Telling It
Women and Language Across Cutures
Telling It Book Collective ( Lee, Sky; Maracle, Lee ; Marlatt, Daphne ; Warland,Betsy)
Publisher: Press Gang Publishers
Year Published: 1990
Pages: 208pp ISBN: ISBN 0-88974-027-5
Resource Type: Book
Cx Number: CX4482
Abstract:
The strong urge to continue discussion around key issues begun at the Telling It conference held in Vancouver in November 1988 resulted in one and a half years of editing, critique and analysis by the editors.
The conference was organized to highlight the writing and thought of three groups of marginalized women in B.C. society: Native Indians, Asian-Canadians and the lesbian community. The opportunity for dialogue between these groups and between them and their audiences held out the hope that women would speak openly, hear each other openly and find common ground so that they could help each other feel less marginalized.
The first part of the book provides talks by the three participating writers in the two conference panels entitled `Across the Cultural Gap' and the `Writer's Role in Community'. Edited transcripts of the ensuing audience discussion and creative writing by all of the seven panelists are featured. Also included in this section is a short play performed at the conference by a Vancouver Punjabi theatre collective.
Issues raised at the conference focused on the possible relationship between cultures of colour and white culture, and between lesbian and heterosexual culture, as participants struggled to articulate the pain they felt.
Post conference analysis, in Part Two, crystallized around the issues of racism and homophobia. Three of the panelists and conference organizer Daphne Marlatt formed the Telling it Book Collective and wrestled with their own and each other's cultural assumptions and values; and tried to break through each other's stereotypes to pull the book together.
Subject Headings
