Writing non-binary

Alex Iantaffi interviews the wonderful author and 2015 winner of the Tiptree Literary Award Pat Schmatz. They talk about language, writing non-binary characters and so much more. You can find out more about Pat's wonderful books at http://www.patschmatz.com

Instagram: GenderStories
Hosted by Alex Iantaffi
Music by Maxwell von Raven
Gender Stories logo by Lior Effinger-Weintraub

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Lyrics from musical introduction: There’s a whole lot of things I want to tell you about. Adventures dangerous and queer. Some you could guess and some I’ve only hinted at. So please lend me your ear. 

Narrator:Everyone has a relationship with gender. What’s your story? Hello and welcome to Gender Stories with your host, Doctor Alex Iantaffi. 

Alex:Hello and welcome to another episode of Gender Stories. I am thrilled, I know I say this every time, but I do have the most amazing friends and community so I am thrilled to introduce Pat Schmatz. They’re an award-winning writer of teen fiction. She is also a lover of language and he’s also a lover of stories as a writer and so I’m really excited to have a conversation with you Pat about all the things you love! Anything I’ve forgotten in the introduction? 

Pat:I don’t think so, I’m just really excited to have a conversation with my friend Alex about gender and writing and whatever else we talk about. 

Alex:That’s great. And just for you listeners, if you got confused because I used a whole bunch of different pronouns introducing Pat, that's their preference as I understand it so I use all of these different pronouns to introduce him.  

Pat:Great! 

Alex:So when we were talking about what to talk about I asked you what are you really passionate about and of course you're really passionate about language. Why don’t we start from there, why don't you tell me a little bit about why language is so important to you. 

Pat:The thing I really love about language and the study of language is that in different languages you actually are forced to express yourself differently and I'm so interested in for instance ways using the English language it funnels my language into a particular way of thinking where is if I'm expressing myself in American Sign Language or in Japanese I actually have to shift conceptually inside of my own my own head in my own thoughts and ideas in order to express in that different language and I just to me that's really fascinating and it makes it makes me much more conscious when I am using English of both the strengths of English. For instance if you want a particular specific word for a particular specific thing, it’s great for that. However if you want to have more kind of amorphous conceptual things that don't have quite as sharp of boundaries on the ideas English is not that great of a language. 

Alex:I definitely relate to that cause English is my second language and often when people see me speak Italian it’s like a difference person and it's true I speak at a different decibel, a different speed, like you look different in terms of how I move my body and how I relate to other people and that’s definitely true for my experience. There's something about how that shapes you know for me as an immigrant's kind of how that has shaped my experience and how my mother tongue of Italian has shaped me from the beginning and now the two interact is endlessly fascinating so I can totally understand the fascination with language.  

Pat:It is and I feel like each new language that I start to go into and learn it it expands my internal world and expands my the way I think of stories and I might still be expressing them through English in the same way but the story in my head which then becomes the story that I express is broader and more expansive and to me, more exciting.  

Alex:That’s wonderful. You’re so good because I was totally going to segue into story. I was gonna ask how does kind of language shape our stories, so not just kind of stories we tell, but how we tell them and how we craft the language around them. So I’m interested in how you manage that tension between the story feeling more expansive internally but still being funneled through a specific tool which is English language in your case. 

Pat:Well I was really challenged with that with the book Lizard Radio. And that, honestly is the book of my heart. That is the book that I poured my everything into and I could not express in English many of the things I was trying to do with Lizard Radio and so there is an entire different vocabulary in Lizard Radio that I know readers have found challenging. They’re like why don't you just use English words. And it was because I had concepts in my head that we don't have English words for and so I did a lot of language play with that and going back and looking at roots of the English roots of words. And then playing with it to shift it a little bit. I actually had a really good time with the language in that book. It has been interesting to hear some of the pushback about how it's been difficult for readers to then engage in that world. And when I was writing that book I really was living in a different world for the months and months that I was working on it and that was you know that was exciting to me that was a joy to me. And the challenge as a writer is how do I take that fictive dream in my own head and transmit it into symbols on the page so that the reader can then have their own fictive dream, which will never be the same as mine. And to me that’s the magic of writing, I don't know what story you read and then you create your own story. And sometimes readers will say like “Oh I love the part in the book where blah blah blah” and I’m like “huh, in my story there wasn’t that blah blah blah part, but I hear that there was for you and I’m so happy that those the funnel of the words expanded into that for you.” 

Alex:I love that’s how communication works you put something  out in the world something happens in between and then something else happens and how it lands. And that's what makes communication so exciting and so challenging at the same time right? So I’m curious if you’re willing to tell me a little bit more about what was that dream world of LIzard Radio like? What did the world look like? How did it feed this story because my assumption is that the dream is more expansive sometimes I can go into the story right. I'm really interested in that landscape or was it like for you to be in that landscape?  

Pat:Well the landscape it's neither a dystopia nor a utopia in my mind it is as if we took our world that we have right now and we just shifted it slightly askew. There were different decision points that created different endpoints along the way and you know just thinking like what would happen if you know for instance around gender, what people ended up doing was saying okay people can change genders. That’s fine we're good with that but we're not having any of this “in the middle” stuff, you have to clearly be one gender or another so we are going to honor the fact that sometimes people don't fit that and we are going to help children decide which gender they're going to be and we're going to really enforce that. And then what happens to kids who fall in the middle? Because of course we're very  right now in the United States, particularly in our  culture we’re in flux about what do we do with those kids who land in the middle? So this took a very particular governmental stance on Well we’re going to do this. For me follow the what-if train of for the kid in the middle, but also Lizard Radio really explores the is the reality we're living in the only one? Which is actually a theme I go back to in every single book I write. Is there a different reality can you just like put your hands through that shimmering surface there and you're in a different reality and are are there thousands of realities all happening and how do you choose because as a writer you get to choose which one to go into. And so Lizard Radio really plays with those ideas as well like what are these communications that are you know are they just thoughts in our own head? Are they dreams or communication from somewhere else? So I really enjoyed playing with that and I actually I use John Coltrane's music as my background music for writing because it is so outside any binary it is so outside any strict structure at least in comparison to most music I'm used to listening to. And so I felt like it constantly shook my brain up. 

Alex:I love that and I would love to know what like why did it feel like such an important story for you to tell the story of what happened to the kids who fall in the middle? Like and you know it's a lot about gender and Lizard Radio I believe won a Tiptree Award for the awesome work it does really in kind addressing gender in a specific way. So why is this a story close to your heart I think? 

Pat:Well, for me obviously it's because I have struggled and well I wouldn't say I struggled. As a child I didn’t struggle with gender until the world started to struggle with me. But I’ve never fallen comfortably into either or any gender. And I've had different strategies in my life to deal with that in different ways and by the time I wrote Lizard Radio I already had some success with publishing and that was a point where I went okay now I'm going to tell the story I really want to tell and it might sell or it might not. But this is actually the story I have to tell because every one of my books my characters in some way do not actually fit the gender binary but this is the one I decided to just be right out there about it and say you know what, this is the story I have to tell that plays both with that in-between space with gender and with other realities and all kinds of different binaries of you know are you a leader or a follower? Are you a this or a that. What if it's always both or neither and because I was that kid I was a kid who was constantly saying “I don’t want to choose this or that. I want to do it some other way.” And our culture is often not kind to people who don't want to be this or that. And so for me it was very important to just go all out on that and the writing process of it, what I would say was both excruciating and amazing and beautiful and frustrating and all of it to try to get those words in a way that I could give the story to others the best that I could. I was frustrated in my own inability to get it exactly how it was in my head you know that's the challenge I think every artist is to try to give the world the picture that we have. 

Alex:THrough this very narrow channel of language, right? So how do you feel the story was received by a kind of a general audience? Obviously your fellow writers recognized what a beautiful and well crafted and important story it is in terms of addressing gender with the Tiptree award. But how do you think it landed for you readers? 

Pat:Well thanks for saying that. The Tiptree award was amazing for me like to receive that award. That you know, that such an award even exists you know to explore and expand the idea of gender. 

Alex:In fact should we even say what the award is about? I realize that if people don’t know what a Tiptree is, they’re like what are you talking about? 

Pat:Yeah! It’s the James Tiptree Award which is given every year to a work of I believe it’s science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores the idea of gender. 

Alex:I believe so. 

Pat:And so is a huge honor for me to get that because it felt like Oh somebody got it. Somebody understood was I was trying to do. I have felt like the reception like a lot of people love the idea, they’re like oh you wrote a book about gender exploration, great. And then I felt like I met with a lot you know both in reviews and from individuals like “I didn't really get it” or “huh” or “wow I couldn't figure out what was going on in there”. I have had individual emails and communications from people have been like “Oh  I never had anyone say how I felt before!” Those are the things that have made it for me. I just got one a couple of weeks ago from a reader who is 19 now and said, “I read that when I was 17 and it blew my whole world open! And now I call myself a bender. And and like thank you so much!” And I feel like those individual communications in the big picture are so much more important than you know how well the book is done in the world. Cause it hasn't actually done that well in the world. It came out of a time of some explosion in teen lit around gender and trans and queer stuff coming out. And I think people are much more comfortable while they're much more comfortable with something that’s just straight English all the way through. And also more comfortable with the storyline of the child who was born into the wrong body and needs to transition and they transition to be the opposite gender and you know they go through their struggles and may face violence and then they come out the other side a beautiful new gender of the opposite of what they were. And that seems to be a storyline that people are much more comfortable with. 

14:18 

Alex: And I guess that’s a story line that doesn't really challenge dominant culture and the whole kind of legacy of settler colonialism and the essentialism of the gender binary to some degree right? So there’s some comfort in that for folks. 

Pat:You know what is hard enough to get the idea that you used to be a girl and now are a boy but you used to be a girl and now you're a what? You’re a what? 

Alex:And what's interesting to me is like who's writing these stories right? There’s been an explosion of cis gender, so people who are assigned their sex at birth and then their gender identity aligns with that kind of cis gender authors, writing these more trans and at times these non-binary characters. And for you yeah like you said Lizard Radio was a story close to your heart because of your own experience. What do you think it's importance of people telling the story of the heart and their experience you know rather than people trying to diversify their books or you know. 

Pat:Yes that is I just think it's really really important concept. I don't think it means oh you can't write anyone who's different than you because of course we're in a world of fiction. But the question I have to ask myself I think as a writer is if I want to write a protagonist story that is not my experience answer the question honestly in depth multi-layered why do I need to write that story? And for instance from Lizard Radio was very simple for me to say why I need to write that story. Now if I for instance were going to write a story about a Black man's experience I would need to really seriously ask myself why do I think that's my story to tell? Are there  other people who can tell that story better than me and if there are why would I want to add my voice into that? Now I might have a really good reason and for the authors who do I support them 100% to do the research, do the book and do it well but if my reason is just that I want to help somebody or I think it's an interesting idea then it's a good time I feel like for me to sit down. And that’s okay. I don’t have to tell every story and so I think I think own voices is really important across-the-board in all kinds of different sort of storytelling. And it's it's not a strict rule of you can do this and you can't do that because I've heard people rail against the strict rule it’s fiction. But it’s an ethical question - why do I need to tell this story? And if I can answer is satisfactorily, great.  

Alex:Absolutely. And I love this idea of it's not just can I tell it but what is what why am I compelled to tell this story right and then you know if it is to help other people, this is how does this perpetuate the idea that certain identities can almost be like objects right, rather than subjects. And I think for me at least that #OnVoice this is really about claiming agency and really being subject in our own stories for a lot of folks of marginalized identities were not as represented as authors, not just as characters, but actually as authoring our own stories.  

Pat:Yes and I don't need a savior to tell my story for me. 

Alex:Yes. 

Pat:What I appreciate and I have been fortunate in proving that I have is is access to the platform to tell my own story. That is for it when we talk we need diverse books, that’s what we need is access for all the different voices to tell our stories. Not for someone else to do it for us. 

Alex:And the importance of what happens when people, readers see themselves not just in the characters but also the authors of stories right?  And when we were talking about what to talk about in the podcast we touched on the importance of seeing yourself in books and so I know that even just being visible in the world I remember at a conference at a younger person telling me you made a huge impact that you said you were kind of genderqueer gender-fluid and you're over 30 cuz I thought that was something I had to “get over” in air quotes by the time college was out. But actually it’s a sustainable identity that I haven’t seen before and so I wonder if you can say little bit about the importance of people seeing themselves in your books, but also seeing themselves maybe in you as an author in the world. 

Pat:I do think it's really important. I do a lot of high school and middle school visits, I have done more in the past where I feel like I walk in that room and when I started doing this like 25 years ago I felt like I had to walk in the room and quickly get all of the kids attention and form the repoire really quickly because I knew they were especially in middle school very busy going “What is it? What is that a boy or a girl? Why do they look like that?” and so I had to engage them quickly before they had a chance to judge me as such a weirdo that they couldn't talk to me. And that has really changed significantly, it’s been a delight that I actually sometimes go into classrooms now and I introduce myself with my pronouns and just kind of get that out of the way. And in and in many places kids are much more matter of fact about that. But something I've been doing since way back then as I walk in the classroom and I scan and if there is a kid in there who looks like they're of indeterminate gender I make sure to make eye contact with that child. And I don't point them out or do anything particular to them, but I am very sure that I am accessible visually to them and sometimes they'll come up and ask me some question afterward and I think that was my job here today, was to be a visible adult that you can't tell if I'm male or female. And that it’s not because I'm trying to play a trick on anybody, it just actually is who I am in the world. And I used to get a lot more curious questions about “Are you married?”. And I would say our culture has changed significantly in that I don't get that question anymore and I no longer dread I used to dread that they would ask “Are you gay?” because 30 years ago to be asked in the classroom if you were gay was really difficult for an adult to figure out how to handle. 

Alex:Absolutely. 

Pat:And now that question is no longer hard to handle. You know I don't think it's really about my presentation usually but it's no longer  like “What do I say if that comes up? How do I deflect?” That's been a change that's good and I also feel like it's been a good change that I feel like teachers and administrators are much more comfortable with me now. It used to bep I would show up and I would feel like that they kind of went [mimics sharp intake of breath]. [both laugh] They would do a lot of “Miss” they’d call me “Miss Pat” and what the hell I just really hate and that level of discomfort seems to have eased off and also after Lizard Radio came out, now they know what they’re getting which is much more comfortable for me. Like if your school’s not comfortable with me coming in looking the way I look and being how I am I’d rather not visit. Although I feel for the kids who are in that school because I know there are the schools and I know there are those kids and I'm just like it's just, just survive and get out of there.  

Alex:Yeah, I feel that as a therapist who works with kids as well and adolescents specifically. So you talked a little bit about the change of scene in culture and in school and I wonder if you've noticed change in the writing industry as well in terms of how you’ve been… you said you could write Lizard Radio because you had some level of having an established platform. So I wonder what's been like to navigate the actual kids writing industry. 

Pat:The kid-lit industry has is pushing itself to change. The We Need Diverse Books movement has actually had a significant influence. Unfortunately what has happened if you look at the CCBC, that's the Cooperative Center for Books for Children in Madison at UW-Madison, they track the statistics of all kids books published every year. It's really interesting if you want to look them up. And what has  happened is that actual progress has been very slow. Why? Because the publishing industry itself is still mostly dominated by cis white women and so even as the stories start to bump their way up there there's still the like you have to deal with the editor to like you know, I work with Candlewick is actually have a fabulous company to work with. They’re the best they really really challenge themselves in so many way. But still they’re like, I have to push to say, for instance when the advanced review copy came out of my next book “The Key to Everything”, and that's about an 11 year old child who there is nothing in that story anywhere to make you think that child would ever wear a pink headband. And suddenly advanced review copies came out on the cover that child had a pink headband. And I lost it, I completely lost it. I called my editor, I’m like “Augh what’s going on? This can’t be.” And she's like “Oh yeah I noticed that it was blue and they changed it to pink” and I'm like “Why blue? We don’t need a headband at all that child would never wear a headband. Who would give it to her? Nobody! 

Alex:Cause the headband is a gender marker in and of itself. 

Pat:It is a gender marker. And I had to have a conversation about why that is a gender marker. And I honestly think nobody had bad intentions there, but that is the thing where you know those of us who are pushing have to keep pushing. And I'm saying about the CCBC statistics they’re slowly climbing for books that have, I mean it’s shockingly slow for people of color. It has started to move much faster for non-binary, queer, gay kids. And the problem is that what they're getting is more and more books with kids or small animals or whatever who are not white or not cisgender but the authorship has not changed nearly as quickly. 

Alex:What would you think it would take for the authorship to change? Like what does the  industry need?  

Pat:The industry absolutely needs queer people and people of color and people with disabilities in positions of power in the publishing industry. That is going to change it more than anything else I think there's things that for instance I as a white writer can do. I mentor other authors who have a harder time finding a platform. Part of it is I think also and this is really a thing like don't speak on all white panels. Don’t speak on all straight panels you know what sometimes I don't need to be the one who speaks. Sometimes I don't need to be the one who writes the next book. If I have something to say that I am compelled to say, first I need to think about why I feel compelled to say it. Is anyone else saying it? And if I'm not, I can take a rest. It's okay. And I think the same question as the writing like when is the point where rather than me saying like, “Me me! My book my book!”, I can say “Please let me introduce you to my friend who's doing this fabulous work”. PLease my friend who is doing this fabulous work, let me help you kick some of those doors down because I know how because of my particular privilege and luck and access. Let me help you with that. And it is one thing that's nice about the kid lit world is that it tends to be much more cooperative and communal I think than the adult writing world. But we can do more with that and I think it's really important to try to get all the voices out there and I've been fortunate to have a platform and I think a lot of that comes from the race and class privilege that I have coming into it. And it still has been a long road to feel like I could write the story I really wanted to write. And part of that road of course was internal like oh am I going to be okay, years of habit of is this an okay setting for me to be myself? Do I need to be closeted or low-key? And I really have hit in the last few years like I don't care. 

Alex:Well and that internal struggle has been shaped by systemic oppression. SO even with your race and class privilege, there were still barriers. And let’s imagine for like trans and/or nonbinary queer authors of color then it’s, that's magnified because of that intersection. 

Pat:Right cause I group up in the 60s and 70s and so it took a lot of internal work to slowly be able to go like no this is actually who I am. 

Alex:And who you is amazing and your books are wonderful and this new book, “The Key to Everything” right is the new book. You said Lizard Radio was the book of your heart? What’s the piece of your heart that’s in “The Key to Everything”? especially if there is a piece of your heart around gender, which I’m assuming there is given the strong feelings you had about how the cover looked. 

Pat:This book for me is really the book around chosen family and the idea that your biological family is not necessarily the family that is going to bring you up and give you the support and love that you need to actually be who you are. So it's a combination of looking at that and also intergenerational friendship which is different than ingenerational… and we don't even have words in English for kind of intergenerational friendship and it's specifically a friendship of an older lesbian with a younger non-binary kid. And although it’s a book for younger kids, it's like for 8 to 11 year olds and so there’s not there’s... anybody's sexuality and gender is not the focus of the story. It is a book I would have loved to have read as a kid myself. I love the kid in the book actually and it was great for me to write that kid in exactly the way they are and to give them an adult friend in their life who had a lot of room for them to just be who they are and actually create more room for them, like go ahead, push that boundary, stretch that. So that was the driving force for me around that. And I also I was writing it as my mother was dying and I was her primary caretaker and kind of helping her through that piece and so there's a lot in there about the idea of ideas of getting older and dying, how does that work and how does that affect the people around you, your friends of whatever age.  

Alex:Absolutely. I can’t wait to read it. I love all your books, so I’m really excited! Given your track record I’m pretty sure I’m gonna love the new book as well.  

[both laugh] 

Alex:So I feel like this conversation could probably gone for a long time and I want to be respectful of your time as well. 

Pat:We’ll keep having it off-mic I’m sure. 

Alex:Exactly! We can also have another podcast later down the line if you want to. I'm wondering if there is anything that I haven't asked you about today that you really hoped to talk about or you wanted to talk about around this intersection of gender and story and language and and kid-lit.  

Pat:I think the hardest thing for me is that English does not do well with non-binary gender. It’s so difficult with the pronouns and it's so difficult our language is so entrenched with the idea of the gender binary in so many different ways and it's a challenge and I have been completely grateful for the younger generations who are creative with that flow of language and I'm I'm taking it on and using much of it for myself. And I think that's the thing as a writer of books for young people is that means I get to have a lot of interaction and interchange with them and so much gratitude for the way they keep exploding my world open and so I keep looking forward to more of that. 

Alex:Right cause language is evolving, so it's really nice to see how younger generations are pushing those boundaries. 

Pat:They don’t have any problem with “they” as a singular pronoun. 

Alex:No it’s really easy for them. 

Pat:If they can do it, we can do it. 

[both laugh] 

Alex:Yeah. I love that. Oh thank you. This has been an amazing conversation and I hope you've enjoyed it just as much as I've enjoyed kind of interviewing Pat. If you want to find out more about Pat's work you can go to their website patschmatz.com and you can find their whole body of work and more about Pat. And then if you're just interested about learning more about gender generally you can check out, yes this is my self-promotion part, the book that I’ve written with Meg-John Barker, “How to Understand Your Gender” 

Pat:Oh it’s such a good book. I just want to say, it’s such a good book. I used it as a workbook. I love it for myself, I've given it to I’ve probably given it to 10 different people and more to come. 

Alex:Oh my god, I feel like, I wish you listeners could see me like blush really hard right now. It’s like this thing where as a creator in the world you have to let people know what you've created and at the same time it's a really weird thing to do, so thank you for that testimonial. 

Pat:I know I’m so glad you said it. Yeah, that book came out and I went why is this book not everywhere? This book needs to be everywhere. So I'm doing my own small part to have that book be everywhere. 

Alex:Thank you. And please check out our publisher, Pat has already talked about their publisher, Jessica Kingsley also has an amazing gender diversity list and they're very much committed to this work of #OwnVoices and so I really want to kind of lift up my editor Andrew James has done such a good job at kind of seeking out trans and/or nonbinary authors. And for today, thank you for listening and until the next time we meet, keep expanding those boundaries of gender. Thank you. 

[instrumental musical outro]