Writing Samples
Much of my fiction is either in progress or currently running the submission gauntlet, but I do have a thing or two to share. (Unless you clicked this link hoping for book recommendations? Because I can provide those too.) In particular I'd like to point you to White Uncovered, a multi-media magazine dedicated to exploring white privilege. You can find a complete description on the magazine's webpage. In fact, you can find a whole lot more than that at the magazine's website, since the whole project is available online under a Creative Commons lisence. The sample that I've reproduced below is only a small part of the magazine--so if you want to see more of my work or more of the magazine itself, head on over to the website linked above.
My Name Is (from White Uncovered)
"I’m sorry I can’t go with you on your first day, " Idihi said at the dinner table that night, and Jason knew she meant it. Late morning shifts had meant that Idihi was always the one to take Amana to school in the mornings. Now that she was opening her own practice, though, she didn’t have that luxury.
"It’s okay." Their daughter accepted the apology with all the magnanimity of a girl who is suddenly freed from parental supervision."It’s not the first day anyway."
"Well, your first day here." Amana, whose attention was mostly on her plate, shrugged. The biggest blessing of the move so far was that Amana didn’t seem too distressed by starting at a new school two months into the school year. "She’ll be okay," Idihi had assured him weeks ago, sounding doubtful."She likes meeting new people."
"I can walk to the bus stop by myself." Amana swallowed her food just in time to avoid catching an earful from her mother. "I’m old now!" Jason managed to keep a straight face, but only just.
"You don’t even know where the bus stop is." Idihi sounded serious enough, but her lips were twitching.
"I’ll find it." Amana grinned at them both.
It was time to reign this conversation in. " Well, I hope you don’t mind finding it with your dad, even if you’re too grown up for your old mom." Idihi raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged.
"Oh." Amana looked crestfallen. Jason did laugh out loud this time."Try not to get too excited."
"Don’t worry,"Amana promised, her small face solemn. "I won’t."
"Still think the bus stop’s not that far away, huh?" her dad said to her now. She took her hands out of her pockets, where she’d been hiding them from the morning air. It was cold for October, and the wind bit at her bare hands.
"Not that far." She kicked at a pebble and watched it skitter down the street. She’d already discovered that she didn’t know where the bus stop was after all. Well, they’d just gotten here. How was she supposed to know where everything was in this stupid new town?
She heard the bus stop before she saw it, not that there was much to see. It didn’t have a sign like a real bus stop, just a group of kids bunched together on the sidewalk, laughing and shouting.
"There it is," her dad said. "Well, have a good first day. Sort of first day," he added when she opened her mouth. Then he bent over and hugged her. "I’ll see you here at three-thirty." She hugged him back, then wriggled out of his grip and was off across the street. She waved; he waved back, but didn’t leave. He wouldn’t go home until the bus came, she knew. Oh well. Mom would have walked with her all the way across the street, and Amana didn’t need that. She was in grade two now: practically a grown-up herself.
She stood a little apart from the others, trying to ignore the sudden flutters in her stomach. She wasn’t shy. She hadn’t even been nervous on the first day back at her old school...but everybody here knew each other already. She could meet everybody later. For now she’d just watch.
Most of them had light skin and light hair like her dad did. There were a couple of kids who looked Asian, but Amana didn’t see anybody who looked like her mother. Or like her. That was all right, though—she did see several girls her own age.
It was a boy who noticed her first. "Hi, I’m Colin. Are you new?"
"Yeah," she said. "I’m Amana."
"Oh," he said. "That’s a pretty name." He might have said something else, but just then a pebble bounced off his bright blue jacket. "Hey!" he yelled, turning to face whoever had thrown it.
"Colin!" someone shouted back. "Look what we found!"
Colin made a face, but he just said "okay, see you later," and went trotting back to his friends.
The bus came not long after, and Amana piled onto it with everybody else. The bus driver said hello when she climbed aboard. Nobody else talked to her. She had a seat to herself on the ride to school.
She’d seen the school once before, but she’d never been inside it. Her mom had written down the classroom number and the teacher’s name, and she clutched the crumpled paper in one hand, even though she knew exactly what it said.
She was one of the first ones into the classroom when the bell rang, and then realized that she didn’t know where to sit. Her other grade two teacher had made everybody sit alphabetically. She was getting funny looks anyway, so she whispered to a blonde girl standing nearby. "Can we just sit anywhere?"
"Yeah, anywhere," the girl said, and went back to chatting with her friends. Amana shrugged and took a desk near the back of the room.
The teacher smiled at Amana when she came in. When she finished the roll call, Amana held up her hand. "Um, you didn’t call my name."
"Right." The teacher pulled out another sheet and peered at it. "Class, this is Amanda." There was a muttered chorus of "hellos" and "Hi Amandas."
"Umm..."
"Yes?"
"You said my name wrong. It’s Amana."
"Oh, I’m sorry!" The teacher hesitated. "Amana." She still said it like "Amanda," only without the "d."
"No, it’s Amana. Ah-ma-nah."
"Right." The teacher nodded, but didn’t try to say Amana’s name again. "Well, class, I hope you’ll all make Am... make our new student welcome."
"It’s Amana," Amana said again, but she said it very softly.
At recess she played with the girls that she’d sat beside in class. "So where are you from, Amana?" asked Jennie.
"Kelowna," she said. Jennie looked disappointed. "That’s not very far away at all."
Amana blinked at her. "Is that bad?"
"No-o, it’s just... I dunno, I thought maybe you were from somewhere exciting."
"Exciting?"
"Never mind." Jennie looked relieved when she was cut off by shouts from behind them. Two girls and a boy made their way over to where Amana and her friends were standing.
"Amanda! Hey, Amanda!"
"Uh, they’re talking to you," Michelle said.
Amana blinked. "No they’re not."
The newcomers paused a ways away. "How come she’s ignoring us?" she heard one of the girls say in a not-very-quiet whisper. "You were talking real loud."
Oh. They were talking to her after all. They’d just gotten her name wrong, just like the teacher had.
The other girl laughed. It sounded like something honking. "Dunno. Maybe she’s deaf." The goose-honk laugh again. "Or dumb."
Amana felt her face get hot. "I’m not deaf!" She decided to ignore the other thing they said. "You said my name wrong!" Amana glanced at her new friends, hoping they would decide to stick up for her. None of them seemed to have heard.
The boy hit goose-honk girl on the arm. "Hey!"
He ignored her. "I’m Dominic. How do you really say your name?"
She told him.
"So where are you from?"
"Kelowna," Amana said. "I was just telling these guys."
"Oh. Well, why’d you come here?"
"My mom got a new job," Amana said. "She’s a doctor."
"Cool. What does your dad do then?"
She shrugged. "He does some computer-y stuff." Her dad didn’t have a real job yet. He’d quit so they could come here. Now he did "freelance" work. Amana wasn’t sure why her dad wanted to work for free, but he said it was only until he could find a new job. Still, she wasn’t going to tell these people any of that.
"That’s cool. My dad..." But the bell rang before they could find out what Dominic’s dad did. "He’s an engineer," Dominic finished anyway. She would have laughed at the way he said it, but she’d done the same thing when she’d told him what her mom did. It was the sort of thing that impressed people.
"Well, see ya." Dominic and his friends drifted back towards the school. Amana trudged inside with Jennie and the rest. It was better than walking inside by herself or with goose-honk girl, even though they’d never said they thought she wasn’t dumb.
She looked for the bus-stop boy, Colin, on the way home—he seemed nice—but didn’t see him. Her dad was waiting, though. She was glad to see him.
"How was your day?" he asked when she crossed the street to meet him.
"Oh. It was okay."
"Just okay?"
She scowled. "Stupid teacher couldn’t say my name right."
"That’s not very nice."
"Nope."
Her dad laughed a little, but what he said was, "I mean, you shouldn’t say things like that about your teacher."
She knew she shouldn’t, but she didn’t care. "That sounds like something Mom would say."
"She’d be right," her dad said. He didn’t sound angry, but she knew he wanted her to leave it alone. She was quiet after that, but her dad didn’t stay silent for very long.
"So did you make any new friends today?"
"I..." She wasn’t sure if she had or not. She knew they’d heard that girl call her dumb. But then she looked at her dad’s face, interested and hopeful all at the same time. "Yeah. I met Jennie and Michelle and Tammy and Alice..."
"My Name Is" is part of the multi-media magazine White Uncovered, which was released under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) lisence in March 2011 and which is available in its entirety at http://white.markrosebigband.net. Please link back to the magazine's website if you choose to share this work. Links to Natalie's website aren't necessary but are, of course, appreciated.
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Content copyright © Natalie Ingram 2008-2011