the teacher
FACULTY PROFILE:
A CONVERSATION
WITH LORENE CARY
By: Giselle Anatol
Lorene Cary is the acclaimed author of two books: Black Ice (1991), memoirs of her experiences as a student at the exclusive St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, and The Price of a Child (1995), a novel about the Underground Railroad and one woman's passage to freedom. Her work has been called 'stunning,' writing of 'unflinching courage' and 'of impressive depth and texture in a literate and provocative voice.'
Over the years, Ms. Cary has contributed articles to Time, Newsweek, Essence, and The Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine. She currently teaches creative writing at Penn, and is working on a new novel.
Most of the following conversation took place in Ms. Cary's car, as I ran an errand with her to the Wait Whitman Cultural Center in Camden.
ANATOL: Is it a surprise being back at Penn as an instructor after being an undergraduate here? Do you see it as a homecoming? How do you envision your role as one of the few African American women faculty members at a school with so few students of color?
CARY: Being here is sort-of a homecoming. I now live in the city where I grew up. After I graduated from Penn, I went to England to study for a year. I worked at Time Magazine in New York, then came back to Pennsylvania to work [as an Associate Editor] at TV Guide. I went to St. Paul's and taught for a year ... I thought it would be good for the soul, and it was. I came back here, taught, then began freelancing.
About being at Penn ... I like to come back to places, and work the territory deeper than the first time around.
I teach one course for now. I think the first thing I should do is be as good in my teaching as possible. I think that's got to be solid first. That was made clear to me at St. Paul's School. The reason I was able to be effective as a teacher was that I did know the place; I could hit the deck running. I didn't have to figure out where things were, how the place worked, the dynamics. [It’s] the same thing here; I do sort of know the place, and that's great. But it was also clear there that if you did not teach well, coach well, and live in a dormitory, and really do what you were paid for, and do it well, then you were of no use to anyone. So my first thing here is to teach fiction-writing well.
And then, I really think it's important for me to be involved in what Afro-American Studies is doing, and make myself available for the students.
Now, to go into anything more political, where you do in some way try to be one person helping to nudge the University forward, I think I need to get some more time under my belt and learn who's who, and learn what's going on and what’s what before I decide I'm going to come in here and...
ANATOL: Raise hell?
CARY: Yeah! If you don't know What-the-Hell, how are you going to raise hell? I need to learn, and do a very sharp, thoughtful apprenticeship. Meantime, I'm really going to do my best to bring in whatever I have to bring as a writer.
And of course, being a black woman in a writing class is going to affect my students. If they learn good things about writing from a black woman ... I mean, it may be that many of them have not done so before.
Of course, I'm going to bring my world view into that class. The people and visitors I encourage to come, the books that I've read and introduce to the discussion ... I may be more likely than some others to introduce certain topics ... For example, for me, as a black woman, the Holocaust is so important to study. So I want to hear the voices that have come out of that experience, and Judaism. I may do more of that than other people. I certainly bring in black writers. That’s for sure.
And, I also have to ask, 'What is it that black faculty have to do here?'
ANATOL: You ask the students?
CARY: Undergraduate students, graduate students, people I get to know, other faculty members, peers, colleagues. But first, I'm gonna teach my class right.
ANATOL: What do you like to do when you're not working?
CARY: I like to write. I like to cook. I like to play with children. What I learned about playing with children is that ... well, it was the first time in my adult life that I had done any activity that made me truly attentive-as Buddhists, and, you know, spiritual people say “attentive”-that kind of truly concentrating. So that when I was in the sandbox with my daughter, all that I was thinking about was the quality of the sand, and the sunlight shining through it, and the way it felt, and the piles we were making, and her face, and our toes.... And that concentration I've been able to fold back into my life and give it a life that it didn't have before. I like to cook for the same reason; so many of the senses are brought together.
Sports are like that, too. I don't do many sports, but a couple of years ago, my older daughter and I started iceskating during the wintertime, and we'd go about twice a week. We'd go to Cobb's Creek Lake, out in West Philadelphia. All these kids are going around me, Power 99 is blasting, and [my daughter and 1] would just go around and around, and get warm in that way that iceskating makes you warm all over, and she and I would hold hands.
Making love is like that, too. Especially when you're married.
ANATOL: That reminds me of what I've heard you say about creating characters, and developing characters that live outside of the contexts of their fictional spaces. For example, a writer must know what her character's favorite color is, and how this character feels when the sun hits her face or when she gets caught in the rain... even if these details don't come up in the finished version. Can you talk a little about your creative process?
CARY: The process takes a long time for me, and part of it is learning to accept and trust my own obsessions, which I did not trust. One Of the reasons I wasn't pre-med was because writing was too much of me. It came ... I don't want to say the word 'natural' because it sounds as if... as if this is some instinctual thing.
ANATOL: Can anyone write, then?
CARY: Ummm ... I don't know ... What I do think is that writing has more to do with how much you want it, than how good you are when you start. And I think anybody can find a story to tell. Find what is their storytelling.
I think that a lot of people try to be poets who aren't; who would be good at going out and reporting. They write with tin ears and lead feet, but they can be really good with facts and details and correcting those facts. I think some people who would be good long storytellers try to be quick dramatists ... so, for me, I try to figure out a story. Something comes to me and it's just a piece.
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We stop in front of the Walt Whitman Cultural Center and park the car. On our way to the building, we continue our conversation-
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CARY: Something in real life touches me. It's either a real life person, or an idea, or a moment, and it lodges
