Craft and Conscience
How to Write About Social Issues
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The first major book for writers to more effectively engage with complex socio-political issues—a critical first step in creating social change
Writers are witnesses and scribes to society’s conscience but writing about social issues in the twenty-first century requires a new, sharper toolkit. Craft and Conscience helps writers weave together their narrative craft, analytical and research skills, and their conscience to create prose which makes us feel the individual and collective impact of crucial issues of our time. Kavita Das guides writers to take on nuanced perspectives and embrace intentionality through a social justice lens. She challenges writers to unpack their motivations for writing about an issue and to understand that “writing, irrespective of genre or outlet, is an act of political writing,” regardless of intention.
The book includes essays from a fascinating mix of authors, including James Baldwin, Alexander Chee, Kaitlyn Greenidge, George Orwell, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Gaiutra Bahadur, Jaquira Díaz, and Imani Perry. By including Das’s own perspective and those of the featured writers about motivations and approaches to writing about fraught social issues, this book both demystifies the process of engaging social issues on the page, and underscores the intentionality and sensitivity that must go into the work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Das (Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar), who teaches a course on writing about social issues, shows what great social justice writing looks like in this insightful how-to. While writing about social issues can take lots of forms, Das notes, it always requires thoughtful intention: "Ethics are not ancillary to craft but, in fact, critical to the craft of writing." Das offers guiding questions ("What can you do to prepare your subjects for any positive and negative attention the piece might attract to them?") and dives into aspects of craft that activists-cum-writers face, including analyzing one's motivations for writing about a topic; distinguishing between reportage, personal narrative, and a hybrid approach; and conducting research (writers from outside a community should consider having a community member read a finished piece for accuracy, she suggests). Essays by James Baldwin, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Imani Perry, and Alice Wong, among others, show Das's tips in action and speak to the power of writing about marginalized communities. Through concise language and well-chosen excerpts, Das delivers a one-of-a-kind writing guide that's pitch-perfect for her niche. Activists ready to put pen to paper won't want to miss this.
