Writing About Lives

In the summer of 1997, when I was working for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I went to Arkansas to visit my relatives for our annual Fourth of July family reunion in Grady. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but as I drove away I got the distinct feeling that I needed to write about these people and this place. It was a deep and abiding feeling that has never left me.

Five years later when I resigned from newspapers, my first instinct was to write about them. I remember sitting in the living room at a friend’s house early one morning. I pulled out a pad of paper and started writing long hang about my mother’s “sanctified” sister and her twelve children. It was only five or six pages. I felt so overwhelmed by it because it meant so much to me and I wanted to do it justice.

I’m convinced those raw, awkwardly constructed pages are what got me into Columbia’s MFA program. I always thought I would write about later in life but the story seems to want to come forth now. At school there were hints of my mother’s sister Freddie Mae saying this or that. Finally I gave her her own essay “The Last Sanctified Lady.” Each time I’ve written about her in workshop, people can’t seem to get enough.

Last night was the final reading for the 2007 Columbia MFA Thesis group. I read a 3 page condensed version of the piece. I’m there worst judge of my own material. I stumbled a few times. The glare of the lights made it impossible to see the audience. I was nervous and felt I’d botched it completely. The crowd, however, had a different experience. They roared at one point when I was reading in the voice of how she stood up and testified in church on Sundays. Afterward I must have have 30 people come up and tell me how much they enjoyed it.

As a journalist I’ve written about world famous people who’ve earned millions of dollars and touched the world with their art or community activists who’ve have compelling narratives. It seems that the stuff that’s in your gut or instinct or intuition that seems to touch people the most.

What’s so remarkable about the writing division at Columbia is how the faculty encourages our unique voices. Everyone who read over the last three nights is in such a different place as a writer than two short years ago. I simply cannot believe my Columbia experience is over. But then again, since it has led me back to where my heart was all along but more capable, then I am just getting started.