No one ever asked me what I thought about all that

Margaret Atwood is in Chicago to give the keynote at the 2012 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference. Aleksandar Hemon is here, too. So is Isabel Wilkerson. And Ha Jin. The list of writers giving presentations is overwhelming, but the one author I am following most? My friend Audrey Petty.

That's Audrey, in a shot taken by her daughter Ella.

Audrey Petty is the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
I met Audrey when we still lived in Urbana, and we took to each other the minute we met. Audrey was born and raised in Chicago. She returned here to work on an oral history book project gathering stories from residents of Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes, Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens and Cabrini-Green — all publicly-funded buildings that no longer exist. Audrey’s oral interpretations of the residents she’s interviewed is called High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing and will be published by Voice of Witness, the nonprofit division of McSweeney’s Books.

Whitney sat quietly at my feet yesterday as my friend Linda and I heard Audrey on a panel called “Creative Writers as Oral Historians.” Kelli Simpkins also appeared on this panel — she’s one of the original creators and performers of The Laramie Project. I was fortunate enough to see The Laramie Project performed here in Chicago years ago, and it’s a play I’ll never forget. If you haven’t seen The Laramie Project yet, rent or stream it. Kelly is in town to work with Steppenwolf Theatre, author Miles Harvey and his undergraduate and graduate students at DePaul University to collect oral histories about youth violence across Chicago.

Miles Harvey moderated yesterday’s panel, and he gave accounts of his students visiting gang members in rough Chicago neighborhoods and in prisons to collect stories. He told us that one young gang-banger asked the college student to play the tape back when the interview was over. “Which part?” the student asked. “The whole thing,” the gang member answered. Miles said these two young people sat together to listen again to every word of the interview, and when it was done the gang member thanked the student. “No one ever asked me what I thought about all that.” He said.

These oral histories about youth violence in Chicago will be made into a theatre piece that will play in libraries across the city, and with Kelly Simpkins and Miles Harvey involved, I know the productions will be high-quality. Miles Harvey is someone I’ve known since college — both of us wrote for the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. He is the author of national and international bestseller The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime, and I was delighted when he accepted a position at DePaul University. It meant he’d be staying here in Chicago, and I knew he would serve as a terrific mentor to hundreds of writing students. His generosity of spirit encourages many a writer, including me, to keep at it.

Most of the panelists yesterday were in the midst of their projects, and they agreed it can be difficult to know when to stop the research. Kelly Simpkins said that in the end they had 400 hours of interviews to narrow down to the two-hour play that became the Laramie Project. I just did the math. That’s 17 days of interviews.

Yikes.

I attended that panel yesterday to cheer on my friend Audrey Petty, but there was some self-interest involved, too. I was curious about oral interpretation as a medium. It seemed a natural for a writer like me, someone who can’t see. But if I learned one thing from yesterday’s panel, it’s this: avoid taking on any oral history projects! I know I’d like doing the interviews, and the work could be rewarding, but oh, all that transcribing. And then the decision-making, the editing, the cuts. I admire these folks for putting their hearts and souls into getting these important stories out there. I look forward to reading Audrey’s new book, and to attending one of the performances Kelly, Steppenwolf Theatre, Miles and his Depaul students come up with after reviewing their hours and days and weeks of interviews.