White Writer: A Selection from Tony Hoagland’s Application for Release from the Dream (2015)

Obviously, it’s a category I’ve been made
aware of
from time to
time.

It’s been pointed out that my characters
eat a lot of lightly braised asparagus
and get FedEx packages almost daily.

Yet I dislike being thought of as a white
writer.

When I find my books in the White
Literature section of the bookstore,
or when I get invited to speak on “The
State of White Writing in America,”

dismay is what I feel—
I thought I was writing about more
than that.

Tax refunds, Spanish lessons,
premature ejaculation,
meatloaf and sitcoms; the fear of
getting old.

I know that readers need to see their
lives reflected on the page—
it lets them know they aren’t alone.

The art it takes to make that kind of
comfort
is not something
I look upon with
scorn.

But after a while, you start to feel like
white
is all you’ll ever be.

And gradually, after all the struggling
against,
after tasting your own fear of being

only what you are,
you accept—

Then, with fresh determination, you
lean forward again.
You write whiter and whiter.

—Tony Hoagland, “White Writer,” Application for Release from the Dream (2015)