“A few months ago, an editor at a small literary magazine offered a polite and encouraging email rejection of a story of mine titled, “Pipe.” A child-narrated, first-person story, the piece used a systematic approach to black Delta dialect, not reproducing AAVE (African American Vernacular English) so much as depicting a particular boy speaking it–which is to say, the story had a distinct voice. The editor wrote that as a black writer she was uncomfortable with the story’s representation of race, as much as she recognized the power of the piece and the quality of the craft that created it. I wasn’t surprised at the response (though I hadn’t encountered that precise objection), for I’ve grown accustomed to editors responding skittishly, working in questions about my own racial background, my childhood and past experience, how my dialect work had been received elsewhere.”
— Copper Nickel just launched it’s new e-reader called Coin, and in it, Michael Copperman talks dialect and race. See the story that inspired the essay here.
