Author and lesbian activist Sarah Schulman will visit this weekend to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of her speculative novel, The Mere Future and share her writing insights with aspiring writers. Schulman recently talked with Windy City Times about her writing career and activist roots.
Windy City Times: What made you want to be a writer?
Sarah Schulman: I think it's a calling. When I was 6 years old I wrote down that I wanted to be a writer. When I was a kid I wrote a play every Hanukkah for my brother and sister to act in.
WCT: You write novels, non-fiction, plays and movies, and you are a journalist. Is it difficult to move from one genre to another?
Schulman: It's not difficult to move from one to the other. I'm usually working on a number of things at the same time.
WCT: Tell me about your new book, The Mere Future. What has been the readers' response?
Schulman: It's set in the future so ... I had to invent a futuristic language ... [that] is a mixture between advertising slogans and channel surfing. ... I tried to mix that all in and be funny. ... At first it's hard for people because it's not like anything else they've read before, but then they embrace the idea, which makes them enjoy the book more.
As for the book's response, there are people who love it because it gives them insights and options into how they think about things. Then there are people who become threatened and upset since they only want repetition of what they already know. That's the difference between art and entertainment. Entertainment is being told what you already know and art expands what you already know to include new ideas.
WCT: Tell me about your activism activities over the years.
Schulman: Like writing it's been an integrated part of my entire life. I believe the most important thing a person can do with their tiny little precious life is to intervene in cases of injustice. I was in ACT UP and we were able to transform what life was like for people with AIDS and how the country looked at AIDS in a very short period of time. Right now I am very involved in supporting the queer movement in Palestine.
WCT: You've won some pretty amazing awards for your work. How do you feel about these awards?
Schulman: They are all really different. To get a Guggenheim is pretty incredible because that means you are being recognized in a mainstream way and to get the award for doing openly lesbian work was an incredible achievement. The Kessler is equal to that but different in that I got the award from my own community. Those two awards were the most important to me.
WCT: Tell me about your trip to the Middle East in 2010. What is happening with the first U.S. LGBT delegation to Palestine that you are helping to organize?
Schulman: I had been invited to give a lecture at Tel Aviv University and I was unaware that the Palestinians had called for a boycott of state sponsored institutions which includes universities. ... I ended up going to Israel and Palestine (but still boycotted the Tel Aviv University lecture) and gave some speeches. ... I found out that there is a segment of Palestinian people who are not being heard just like progressive Americans and we need to support them.
After going to Palestine, I brought the leaders of the queer Palestinian movement to the U.S. earlier this year on a six-city tour. ... They were amazing and the queer people here immediately clicked with them. We had enormous audiences and by the time we got to New York City we had to turn away 320 people. The first LGBT delegation to Palestine will travel there next year. We'll also have a book coming out a year from now about the queer movement in Palestine.
WCT: Tell me about your collaboration with Jim Hubbard.
Schulman: We founded the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival—now called MIX—which will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. Jim and I have just finished a feature film ... a 90-minute documentary called United In Anger: A History of ACT UP, which will have its world premiere in Jan. or Feb. of 2012 and will definitely come to Chicago. I'm very proud of that because we want to let people know what ACT UP accomplished and how they got their message out.
WCT: You are a professor. What kind of classes do you teach at City University of New York, College of Staten Island?
Schulman: I teach creative writing there. I am also a fellow at the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University
WCT: You are coming to Chicago to do a book-reading and hold a workshop. Tell me what your expectations are.
Schulman: I love Women and Children First. It's an amazing store so I'm always excited to come back. I really would love people to take another look at The Mere Future now that it's in paperback and build a relationship with the book. I'm a pretty good writing teacher and I'm interesting in sharing my skills with people in the community who want to tell their stories.
WCT: Is there anything else you want to say to the readers of WCT?
Schulman: I am working on another project. The ACT UP Oral History Project, with Jim Hubbard. It's the precursor to the film we just finished. People can access the project at www.actuporalhistory.org . The site has long form interviews with 128 surviving members of ACT UP New York. To date 80,000 people around the world, many from Eastern Europe and Asia, have downloaded those transcripts (which are free as well as portions of the video interviews). It's really become a central repository of information about AIDS activism.
Schulman will hold a reading, discussion and book signing Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. at Women and Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark St., and will host a queer fiction writing workshop at the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, 1127 W. Granville, 1-4 p.m., on Oct. 16. Both events are free to the public.
