You must create what you think must be said, what you think should be done… Perhaps the best art takes on the world in some way, destroys it & recreates it, draws reader and writer alike closer to the complexity of the globe or even of that planet’s place in a far vaster universe of which we are specks on a pale blue dot, a dot near-invisible on the map of the cosmos. Continue reading
It was my feeling of safety which got me incarcerated. I made the assumption that I would be okay; I didn’t read up on the legal system, didn’t bother to pay for a lawyer. I hid from my situation until it consumed me. I can’t make that mistake again. Continue reading
Later, I will understand his protest as personal: he doesn’t want to be the white guy who wrote a great book that won’t be read by people like me because of who he is. Continue reading
“It’s just a book,” I said, exasperated. “Why do you have to read so much into it?” Continue reading
My freshman year of college, I had the privilege of being the straight-laced black theatre queen housed in a four man suite… Continue reading
I remember, once in a writing workshop, a white student wrote a story with a black protagonist. But, the protagonist could’ve been purple or green and the story would’ve been the same. The protagonist’s race was decorative; somebody wanted to spice up the bedroom!
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The James Franco Review 