Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Guest Speaker: Betsy James
I went to the Guest Speaker series in the Honors forum this afternoon to hear all about one of our own professors here at UNM's Honor's College, none other than the author and illustrator, Betsy James. Betsy is a very cool and hip lady who has written some short stories, children's books, young adult books and has illustrated and painted beyond numerous works to her credit. She is an award winning writer of "The Seeker Series". She was born in Missouri and lived in Salt Lake City and graduated from the University of Utah. In high school, she was voted most likely to succeed, but then crashed and burned in an Ivy League school. Her father said she would be a waitress all of her life but she felt that wasn't her fate in life. She found a time capsule when she was 21 and in it were a painting, a rock with a hole in it that she found in California, and a letter written in her own blood stating, "I will be a writer!" She worked in Mexico as an illustrator on an archaeology site and became very interested in other cultures. She states that, "Writing is thinking aloud". She was a freelance illustrator and didn't publish her first book until she was 40. She teaches Speculative fiction here at the Honor's College, which is a mix of fantasy, science fiction, and horror ( and I truly admire and love this word 'speculative' for all the things that I have loved reading my entire life and wondered if there ever would be a category for them). She teaches World Building and Truth Flies and Other Fiction (I know one of my next classes that I will be taking here in Honors). She says the difference between fantasy and science fiction is one is "tits and rayguns" and the other is "elves and spandex", which I thoroughly enjoyed the humor there. She also said that another author quoted, "Sci-fi is logical extension of laws and science in imagined futures, fantasy is making money off of science fiction", which again I laughed hard at this very bright and hilarious lady who continued to amaze me through her speaking. She wrote an opening scene when she was very young for a book , but never wrote more. It was of a girl finding a seal man on the beach unconscious. She made a deal with herself to paint that scene until it changed for her. Every morning she asked for an image of the girl and the seal boy, and then paint whatever she imagined. These painting turned into over 350 and she entitled the collection 'Morning' describing what happened after the initial scene she started with. She has spent 25 years at the Zuni pueblo teaching workshops and again was deeply enriched by a culture that she was constantly around. She said, "Witn imagination, try imagining what it would be like to be in someone else's skin, in another body, and then a story will start to unravel for you". She also said, "Write unique stuff, for fiction is far more organic in nature". She is truly a kind soul and an artist too. This experience was quite enjoyable for me and I look forward to more.
1 comment:
I also attended this lecture. Betsy James writes what she calls speculative fiction. She defines this as an umbrella term containing the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and more. I thought Betsy’s story of coming to the point where she became a writer was fascinating. One thing that stood out to me, that I thought was quite relevant to this class, was when she explained how she realized she could become a speculative fiction writer. She recalled reading some unusual fantasy stories where the characters had real life experiences, and then these experiences were mirrored in a fantasy world. They faced problems there that represented their problems in real life, and found corresponding solutions. She found this fascinating and it inspired her to begin writing speculative fiction. I think this part of her story is especially notable because the stories she described sounded like a metaphor for fantasy in general. It reminded me of Tolkien’s discussion on escapism. Fantasy allows people to travel into a secondary world – for this reason Tolkien felt it was important that the world was consistent and deeply developed so as not to break immersion. When people are immersed in the secondary world of a good story, they can learn important truths about the real world, and see the characters deal with challenges that translate to real world challenges. This is one of the main reasons fantasy stories (and other stories in the larger category of speculative fiction) are so important.
I also found her story of coming up with the first scene of a book and trying to get past it interesting for several reasons. The first was that she explained the scene was inspired by stories in mythology, similar to how Tolkien drew on mythology from a wide range of cultures. The Cauldron of stories, as Tolkien put it, is still boiling. Her glimpse was a scene where a woman on a beach found a seal-man who had been cast out from his community. It was inspired by the Selkie legends of Scotland, Ireland, and other regions. These are stories about people who are seals in the water but shed their skins when they come ashore to become humans. These legends provided a spark of inspiration for Betsy to begin her own series. The other thing that struck me about this part of her story was the persistence she needed to get past it. It was a good start but she only wrote and rewrote that scene for a long time without ever progressing. She got past it by painting the scene over and over again until it finally changed in her eyes and she had the inspiration to move past it. It takes an amazing amount of diligence to become a good writer. It is clear that Tolkien put an enormous amount of effort not only into the works like The Lord of the Rings that he published in his own lifetime, but also works he never finished like The Silmarillion.
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