Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such office, Nashville
Weather: Hot and sunny
Reading through the Book Expo web site in preparation for the BEA trade show this coming weekend, I am struck by the use of the word “new.” There are NEW stages for author presentations, NEW media to learn about, NEW publishers trying to gain recognition, NEW seminars on NEW subjects, and on and on. Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise since the show is basically about what’s coming in the next six months to a year. And we Americans still have enough frontier spirit to like that which is just ahead. We tire so quickly of the same old same-o.
At lunch with friends yesterday we were discussing authors and the ways they challenge our prejudices. The conversation ranged from Shakespeare to Dickens. I wondered how “new” Pearl Buck’s novels about life in China seemed when she wrote them in the 1930s in the face of US prejudice against Chinese laborers during the preceding 75 years or so. Great writers are good at jarring us from some of our thinking now and then, at calling us to take a fresh new look. Buck won the Pulitzer in 1938 for The Good Earth.
One thing I notice in the BEA exhibitors list is its expansion to include a number of “new-to-this-show” foreign publishers. So many are from the Middle East with names starting with “al” or “Dar”; then a great number from China and India. We’ve always had a few from Western Europe and Italy, but BEA is now rivaling the big international show in Frankfurt, Germany, or the longstanding children’s international show in Bologna, Italy. This is not a complaint; I see having these foreign publishers on our turf as a real benefit if we represent authors who write material that will translate well. Often it can mean a sale of something published in years past, in which case it’s “new” to readers in another country. Besides, with a larger international presence at BEA, we don’t have to endure those overseas flights!
I can tell before I go to BEA that the newest thing about the business is that we live in a global village, and we are more connected through the Internet. I’d be interested to know ways you feel your work as a writer has been shaped by the increased connectivity among us humans here on planet Earth.
Etta, I find this very encouraging. It would take too long to explain how this relates to my WIP, but I had been feeling lately like I was doomed to spend the rest of my life writing for myself (and maybe my children, three of whom married outside the US). I hope this isn’t just others coming to us, but means we’re open to understanding the rest of the world.
Americans readers seem to be curious about the many cultures we hail from. Rich settings and characterizations can “take” a reader places they may not have been. It builds empathy when we see the world through someone else’s eyes–exploring the differences and discovering similarities.
Until 2007 I’d never been outside the US. That spring I spent a week in Europe and another week in China.
My current project looks at some of the ‘rougher virtues’ that the Bible calls us to but often we don’t heed because we don’t like them.
The visit to China – seeing a government keep the Gospel from people who are hungry for it whatever it takes opened my eyes. Here in America the biggest RISK regularly encountered is choking when the communion wafer isn’t chewed well enough to be washed down by the thimble of juice.
The connectivity and having friends in China makes it more difficult to just “return home” and not continue to think about what was experienced overseas.
This is really encouraging to me. I’m a missionary, and most recently returned from several months in India. Living overseas has given me a very different worldview than what I’d had before I began this line of work, and in turn, this new worldview is very evident in my work. The increased growth in the global community gives me hope that I really can do both–which has been my dream all along!
The comments from Rich and Kristen who have lived in China and India seem to validate our decreasing distance from one another. The part I can’t compute is our ever-increasing population. Certainly it’s a help to know better our brothers and sisters around the world and to appreciate their writing.
Etta
If by ever increasing population you mean the growth in population caused by immigration, we need to remember that Americans have aborted 50 million. I too have traveled in China, and visited slums in Colombia and Brazil that made one wonder if the world might not have too many people. But I don’t believe that’s God’s view of things. I believe He’s given us the necessary resources. Our job is to find ways to better distribute those resources, and that will begin by a better understanding that we share this planet with a wide variety of peoples.