WordWacky

Want to read with me? I just joined the Infinite Summer initiative: a group of readers tackling Infinite Jest, the 1,079-page, heavily annotated tome by the late David Foster Wallace. (I think this book warrants the use of the word tome—if ever there was a valid Kindle argument…) There’s a daily post at the blog by one of several writers. I have had to abstain from reading them because I’m behind. I didn’t get my book until this week, so I’m on page 50, when I should be somewhere between 150 and 225.

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother read to me every night until I could read myself. It was the highlight of my day—I was the child of a single parent, so one-on-one time was rare and precious. Add what was to become my lifelong addiction, story, to the mix, and you have one happy—if sleepy—preschooler.

Then there was school. Once everyone was able to read, we all would read the same stories and talk about them together. I was (am?) often the slacker, behind in my (school) reading, but I would still benefit from the social aspect of the reading, the discussion and analysis.

I’ve never joined or started a book club, though I’ve often thought about it. Post college, many of us are starved for some debate, a more in-depth reading of a book, or even just the fuzzy feeling of knowing someone else liked something, too. I’m pretty good about keeping up my Goodreads account, and while I often find good things to read there, it lacks the real-time interactivity that a classroom or a book club have.

So I don’t know if Infinite Summer will fulfill my need for social reading. As a social tool the Internet has its benefits (reach, specificity) and its shortfalls (anonymity, creepy people who profile well). And blogs tend to be less interactive—call them Web 1.5, perhaps. But I am following Infinite Summer on Twitter, so who knows. Maybe once I’m caught up and not concerned about spoilers I will really feel like part of the party.

As a child I wanted nothing more than to escape the world with a thick, long-lasting book. And now I want that same low-tech device to connect me to the world.

The word poverty originates comes from the Latin, paupertatem, via Old French, poverte. It is first recorded in Old English around 1225, as mentioned in a book published in 1868, Old English Homilies.

We use the word poverty, and its cousin, poor, casually, meaning broke, perhaps, or cash deficient. Yet we know true poverty when we see it, don’t we? In people who are homeless. Or people who debate between heating their houses in the winter and eating.

Growing up, I thought we were poor, my single mother and I, but she worked steadily, at the same job throughout my childhood, a good job by many standards — a job with the City that had good benefits. I didn’t have the same clothes or sneakers as some of my classmates, or a piano, and my mother slept in the living room of our one bedroom apartment in the Bronx. But in reality, by the definitions set out for us by the U.S. Government, we were not “poor.”

According to the U.S. Health and Human Services Poverty Guidelines for 2008, a family of two, like ours, would have to be making less than $14,000 a year in the contiguous U.S. to be below the poverty line. We lived in New York City. It is unfathomable to me to think someone could live on that amount of money and still eat, get clothing, and use transportation to and from a job on that income in New York.

Apparently it is also unfathomable to the human services providers, too, because you qualify for food stamps at 130% of the federal poverty limit, for WIC at 185%, and often for Medicaid (depends on the state) at 200%. According to Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty, “Research suggests that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to meet their most basic needs.”  So if the guideline doesn’t even determine what we consider poor, why set it at falsely low levels? Seems to me there can only be one reason: to deny people benefits. (But I’m a cynic. If you can think of another, please speak up.)

I’m taking three steps against poverty, starting today. I urge you to find three things you can do to stop poverty, however you or the government defines it. Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Donate. I’m going to take Brian from Copyblogger up on his generous offer to match 250% of my $10 donation to Save the Children! Unheard of, really, people. You should donate ten bucks, too.
2. Educate myself. In addition to the research I did for this post, I’m going to read a book that’s been on my to-read list for too long: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
3. Vote. You heard it here first. And I’m not a non-profit, so I can say vote for That One, please. If you don’t, please don’t tell me about it.

Writer Unboxed, a site Writer’s Digest picks as one of the 101 Best Sites for Writers, is a blog “about the craft and business of genre fiction.”

They maintain a Google Notebook to display their business links for the week. Brilliant!

I don’t consider myself a genre writer, but I have a feeling that’s a little like saying, “But I don’t have an accent!” 

Literary (self- and other-identified) writers often turn up their noses at genre writing. The words “genre writer” are an accusation, a dismissal in certain company. An inflection adds a touch more French to the genre, making it that much more foolish. Or it’s spoken flatly, with no betraying emotion whatsoever.

The problem is, there are plenty of literary mysteries. Sci-fi writers must still labor over their work, struggling for clarity, the right pacing, that perfect verb. Truman Capote created the true crime genre. And I’ve learned a lot from genre writers.

Genre writers have in fact mastered some skills that litfic could take a page from: building an audience and making a living on words alone.