Welcome to my inbox. “Hey, you live in Seattle, is there much of a LGBTQ scene there? I’m doing a section on LGBTQ travel and I wonder if Seattle is a good place to go if you identify as such.”
I laughed. Our LGBTQ scene is vibrant. For years, I lived in the heart of the gay ‘hood. We have a prominent LGBTQ citizens in government, pop culture, you name it. Some of my best friends and all that, but not as rhetoric, really, some of my best friends.
“Great,” says the editor, “I need 1000 words; you know the drill. Ask LGBTQ pal to take you out, I’ll cover the drinks. Here’s my deadline.”
Easy enough, right?
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“You’ll do a fine job,” most of my queer pals said. “In fact, let me hook you up with…”
But a few people dissented, some LGBTQ, some not. It was imperative that a LGBTQ writer do the piece. Minority voices are mis- and under – represented, after all. Their spaces need to be treated with respect.
Because “some of my best friends” is not a joke, I questioned my network — who do I know that should do this gig? — and passed the results back to my editor. The editor understood my motivation but didn’t bite. “I appreciate your diligence, I do, but stop being a loyal local. If you can’t take it, I’m going to fly in and do it myself. ”
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As a travel writer, it’s my job to write about places and communities I’m not part of. It shouldn’t matter if I’m writing about LGBTQ humans or immigrant oyster farmers or members of the Coptic church or whatever, as long as I do my damn job.
Outsider perspective is a tricky thing. On the one hand, it allows us to take note of things that are self-evident to locals — you must have exact change for the bus, bag your own purchases at the supermarket, there is a standard of dress different from our own. This is valuable.
On the other hand, we miss so much. Lazy writers assume their experience typical, positive or negative, and present it as such. Often there’s no context of any kind: historical, cultural, social. This is a problem.
Some things about my region. I suggest you head north to the Korean neighborhood for great cheap eats. Rainier View, south of downtown, is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the nation. Yeah, our gay community is a dispersed, but the heart is still Capitol Hill.
(And now, I could go for bibimbap. Damn. The H-Mart in Everett has an epic food court, you should check it out.)
This stuff is foundation work for travel writers. It’s what we do, we sleuth out the interesting and make it outsider accessible — after assessing if it really is outsider accessible. Some things are not — subcultures are not petting zoos.
There’s so much thoughtless work out there. Travel writing, specifically, is woefully homogeneous. Yes, yes, yes, to every call for diversity. Yes, and then some. Of course.
It’s weird to feel defensive about what’s no more than a fun essay about coming to Seattle to check out your minority scene. It’s weird to feel defensive about a job I’m good at. It’s weird to gnaw at my insides over every word on the page — and let me assure you, I did. I wish I’d gnawed less, the writing felt so labored. I hate that.
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I made three trips to the Cap Hill at different times of day. I visited a handful of gay owned and operated businesses — entertainment, food, a cornerstone Seattle gay bar. I talked with two community groups that support business and services for LGBTQ visitors. I surveyed many, many LGBTQ Seattleites for their thoughts on the state of the community and our city. A gay editor friend reviewed my draft before I handed it in. He had a few follow up questions for me; I made some minor changes based on his feedback. I’m grateful for his input.
When the piece is published people will surely tell me what I got wrong. I hope that this will be because I only had 1000 words, not because I did not do my job.
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Update, October 14, 2016: The story went live. And to my delight, I got a note from the seven and a half foot tall drag queen mentioned in the piece saying, “Thank you, you’re fabulous.”
Here’s the link: Plenty of pride in Seattle’s gay scene.
I miss you, Pam. Come to Bangkok. We will eat, drink, and dish.
Heh. Got room for guests? Can I bring Harley?
“Subcultures are not petting zoos”. Perfect.
I can’t take full credit for this, it’s really via the Truman Capote to my Harper Lee, (she says, obscurely) but thanks.
You’ve seen all the controversy about Lionel Trilling and the sombrero, yes? Her stance was very aggressive but her point was that unless writers can represent the other then they won’t be able to write at all. The trick is to do it well and in good faith. I’ve no idea how to ensure that. Good luck!
I only recently heard about this — but yes. And yes, we need to be able to write about things that are not only ourselves. We also need to not suck at it and to listen when others tell us how we did it wrong, if we get that far.
I’m not even talking fiction. Writing is hard.
There was an article a while back about how fat people are bankrupting Medicaid in the US. The author talked to doctors, people related to insurance companies and shared her perspective, but didn’t talk to a single fat person. Talking to people who are the so-called other is a good way to include their voices even if they’re not writing the article themselves.
Should you have turned it down? Probably not. I mean, at least you’re sensitive to these issues. You made an effort to include voices other than your own.
At one point or another, most writers will be called on to tell someone else’s story. (I’m slowly working on a series of short stories called Stories That Aren’t Mine to Tell), so it probably makes sense to ask the questions you ask here repeatedly.