On Glossaries and Italicizing

Author and creative writing teacher John Gardner contends that "the most important single notion in the theory of fiction" is that of fiction or storytelling as a "vivid and continuous dream" (The Art of Fiction, 97). The vivid part is easy to figure out: make an image of your story for the reader. Throw in details where details are necessary; for for the concrete, the tangible. That movie in a reader's head, right?

As to the "continuity principle" of Gardner's theory, this is a bit messier. He states that "the reader should never be distracted from the image or scene," presumably a vivid image or scene (98). Implied in this statement is that whatever would distract the reader is the result of something the writer did or didn't do or did poorly. "[T]he sensitive reader shrinks away a little, as we do when an interesting conversationalist picks his nose" (99). Get the picture?

So, a good story should be able to carry itself because it is a good story. But what if the writer of that good story uses Spanish? At a reading for my first novel, The Jumping Tree (2001) I was asked by a girl named Rachel why I wouldn't use a glossary of Spanish terms like Gary Soto does in his work. I debated wether to tell her the truth, academic though the answer might be, or to give her some stock answer. I went with the truth: that back in my day reading Shakespeare in high school, if I didn't know the meaning of a word, the teacher would recommend I crack open a dictionary and find out for myself. Shakespeare didn't provide readers with a glossary of his English. I added that I did include context clues as to the meaning of words and phrases, so a reader shouldn't find herself completely lost.

But actually did give it some thought during the writing of the book: a glossary at the bottom of the corresponding page or at the end of the book, or not at all? I went with the last choice--none at all. And mostly because when I am in the middle of a good story and the author uses a language foreign to me the last thing I want to do is to interrupt the flow of the story, the continuity of it by turning to the end of the book, finding out what a word might mean, then try to get back into the groove of the story where I left off. I can well find the very spot where I dropped away, but it's unlikely that I get back into the emotional groove. If a word or phrase knocks my reader away out of the flow, then shame on me, but normally I try to think through my use of Spanish: is is necessary, is it authentic in use, is it smooth?

I don't italicize either, mostly. I grew up in the U.S. speaking both Spanish and English, and so by default both are U.S. languages. Neither foreign to me, a U.S.-born citizen, as the user of them. I will use italics when in a conversation a character who is not a U.S. citizen speaks his or her language and it is a foreign language to the narrator. So if Rey's Mexican grandmother in The Jumping Tree speaks Spanish, in that case I would italicize. When Rey speaks Spanish to his best friend, Chuy, both of whom are U.S. citizen, then no italics. It's that simple. Or that complicated. Take your pick.

 So, two years have passed since my last post, but what wonderful two years they've been! For one, I've been promoted to Professor, the pinnacle for an academic. I've documented this experience, which has not been a clean one, in a book chapter I co-authored with former student, now-colleague Dr. Elizabeth Stewart. The title of our chapter is titled "When a Single Song Just Won't Do: The Mixtape as Research Methodology" found in DeHart & Hash's Arts-Based Research Across Visual Methodology: Expanding Visual Epistemology (Routledge, 2023). But I've made it to this level and trying to make the best of it. If folks on the path think it's about publishing or perishing on the way up, it doesn't end with promotion and tenure or promotion to full. The expectation to keep publishing only increases. We become, in a sense, show windows: national visibility and recognition become paramount. So we keep writing and publishing. What changes is that I finally get the opportunity to write what makes me happy. Sure, in a college of education, I'm still a social scientist, or what passes, very loosely for one, so I write up my research.

But now, I'm experimenting with arts-based research and writing. Two titles forthcoming in this vein, both poetry collections. The first is called Eventually, Inevitably: My Writing Life in Verse (Arte Público Press/Piñata Books, 2023), pictured here: 

Originally slated for an October print date, it will be out toward the end of December now. So a book for the new year? The book captures the story or stories of how I grew into the writing business, dating back decades prior to my own birth, if you can believe it. But mostly, it's autobiographical poems about writing and how it is all around us, if we're paying attention. One could argue that this is not an arts-based research title since I didn't originally set out to write it as such; but it is non-fiction, and it recounts with some research pieces, a piece of my life and my learning. It's not a hill I would die on, though.

The next book is very much an arts-based research project. It is another book of poems called Strangers in Our Own Land: A Poetic Autoethnography (FlowerSong, 2024). Here's a link to the brilliant independent press run by Edward Vidaurre in case you want to support it financially and or sign up for their newsletter (https://www.flowersongpress.com/). Not listed yet, my book tells of my fears of deportation growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, a very visceral fear I experienced every time we drove to San Antonio or Houston to visit family and had to verify our U.S. citizenship at the Checkpoint (including this last Thanksgiving traveling with my two youngest kids, telling them a mile or two away from the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias to answer "Yessir" to the agent when he asked if we were citizens; my son later told me he was about to say "Yessir" when he changed his mind last second and said instead, "Yes ma'am."). I also write about how perhaps my fear, though real, was nothing compared to the fear illegal immigrants feel as they make the trek here, and the other, more real fear of being stuck in the trailer of an 18-wheeled truck in the Texas heat, no A/C, the oxygen running out, in utter darkness listening to what very well could be the last breath of that boy who took a spot next to you after climbing in, the dream turned nightmare.

I also published my 6th and last installment in the Mickey Rangel Mystery series. This one is titled A Case is Still a Case (Arte Publico Press/Piñata Books, 2023) , and like the other five, this one is bilingual in the classic flip format: you can never go wrong on what language you choose to read it in as there is never a language designated as the primary one. If you don't want to read it in English today, simply flip it upside down and backwards, and you are now reading it in Spanish. In this last story, online-certified PI Mickey Rangel has to come to grips with the fact that detective work is not gender-specific. It's a job that girls can do, too, and sometimes a job they can do better. 

I also found homes for other academic pieces. Following is a list:

"The Many Ways of Sources: Giving Voice to the Research Data" in Rigorous Poetics: Poetic Inquiry in Action Across the Hemispheres. Willmington DE: Vernon Press. (2024). 

"Degollado’s THROW: Nepantla: New Name, New Self" in Malo and Hill (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of Young Adult Literature. New York NY: Oxford University Press. (2024). 

With Stewart, E.  "In Search of the Aesthetic: An Arts-based Approach to Writing Up Our Research" in Lesley, Saldaña, Smit, and Jung (Eds.) Liminal Spaces of Writing in Adolescent and Adult Education. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.  (2022).

With Stewart, E., Lesley, M., and Beach, W. "Perspectives in Cultivating a Qualitative Researcher’s Identity" in A. Zimmerman (Ed.) Developing Students’ Scholarly Dispositions in Higher Education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. (2022).

I also published the following poems:

"Scrubbed of My Own History." English Journal. (2023).

"Happy." In Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (Eds.), What Is a Friend? (2022). 

Lastly, I collaborated with singer-songwriter and educator Jordan McEwen on a DocuPoetry research-art project called The Story of Boxing in WTX where we interviewed a few folks in the business and took photos, marrying the visual with the text to create some riveting visual poems. 

All in all, a busy and productive couple of years. And now, with more time to dedicate to the old blog.