Don’t Be Anonymous

 

The bravest thing I ever did was writing my name.

Since Hevria started accepting guest posts (a whole year ago!), we’ve gotten some amazing, wonderful, heartbreaking stories from people outside the usual stable of Hevria writers. There was the piece about the illictness of working at a secular library. The piece about modesty and an intimate photoshoot. We’ve played a part in major national news stories and even broken some of those stories. We’re getting more submissions every day — thank G-d, there are artists out there, a whole bunch of them, and they’re creating stuff and it’s brilliant and they are sharing it with us.

And a lot of those submissions are anonymous.

For the most part, we actively discourage writers from being anonymous. Yes, there are times when it’s necessary, but we think that creative writing — any type of creative expression — shouldn’t be something that anyone has to be ashamed of.

We’ve published anonymous pieces before. Sometimes it’s necessary for the piece — we’ve published pieces by victims of abuse and people who are in religious relationships while trying to figure out their sexual identity.

These pieces are the exception to the rule.

Elad and I, and all the writers and readers and lurkers and encouragers, have worked for two years to make Hevria a safe space for writing, and for writers.

If you’re afraid people will think your poetry is dumb. If you’re afraid that writing a story about rebellion will make people question your own religiousness, or if you’re scared to write about a character being depressed or manic or kooky because people will think that character is you — don’t be afraid.

People might, at first. But you’re a writer. Your power is your words. If you put some thoughts into their heads, you can put others inside those heads, too.

Repeat after me: Writing shouldn’t be something you should have to apologize for. Your past isn’t something to be ashamed of — it’s your past, and it’s what made you into the person you are today.

For my own part, I’ve written some sketchy things. Hell, I have a whole memoir about trying to become religious, sometimes failing, sometimes learning lessons in what can only be described as the hard way. The last time I ate in a non-kosher restaurant. A girl I kissed before I was married. It’s all out there. If you search my name — on Bing, on Google, in the Library of Congress — this is some of the stuff you’re going to come up with.

Then I started shidduch dating. Talking to matchmakers, the unofficial, person-who-knows-everyone kind, the kind who are rife in frum communities, trying to figure out who my One True Love might be, because they might know better than me.

At one point I hit rock bottom. My ideal, married-to-a-nice-wise-mystical-woman self of the future, and my down-and-dirty poetry-slingin’ self of today had grown so far apart that they didn’t even recognize each other.

And when I mentioned this present-day self to the People Who Knew Better, to my friends and rabbis, they said: Ignore it. Don’t put it out there. If the people you could date ever find out about that side of you, if they know the things you say and the things you’ve done, they won’t want to marry you. They’ll run.

And when I was feeling near my lowest, and trying my hardest just to be a guy in a button-down shirt and slacks, and feeling broken down and ugly on the inside, I got into a conversation with a rabbi who said the most magical dating advice I’d ever gotten.

You don’t want to marry someone who loves you in spite of your weirdness. 

(He might not have said “weirdness.” But that’s what he meant.)

You want to marry someone who loves you because of that weirdness.

Write what you’re afraid to write. Share it. Write about what you’re ashamed of, and write about what you fear, and write each and every one of your dreams. Don’t get consumed by the one thing, the dangerous thing, the thing that you don’t want people hearing about. Because the more things you put out there, the more different pieces and different thoughts and different yous you put into the world, the more you write, the more you won’t be a one-hit wonder — you’ll become a writer or singer or dancer or filmmaker with many different stories or songs or poems or films, not just one thing for people to judge you on.

And maybe the wrong thing will rise to the top? It’s always a possibility. But right underneath it will be three dozen other things, three dozen right things.

We’ve published anonymous submissions. We will continue to, of course — we’ll embrace the writing and the writers, and we’ll continue to provide a safe, supportive community for everyone who wants to come.

But we also want to help you believe in yourself. And in your good name. Your real name.

Behind the Scenes at Noshland

I wrote a new short story on Hevria -- well, okay, half a short story -- but I have the whole thing in my head, and I'm, like, 98% sure that I'm going to post the other half in 2 weeks. Or next week, if Elad lets me.

And I'm kind of overbrimming with behind-the-scenes stuff to tell you about it.

Last Night at Noshland

BY MATTHUE ROTH • JULY 5, 2016 • STORY

Zvi needs to leave Crown Heights behind, and he is leaving it behind, but every step he takes brings him a new wash of sadness, the nostalgia sinking deeper into his brain and skin and his nose, even though he hasn’t even left yet.

keep going >>

And Now, the Commentary Track.

• The genesis of the story: I love one-night (or one-day) stories, like American Graffiti and Superbad and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I like giving my stories time limits in general, like how Goldbergs had to end at the end of the summer and this memoir I'm working on goes from Halloween to Thanksgiving. That gives me a ruler to pace everything. Having a single night is even better. It's like a puzzle where every single thing that happens has to fit.
  
• Yes, the name of the shop in the story is based on the dear, wonderful Nosh World, zichrono l'vrocho (the characters and even the store itself are as complete fabrications as anything can be), but another major influence in the title and the story is the book Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O'Nan. It's about a Red Lobster that's shutting down, and there's a snowstorm coming, and workers keep not showing up for their shift, and it's really sad and beautiful -- and specifically, the way it was taught to me by my professor Alexi Zentner, who has a new book out this week that I'm not sure I'm allowed to say is really by him.
  
• I'm doing this sort of as a challenge to myself: both to finish something, and to put it in front of people. I've been in kind of a sad place lately. My last novel is in limbo and the new one I'm writing is taking forever, and I keep starting stories and then not finishing them. So I'm trying to vanquish my writing anxiety with performance anxiety. I've put up the first half! Now I have to finish the damn thing.
  
• I just also want there to be more fiction on Hevria! And more stories about Hasidim that aren't about how pathetic we are or people running away or what a horrible place the community is. Not that this is exactly a happy story (nothing I'm gonna write right now is going to be that), but I really do like Zvi, the main character, and I hope other people will too.
  
• I was working on the last part of the story this morning and I realized with a shock of horror, there's almost no chocolate. Sure, I mention ice cream once or twice, but it is in no way true-to-life to write about a snack shop in Crown Heights and exclude chocolate. There's a paragraph in the second part about a girl who buys a bag of tortilla chips, and it would make way more sense for her character to be eating chocolate, but it makes way more sense for me as a person to think of someone eating nachos:
  
  
  And she buys a 50-cent pack of chips, of Golden Fluff tortilla strips, a brand whose name has always puzzled him (no gold? no fluff?) but whose taste is undeniably solid, that perfect balance of spicy and tangy and sweet, that he once read the Japanese call umami, a harmony of flavor, the perfect culinary addiction of which he was the purveyor. He loved the boldness of Tsivia Singer’s pre-party indulgence, and the vision of her walking down the street with the umami tang on her breath, neither of which he would ever taste.

The Gobblings: The Movie (sort of)

I stole a story from the Baal Shem Tov. Well, I sort of stole it. The part about it being in space, the aliens, the toy robots, the overprotective parents, and the saving the universe without the universe knowing about you saving it -- those parts I may or may not have made up myself.

(Except for the overprotective parents. That part's based on real life.)

Anyway: Here's a movie where I talk about The Gobblings and writing and how the rest of the world tells stories to put kids to bed, and we tell stories to wake ourselves up. Thanks to Daniel and David for filming it, and JAKEtv for making it real, and the wondrous people at Hevria for letting me be egotistical for a change.