This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
It’s a balmy 25 degrees in February, the bright sun startles against clear blue skies, where it looks deceivingly warm outside. We meet in Minnetonka and run errands in Near North, where my friend & poet & interview subject is house- and dog-sitting, while she also squeezes in virtual meetings with her writers, as she helps each person to cultivate and refine their voices and stories. One woman has been writing her memoir for ten years before she sees any publication success. She gives another writer an additional fifteen minutes to discuss edits, far beyond their prescribed time. Their conversations overflow, ripple, turn questions and comments into action and more questions. Another writer lives on the other side of the world and meets with her in the dead of night. Time and time again, she works with the writer behind the writing, as termed it; she coaxes out the best version of each, and in each of these consultations, she is also constantly in conversation with her own work & how we are crafting a greater literary ecosystem across the world. Generosity comes to mind.
Afterwards, we set up the podcast recording equipment in the perfectly decorated mid-century mod dining room with the chairs of my dreams: to-die-for clear chairs; textured brightly colored hightop chairs; a tufted velvet couch that is the perfect aquamarine color of the ocean on a breezy morning. A place where the orange tabby cat watches from its post by the fireplace while the tiny white dog sleeps in the foyer. I imagine myself living in this house, with the carefully curated artwork and matching framed posters from our honeymoon excursions to the national parks, a perfect stranger who peeks into the life another. To be An Other once again. Was I ever anything else?
[As I’ve been reminded lately, through a recent mammogram scare (all is well–friendly reminder to schedule your mammogram and pap appointments!), the capacity to vacillate between health and illness, to become the shadowy other version of myself, can happen in an instant.]
We both gravitate towards liminal spaces, towards in-betweenness, towards the precision of language. In her essay, which I’ll discuss more below, she writes: “broken boys built like glass canyons,” alluding to all the ways we have to protect ourselves against the white gaze, the outside world, against ourselves, particularly in moments of racism and trauma, but also in moments of joy and wonder. The blowback is incalculable. And that is the point: we can be both/and. We can be fierce and find softness. We can rage and we can dig deep. It is in our blood.
Listen to Briana read the beginning of her essay:
Briana Gwin is an artist, editor, educator, and writer, whose commitment and passion for storytelling and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities shines through her collaborative projects and her own words. Most recently, she penned an essay for the Seventh Wave’s “On Gaming” anthology called, “With a Hunger to Swallow the World” about “her relationship to her favorite game and least favorite past relationship,” the conduit through which she learned about the game SKYRIM. She writes,
“In game, you begin to scroll through the list ‘Race’ option presented to you on the character customization screen, hoping something will jump out at you enough that you’ll be enticed into forgetting about all the problems of your own race in the real world.”
She is both the faceless character and most dedicated student to her craft, whether she is rewarded in the class with a grade or in the game with a level up. Her braided storytelling style excises meaning from the digital realm and her lived experiences as a queer, neurodiverse, Afro-Latina woman, subverting our expectations of what a plotted game can do. This essay explores the grief of one biracial relationship while the narrator is trying to make sense of her own sexuality and identity as an editor and artist, engaging with the larger political, cultural, racial, and societal issues of our time through her unique lens. She’s writing unconventional forms to represent the fluid and ever-expanding recollections and stories of POC that don’t often fit the typical mold.
When she isn’t writing, or reading for work and pleasure, she is learning about the ways in which words can bridge gaps, provoke curiosity, admit permission to rest, and induce healing and connection as forms of resistance against systemic oppression and other economies of harm. She is currently working to spearhead a collective storytelling project that amplifies the voices of current and former marginalized creative professionals in the Twin Cities. Learn more about Briana on her website.
Recommended Reading
I would love to know what you are reading and/or listening to! Please comment below.
I’m leading a 3-hour adult class on Saturday, April 19 at 10AM-1PM CT on Experimentation with Hybrid Memoir with the Loft! Join us as we play with form, explore examples of hybrid memoir, and generate new material together.
Personal Narrative Writing for Teens: Free Drop-In Youth Workshops - In Person and Online Options
I am facilitating a drop-in Minneapolis-based personal narrative writing workshop for teens who want to build online and in-person connections with peers as well as participate in occasional special projects and/or events. There’s an optional public sharing component and option to submit work produced in the workshop in a published anthology. Each session will have readings, generative writing prompts and time to write, discussion, and more. Let's create together!
Drop-in meetings take place on Tuesday nights at 5:00-6:30 PM CT in person (St. Paul and South Minneapolis location) + hybrid online option: May 6 | May 13 | May 20 | May 27 | July 8 | Sept 9 | Dec 9 | Dec 18 (hybrid all-ages reading & open mic). Free for all youth participants in Minnesota! Feel free to drop in for one or for the entire series! Please sign up below or email info@mariannemanzler.com to join!
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