The Shadows of Fergus

I got off to a late literary start as a teenager. I spent most of my childhood swimming in toxic masculinity and it prevented me from developing a love for reading literature and creative writing. Men were scientists or athletes, not readers and writers.

So it may sound surprising that during the 2008–2009 school year I started an after-school writing club for boys. I’m not sure what I felt I could offer the boys who decided to sign up. I was young and passionate about equity work in my school. Unfortunately, since my school lacked racial diversity, I decided to focus my efforts on the persistent writing gender gap that I both felt and saw. Most boys I encountered hated writing. Like me, they were socialized to believe that writing one’s feelings, or describing something with sensory detail, was effeminate and weak. The gender binary is strong in public education. Boys play sports. Girls read. The only writing boys do is in Math and Science class, and by compulsion, during Writing class.

Even though I didn’t know how to motivate them to write, I could empathize with the boys in my class. I didn’t start enjoying reading and writing until high school. My girlfriend’s father was a creative writing teacher and published poet. She grew up surrounded by literature. They talked about the books they read; they argued about the books they were reading; they discussed characters from their books, treating them like actual people they met during the day. You will never believe what Meg said today? My soon-to-be father-in-law, Mike, could discuss Shakespeare for hours and every time I came over to the house for dinner, I felt about 16 years behind everyone else. I didn’t read A Wrinkle in Time and I didn’t know why everyone at the table revered Roald Dahl. I certainly didn’t pretend to waste my time with Shakespeare. I couldn’t even understand the language. Mike would ask me about poetry. When I admitted to not having read any, he sent me home with a stack of books that he wanted me to read so we would talk about them when I came over for dinner again.

By the time I became a new teacher (and married to my girlfriend), I had spent the previous ten years unlearning my preconceived ideas about gender and relearning how to appreciate literature. Looking back, ...