By: Kathie Giorgio
“You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.”
― Allen Ginsberg
When you ask writers why they write what they write, you will get as many answers as there are to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” We writers write for every reason imaginable, and some of us change those reasons with every project, while others gnaw at the same bone our whole life through.
And then there are writers like me, who basically just can’t keep our mouths shut.
I’ve been called a “dark” writer, a “disturbing” (thank goodness not “disturbed”) writer, a “fearless” writer, an “honest” writer. Of them all, I like “honest” best. I tend to write about the things that people have very strong feelings about – and consequently, if they see something that defies that, they get angry.
I’ve written about abuse and infidelity, rape, and especially the treatment of women involved in all of these. In my nonfiction, I wrote about being assaulted by a man in a Make America Great Again hat, a few days after Trump’s inauguration. Most recently, I’ve written about suicide, not about the people left behind, but about how those who choose to end their own lives feel, and how they are treated.
There have been times I’ve wished I could be a “light” writer, and some of my favorite writers are exactly that. But I find that what most often makes me run for my computer is something that twists my heart and my psyche, and I write about it in order to find out more, to learn, which is what I hope my readers do too. And ultimately, I write to help.
There are some drawbacks to this, of course. These are things you have to learn to deal with, if you’re going to do this kind of writing. First, look at how I am described as a writer, that I just listed above. Hearing yourself called dark and disturbing is…disturbing. You may question why you write such things, why you’re interested in them, and I’ve certainly done a lot of that. And sometimes, it’s right in your face. I was teaching once at a writing conference, and I happened to be close by the book-selling table when I saw a woman pick up my novel, Rise From The River. This book is about a young single mother who is raped, and it covers the issue of 39 of our states giving the rapist and his family more rights than the victim. Someone standing next to the woman who was looking at my book said, “Oh, you should get that. I’ve read it, and it’s amazing!” The woman put the book back down. “No,” she said. “It’s just too dark.” And she wiped her hand on her jeans like she’d been holding something dirty.
That hurt. And these things will hurt. I write, and other controversial writers write, with a sense of sincerely wanting to shed light on something, usually something that needs to be changed. So to be treated as part of the problem, and not part of the answer, can be difficult. So what do you do?
You do your best to not remember the woman who put your book down, and remember all those that picked it up.
That’s a universal problem, it seems, across the board of writers. From the writers I know, to the writers I teach, to myself, it is somehow much easier to remember the rejections and insults than it is to remember the acceptances and praise. You might have to print out some of these good comments and keep them somewhere where you can readily see them.
And you always need to remember your motivation. You don’t write to hurt; you write to help, and to try to make the hurt go away.
Another issue that arises when you write about controversial issues is, in a sense, battle fatigue. Writers sink into their characters. We are immersed in them. When we’re not writing, the characters follow us around and tap us often on the back, reminding us there’s a story to be told. But when you have a “dark” story to tell, it’s very possible to start feeling pretty dark yourself.
The solution? Take a break. Write something else entirely different. Don’t write at all. Spend a week reading nothing but comic strips. Walk in the sun. Hug your favorite person. Let them hug you.
And then remind yourself that you’re a good person and get back to it.
If you’re writing about controversial issues, you’re doing so because you care. Because you want to make a difference, because you want to help. You want change. And the most important thing about writing on these topics is to keep doing it. To keep reminding yourself of your motivation. You aren’t writing for shock value (some writers are), you aren’t writing for attention (some writers are), and you aren’t writing to hurt someone (some writers are). The most important thing to do when writing about controversial issues is to be true to yourself. Remember who you are and why you’re writing.
And then just keep going.
Kathie Giorgio is the author of seven novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and four poetry collections. Her latest novel, Hope Always Rises, will be released on February 28, 2023. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award In Fiction. Her poem “Light” won runner-up in the 2021 Rosebud Magazine Poetry Prize. In a recent column, Jim Higgins, the books editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, listed Giorgio as one of the top 21 Wisconsin writers of the 21st century. Kathie is also the director and founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, an international creative writing studio.