All The Things She Said

Today's fortune said to "explore unpaved road with a new friend". This seemed unrealistic as I work remotely and only venture out for food. But in the afternoon, there was a knock at my door. A random smoker was looking for a "friend who used to live here". They apologized and left when I poked my head out. I didn't think I missed any connection though; someone who didn't know or wasn't told that their friend had moved seemed at best oblivious or at worst should be avoided.

In the evening, I went to the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor for a talk. I've only been here a handful of times but I'm always struck by its grandeur. Although with everything being digital and online, I don't know how many people use those books instead of just the free wifi. About 400 people were in the Bram & Luna Appel Salon to hear Nahlah Ayed host novelist Esi Edugyan and historian Tiya Miles. All three women were highly accomplished having won several prestigious awards. Since both Esi and Tiya were Black authors writing about enslaved folks, the conversation revolved in different ways around fiction vs non-fiction, untold stories of marginalized people, and whether writing was relevant given the current events in the world.

Tiya's approach to both genres were for inclusivity. The audience laughed when she recounted how her family might proudly display her non-fiction books but they didn't read them. So writing fiction allowed her to bring these stories to a different demographic. Esi had already done the research regardless of the type of work but they offered different challenges. Non-fiction was quick and "breezy" while her novels took years and countless rewrites.

The reason d'etre for these untold stories was summed up best by Esi. During a visit to a university in Charlotte, North Carolina, she randomly found a history book about her home province of Alberta. Strikingly, it had profiles of Black homesteaders from the early 20th century. She was never taught this in all her years of schooling there. As someone from a racial minority whose presence has been erased (or at least ignored) in North America and Europe, we need more Esi and Tiya to say we have been here.

Finally, is the pen truly mightier given what's going on in the world? Tiya pointed out that the current efforts to ban books, cancel funding, and otherwise rewrite history showed that writing is rightly considered a threat to authoritarian regimes. As for fiction, Uncle Tom's Cabin had a social effect that contributed to the American Civil War. Esi opined that writing allowed people to discover other ways of thinking that could bring consensus. In this, I disagree because her evidence (people telling her that her books have opened or even changed their minds) seemed thin. There are currently millions of people who will ignore her stories because her work was part of wokeness, DEI, critical race theory or some other bugaboo.