27 January 2008
Written by
Melanie Tem (
)
Published on January 27th, 2008 @ 01:50:15 pm, using 154 words, 18 views
One of my best friends turns 90 soon. I've known her for 20 years, and throughout that long friendship she's been an avid and highly skilled storyteller. Some of her stories have provided direct inspiration for my writing and oral storytelling; often she's participated in a consulting role. I'm certain she's had even more influence than I'm aware of.
That's what I'm used to: people who have stories to tell and want to tell them.
But I've recently learned of another woman about the same age who will not tell any stories about her life, even or especially to a granddaughter who longs for them. "Tell me, so I can understand," the granddaughter pleads, and the old woman replies, "I won't tell you anything, because you might understand. The more you understand the less I will tell you. My stories will die with me."
Much as she would hate it, there's a story in that.
--Melanie
Written by
Melanie Tem (
)
Published on January 27th, 2008 @ 01:44:28 pm, using 74 words, 33 views
Thanks, Stace, but I don't think this is so much a matter of integrity. In fact, I find that I somewhat resent the prohibition I was given by my Tlingit hosts. What makes their stories off-limits, when so many others in the world--individual or cultural--are not? Where would writers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers be if the only stories that could be told were those that "belonged" wholly and unequivocally to the creator her/himself?
21 January 2008
Written by
Melanie Tem (
)
Published on January 21st, 2008 @ 09:34:49 am, using 247 words, 39 views
When I was in Alaska last summer, I spent an adternoon at a Tlingit village. Tligits are an ancient indigenous tribe; there's archaeological evidence that this particular village has been there 3000 years, and the people themselves claim it's always been there.
I've gotten interested in oral storytelling in the past couple of years, have "told" a few times in public, have a repertoire of 4 personal stories and would like to expand it to include other kinds of tales. It's standard for tellers to include folktales and myths in their telling.
So I was excited to read and hear Tlingit legends and myths. The Haines library has a whole shelf of them. My host at the village told some stories about the murals in the longhouse.
But when I mentioned I'd like to include some of the tales in my storytellingm, I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to do that, that it would be stealing. Great displeasure was expressed about the authors who had collected native tales into those books. My pointing out that I wouldn't be making money from the stories didn't help. The prohibition against telling the stories is so firm and so tied up with inter-group suspicion and with long-standing perceptions of cultural destruction that I don't dare violate it.
This gives me pause.
When is it a sign of respect and appreciation to tell stories from a culture not one's own? And when is it colonialism or exploitation?
Written by
Melanie Tem (
)
Published on January 21st, 2008 @ 09:19:35 am, using 212 words, 36 views
It's happened to me before. People are afraid to read my stuff because they think it's too dark and disturbing. Once an agent even declined to represent me because she found my work "too depressing"! I think I write about transcendence and hope and redemption--you have to go through hard things to get there, but I don't think it's depressing.
Here's what my genius husband and co-author has to say about The Man on the ceiling:
"...the scope of the novel is much broader than the scope of the original novella, and losing a child is only one of the things the novel is about--in a sense it's the trigger that sets off a larger meditation and speculation on personal and familial fears, and how storytelling can be an essential, as opposed to a peripheral, aspect of life. It's a broader look at how the imagination works in the life of the individual and in the life of a family. At one point in the novel we call this book a "biography of our imaginations," and that's pretty much the way we looked at this project."
Isn't he brilliant? (And cute, too.) I especially like what he has to say about the roles of storytelling and imagination in our lives.
-- Steve
06 January 2008
Written by
Melanie Tem (
)
Published on January 6th, 2008 @ 09:26:04 am, using 68 words, 22 views
We will be appearing at the following places to promote our new book THE MAN ON THE CEILING:
Tuesday, MArch 4, 7:30 p.m.
Launch Party at Tattered Cover LODO
Sunday, March 16, 3:00 p.m.
reading/idscussion at Denver Book Mall
Saturday, April 12, 7:30 p.m.
reading/discussion at Stories for All Seasons: Second Saturday, at West Side Books
Watch this space for more details and for announcements of other events!
--Melanie
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