What Are You Doing Out There?
by Elizabeth Solar
When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited the poet and essayist Henry David Thoreau in prison for the civil disobedience of not paying taxes (largely in protest of slavery), Emerson is reported to have asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is, what are you doing out there?”
Growing numbers of writers and other artists have voiced their resistance to recent political and social events. Resistance is commendable, but to influence, educate, and perhaps spark change, writers might ask themselves, ‘What are you doing out there?’ Advocacy and action are often a by-product of our writing, but may well also be a catalyst for what we choose to write. Several Boston-area writers spoke with me about their experiences, what motivates them to write and to act.
Acting, whether on the soundstage or world stage, is second nature to Marianne Leone. You may know her as the ‘bitter and boozy’ mother of Christopher Moltisanti, played by Michael Imperioli, in the acclaimed HBO series The Sopranos. In person, Marianne’s wicked sense of humor, warmth, and energy is irresistible. Her petite stature belies a big, unbridled passion for the causes and people she loves.
Her memoir Knowing Jesse: A Mother’s Story, chronicles her fierce devotion to her son, whose cerebral palsy confined his body, and stifled his ability to talk, but could not imprison his spirit, nor silence his voice. Leone describes joining “a tribe of warrior mothers who fight for the very humanity of their children with disabilities.” Through her tireless effort, Jesse enjoyed a ‘free and appropriate public education,’ guaranteed in the Individuals with Disabilities Learning Act, became an honor student, and made his own voice heard through his humor and poetry.
Eleven years after Jesse’s death, Leone continues to advocate for people with disabilities, and call out those who would deny them rights and liberties.
“I think a lot about courage in these days of the Bully Ascendant.” Leone reflects. “The boy bristling with testosterone standing in the aisle of a plane screaming like a chimp about Trump and Hilary bitches, and the video panning over the cowed women in the seats…My son Jesse liberated me, and helped me to learn bravery and to fight back. And now, I have nothing to lose.”
Poet, creative coach and civic engagement artist Julie Ann Otis’ view of activism arises from “a giant napalming, and implosion” in her life in 2011. “First, I was writing because I had to survive what I was going through. Then I was writing because it was flowing through me.” She talks about the ripple effect of creative endeavors both seen and unseen. In a project called For You, Otis posted various pieces of her contemplative, spiritual, and often humorous poetry in random locations around Boston, addressed ‘For You.’
“I only put my name on the back, and I can’t tell you how many people tracked me down and told me they got the message at exactly the right time for them.”
Armed with a vintage typewriter, small table, and two chairs, Otis set up an Election Therapy Booth November 8 in Boston. During the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., she set up an Inauguration Therapy booth. People expressed their ideas and feelings post-election, while Julie typed away in creative collaboration.
Her findings: “People are mind-bendingly resilient, motivated and galvanized… everyone asking ‘what can I do?’ If we started talking about what we're for, …and less about what we're resisting, we're going to gain way more traction.”
Randy Susan Meyers, the fun, and outspoken author of five novels came of age during the Vietnam War, which she protested in front of her high school in Brooklyn, New York. Meyers traces her activism to books. “I started reading at an early age…for some reason, I did a lot of reading on the Holocaust and slavery, and it really marked me. When I was maybe 12 or 13, I thought if people went door-to-door, and explained…what was right and wrong, the world could change. And I think a part of me still holds on to that.”
On Facebook, and her website, she shares observations about the recent election, the environment, human rights and the dysfunction of our financial system, the subject of her upcoming novel The Widow of Wall Street.
Meyers says that any kind of political fiction, that is ‘anything where there is a belief system underlying it, is probably the way people learn the most. It’s like getting it (information) in easy doses.” In terms of her role as a fiction writer-activist: “All I can do…is put out as much truth as possible, as often as possible.”
Next, and last in this three-part series: How fiction drives activism, creates empathy and sparks change. In this week’s New York Times, During these turbulent times, independent bookstores are using more than words to create havens, and mobilize their readers. Check it out here.
