Taos Toolbox, Toolin' Along

We are critiquing the Week 2 stories, most of which were written here at Taos, as well as continuing lectures and individual conferences. Yesterday Walter's lecture on "the other" included a frank discussion of issues important to any writer: How can you effectively write members of a group not your own? If a white male writes as a viewpoint character a Native American, is that "cultural appropriation"? If a woman writes a helpless, passive female character, has she betrayed feminism? Is it off limits to create a nasty Black drug dealer or a Muslim terrorist, or can readers accept that one unsympathetic character does not represent the author's view of that entire group? Where do reality and stereotypes connect and disconnect?

We did not actually come to any conclusion, but it was a loaded, important discussion carried out in a thoughtful manner.

Yesterday brought the necessary group photo, even for those of us who hate to have our picture taken. From top to bottom, left to right: Jason Musgrave, Sean Craven, Eric Kelley, Lou Berger, Rich Baldwin, George Galuschak, Christian Walter, Danielle LeFevre, Oz Drummond, Amy Sundberg, Barbara Webb, Lawrence Schoen, Ada Brown, Walter Jon Williams, Nancy Kress, Hallie Rulnik.

Memorable quotes from the last two days of critique sessions:

"I like the vomit. Keep it."

"'Orders of magnitude' beyond six billion people is a whole shitload of people."

"You need story values somewhere in here, dude."

"You have White Dragon Syndrome."

"More pigs!"