This week, Alida & Kathryn welcome Kavita Das to the Story Works Round Table. Kavita has a new book out, Craft & Conscience, all about writing that is concerned with social issues. And really, what writing isn’t in one way or another getting at the aspects of being human and being human together that could use some work? This conversation is equally beneficial for fiction and nonfiction writers.
This is part 2 of our conversation with Kavita.
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
What we talked about:
What is the balance between compelling and truthful. (1:25)
What about cultural appropriation? (7:30)
What are some guiding principles? (13:18)
The pressure to explain. (17:00)
Context! (20:45)
Navigating the response to your writing. (23:45)
Kavita Das describes Craft and Conscience as “the guidance she wished she’d had as an emerging writer,” and the book offers key lessons, reflections, frameworks, and considerations for writing effectively about hot-button issues. Das herself has taught nonfiction writing at the New School and Catapult and has written about social issues for ten years. Previously, she worked in the social change sector for fifteen years, addressing issues ranging from community and housing inequities to public health disparities and racial injustice. Das is also the author of the biography Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar.
Craft and Conscience delves into topics including parsing our motivations for writing about social issues, understanding the relationship between the writer, reader, and subject, balancing narrative and context, differences between writing about social issues from an outside or inside perspective, writing opinion editorial pieces, understanding the importance of cultural sensitivity and avoiding cultural appropriation, and considering the implications (positive and negative) of writing about social issues to others and to ourselves. I’m happy to have a wide-ranging conversation or to delve more deeply into one or more of these topics.
LINKS
Have thoughts, questions, other examples? Join the conversation at the Story Works Writers Facebook group.
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About Your Hosts
Kathryn Arnold writes fantasy and anything else that sparks her creativity from her home in Kingston, Washington. She currently earns her living as an insurance underwriting assistant, where she also creates marketing and web copy. When not writing, she plays (and teaches) piano and keyboard in a band (or two), and is working on starting a ministry team with her husband. You can find Kathryn at www.skyfirewords.com.
Robert Scanlon was born in Australia, but whisked off to England when only a baby. After many years complaining about the weather, he did the sensible thing and moved back to Australia. Despite a career in the music industry, followed by decades teaching public speaking, Robert is an introvert who adores reading. Robert grew up on a diet of sci-fi masters, eventually discovering he had read the library’s entire science fiction section. Now he has to write his own. Robert is the author of Constellation, book one of the Blood Empire space opera series. Find out more at www.RobertScanlon.com
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