RANDA JARRAR

I just discovered that MIT’s Electronic Journal for Middle Eastern Studies has an issue on Gender, Nation, and Belonging: Arab and Arab American Feminist Perspectives, available online. Click here if you want to download the PDF right now. It’s absolutely stunning and inspiring. Stories, essays, poems, and criticism by Arab and Arab American women. Check it out!

I’m not sure if the issue I’m about to discuss affects both male and female writers.  But I do know that my female writing friends tend to discuss it openly more.

I’m talking about The Bad Voice.  This voice is the one that does the following.  Listen in and see if you recognize it:

“You woke up five whole minutes ago.  Why aren’t you writing?”

“Okay, you wrote three sentences.  Now look them over and decide they suck and delete them.”

“The concept of your novel/story is stupid.  Stop now and save yourself the embarrassment.”

“This is going well now but ooooh, girl, wait until you have to revise.  That’s gonna be hell.”

This is, incidentally, the same voice that does this:

“You’re the shit.  You’re totally getting Ettlingered for this book.”

“Damn.  That was possibly the best sentence ever written.”

“The concept for your book is complete and utter genius.”

“Miss thang, you better get ready, ’cause this novel is gonna get you a Nobel.  Shiiiiiit.”

Why?  Because both ways, the voice is placing unrealistic expectations on you and on your work.  Your project doesn’t suck.  Your project is most probably not going to win a Nobel.  But your project is valuable and worthy of the time you can give it.  If you can only give it a few hours a week, four or five at most, then good.  That’s still okay.  Just spend those hours free of that voice, if you can.

Now, of course The Voice will come up at least once every five minutes, or once every half a page, but whenever it does, just say, “Not now.  Not now, darlin’.  I’ll need you later.  When I edit.  Right now I want to write my first draft.  While I do that, go swim.”  And picture The Voice going to a pool.  Whenever I do this, my Voice looks all short, snotty-nosed, and seven years old.

On the heels of this report, and almost as a challenge to it, The Oxford American boldly releases a special issue devoted to the “Past, Present, and Future” of Race in what may be among the first white-run, mainstream publications to be written by a vast majority (in this case, 88%) of writers of color.

But in truth there is freedom and whether that truth can be found in commentary, fiction, personal history, art, or poetry, the contributors in this issue—ZZ Packer, Arthur Rickydoc Flowers, Juan Williams, Julian Bond, Sarah M. Broom, Jerald Walker, Randa Jarrar, Solon Timothy Woodward, Lolis Eric Elie, Rita Dove, and many, many others—all provide meaningful and honest insights.”

Here’s the beginning of the story:

i·bex n: a type of wild mountain goat with large curved horns. Ibex are found in the Alps, the Pyranees, the Himalayas, Ethiopia, Central Asia, South Siberia, Transjordan, and Nubia.

All I’ve ever wanted is to feel whole.
When I was a kid, I once surgically sawed my Barbie in half, like a magician.  Then, I cut photographs of myself in two and pasted the top half of my body to the bottom torso and legs of my doll.  I brought my new self to bed, and said, “One day, you will have legs, and you will be a real human girl, you will be whole.”  Then I went to sleep and dreamt I was half me and half doll, and woke up shrieking.  Daddy came to my room and soothed me with a compress and with words: “When you are older I will help you get a human lower half.  You will be beautiful then, and you will have no more nightmares, and nothing to fear.”
My name is Zelwa.  I am half woman—the upper half— and half Transjordanian Ibex, but I have never been East of the Atlantic.

Want to read more?  Go here or to your local bookstore and purchase the issue.  It’s only $5.95. Enjoy!

I came home yesterday to a lovely stack of copies of the Italian edition of my novel.  It was recently released to critical acclaim there.  If you read Italian, check out these cool reviews and interviews:

In la Repubblica, the national newspaper.

In Cultural News.

On Book Blogs Italy.

The funniest thing is the veiled, crusty mouthed kid on the cover.  I think Nidali would laugh at it and say, “That’s not me.  But I do likes me some Italians.”

The Mr. and I went on a heavenly pre-honeymoon to London and Paris for “Spring” break.  It was utterly fabulous, inspiring, fulfilling, and exhausting.  We walked until we gimped, and ate and drank like kings and queens.  Some of my favorite spots include visits to the Saqi bookstore in Bayswater, where I bought a copy of the new Egyptian comic novel,  ‘Ayza tgawwiz (I Wanna Get Hitched), which I really want to translate.  Also, we visited Proust, Moliere, and Oscar at Pere Lachaise and swilled good chardonnay disguised in Pellegrino bottles.  We walked to the Marais as often as we could from our Latin Quarter hotel room, which was the best thing that’s happened to us in decades.  We ate cheese and macarons and visited dreamy pubs and museums and walked along the Thames and the Seine.  We took trains, taxis, and long piss breaks in water closets.  It was divine.  And now, we want to move.  Michigan’s highest unemployment rate in the country is encouraging us to flee.  And we’re excited to start over.