The Great White Savior (Or Why It's Way Past Time To Retire Tarzan, Sheena, and The Last Samurai)

Oh, boy. I'm about to open a can of worms, I'm afraid. When it comes to pulp fiction, this trope has its grubby fingerprints all over the place. Without Ki-Gor and Tarzan and Allan Quatermain and John Carter, how else would we geographically limited little white boys yearning for adventure learn to picture ourselves in exotic locales? 

And it's not just in books. It's all over our movies. A group of samurai need saving? Call in Tom Cruise and hand that boy a katana. A group of indigenous Americans instead? Oh well, let's russle up Kevin Costner and his six-shooters. 

Examples abound!

• 
  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: While Atticus is portrayed as a moral hero, the narrative centers on his perspective and heroism rather than Tom's experience and agency.
  
  
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett: The story revolves around a young white journalist, Skeeter Phelan, who writes a book about the experiences of black maids in the 1960s South. The narrative often shifts focus from the maids' struggles to Skeeter's journey and growth.
  
  
• The Blind Side (2009): The narrative emphasizes the wealthy white family's role in Michael's success, overshadowing Michael's own resilience and efforts.
  
  
• Dangerous Minds (1995): A white teacher, LouAnne Johnson, takes a job at an inner-city school and is depicted as the savior of her predominantly non-white students, who are portrayed as needing her guidance to succeed.
  
  
• Avatar (2009): A white protagonist, Jake Sully, becomes the savior of the Na'vi, an indigenous alien race, by leading them in a fight against human colonizers. This narrative centers on his transformation and heroism rather than the Na'vi's own resistance.
  
  
• The Last Samurai (2003): A white protagonist, Captain Nathan Algren, joins the Samurai to resist the Emperor and imperialism as part of the Satsuma Rebellion. The story focuses on Algren's journey to be a hero rather than the efforts of the Samurai (wich a few exceptions that need to be shown in how they related to Algren's growth). 
  
  
• The Phantom (comic strip, movie, comic books): While the mask may hide the identity of "The Ghost Who Walks," it never hides the fact that this hero of the jungle is the white man Kit Walker. 
  
  

Sure, those stories fit a niche, and they maybe even convinced some of us to become anything from archeologists and ministerial MDs to Peace Corps members or (for the rest of us) writers. So, that's certainly a good thing, right? These few examples illustrate how the white savior trope often shifts focus from the experiences and agency of non-white characters to the heroism and moral growth of white characters. By recognizing and moving away from this trope, writers can create more authentic and empowering narratives.

A cavaet: A lot of this will be aimed at white writers because historically we've been the most guilty of this trope. But the skills and techniques used to avoid the trope apply to all writers. 

Monday Motivation: Tough Words for Tough Times

[Link] This Is How Reading Rewires Your Brain

According to Neuroscience, reading doesn’t just cram information into your brain. It changes how your brain works. 

by Jessica Stillman

We all know reading can teach you facts, and knowing the right thing at the right time helps you be more successful. But is that the entire reason just about every smart, accomplished person you can think of, from Bill Gates to Barack Obama, credits much of their success to their obsessive reading? 

Not according to neuroscience. Reading, science shows, doesn’t just fill your brain with information; it actually changes the way your brain works for the better as well. 

The short- and long-term effects of reading on the brain.

This can be short term. Different experts disagree on some of the finer details, but a growing body of scientific literature shows that reading is basically an empathy workout. By nudging us to take the perspective of characters very different from ourselves, it boosts our EQ. This effect can literally be seen in your brain waves when you read. If a character in your book is playing tennis, areas of your brain that would light up if you were physically out there on the court yourself are activated. 

Another line of research shows that deep reading, the kind that happens when you curl up with a great book for an extended period of time, also builds up our ability to focus and grasp complex ideas. Studies show that the less you really read (skim reading from your phone doesn’t count), the more these essential abilities wither. 

Read the full article: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/reading-books-brain-chemistry.html

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PRESENTS THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE VOL. 3

Curtis Van Loan, wealthy Manhattan playboy by day, masked avenger by night as the Phantom. Now he returns in four new cases by today’s brightest pulp scribes.  From hunting a monstrous gangland killer to rescuing a newspaper journalist, the Phantom’s work is never done. Then a protection racket gets his attention before he flies off to Cleveland to connect with Elliot Ness.

From the pens of Carson Demmans, Fred Adams Jr., Michael F. Housel and Michael Black, here are a quartet of fast-paced, action adventures worthy of the one and only Phantom Detective. Adam Shaw provides the cover art and Kevin Broden the black and white interior illustrations.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and soon on Kindle.

Introducing "Book Talk with Sean Taylor"

 

Book Talk with Sean Taylor

Your one-on-one fiction coaching, 60 seconds at a time.

Poetry Corner: A Song About America

 

A Song About America

by Sean Taylor

(history's a lie that they teach you in school)

all people are created equal and

endowed with certain unalienable rights

(except, of course, those who aren't)

racism and slavery are state rights

aren't I a woman

whatever happens to a dream deferred

southern trees bear strange fruit

(you never ask questions when gods on your side)

god hates fags

make america great again

protect our female athletes

no men in girls bathrooms

haitians are eating the dogs

no more dei hires

migrants are criminals and animals (or let loose from asylums)

the sin of empathy is the enemy within

very good people on both sides (but our side is gooder)

woke bullshit

(i have a dream)

black lives matter

trans rights are human rights

allyship is action

trans women are women trans men are men

remember the insurrection of January 6

coexist

i ask you to have mercy

i love you land of the pilgrims and so forth

(i hear america singing)

young man, young man, your arms too short to box with god

(c) 2025

Motivational Monday: Disturbing the Peace

[Link] One More Vital Reason Why Community Gives Me Hope

by Charlie Jane

Hi! I wrote a book a few years ago called Never Say You Can't Survive, about using creative writing to get through hard times. I believe that the act of making up stories, creating imaginary friends, getting lost in the fictional worlds you create, can help you make it through some really scary shit.

In fact, I'm here in one piece right now because I've been writing a ton of utterly bizonktastic fiction and comics. I wrote a whole young adult trilogy about queer teenagers fighting space fascists! And I co-created a trans superhero named Escapade for Marvel Comics, and basically I've been goofing around.

A copy of one of my books. I scribbled "Keep daydreaming. Daydreaming is important, serious WORK!!!" And I drew a silly cat picture. Over that is written DAYDREAMING IS THE OPPOSITE OF DOOMSCROLLING

Lately when I sign books for people, I often write the same phrase: "Keep daydreaming. Daydreaming is important, serious WORK." And I usually add a terrible cat picture.    

My motto these days is that daydreaming is the opposite of doomscrolling. So I absolutely believe creativity can save us — and help us save each other. And yet, nothing could have prepared me for the time we're living through right now.

My books are banned in a handful of places, and trans healthcare is becoming illegal in even more places. You honestly can't know what this feels like, until it happens to you. My words and my body are both outlawed.

And I'm bombarded with rhetoric about how my very existence is dangerous. Seeing this image of a dumpster full of queer books outside New College in Florida felt like a slow kick in the solar plexus.

Read the full article: https://buttondown.com/charliejane

Now on sale! Enchanted Tales & Twisted Lore: Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fables Reimagined - Volume 1

Now on sale! Enchanted Tales & Twisted Lore: Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fables Reimagined - Volume 1 of The Crossing Genres Anthology Collection featuring my story, "Real Boy." Vol. 2 also on sale. Get yours today! 

Step into a world where the familiar becomes strange, and legends take on new life. Enchanted Tales & Twisted Lore invites you to explore fairy tales, folklore, and fables as you've never seen them before. From the deadly woods of Baba Yaga to space-bound horror on a derelict ship. From a faerie knight hiding behind the innocent face of a toddler to a princess who fights for survival on Mars, these reimagined classics blur the lines between light and dark, hope and danger. With contributions from beloved authors and emerging voices, this anthology offers a spellbinding journey through the fantastical and the fearsome.

Foreword by "monster expert" Dr. Emily Zarka, creator, writer, and host of the popular YouTube series Monstrum.

As a bonus, enjoy the behind-the-scenes peek at the creative process through personal author articles.

Edited by Marx Pyle and J.C. Mastro. Published by Cabbit Crossing Publishing.

The Courageous Soul

For the next roundtable for authors, let's talk about that "Courageous Soul" Kate Chopin said an artist must possess. 

In what ways have you found you had to be courageous as you became a writer? Is it something practical like just having the guts to try to make a living at it or something more cultural by using your work to make a statement?

L. Andrew Cooper: Writing anything for publication involves the possibility of ridicule and rejection and so always requires courage, but beyond that, the amount of courage you need relates to how much of yourself you're willing to expose and what other chances you're willing to take. I believe the best writing involves risk, so it requires a lot of courage.

Ef Deal: The only "courage" I needed to summon was to keep writing although I never sold or made a cent out of it for over 25 years. My husband resented it immensely, but he was someone who'd been paid to play since he was 9 years old. He was impressed that I had a rejection from Lester DelRey, and that I chatted or hobnobbed with writers he knew, but I don't think he ever thought anything would come of my writing until it actually did a few years ago. I never considered it courage, though. I just couldn't not write.

Bobby Nash: I think you have to be pretty courageous to put anything creative out in the wild. People can be cruel.

Brian K Morris: A little of all of them. I realized early on that if I wanted to carve a portion of the market for my work, it had to sound like me. I could sound like it was from a store of knowledge I'd amassed, or a point of view. I believe ANY opportunity to expose your inner workings, especially your heart, leaves you vulnerable and should be approached with derring-do.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: While I might not care much for Kate Chopin's works, I can understand her "Courageous Soul" concept. Taking the risks of being exposed to criticism, authenticity, and integrity are all part of the creative processes for any type of artist. Any artist being defined as working in any type of medium, whether that be writing to music to paint to architecture, etc. I specify that because even your architect has some artistry in the field since science and art do go hand in hand. That being said, building up courage often relies on trusting yourself and your own belief in your creative works.

I found that courage is necessary in general to be able to be oneself. Some of it was practical in wanting to become a better communicator and being able to connect with people better. While I sometimes make a statement with some of my work, I do sometimes have other works that are to help others grow as individuals. I try to leave people better than I found them.

Sean Taylor: I think it's both, at least for me. There will always be the courage of putting myself out there as a writer and finding readers to pick up what I'm laying down (so to speak). But I also believe that, as a friend reminded me today, all art is political, and well, we live in a time when art is under attack, particularly art that doesn't fit a strict and confining definition. Anything that goes beyond a conservative, backward ideal or takes a more critical look at United State politics and culture now seems to be suspect and suspicious and likely to be censored in the days to come, so the pushback is there to only create "safe" art. But I'm not that writer. 

Do you find that courage becomes more "old hat" and just part of your personality as a writer after a while, or do you still feel the butterflies when you put it out there for public consumption and critique?

Jeffrey Vernon Matucha interview

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area and a refugee of the Punk/Metal/New Wave/My-God-what-did-we-do-last-night? daze of the 1980's and early 90's. Born in Palo Alto, raised in Berkeley, and lost in San Francisco on more occasions than I can remember, the stories of the Concrete Jungle can be just as ridiculous and bizarre as they can be intense and tragic, and that's what I try to bring to the fore with my writing.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

Late last year I published two books at more or less the same time: my short story compilation Short Songs: Tales From the Punk Side, and book five of my Skye Wright series called Requiem Descent. I really did work on both books at the same time, which is a new one for me. Publishing them around the same time was planned!

Short Songs features supporting characters from my Skye Wright series. They were becoming so complex and characters in their own right that they needed stories of their own.

Requiem Descent is the continuation of Skye Wright adventures, in which the weight of the rock and roll world threatens to crush her spirit to the point of her near self-destruction. It’s the fifth book in the Skye Wright series, and could be read on its own, but it’s best to start with book one, The Rise and fall of Skye Wright.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Motivational Monday: Can't Use It Up

Sunday Funnies: The Times, They Are A' Changin'

[Link] What's at Stake? Here's How You Find Out.

by Becca Puglisi

Stakes are a crucial part of your story because they define what will happen if the protagonist fails. To build reader empathy, you need this piece in place because when the reader sees what’s at stake, and they recognize why it matters to the character, the story becomes important. It matters. 

Stakes also create tension when the reader realizes what’s on the line. So when the stakes are referenced early on, readers are more likely to be drawn in and root for the character’s success.

But that empathy connection only happens if the reader can see what’s at stake. And that can only happen if the author knows what’s on the line. Sometimes, it’s obvious. What are the consequences if Sheriff Brody doesn’t catch the shark in Jaws? Death and dismemberment. In the original Inside Out, if all of Riley’s emotions aren’t acknowledged and won’t work together, her identity is at risk. 

But other times, it’s harder to identify what’s at stake in a story. So I’d like to share a simple method for figuring that out.

Read the full article: https://writersinthestormblog.com/2024/10/whats-at-stake-heres-how-you-find-out/

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION PROUDLY PRESENTS MYSTERY MEN (& WOMEN) VOL 10

Airship 27 Production is thrilled to present four brand new pulp stories featuring some of the most bizarre and fantastic characters ever imagined.

Skymarshal – A brand new aviation hero takes to the sky curtesy of award-winning writer Teel James Glenn. In this debut adventure he takes on fliers from prehistoric times.

The Black Wraith – Jonathan W. Sweet’s beautiful but deadly masked warrior returns in a gripping tale. A mysterious brute is butchering petty criminals in the back alleys of the city and the police suspect the black-clad avenger.

Walking Deadman – When a convicted mobster is sentenced to death by electric chair, he miraculously survives only to discover his body has been rejuvenated. All from the mind of writer Carson Demmans.

The Ghoul – Harding McFadden & Eleanor Hawkins offer up another tale starring the special investigative team lead by Marvin “Ghoul” MacCormac. Their mission; find missing children in a small town and rescue them.

Award-winning Art Director Rob Davis provides the art for both the great black and white interior illustrations and the gorgeous color cover. “Our fans love this series,” says Airship 27 Managing Editor Ron Fortier. “And we’re happy to bring them more.”

Once again, gloves are off, as Airship 27 presents four truly amazing pulp yarns.

AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTION – PULP FICTION FOR A NEW GENERATION!

Available now from Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

DEI and the Teaching of American Literature

For the record, as a lit/comp teacher, I integrate writing from all racial/cultural lines possible within a given unit. For example, for the founding documents section, we not only look at the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, we also read selections from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl so students can see how the US failed to actually implement life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promises to those who weren't white, male, or land owners. 

In our unit on the Individual and Society, we examine writing from Booker T. Washington, Emily Dickenson, T.S. Eliot, and Walt Whitman, along with an extended study of American Born Chinese (the graphic novel). 

In our unit on Power, Protest, and Change, we look at the literature that confronted inequity and led to changing status and rights for women, workers, and African-Americans. This includes works by Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Langston Hughes, Upton Sinclair, and an extended study of Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram... Or Autobiography as Pulp Fiction

by Stuart Hopen

We never learn the narrator’s actual name; which is not to say the narrator is unnamed. In fact, he has many names and many identities. The narrator’s “good name” as that term is used under the local parlance, is Lindsay, but that came from a counterfeit passport. The Indian locals call him “Linbaba,” or “Mr. Penis.” He will acquire other names in the course of the novel, including the title of the novel itself, which means “man of God’s Peace.” 

The narrator’s s real name might be the author’s, for the book’s jacket touts many similarities between the fictional narrator and Gregory David Roberts. Both author and his fictionalized alter ego were driven by despair over a bitter divorce and child custody award to seek solace in heroin addiction, which led to crime, prison, escape, and then flight to a slum in India. 

Even though almost all fiction contains varying degrees of autobiography, and vice versa, a close identification between author and fictitious character carries many risks. One can’t help but snicker at the photos of Ian Fleming, gun in hand, on the James Bond book covers, or Mickey Spillane naming his tough-guy hero after himself. Falsified autobiography is a class of literary pariah unto itself, for anger follows the discovery that one has been successfully fooled, notwithstanding the way that achieving the same end is lauded as a virtue in a work explicitly labeled as fiction. Perhaps with the aim of avoiding the kind of scrutiny and controversy that befell Henri Charrière, the author of Papillion, another highly embellished, ostensibly autobiographical work about prison and escape, the author of Shantaram delivers an exculpatory disclaimer—this is fiction. But there an implicit disclaimer to disclaimer. It is kind of a con job, but it is a brilliant con job. 

Roberts grabs his reader by the labels, and demands attention with his superb opening paragraph, a near perfect fusion of narrative hook, character arc, and thematic summation:

Motivational Monday: A Good Idea for Us Writers Too

Sunday Funnies: A Man of Few Words?

[Link] How to Portray Time and Memory in Stories

by Anita Felicelli

Time is a tremendously elastic concept, but if you think about it, almost all stories implicitly deal with time: They relate a temporal sequence of moments or events, rather than describing a single moment. But the relationship between time and stories is even more profound than that, I think. 

The author Joy Williams has observed, “What a story is, is devious. It pretends transparency, forthrightness. It engages with ordinary people, ordinary matters, recognizable stuff. But this is all a masquerade. What good stories deal with is the horror and incomprehensibility of time….”

The origins of my short story collection How We Know Our Time Travelers, which is about the oceanic “horror and incomprehensibility of time,” was my sense, after becoming a parent and learning to accept suffering serious illnesses, that time would not work the way I expected it would when I was younger, and instead would remain terrifyingly mysterious and slippery throughout the rest of my life. I could not quite grasp time when I thought about the concept too hard, and yet it was, perhaps, the hugest motivating force in my life. 

There was no linear progression, as many traditional children’s novels had taught—rather, there were layers of time, and within my single body were selves I was barely acquainted with any longer, and yet, given the right circumstances, I’d feel myself returned along the tides of memory to these points of time in which I’d existed as another self: The young storyteller who wrote about girls who couldn’t find their way home; the teenager who painted weird, surreal images on wood and casually gave them away to friends; a young college student drunk on newfound freedom and power; the baby lawyer who acted like a compassionate sixty year old while withering away; the newlywed who finally embraced the unpredictability of a life in books after years of trying on suits and predicting legal outcomes; the excited new mother, and, then, the older mother with illnesses coming to terms with decisions already made, moments that couldn’t be retrieved—and the heartache that followed.

Strangely, I became aware, in the course of thinking about my own ending, that my body also contained within in a range of futures—different places where the train might jump the track, distinct last stations. The body as a vehicle for past and future time travel. As I came to conceive of it in my book, time travel was an ordinary phenomenon that happened daily in the mind, even when least expected, triggered by sense memory and uncanny resemblances. While working on How We Know Our Time Travelers, I drew on the intuition that time allows every moment to coexist with other moments.

In the title story, for instance, a middle-aged artist holds an open studio at which she meets a young man who deeply, overwhelmingly reminds her of her now jaded and cynical gallerist husband, and who she comes to believe is her husband journeying forward in time to meet her. The story moves from her uncertainty about the empirical reality of who she’s seeing—to an alarming but slightly erotic certainty about the young man, whoever he is. With subtle shifts in sentence construction and word choice, I tried to frame the emotional reality of the story to create the feeling she has traveled back, or he has traveled into her present. But there is also the interpretation that she is insane. 

Read the full article: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/how-to-portray-time-and-memory-in-stories