Sunday May 4th, 2008

Writers and Self-Censorship (panel discussion)

Panelists: Anke Feuchtenberger, Gary Geddes, Nairne Holtz, David McGimpsey

This panel attempted to answer some difficult questions: “To what extent is self-censorship a necessary part of the process of creation? And to what extent is it destructive of the work in progress?” Anke Feuchtenberger, born in Berlin and writing before the fall of the Berlin Wall, seemed uniquely positioned to talk about political censorship, but actually spoke more about the ripples of writing through her personal life. Her first book is W the Whore Is Throwing the Glove. Gary Geddes, writer and editor of over thirty-five books, most recently published Falsework. He has also written extensively about South America and Afghanistan. Nairne Holtz, based in Montreal, just published her first novel, The Skin Beneath. David McGimpsey writes travel articles for The Globe and Mail and has also published numerous collections of poetry and the award-winning critical study Imagining Baseball: America’s Pastime and Popular Culture.

Gary Geddes got things rolling by quoting Margaret Atwood: “You can say anything you want in Canada because nobody’s listening.” He recalled a Chilean writer, imprisoned for his work, who told him, “In Chile, your book may survive, but you may not.”

David McGimpsey said that our current talk-show culture makes non-fiction hotter: self-exposure is in fashion, quite literally. He termed the rash of memoirs “slapped child books.” He also emphasized a sense of responsibility in story-telling, not wanting to position himself as a narrator in a story he “was fully part of.”

Feuchtenberger questioned the writing explosion after the fall of the Berlin wall, asking whether it is possible to disclose anything powerful after the danger is over.

McGimpsey felt that self-censorship is often undermined, since people are always more transparent than they think. A friend told him, “You know, you’re your own worst enemy.” He replied, “You have no idea what a great friend I’ve been to myself.”

Geddes insisted on the construction of multiple personae, in real life as well as fiction. He talked about the way we change our voice when a particular person gets on the phone, constructing “a myriad of selves.” For Geddes then, all writing is fiction, as every writer, even a writer of memoirs or non-fiction, constructs a persona for herself.

Nairne Holtz said she didn’t censor herself at all while writing, but did say some of her friends asked her whether she’d based particular characters on them. She’s usually very surprised at their guesses, but said time and time again that what she writes is fiction. She finds writing a character based closely on yourself easy and lazy.

Geddes brought up the wonderful image of someone sitting on your shoulder while you write, asking who that person was: your inner critic? A parent or teacher? A lover, a friend? Who is listening while you write?

One of the questions at the end got everyone riled up. Someone asked, “Wouldn’t this discussion be more pertinent if the panel was made up of television journalists, since censorship is irrelevant for poetry and fiction, which no one reads?”

David McGimpsey responded by saying that thinking your work will change the world is for fatuous rock stars. He spoke of his happiness with what he was doing and creating every day.

Geddes brought up W. H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”. He said the oft-quoted line “poetry makes nothing happen” is actually Auden reporting Yeats’ view, and for Auden the act of making a poem is a political act. One of the things tyrants are most afraid of is laughter. Geddes gestured along the panel and described a range, from his own overtly political poetry to McGimpsey’s more lighthearted subject matter, and said to lose either is to lose something precious.