Writing and the real world, what impact and responsibility do we have?

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day.  I was going about my life just as most of the students and Umpqua Community College were going about theirs.  Rose burg is a lovely town only about three hours from my home, and one of the places that my husband and his High School Music students have visited over the years. It feels like part of the neighborhood.  To suddenly be hearing the news of another school shooting was heartbreaking, but sadly unsurprising. 

Really, everytime we hear about this type of event, it is disgusting how quickly fingers start pointing to assign blame.  But in our inability to be surprised anymore, there is the hopeless feeling of helplessness.  Trying to place blame at least implies that we can stop this pattern if we can only figure out why.

I know the gun control, and the need more gun arguments. I know the blame the violent practice kids get in role playing being the shooter in video games.  I know the suggestion that the idea comes from the movies, media and books that repeatedly tell the stories of violence over almost any other newsworthy choice.

What I don't know is the answer

Yet I feel some of the questions directed my way

because in a book I wrote with a 9 year old protagonist, I have a school shooting.

It is a mildly described event in my opinion, and I don't think it glorifies it. I certainly never imagined my readers sympathizing with the shooter, but I'm learning that some of them do.  And I have him filled with confused emotions and hopelessness, because I can't imagine ever being able to do what he does unless I had no hope.

The shooting is only a small part of the story, but once I began being invited into schools to talk about it, it was a section I never read aloud, but explain in simple summary, "Duffy's sister is injured in a school shooting, and . . ."  but if I am uncomfortable reading it to a class, maybe a couple reviews have sometime to do with that.  One says "this book was too harsh and emotional and real for me too finish" and another, 1-star review says, "10yo brings rifle to school, killing or wounding several children including Duffy's little sister. Grief stricken, Duffy has a psychotic break..." and that is that entire review.

So what is an author's responsibility in describing actions that may inspire copycat behaviors?  Do the books convince people that behavior is ok?  should we never write about things that make us uncomfortable or fearful?

I don't think so.  I think they might help us cope with it if it does happen to us, and it might help us realize the consequences before we ever have to try it for ourselves.  I think the stories, in most people can teach empathy and make us less likely to think hurting others is ok.

But like I said, I don't know.  I don't think my little books will ever have the reach or power to make a huge impact, but if they make one bullied kid realize that living a good life is the best revenge, maybe they do have some value in this world.

at least one reviewer thought so, "I thoroughly enjoyed this inventive book, which is sad, funny, touching and full of surprises. I loved the characters, especially Duffy, the parallel universe of Uhrlin complete with its own mythology, and the subtle messages about bullying and belonging. It is one of the few books I've read that are written from the point of view of a disabled child. It does a great job of making this point of view accessible and understandable to others. At the same time, it underlines the fact that everyone is in some way a 'freak', with his or her own unique way of looking at things. Everyone is lovable and worth making an effort to understand. It is a powerful message, and one that the world really needs to hear.

A wish for peace and love in our country and world.  Healing and love to the Students and staff at Umpqua Community College.

Writing about Violence When Writing for Young People

 When I was writing my first book, Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, I had a hard time writing for middle school and high school kids, but dealing with bullies and handicaps and a school shooting.  The darkness was something modern kids live with, but still painful, and even though I knew I was working toward an ending filled with hope and renewal, I struggled with the brutal beginning.  So I tried to rescue Duffy from the immediate agony by throwing in a kinder memory from his younger years.

So, after the school shooting, when his younger sister is taken by ambulance but Duffy is still waiting at the school, I wrote the following scene

Waiting for the school to clear, Duffy had sat on the cement

steps and leaned against the scratchy warmth of the brick wall.

His teacher had glanced back reassuringly several times as he

moved among the students and the parents milling on the curb.

Duffy rarely moved. He sat tensely, with his crutches gripped

tightly and positioned so he would be able to move quickly once

they could finally go. He was holding himself just as tightly and

except for those hiccups he didn't even tremble.

Suddenly a large raven flew down and landed on the blacktop

where the kids played four square. It turned its glossy black eye to

stare straight at Duffy for a moment then it twisted its head to

check the sky before hop, hop hopping to snatch up a piece of a

bagel dropped earlier when the day had still been routine. The

raven and the smaller crows seemed to know which days had

popcorn sales and often only appeared just before lunch on

Friday. Could it still be so early in the day? Duffy turned his head

to watch as another raven dropped in and hopped about, trying to

get closer to the prize.

Ravens, here was something Duffy could think about without

crying or screaming. Here was an ordinary, safe topic which had

nothing to do with Izzy. Duffy wondered where the black birds

went when it wasn't a Friday. Did they come every Friday, even

during the summer?

Suddenly another day with ravens and Skull filled Duffy's

memory; They had been the second grade "big buddies" for a

class of kindergartners. Their class had the job of hiding colored

eggs on the playground for a hunt. As Duffy pulled his walker,

with a dozen bright eggs nestled in the basket always velcroed to

the crossbar, Skull rose up from behind a bush and barked wildly.

He had tripped Duffy. Unbelievably, only one egg had broken.

Duffy left it on the ground and walked resolutely away to scatter

the remaining eggs. The muscles in his back ached from being

clenched as he waited for another attack. A teacher called Skull

over and made him sit alone on the bench. Duffy watched him

out of the corner of his eye. "Odd," he thought, "He looks as

lonely as I am." Then Skull glanced up and met Duffy's gaze. For

a moment Skull looked vulnerable, then his face hardened and he

pounded the palm of one hand with his own fist. Duffy swallowed

hard, and quickly glanced away.

When the eggs were scattered among the bushes and swings,

Duffy's class had lined up to go in and bring out their little

buddies. The teacher suddenly pointed to a raven which had been

waiting for them to leave. It hopped calmly over and gulped down

the bits of broken egg. The class began to go in, figuring the show

was over. Duffy and Skull were among the last in line and both

gasped into startled laughter when the raven next hopped over and

picked up an unbroken egg. It then hopped up with wings

flapping to about two feet above the blacktop before letting the

egg drop. The clever bird then began greedily gulping this second

treat. Their shared laughter felt uncomfortable and Duffy and

Skull glanced at each other, then turned quickly away. Both

hurried after the class and never mentioned the sly bird again.

Duffy blinked and the two birds on the empty playground at

lunchtime grew tired of waiting for the crumb dropping children

who weren't coming. They flew up to a wire, then jumped up and

flew away. Duffy wished he could flyaway with them. He

shivered and turned his head back toward the nervous

adults on the curb.

I still think at times that the creatures out there are smarter than the people they share this world with, but Duffy reminded me that there is always hope.

School Shooting, Bullies, and Violence in Books for School Kids

  I am 48 years old, but I have never been away from books for young people.  As a Mom and a teacher and a writer - but most of all, as someone who loves books, from picture books to Paradise Lost.

    In writing, Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, I gave myself permission to play around in the world of fantasy and to use some traditional features from the types of Fantasy novels that I enjoyed as a child, but also to use some of the issues that the world is dealing with today.

     One of these issues is the fact that, "School Shooting" is a term which was unheard of when I was a student, but which is sadly a common thing to hear about on the news today.  As a teacher, I have to practice safety drills with students, and along with "earthquake" and "fire" drills, we also practice "Gunman on Campus."  I hate this reality, but my hating it makes it no less prevalent.


    There were guns at my High School, a lot of them, and no one cared.  I grew up in Wyoming, close to Yellowstone Park, and the students who lived out of town, on ranches or farms, carried shotguns and rifles in gun racks in the window of their unlocked pick-up trucks.  The targets were beer bottles, jack Rabbits, magpies, stop signs, coyotes.  There was never any thought that the target might be a student or a teacher.

    We had bullies, we had school fights, we went to school while the Vietnam War was on the news every evening and assigned for current events.  We knew that teenage pregnancy and hard core drugs were issues.  We read books where there was violence and favorite characters died.  And yet, it was more innocent still.

   In Junior High I loved, The Outsiders and, The Chronicles of Narnia, and, Bless the Beasts and the Children, and Johnny Tremain.  In High School I delighted in being terrified by Jaws, and Christine and, Carrie and Flowers in the Attic.

    But rogue sharks, and evil automobiles are a million light years away from the violence in The Hunger Games or City of Glass or the second quartet of Tamora Pierce's "The Circle Opens" books.

    And I have to ask myself, if reading so much violence, and hearing it on the news every day, and being saturated in it, doesn't make these kids vulnerable to being involved in it.  Do they come to see that as inevitable.  Yet here I am, selling my book, with a 9 year old turning his gun on a school assembly.

     I don't believe that violence is inevitable, or that suicide is a good response to being bullied, or that life can not be mostly about life and growth - and yet I wonder what the kids believe, and hope that my book gives them more than just a ray of light in the dark.

     I hope, that like Duffy, with his crutches and his Cerebral Palsy, that they find themselves realizing that they can be the peace and the good in the world, not just in-spite of their weaknesses, but often because of them.

    I know that I became a strong, loving woman, because I was bullied and threatened and ridiculed as a child, and while I do not wish any child to suffer as I did, I hope my books shows them, that there is life after school and a whole world just begging you to let it love you.