There are very few books out there on craft that are written by Black and Brown people.

It's annoying when you're trying to teach emerging writers how to center themselves and to not narrate from some disembodied place.

All I'm saying is, memory, plot, and narrative tension are synthesized very differently for those of marginalized backgrounds.

Just venting my frustrations here. I feel like I'm learning as I teach. It's just not the same and I can't keep going back to Eudora Welty, etc.

My students are really teaching me a lot. The way their minds twist and bend, and I cannot find many craft books that can speak to this innovation.

Maybe one day I'll write a craft essay--or essays--of my own because there are some huge gaps missing. It shouldn't be this hard.

To make up for this lack, I've been having discussions with my students. There's no right or wrong. I'm trying to figure out how they're moving from A to B instead of me giving them the route.

All I ask is that they remain soft to their processes.

Softness is my mantra.

Anyways, please give recs if you can.

I have Matthew Salesses's CRAFT IN THE REAL WORLD and Alex Chee's "How To Write An Autobiographical Novel" (the latter which I pull from a LOT)