Three ways my writing has changed since VONA

It’s been nearly three months since the Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) Foundation summer workshop. In the immediate aftermath, I wrote a letter to myself with what the workshop stirred up in me. These were the things that resonated in the feeling of VONA, ones I had to capture quickly before the emotions dissipated. And yet, with something so transformative, it takes time for the true impact of it to fully permeate and show up in my writing.

Only now, three months on, I am able to see the impact that VONA has had in my own writing to transform it into something more honest, more fierce, more alive. More true to who I am, even if I didn’t realize that I wasn’t being true before (or at least, not in the same way). These realizations aren’t ones I was even aware of; they happened surreptitiously, in subconscious ways. It is only because I’ve spent time in recent weeks with loved ones who have asked in depth about my writing process that they emerge at all.

To be able to share what these are, I first need to tell you about the structure of the VONA summer workshop. Everyday, for the week of the workshop, we met with our specific workshop’s instructor. I had applied for the Fiction as Resistance session, with the incredible Fabienne Josaphat, who construed this as a generative workshop i.e. one where, rather than coming into the workshop with writing we already had completed and giving each other feedback, we generated new material while in our sessions. To respond to fiction as resistance, everyday there was a sub-theme; we would read a couple of texts that spoke to that sub-theme and discuss them; then we had our own writing time based on some fabulous prompts from Fabienne; and eventually, at the end of the session, we shared out. In addition to these sessions, in the evenings, there were often faculty talks where all the instructors across all eight workshops came together to discuss certain topics that have affected them / the writing community. We also had open mics for participants to share their own writing.

So here they are, the three biggest impacts from VONA that are weaving themselves into my writing.

Igniting my curiosity about those in my own lineage who have been erased

One of the sub-themes in Fiction as Resistance was dedicated to talking about those who have been erased from history. We all know that history is written by the winners; and the winners often represent imperialism. Fabienne opened with telling us the story of The Count of Monte Cristo (she has written about this here), which was based on Alexandre Dumas’ father, Thomas Alexandre, who, although born into slavery, managed to become a respected general, leading troops under Napoleon. When Alexandre questioned Napoleon about his intentions of colonizing Egypt, Napoleon threw him in prison. Upon his release, Alexandre became poor and destitute. Although Alexandre led massive armies, one has to look hard to find his name in history books today. The Count of Monte Cristo, then, is Alexandre Dumas’ attempt to write back into history the contributions of his father and the injustice he faced.

We also read an excerpt from I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, the brilliant novel by Maryse Condé (soon after our workshop, I made it a point to read the book in its entirety and was blown away). Tituba was a real, West Indian slave, who was tried for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, and the novel expands upon her story in first person, including all the ways she resisted through traditional healing. The novel is an attempt to write the erased back into history.

After VONA, somewhere subconsciously, I began to ruminate on those who have been left out of history, particularly in my own ancestry. As I wandered through the streets of Montreal—which we visited this summer—I also kept seeing the word ‘patrimoine’ everywhere, and, eventually, upon looking it up, realized it translates to history. And woah was I blown away by the glaring erasure: the word itself erases women and what they pass down. Just like the word history. That was the catalyst: soon, my Substack piece, Matrimoine, poured out of me, about the erased women from whom I come.

But Matrimoine isn’t just a piece; it is so much more than that. Most people know that what made me leave my career and focus on writing was the story of my paternal grandfather and his journey across the Indian Ocean from Kutch to Zanzibar to begin life anew. After my paternal grandparents passed away, I kept wondering about these stories I had lost. What makes someone leave their homeland and set sail for another? What do they leave behind? What did I inherit across the generations from my lineage? I wanted to research all of this and turn this research into a book, an intergenerational family saga.

But for the last two years, I hadn’t felt ready to write a book—first, I thought, I needed to learn how to write creatively, how to develop plot and character arcs. Matrimoine reignited the desire to learn and write my own history. But with a twist: now, I’m most curious about the women. The ones who didn’t have voice, who were erased. Because, all this time that I thought about my grandfather crossing the ocean, I had neglected to think that my grandmother, too, crossed the same sea at just 16 with a strange man who was now her husband, and left everything, everything, behind. Somehow, I had entirely failed to consider her story, because it was never given voice.

Now, I’m curious about the women. The ones who are the most helpless in these transitions. And more, I feel ready. Eager even. Eager to research, eager to discover, eager to learn the histories of those in my own ancestry who have been erased. And write them into existence.

Being curious about superstitions

One of the faculty panels at VONA was focused on oral history. In it, instructors talked about all the ways of discovering history that perhaps are more unconventional: gossip, photographs, and superstition / myth. When the last of these was mentioned, it struck a chord in me. For me, superstititions are simply untrue, unfounded by scientific evidence.

And yet… just because I don’t believe them, doesn’t mean they aren’t real for the people who do. These superstitions shape so much of how people live, what they do or don’t, their fears and their practices. And to be able to put myself in another’s shoes, it is important to not just understand their actions and emotions, but also their beliefs.

I remember, when I was young, my paternal grandmother saying to me, Don’t look in the mirror too much, it’s bad luck. Even in my youth, I thought of this advice as illogical. And yet, in my eagerness to dismiss it, I dismissed my grandmothers’ worldview too. I dismissed the wisdom behind the superstition: looking in the mirror too much may signal vanity, or over-attachment to one’s appearance.

I think about my grandmother’s superstition about mirrors again, now, from the perspective of how it allowed her to navigate the world, how it enabled her to survive. What else did she believe in that I dismissed? How much do I not remember about her life because I approached superstition with ego, with the idea of being ‘right’ rather than with a sense of curiosity?

As I embark on this journey of researching the history of my ancestors, I want to lean into the unconventional ways of unconvering history. The ones that are less based on fact, and more on who they were, which is formed by what they believed. I want to consider what this meant about their lived reality, what it protected them from. I want to hear the superstitions and understand them for what they were: part of the experience of living.

Writing about my culture in all its fullness

Prior to VONA, in a deep, subconscious part of myself, I had decided what my responsibility is as a writer. I say that as someone whose culture, whose identity, is underrepresented in the Western canon: immigrant, Muslim, South Asian, Tanzanian. And I had landed on this: that, in writing about my people, I needed to represent them positively to counteract the political narrative that often tries to portray these same people as less than. Deep down, I felt it was my responsibility as a writer to tell these stories in a certain way.

And then, there was a faculty panel at VONA, where the fantastic poet, Tim Seibles, talked about writing as a way to claim your turf. That is to say, writing should not come from a response to something—a reaction to others—but rather, from a place of stating your truth and claiming it. And I thought, this is true, this is good advice, but still didn’t know what to do with it.

Then, in the workshop with Fabienne, we had a session dedicated to Girlhood Resistance. Our writing prompt was to write a fictional piece about one ‘polite’ thing we were told to say as a kid, and how the character resists that. Perhaps it was because the prompt was somewhat self-reflective. Or maybe it was because I felt like I was in a safe space. But I wrote about a girl being told to always help out in the kitchen while the boys / men sat around chatting away. And I wrote about this from a South Asian, Muslim perspective, with clear cultural references embedded, something I would never have done before (the voice in my head: what would people think about South Asian Muslims if they read this piece?).

In the time since VONA, I have expanded upon this piece, and submitted it as flash fiction to several literary magazines. But what I realized in the writing of it was this: it is not my responsibility to consider other people’s reception of my writing. I write to tell my truth, however difficult that may be. I cannot allow other people or the political narrative in the West determine what I say. I cannot let it silence me. To do so, would be disingenuous.

Most of all, it would take away from the fullness of my own culture. My identities, my cultures, should be able to exist in literature in all their complexity—the good, the bad, the ugly. It is that which allows my identity to feel whole, to reflect its lived realities, rather than being typecast as a debate between the politics of the time and writing that responds to it. Writing the full richness of my people is a form of resistance, too. And hopefully, it allows those who have experienced what I write about to feel seen.

That’s what I have so far, even if I know that this is just the beginning of my journey of discovery. I can’t wait to see how these reflections unfold in my work.