The Best Writing Advice I Ever Ignored
Plus an invitation to my 8/22 book launch in Oakland, an update on book bans, an appearance at the Eric Carle Museum, and much more
When I was in my early twenties, I was a poet. I had no intention of being a journalist, because, as I said to anyone who made the suggestion, journalism “wasn’t real writing.” (Ah, the certainty of youth.) Excluded from this pronouncement were the long, fascinating pieces I read in the New Yorker and the similarly long and fascinating pieces I read in my local free weekly, the East Bay Express.
The Express was edited by John Raeside, who often said that it was easier to teach writers how to report than it was to teach reporters how to write. The pieces he published—many as long as 10,000 words—were writerly in the best sense of the word. They had voice, personality, take. They took you to unexpected places. I wanted to write like that too, so I took a night class that John was teaching called something like “How to Write an Express Feature.”
Each week a different Express writer would talk to us about what they did and how we might do something similar. One week, a writer named Judith Moore talked to us about finding story ideas. Moore, who later became the editor of the San Diego Reader, was one of the writers who drew me to the Express: her pieces were dark, funny, poignant, and brave. Her advice: “Write about what scares you.”
I remember thinking, “Not a chance.” I hate being scared. I don’t like horror movies or roller coasters. I don’t even like loud noises. I decided I would write about what was interesting. What I was curious about. What seemed funny or intriguing or complex. NOT what scared me.
In retrospect though, I can see that the best cover stories I wrote in my ten years as a staff-writer at the Express were about things that caused, if not fear, then certainly discomfort. I spent months hanging around the low-income housing complex that was then the epicenter of Oakland’s murder epidemic. I followed a hospital ethics committee as they debated keeping a brain-dead pregnant woman alive until her baby could be delivered. I delved deep into the experiences of the residents of a town whose population had either been sickened by a toxic chemical leak or by mass hysteria fueled by a group of charlatan physicians. I found that I was attracted to stories where I felt unsettled, unsure, uncomfortable, and unmoored. When I was writing about what scares me, in other words.
Thirty years into my journalism career, the urge to lean in instead of recoiling is so ingrained that I often don’t even realize why I’m pursuing a particular topic. I just know that my discomfort manifests as unquenchable curiosity. I want to understand the thing that frightens me in much the same way that an anxious child will obsessively study monsters or sharks.
Which is how I have, unwittingly, become an expert on teenagers who do harmful and bigoted things to other teenagers.
I often tell high school and middle school students that the adults who love them have two visceral fears. The first is that someone will hurt them. The second is that they will hurt somebody else.
Of course, both things are likely to happen. All of us have harmed and been harmed in our lives. Most teenagers are both the recipients and bestowers of minor heartbreaks and casual cruelties. If we’re lucky, the resulting injuries are small and survivable.
And if not? Well, that’s what we adults worry about, isn’t it?
When I heard about the discovery of a racist Instagram account at a Northern California high school, I felt the same way I did when I heard about a nonbinary kid being set on fire aboard an Oakland bus: shocked, horrified, and desperate to understand. My new book, Accountable, is also a story about young people who were victimized while simply trying to be their authentic selves and boys who caused harm while trying to be funny for social media. It touches on topics that arouse deep-seated fears in me: racism, misogyny, shaming and shunning, suicide, being an adult who does harm while trying to do good, being a kid who doesn’t feel safe.
It isn’t always fun writing about the things that scare you. In fact, it usually isn’t. But I’m so proud of the result.
Accountable releases on August 22. You can read Roger Sutton’s interview with me about it here.
Please Come to the Accountable Book Launch
I’ll be in conversation with Aishatu Yusuf, Vice President of Innovation Programs at Impact Justice and one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever encountered when it comes to the intersection of race, gender, and justice. I first met her when we were both on a panel together and I immediately asked if I could interview her for Accountable. (I’ll be sending out the full text of that amazing interview in an upcoming issue of my Justice and Accountability newsletter, which you can sign up for here.)
The event is sponsored by A Great Good Place for Books but is being held at at Montclair Presbyterian Church, to make room for lots folks like you, so please bring your friends.
When: Tuesday, August 22, 2023, 7:00-9:00 pm
Where: Montclair Presbyterian Church, 5701 Thornhill Dr, Oakland, California
What Critics Are Saying
“This is a compelling and contemporary cautionary tale that should be required reading for any teen before they create, comment, or even like a media post.” —Booklist STARRED REVIEW
“In this gripping true story, Slater draws on her journalistic skills, utilizing interviews, court documents, social media and other sources to pull together a compelling full picture of an event that ripped apart a community and deeply impacted the lives of everyone involved. . .No teen is absolved of their conduct, but everyone is understood and fully humanized.” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, STARRED REVIEW
“This is a moving book with the power to make readers look deep within themselves for ways they can contribute to the solutions and keep from becoming a part of the problem.” —Shelf Talker:
“Emotionally raw . . . Raising essential questions about accountability and complicity, this pertinent read encourages personal reflection and presents a balanced, non confrontational look into a situation that, as one student affirms, had gone “a little too far.” —Publishers Weekly
“The book will spark deep reflection on degrees of complicity, whether and when to forgive, what contributes to genuine remorse and change, and what parents and educators could have done differently . . . Thorough, thought-provoking, and all too relevant.” —Kirkus Reviews
“While it’s marketed toward young adults, this work of narrative nonfiction is relevant to readers of all ages who grapple with the consequences of toxic online speech.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Book Bans Update
After many meetings and an organized campaign against it, the West Bend School District in Wisconsin has decided that The 57 Bus won’t be taken off the list of books that middle and high school students have the option of reading.
The 57 Bus is now one of the top five most challenged books in Tennessee.
PEN America’s Artists At Risk Connection (ARC) recently interviewed 20 artists from around the world about how they fight for justice and empower change for their Art Is Power report. I was honored to be one of them. It’s a moving and inspiring document — I highly recommend it.
September-October Events
Oakland, California
Tuesday, August 22, 2023, 7:00-9:00 pm
In Conversation Launch Event for Accountable, hosted by A Great Good Place for Books at Montclair Presbyterian Church
5701 Thornhill Dr, Oakland, California
Amherst, Massachusetts
Sunday, September 17, 2 pm
I am thrilled to be doing a Wild Blue Story Time at the Eric Carle Museum as part of the exhibit Horse Tales: Galloping into Children’s Books, which includes one of Laura Hughes’ gorgeous illustrations from Wild Blue.
125 West Bay Road, Amherst, MA
Thanks for reading all the way to the end.
I bow to you,
Dashka