From: JerChase at aol.com <JerChase>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 01:33:38 EDT

Thanks, Ginny, for reminding me that I've not yet stepped up to the mike.

Thank you, Marion, for your most relevant question re the use of source material in historical fiction. (I'm looking at several of Marion's books on my shelf as I write.)

As does Marion, I write for children and ya. I write bios of women and minorities, and historical fiction. Our recent and on-going heartfelt discussion of MHIOTG has been instructive and informative for me, and I appreciate every word. I also appreciate the way in which we have been able to express questions, concerns, opinions - many of which differ and in fact conflict, and yet are able to be heard and responded to. Which brings me to my question, quite similar to Marion's, I believe.

Rinaldi has taken quotes and events from authentic sources and used them in MHIOTG and this has been roundly condemned. I apologize for not having read the book and therefore not knowing whether it has a bibliography or notes. My question is - is the strong criticism about her use of these quotes and events because she did not cite her sources? Certainly writers of historical fiction should/must include notes saying where they got their material. But if the criticism is about the USE of the quotes and events, I am puzzled. It seems clear that a work of hist fic is only strengthened and made valid by such material, and in fact DEPENDS upon the use of authentic material. Or is that Rinaldi used and cited quotes and events, but then somehow altered them in MHIOTG to create an altogether different meaning than they originally and actually had?

Perhaps I have grossly oversimplified or even misunderstood the attribution question, and I look forward to being enlightened.

I'm presently working on a historical fiction set in another country. I am more conscious than ever of the imperative to speak authentically in the voice of that country - so conscious, in fact, that I begin to wonder about my "right" to write it. I'm also most concerned to fully understand the criticisms about the use of primary source material, as mentioned above.

And now to lay myself on the current (firing) line. One of my biographies is of Susan LaFlesche Picotte (NATIVE AMERICAN DOCTOR, 1991, Carolrhoda/Lerner).
 I thought, and I hope, that this is an honest, authentic, sensitive, well-written book, though after our lengthy discussions here I am less confident. The book tells the story of a dedicated Omaha woman, living through a time of enormously painful change (total destruction of a way of life), and the controversial way in which she thought she could best help and direct her own people. I worked with the tribal historian, among others, and he wrote the foreword for the book. Why did I, though I am not a Native American woman, write about Susan LaFlesche? Because hers was a story which needed to be told to children and adults - a story of strength, dilemma, action, and the painful truths of this period in American history. Because I write about women who have done great deeds yet have not been adequately recognized. And because no one else had told her story. I hope I was not wrong to do so.

Thanks to all who have broadened my perspective and understanding on writing from, for, about other cultures not my own.

Jeri Chase Ferris, Los Angeles WITH OPEN HANDS: THE STORY OF BIDDY MASON Pub. 1999, Carolrhoda
Received on Sat 30 Oct 1999 12:33:38 AM CDT