Dialogue2010: unearthing the things we need to let go of in order to move forward, blurring our boundaries, and developing our own idiosyncratic centers of balance.

As the first inception of Art is Dialogue, I invite you to join in the twitter chat #dialogue2010, or add a comment, and listen to the podcast when it's made live this spring.