WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali crossover show. Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities. My guest can tell you that has written many tales of one city modern day Boston. His new book Don't mess with Tonya stories emerging from Boston's Barrios is a collection of short stories that reflect the challenges so many of our inner city teens face from seeing their friends or family members gunned down to having one's life undone by drug use and crime. As a founding member of Jamaica Plains Hyde Square Task Force had spent close to half his life working with in the community his decades of street work has culminated in his fiction which not only depicts Boston as a multicultural hub it's also a portal into the Boston that most of us don't know about. From there we meet one of the men behind write more good a Twitter feed frenzy mocking grammar turn book deal. Up next from stories of the city streets to satirical tweets. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh.

Residents of the New Mexico town of Luna are being told to be ready to evacuate in the event Arizona's massive wallow fire pushes across the border. The blaze has scorched at least 600 square miles and is growing pushed on by warmer temperatures and bone dry conditions. Fire information officer Peter Franzen says several thousand people in Arizona are already leaving and may in many cases in almost all cases people are actually leaving their homes prior to the evacuation order at the period when the Apache County Sheriff's Office gives them the word to be prepared to go. The fire has destroyed several structures but no reports of serious injuries. And more than century old Rhode Island mill that was once the largest rubber goods factory in the world is destroyed. A fire there broke out at the Alice Mills rubber manufacturing plant. Last night crews from up to 15 departments were on the scene. One firefighter reportedly was injured. Oil prices are surging above $100 a barrel after OPEC's announced today that its members could not reach

agreement on increasing production quotas and that was unexpected. NPR's Jeff Brady reports that analysts had widely predicted that OpEx would follow Saudi Arabia's lead and increase production. Responding to the surprise announcement Iran's acting minister of petroleum and the Opeth conference President Mohamed body speaking through an interpreter said it takes more than a simple majority of the cartel members to reach a conclusion on important issues like production quotas. You know pick what you have the consensus so on any issue this might create a similar problem a problem that we have today for example. While hope is not scheduled to meet again until December the body says the organization could choose to hold an extraordinary session to take up the production issue again. Jeff Brady NPR News. Republicans are turning up the pressure on Democrats to punish New York Congressman Anthony Weiner who recently admitted to sending lewd pictures of himself to women online. NPR's Joel Snyder reports GOP Chairman Ryan's Priebus says Wiener needs to

resign. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has requested an ethics investigation but that doesn't satisfy Priebus. I don't think we need to spend taxpayer dollars investigating whether or not Anthony Weiner is a creep or not Nancy Pelosi Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is Obama's handpicked leader of the Democratic Party ought to sit down with them and tell him that he needs to leave Ryan's Priebus speaking to NBC Today show. Democrats have largely remained silent and are distancing themselves from Wiener including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. I wish there was some way I can defend him but I can't. Wiener acknowledges the truth of the scandal but he says he has broken no law and won't resign. Joel Snyder NPR News Washington. Dow was up 18 a twelve thousand eighty nine Nasdaq down 11 a twenty six ninety. This is NPR News. Germany expects the death toll in the E. coli outbreak to keep rising so far it stands at 26 but the government says the number of new infections is likely to drop significantly. More than 2000 people were sickened by the E.Coli bacteria in an

outbreak that centered in Hamburg. The source remains unknown. Defense ministers from NATO's 28 members are gathering in Brussels to discuss a post civil war Libya. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says ministers agree they're making gains and that it's just a matter of time before Colonel Moammar Gadhafi is ousted. A Russian spacecraft carrying three crew members is on its way to the International Space Station. Jessica Ghawi her has her story actually. That was the sound of the school used rocket blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the cosmic stamp Russian cosmonaut Sergei welcome American astronaut Michael Fossum and Japan's a Toshi for a Cowell will spend nearly two days in the cramped capsule before docking with the International Space Station. The crew will join three other members at the eye assess where the witness the final mission of the U.S. shuttle next month NASA's as it will retired their 30 year program due to their aging fleet.

After that Russia will be the only country ferrying crew members. Russia's space agency currently charges fifty six million dollars to ferry each passenger to the ISIS. For NPR News I'm Jessica Ghawi her in Moscow. NASA's says it has captured some spectacular camera images of a solar flare from the sun it peaked yesterday grating a large cloud that appeared to cover nearly half a Sun's surface it's described as a medium sized event not expected to have a major effect on earth's satellites. This is NPR. Support for NPR comes from the Janice and James L. Knight Foundation helping NPR advance journalistic excellence in the digital age. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. My guest Ken Tang Vik is a founding member of Jamaica Plains Hyde Square Task Force. His decades of street work have culminated in his new collection of short stories titled Don't mess with Tonya stories emerging from Boston's

Barrios. In addition to his work at the Hyde Square Task Force He's also a professor of English at Roxbury Community College. Welcome. Thank you thank you. Of course that title of the book is a provocative don't mess with Tanya. It captures a lot of the voice that I love in your book because you really can just hear real people even as they are fictionalized. But let's begin here. When did you start writing this book. I was about three years ago. I was you know teach literature at Roxbury Community College and I'm always looking for good short stories short stories are great in my classroom. You can read it together you can have provocative discussions and hopefully that will lead to some good writing as well. And so I'm always on the lookout for good short stories and you know what got into my mind but I said well let me let me try one of these I think every English teacher you know is wants to write something someday so I said let me try one. But I was.

I let my students read it but I didn't know it was me. I made up. Name and I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction I got what I wanted. They they read it with interest. They discussed it intensely and they actually wrote a lot of good good critically thinking responses to the story so well with their comments their comments were one of the ones I love as well. I have an inner Tanya myself for that's me. And so I you know in Roxbury Community calls your typical student is a black woman it's a very diverse college but the large demographic there is African-American women. And I show the story to a colleague and friend over at the college David Updike. And he's a pretty well-known writer himself and he he liked it he used it with his class he got a very similar response and I was having coffee with me said one of you write when you write a bunch of these and and see what happens. And so gradually I started to write different stories as they

came into my mind and I would I had the luxury of letting my students read them again. Not knowing it was me I wanted very honest feedback from them so I never told them it was me and I was again more pleasantly surprised because students were Googling these names I was making up as the author said why can't we find these authors on the Internet and a couple really sharp ones cornered me and said Is this you writing these. I knew once I once I admitted it the word would get out at a small college and things travel fast there so but I kept it under wraps until recently. So I'll tell how long did it take you to write it. I would say about three years. About about a year before it was published I decided to use a go to a very serious editor I found an editor through a writer's magazine and I sent it to her and I expected that she would bless it and say this is great and make a few comments and I would be on my way but she she was a fantastic editor

Carol cowskin and Florida actually and she. She she ripped them up tore them apart and gave me another year's worth of work. OK so that's kind of what you would do to get those students in the classroom. Exactly. Tell us about Hyde Square Task Force because I'm going to have you read some of the stories about what people I think need to understand is that you had a lot of time to observe before you began to put pen to paper to capture some of that which you were seeing in your work with these young kids. So tell us about that. Yes. You know I've had two large bodies of work in my life. One is I was a founder of the courthouse forces Youth Development Agency based in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury and I co-founded that with some colleagues in 9th late early 1990s and I had moved into the Hyde Square neighborhood of Jamaica Plain in the late 80s and started a family there. And as much as I love

the neighborhood there were so many problems. There was lots of you know there was two crack houses on my street. When I would go out and walk on the street with my baby boy I would get approached to buy drugs and there was you know gunshots going off all the time. Gangs of kids going by the house with baseball bats calls clubs knives and so we met a few neighbors and eventually we started to work together we just we went from a very small group of neighbors to actually building it into a very established nonprofit. And so yes I had many years of the first 10 years or so working there was volunteer I was still working at the Roxbury Community College the beauty of it is I live right in Jamaica Plain and Hyde Square so both jobs I could walk into. And so a large part of my day was at the college on the second part was on the streets in Jamaica Plain a Roxbury working with young people. Well one of the things that listeners are thinking I've heard the name before Hyde Square Task Force

most recently some of the young people from Hyde Square Task Force. Form themselves into a group and tape to each other about sexual attitudes and came up with a report that they present ended up presenting to the Boston City Council or council saying hey we need more sex education in school so that's one of the projects that those kids are involved in another I know they did was looking at tension between kids on the subway and police and they you know did some work around that and came back with some real data so that there could be begin to be discussions with police about how to interact with them so that's that part just part of the work that you've done with it what it means is that you've interacted with a lot of teens a lot of adolescents you've seen a lot and heard a lot as you've just described in your neighborhood. So I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a bit of what you have written here so they can see what I think is you know a very authentic voice. And I want you to read from Don't mess with Tanya which is one of the stories and of course the book is named

Don't mess with Tanya. So if you would. Yes. To know Tanya was to know that she didn't take b.s. from anyone no how no way she didn't start trouble. But look at her she was wrong for as long as her family could remember. Tanya had always been Tanya at the age of three she pushed five year old cousin Lisa off the front porch onto the sidewalk while fighting over a Barbie doll. Lisa somehow survived a six foot fall with only bruises and scratches while learning an important lesson about dealing with her upstairs relatives when visiting her folks in Georgia. Nine year old Tanya delicately stuck pieces of well chewed bazooka bubble gum into the thick hair of her cousin Willie while he slept. This occurred several hours after he had tackled her from behind at the riverbank causing Tony to fall face first into several inches of cesspool like mud. At the age of 14 Tanya was legally walking home from school when neighbor Reginald Jones on it with a neighbor original Jones on a nippy November afternoon with Tanya's coat wide open exposing her tight white

turtleneck. Young Reggie lost control of his hands and aggressively probed Tanya's well-developed chest. The spontaneous expression of endearment was met by a sucker punch that drew blood and left a scar on Tonya's knuckle. A lifelong reminder of Reginald's impropriety. Now Tanya wasn't one of those in-your-face cranky rude crass obnoxious mean spirited hood rats. In fact most of her acquaintances describe her as cheerful gracious and charming but she did possess her own innate sense of justice. Maybe in a previous life she had been a judge who ruled under him Robbie's code and eye for an eye Tunick Tanya's ethical views were acutely clear and simple. Don't mess with me and I don't mess with you. Respect me and I respect you. And there was one more you start something with me well I'll just have to finish it. Unlike her oldest half sister Susan who spent her high school years bullying and terrorizing uppity white girls. Tanya actually like some Caucasian folks she had spent two years in middle school in the Mecca

program which bussed urban kids to the suburban schools. There she had been invited to sleepovers at those huge colonial houses where dads give ride in many vans in between wrecking leagues and golfing. And moms throw together a quick breakfast before heading out to yoga classes. Tanya even forgave a suburban mom who admitted she was terrified of getting carjacked as they drove down Blue Hill. On an early Sunday morning after a slumber party. Don't worry there's just crackheads and hoes out there this early left Tanya's Mrs Donnelly bit her lip recheck the door locks and twitched her neck at a red light. How do you get that. How do you get you know did you. Was this just sheer observation. Because Tanya seems you know comes off the page as a real person as you keep reading the story about her and I was wondering where you take regarding people where you like taking notes repetitiously. Well what were you doing as Tanya clearly is not you. Tang I have had in my 25 years of teaching at RCC I have had so many tiny

isn't to me Tanya and so many particularly young African women tell me that they see themselves. TIME You have a talk about the inner Tanya and to me Tanya is a rare sharp intelligent young African-American woman who is sharp enough to see all of the forces that are working against her. But she's she's very sharp and she wants to be right on top of every one of these so she's constantly on the lookout she's reading people quickly she has street smarts. And she says she's ready she's ready to defend herself from from any any direction. Now we should note that though a number of the stories do deal with the young people some don't. In the book I would say if I were to characterize a book that has you know kind of overarching reach that taps into quote unquote new Boston you know the majority minority Boston that a lot of people really still don't get exists.

Yes and that's what I was I think that's when I when I thought about what could I write about what what's my niche and you know I was you know born in Dorchester family in South Boston spent a lot of my time as a youth in Charlestown and I really knew the white Boston white working class Boston well but the last 25 30 years of my life have been pretty much I've been immersed in the immigrant community and in the African-American community so. I said well you know maybe that's where my niche is maybe I know both worlds really well and maybe I can try to try to both get out what what is the new Boston. From my perspective but also maybe this book will have some value for people who are just moved here who have lived here and haven't seen how how much Boston has changed has been dramatic I was changed in my lifetime. In my mind I don't see very many quote mainstream writers and certainly writers of note except one that would be Dennis Lehane who sort of pay attention to these kind of demographics

in his fiction. I mean he has written along a black white paradigm for most of his works but the last book really reference some of these changing demographics. And he's from Dorchester as well by the way. Yeah yeah. And he lives in Charlestown actually yeah. So that's pretty interesting to me that you know it's part of the landscape of what he writes about. And yet for a lot of people who write about Boston this Boston is never discussed right. Yeah and to me it's fascinating sub So if I was in it and you know intimately well we got much more to talk to you about a lot of this. I'm Kelly Crossley My guest is Ken Tang. We're talking about his book a collection of short stories titled Don't mess with Tonya stories emerging from Boston's Barrios. We'll be back after this break. You can dial an eighty nine point seven WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from legal Harborside. The new

flagship restaurant for Legal Seafoods with three different floors and concepts of first floor casual menu oyster bar and fish market a second floor fine dining room and a roof deck lounge. Legal Seafoods dot com for details and from Davis mom Andy Augustine PC attorneys at law. At Davis mom they make your business their business on the web at Davis mom dot com. D A V I S M A L M dot com. If we're ever going to replace gas guzzlers with electric cars. Science writer Seth Fletcher says we'll need batteries that will take us up to highway speeds and last a few hundred miles. They'll be made of lithium. That's what you want out of a battery you want to be able to pack as much energy and the lightest object possible. On the next FRESH AIR Fletcher talks about his new book bottled lightning. Join us this afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Right now eighty nine point seven is in the middle of a very important community campaign. But thanks to thousands of new sustainers this program is coming to you

fundraiser for sustaining gifts of 5 10 or 30 dollars a month to help eighty nine point seven keep going throughout the year. And that means more programs like this with fewer fundraisers to help keep on their fund raising to a minimum. Become a sustainer at WGBH dot org were running out of oxygen. I have so many people that I can treat the world and it's not an easy decision for anyone to make. Coming up at 3 o'clock on an eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in my guest is Ken Tang Vic.. We're discussing his new book a collection of short stories titled Don't mess with Tonya stories emerging from Boston's Barrios. Ken Tang Vic is a professor of English at Roxbury Community College. He's also director of program development for the Hyde Square Task Force use development center serving Jamaica

Plain and Roxbury. Now before the break I was making the point as I wanted to be clear with people that this wasn't just about teenagers and their anx though there are some some serious stories here fictionalized of course which strike right at the heart of what we see in the headlines. And I think the one titled manhood gets at that and that's the ongoing ongoing threat of violence for a lot of kids who are bullied and be have to come in contact with it all the time and what do their loved ones and and parents how do they handle that and how do they help them handle it. It is giving me permission to read short excerpt from manhood. Marco wrapped his hands around the bat the veins in his forearms and biceps pulsating with adrenaline rich blood. Let's go Tito I'm going to show you street justice. Tito slowly moved forward but Sonia pushed him back toward the kitchen table. Sit down she commanded. She turned to Marco. Poor more deals think for a minute. You are not a street thug

anymore you are a father. She shoved the baby into Marco's arms but he refused to drop the bat to take her. Sonia scampered to the living room and plunked the girl down in the playpen. Then the petite Latino rushed her husband grabbed the bat and tore it out of his grip. Tito hung back shocked by her ferocity. Sonya had always been the sweetest and calmest of his many. For Christ sakes we're going to think about this not charge out into the street like animals. Sonia demanded. I've already lost a brother to this stupidity and it won't happen again. She looked out to the living room where a photo of her young brother hung on the wall. Luis the overwhelming family favorite with his playful nature and good looks had been stabbed to death in New York five years before. Sonia and her mother had dressed in black for an entire year after the shocking tragedy. Give me the bat warned Marco his voice shaking as he cornered her. Never she fired back. Marco overpowered her and took possession of the weapon yanking on Tito shirt. He stumped towards the door. No screams Sonia grabbing her husband's knees from behind. The baby

wailed from the living room as like a bulldozing full bat. Marco broke the tackle and stumbled out on to the sidewalk. He began trotting towards Washington Street pulling Tito at his side. Sonia bolted out the front door behind them. An athlete in high school she sprinted barefoot on the asphalt until she maneuvered in front of her husband forcing him to halt on the sidewalk. Marco Torres listen to me she wailed pulling his T-shirt strip. You're a Boston fireman you're supposed to fight fires. You cannot be fighting in the street. You're a fireman Marko Marko. Poor 5 or she fell sobbing at his feet locking her wrists around his ankles. So I thought how many times is this. To someone like Marco as we learn in the story who has background himself being hanging out in a street gang he's revamped his life and there he is trying to raise his nephew who's accosted and faced with trying to deal with this violence all the time. Yeah this is a huge problem in the city and it comes up all the time

with the youth I work with at the Hyde Square Task Force who have to negotiate which side of the street they gonna walk down or what T-stop they're going to get off which which street they're going to go down to get to where they're going to go or. And also my students at RCC who constantly talk about this issue. It's very difficult and this story came to me because I actually had a student who with an older student who was a firefighter working on a degree. And he told me he had this problem and I said I think how do you how do you deal with this when you know somebody you know so you know whether it's your kid or your nephew are they getting bullied out in the street. 13 to 14 years old it's not the old days. You know it is this romantic notion you go up and have been out on the street and so for a while it's not like that anymore. And so it's very difficult every parent and every teen has to deal with it and it's just a very difficult situation that just about everybody I know that lives in the city has to deal with this at some point.

And we're going to hear more about that as we go into the summertime where there's always a fear of you know widespread violence growing popping up in the heat and the anxiety and the lack of jobs and all of that that we know about. Now you've said that you wrote the book really for young people and folks like your students at Roxbury Community College were not necessarily young they're working and adults and all of that. What do you want the rest of us to get from it though. Those of us who are not the people that you target the book tour. When I when I initially wrote the book I was just thinking about community college students a high school student your seniors maybe. And at some point probably after I was close to publishing it I started to think well maybe this would have value for folks who who who want to get a view into the world of these young people and in the city and I really hadn't thought of that it's so second nature to me I've been like I said I've been immersed and this. Neighborhoods for so long I just you know

assumed oh everybody must have the same insights but so I think it could have some value for people who want to try to understand what's going on in these people's lives. And so maybe there is an audience out there I confirm that the community college students and older high school students do engage in these stories like them it leads to good discussions and I guess I'll just have to see what the responses from the adult population. I asked that question because when I talk about this book being kind of a portal to a Boston many people don't know about you know Boston continues to be racially stratified. Quickly I can't even say it as an ethnically stratified as well. And so in your book you know everybody's all mixed up together you see all the cross characters pop up in other stories and they're dealing with your everyday issues of going to work trying to survive except also dealing with violence. And you even have a character who shows up in a couple of stories who represents kind of the young white guy in a

gentrified neighborhood which is very much busted and his observations about what's happening around him. Yes there's two particular white characters I have one is one is from Charles Town and he is someone who I spent a lot of time in Charlestown as a kid and I know the townie life pretty well and he in this in the book in the story he goes to Boston College and gets kind of a much broader picture of the world and and he settles into Jamaica Plain and he interacts with black and Latino students at a high school where he becomes a substitute teacher and he also has a black a very sharp black female roommate and so this lots of conflict there the other character was you know. Typical middle class kid who comes to Boston to go to college who parents are footing the bill and who finds himself in the midst of a neighborhood such as Mission Hill which is now largely

immigrants. It's a little bit of the white working class left in Mission hell but not much. But there's a lot of immigrant population but then the student population is huge and so a particular story about Mission Hill I wanted to you know find a way with a young adult who was in Boston as a as a grad student in this case to you know works his way into the world of the immigrant population viceversa how the people who have established themselves an immigrant community view a upper class white student. Speaking of the immigrant community I think one of your stories I'd like you to read an excerpt from deals with let's be frank. Undocumented workers and how they are you know in the shadows here in Boston and you chose to fictionalize when you're with us it's Col.. Is that jealousy. Yes yes yes. Rosa shuffled her sandals into the kitchen. There were only 24 by Friday night she always felt as tight as a thin hunchbacked grandmother used to look back in

Brazil. She ducked her head to avoid the dangling 60 watt white light bulb. One of the bare necessities in the condensed urban apartment. Should she have a beer or coffee. Both She poured a full cup of heavily sugared black coffee from a metal thermos on the counter. With that a Budweiser from the fridge and plopped down at the small round table 15 hours earlier at 5am Rosa had checked in at the marvelous maids headquarters to pick up the daily lest directions keys and buckets full of cleaning care. Like thousands of other Brazilian cleaning women in Massachusetts Rosa put in a 12 to 14 hour work day. Over the last year she had learned to read city maps and picked up the necessary vocabulary vacuum cleaner laundry mops we bleach broom dust dishes soap sink toilet sponge. With her work partner Sarah she had started a downtown highrise office scrubbing scarring hurrying by 7:00 a.m. They moved two floors below to an accounting firm. Then they sprinted like manic robots through the condos and houses of upper middle class residents in Beacon Hill Back Bay and the more

suburban Brooklyn at exactly noon they pulled up to a Burger King and Sarah's beat up Toyota had on the fly munched on whoppers in large fries. After picking up a four pack of red bull at a 7-Eleven they raced off to the next job. Sarah's eyes darting as she drove constantly on the lookout for police cars getting pulled over without a driver's license could be disastrous for the two on documented immigrants. Rosa had not only pondered through the rigorous work schedule that day but she had also survived the regular opera version that's get that gets projected on to female cleaners particularly those who are young and sexy. She ignored the grotesque sexual advances of the massive security guard at the downtown highrise. She politely responded No thank you to the invitation of a middle aged couple to join them in bed while she mopped the bathroom. She had her amusement when a drunken housewife droning 100 current aren't used after another ranted about her cheating husband. The fun abruptly ended when the homeowner sent Rosa right into the backyard with the family dog a massive German Shepherd pick it up screen Mrs Lyons throwing a plastic bag out the door and Rosa who stood in

bewilderment over the dog's excrement that had fallen on the brick patio. What a country Rowsell had a giggle to Sarah as they backed out of a long driveway. Do they expect that I wipe the dog spot too. That story is called jealousy it's my guess can Tang Thanks but don't mess with Tanya stories emerging from Boston's Barrios. So whenever someone like you I think if anybody's been listening this whole conversation they can figure out. You're a white guy from Dorchester internals down writes a book like this. The question of authenticity Ellis comes like Is this your story to tell. How do you answer that. Well I. That's a very good. Well I feel that one thing I wanted to make sure I mean this was the luxury I had of being a literature teacher I wanted to make sure that I was authentic and so I had literally hundreds of my students read these stories before I even dared to think about going to a publisher. And the

feedback I received was yeah this this author gets it. This author gets us. I heard that over and over and that gave me the confidence to go out there and you know this one particular story what I get when I get into the personal relationships of black women. And but you know these in my classes at RCC I often my writing assignments are often about self reflection so I've been reading the soft reflective essays for 25 years and I think I get black women believe it or not so. You know I get I. I knew I was getting into somewhat dangerous territory but again the fact that you know that's why I think my my students in my acknowledgments page because they they gave me the feedback and the security to know that that I that my ears after all though she has had been listening to two authentic voices and

one of the things that you've said also is that there was not. And I have seen one a book like this really about Boston reflecting these communities with these kind of stories these kinds of characters fictional though they may be. So here you are in the classroom. What is the power of having these stories in front of your still students and they see themselves on the page. Where is their power. I think there is but what is that power. You know the feedback I get from students and you know a lot of my students are folks who have not made reading a pleasurable activity in their lives. And so I really have to be aware of engagements. And one thing that does get them engaged is that then when they see bus stops train stations that they know about streets Washington Street Center Street that does help. And so they had one student I made and I made up an address in Mission Hill and I knew a street I made up an address he actually told me he went up there looking for a house

and luckily that particular number did not exist I was so happy. But so you know I think that does mean a lot for students I want to believe that community college students and high school students and other urban areas could also relate. I'm hoping that they can do that they won't have the that level that a lot of Bostonian will have though. You know there is that conference and I'm glad you brought that up because there's so much conversation about university universality about everything and everything has to be universal and I think your themes are and your situations are probably more universal than we know if you were to go across most urban communities. And with you know eliminating Washington Street or whatever in people's minds it would feel right very comfortable to them to read these stories. I think so Kelly I think that you know I don't I don't know other cities as intimately as I know Boston but I have traveled enough to know that you know the the immigrant populations might be different in some places but again you know most urban cities have large

African-American populations with you know students white professionals and your exploding immigrant population as well in every city so a little bit different to how they deal with it in the numbers but I think the issues that they're across across the United States what writers do you like is you were you know facing the task of trying to put this on the on the page. Who did you look to for inspiration. Well Jeannot D.S. is his latest book A wondrous times of Oscar Wao. I love the way he was. He was a master at it bringing a street voice to a to a literary level. And he was inspirational to me. Toni Morrison has always been an inspiration to me. I think I think there's no other writer like her that exists. I often try to use her literature at Iraq's free community college I find that I have to prepare a lot to talk about a chapter and

one of her books I have to give my students a lot of support. But it's a it's a great experience. BERNARD SCHLINK the reader. My students often thinking about what do I like and what are my students like as they kind of go hand in hand. The all time writer is Dostoevsky the Russian writer of crime and punishment as my all time favorite novel that had me up for two or three nights without sleeping. Reading through that those are some of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez's just a phenomenal writer as well and Dennis Lehane as you know. He's a lot of fun I like to observe how his writing is changing and I always pick up his books as well. What's next for you. Well what I'm learning is that. When you write a book you have to put a lot into the marketing. So as much pretty much as much energy and creativity as you needed to write the

book you need to put into marketing where you're writing another book I don't mean that you know how we readers are we've read this we're now what are you doing. Well I have another one in my mind the characters have already. The character's lives have continued in there in my mind they've gotten into all sorts of new situations characters who didn't know each other in the first volume now know each other so when I find the time I think that I do want to do another set of stories where pick up with the same characters and see where they have gone but in the back of my mind I also have a Boston based novel which would probably involve. A young man from Charlestown who. Is probably and supper on each of the rocks we're going to go no no no. But I know my other passion is Boston politics I want to stepped away from that but I'd like her to write a novel about Boston politics because I know that world pretty well too.

And it's fascinating. Lots of stuff to deal with there you know there's no end of material. I'm sure you know. Well it's been a delight talking to you. And maybe you want to make sure that your book gets in the hands of every member of the Boston City Council because the census data in some ways comes alive through these stories and helps people understand the new Boston as we've been talking about. Thank you very much. Thank you know it's been a pleasure. We've been talking with Ken Tangut about his new book Don't mess with Tonya stories emerging from Boston's Barrios. He's a professor of English at Roxbury Community College. He's also director of program development for the Hyde Square Task Force use development center serving Jamaica Plain and Roxbury. Up next a story of Twitter bad grammar. My guest is one here that and a book deal. We'll be back after this break stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from foot stock where you can find

European comfort and fashion footwear that caters to active and casual lifestyles in Wellesley square Main Street in Concord center and Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay. Foot stock shews dot com and from the New England mobile book fair in Newton. For 54 years New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair. Find them online at an e-book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com. These are heroin users in Kabul Afghanistan. Traditionally they've inhaled the drug. Now many injected and with needle use comes the risk of HIV transmission. Kabul has one clinic that weans drug users from heroin by providing methadone but the program faces opposition from religious leaders politicians and civil servants cobbles methadone clinic. Next time on the world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. To the millions of individuals who support public broadcasting. Thank you. Now more than ever your support is absolutely essential to providing intelligent news

music and entertainment to your entire community. Here in New England hundreds of companies stand with their employees and supporting local nonprofits by offering matching gifts. That means that. You get to WGBH your employer might to. Learn more at WGBH dot org slash matching gifts in 2002. Voters approved a state ballot measure requiring students to learn all subjects in English. I'm Andrea Smardon. Join me next week as I explore the measure's impact in public schools only here on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kelli Crossley. This is the Cali Crossley Show. My guest Dave Lartigue is a Springfield resident and one of the men behind the popular satirical Twitter account fake AP Stylebook. It has an enviable following. We're talking a quarter of a million people. This Twitter account landed them a book deal. The book is titled write more good. It

pokes fun at the Associated Press Stylebook known as the bible of journalism. Dave is one of 15 collaborators on the book. Dave welcome. Thank you. OK so first of all how lucky are you and your partners in tomfoolery. Oh we are. I mean we totally know that you know this was something that just dropped straight out of the sky into our laps we we were just as surprised as anybody by all of this. You guys talk about how right more good came to be because first it lived on the internet still lives on the Internet and at fake AP Stylebook and if people know what I'm talking about it's the the at symbol that one uses when you tweet. So it's on and you just decide it. Hey let's just make fun of AP. Well you know it started with a sort of online community that I belong to with a bunch of former and current comics book bloggers or people who you know nerd Lee

types and two of them Mark Hale and Ken Lowery have journalistic backgrounds and had discovered that the real AP Stylebook had a Twitter feed and were upset that it wasn't funny. Now why do they think it needed to be funny. I think we just generally all think it should be fun. OK. You know this is something this is a community that we hang out on all day long during work. A lot of us you know work in computer related fields I work from home in a computer related field. So we just sort of chit chat all day long and share funny and interesting things with each other. And so they started up the Twitter feed the fake AP Stylebook Twitter feed. And I didn't really think much of it we've all done these similar goofy silly internet things and then lose interest in them after a week or what have you. So they just said hey we started this up and told us all you know here's the password go nuts post some funny things on it which we did. And then two days

later it just blew up we had within two days I want to say we had about 3000 followers which is crazy weather. Yeah. The theory on how it grew so fast is because when you make fun of journalists and when you appeal to journalists you're appealing to people whose job it is to tell people about other things. So they definitely help spread the word. Well I think it's important that people understand what the real AP Stylebook is now we've said it's the bible of journalism right. And what we mean by that is that if you have an issue as you are writing your story journalist number one two or three you might consult the style book to find out what is actually correct to do. Here's a couple of reel from the 2004 edition. Real examples. So if you were to say to someone even steven. That's Evie in-dash s t e v e n That is correct.

AP Stylebook. And they make a point of saying it's not Evy in-dash S T E P H. So that is clearly would make no sense. That would make any sense. But you can see why they're right for being sort of taken down comedically. So what are your favorite things that you have done in terms of poking fun at the AP at the stiffness of the AP Stylebook. Well. The my personally the the ones that I personally like are I. I tend to like absurd humor so the jokes that I tend to do in the ones that I tend to like are the ones that sort of start out fairly straight faced and then devolve into something ridiculous like you know an example. Probably my favorite of the tweets that I wrote is the one that says remember to close all paragraphs because we're not paying paying to air. And I screwed up. God said Let me try to get remember to close all parentheses because we're not paying to air condition the

entire paragraph. OK. I should point out to those listening to this that in the cover of this book right more good it says in the corner if you use this you will get fired. So they're very they're very upfront. Now here's one of my favorite ones professional bowlers should not be referred to as heavy sit. Yes and you're right we know. Then you say when listing sports heroes ranked by number of lives saved. I love that. That's pretty interesting. Referring to ice hockey as the favorite sport of drunken Canadians is inappropriate and unnecessary as the drunk is redundant. This is from the book folks I did not say this I just want to say this when writing about soccer for North American audiences take a moment to consider the fact that nobody cares. You guys are just now one of my team members said that she particularly enjoyed your comments about the royal wedding. Can you cite any of those that you write about.

Oh gosh you know I I actually don't know that if I can if I contributed any of those. But the main thing that we were talking about with the royal wedding was that that the number of people covering it was going to be greater than the number of people actually interested. I think you guys were wrong I think there were a lot of. By the way. All right now we've established some of your some of your audience are journalists. Yes because they're interested in you know seeing who's making fun of them but who's everybody else. Everybody cannot be a journalist so who are these people. I would say that a third a third of our followers are our journalists and maybe another third are people who have some sort of writing vocation either they are either they're students who've had to deal with this in their classrooms or something or or non journalistic writers. Things like this and then there's there's a large percentage of our audience that is just really interested in looking at a fake Twitter feed and correcting

it just about every everything that we post we get somebody pointing out that's not actually true. You know it says faith. First I heard it was fake. Now let's talk about that because the fake accounts Twitter accounts have great success not just yours but I'm thinking of fake Rahm Emanuel Fake Steve Jobs sure. Those were really popular accounts what do you think is just because it is fake. I think so I think. I think it's a it's a fun way to you know to sort of poke gentle fun usually at at some of these things. The Internet the current state of the Internet is very big on participation and so forth. So when you have these things that are sort of untouchable You know nobody can really comment directly to Steve Jobs or something like that then. Then it's sort of a way of an every man to get up and you know say what's on his mind have a little fun with it.

I did one for a little while but I've kind of gotten tired of fake Voyager 2 which Ok the actual Voyager 2 Somebody is Twittering for it. And again like Ken and Mark I felt that it should be funny so I started that up and then lost interest in it like most things. Well some of the fact that some of your some of your gang of and you call yourselves bureau chiefs by the way with us is really funny. Thought that the Twitter feed for a real AP Stylebook should be funny. There is something to be said about that when you go to the Internet and particularly when you go to social media it should not look like you just transfer the stylebook onto this cyberspace. Right right. I mean and that's essentially what the real AP Stylebook has done. Yes well it's interesting because for a long time we had no idea how the real AP Stylebook rolled with us. And I thought that the previous at the the past South by Southwest conference there was a panel on these sort of fake Twitter accounts and Ken Lowry was on that

panel along with the person who runs the actual Twitter feed. Now tell me again Larry is Ken Lowry is one of the founders of the of the New York I mean I guess OK. Right. And. And so we finally for the first time got to got to get the take on it. And one of the things that she said was that when she started up the real AP Twitter feed she had intended for it to be sort of light and jokey and and so forth. And then we kind of came along and said Well they've sort of got that covered so I think I can play this a little more straight. Well for God's sake they're straight and then there's like these people are still defying on their own the real one. If I may say. There are no we. We love the AP and that's that's also another thing is that there's there's a difference between some of the fake feeds that are clearly mocking and deriding the the the real thing and then the ones that are done out of this sort of gentle admiration almost And I think we've always approached

it from from a sort of fanboy perspective. Now you've said that you can't then they haven't sued you but they don't seem to be amused either Where are they with you when the very day I mean their very first person that contacted us wanting to do a story about us was a guy from the A.P. and then he just vanished. And to my knowledge he's still alive. But but we did find out again at that South by Southwest conference that that when we first showed up they were immediately you know running to the lawyers and seeing if we were doing action anything actionable. And the lawyers pretty much came back fairly soon and said no. And as I said you know we always. Coming at it from from a fairly reverent point of view so so there. We haven't really done anything that they could get upset about. We did find out that that AP story did get deep sixed by a higher up because at the time they really

didn't want to call too much attention to it. But the fact that you have a book now what it has they're saying nothing says well we did sort of you know we couldn't we couldn't. We chose not to call it the you know the fake AP Stylebook we have the Twitter feed name on there right. We did. We did something else with it so that we wouldn't have to. Well it says you know for listeners this is at fake AP Stylebook presents an absolutely phony guide on how to write more good. Yeah. Yeah exactly so. So you know we didn't we didn't want to cause any more trouble than than was necessary and they seem to be cool with everything so. Now the Chicago Manual of Style we have said some really horrible things about you know I'm sorry but that's just how it is. A competitor to the south on a serious note in case there are any young people listening to this you really have to know your grammar and you have to be a good writer in order to tweak this otherwise this is a mess yeah. Thankfully not. Not only I mean

the bureau chiefs are a bunch of smart cookies obviously. I mean we are we are we are clearly incredibly intelligent. But in addition one is one of the members is Dr. Andy Cohen who is a English professor in South Carolina. So he is very much useful and you know coming in and saying you know this actually you know you're making fun of misplaced modifiers here and this actually is not a misplaced modifier and so forth so you got to correct it. How does the process you've got 15 of you or 16 of you working on this in any given day and you're throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. How does it end up. How do you decide what INS up that pretty much is is almost literally how it works. We have a. Google Group that we post on and we have a thread for submissions and people will post a joke and you know it. And a lot of times you know they've given it a lot of thought and the joke is pretty good. You know it is as good as it is sometimes you

know people will say things like you know I'm really close to a joke here but I'm not quite getting it any. Any ideas or something or or somebody will look at a joke and say hey have you. You know what if we did this instead. And so forth and so it is a very collaborative thing people throw a joke in and it might get tweaked it might not and so forth. And then once we once were happy with it it goes into a big list that Marc and Ken again the two founders keep track of and they're the ones who sort of pick from that list each day about which one they want to post and so forth they they handle the Twitter feed they handle the Facebook page and so forth. So it's it really is literally just all of us sort of throwing stuff into you know at the group and then calling that put putting that all together. Well three days into a site and you're you know have a book. So you said as a result you're now drinking Crystal. Exactly a lot of people don't know it's a very fancy champagne.

So if you are giving up your day job there is this there are still just a hobby Strangely enough we haven't actually gotten rich off of writing a fake version of the AP Stylebook. But. You know the way that I see it is that in my regular life as I say I work from home I do computer based stuff I'm sitting in front of a computer all day more or less unsupervised. So I mean I'm doing stupid stuff on the internet all day long if somebody wants to write me a check for doing it that's that's gravy as far as I'm concerned. So you know we have been incredibly fortunate. It really did come out of nowhere none of us were expecting this. And we've had a great time doing it. If we do other things and we have talked about it then yeah you know we would like to we had a good time doing it we'd like to do some other things. Stuff I don't know if there's a huge demand for our comedic voice out there in the marketplace but you know we'll see. And and so forth but you know none of us are looking at this as you know any kind of stepping stone to greatness or

anything like that it was just a lot of fun a lot of really fortunate. I was kind of hoping actually you know getting to be on WGBH this this would be my step to getting on Zoom. That was my childhood dream was to always be on Zoom so you don't think you're going to go from right more good to being you know D as in you know you're clear about that you know. It's pretty good. I here's one of my favorites in reviews of hip hop albums Be sure to use words such as tight flow and thump in so that readers will know that you are a college educated suburbanite who wears Buddy Holly glasses are down with the streets. Love that. That's a great example of right more good I think. Well out that the real AP People really do do a piece. Funny. Thank you so much Frank you know begin to grace us all and remember you have to know the grammar before you can do this. I've been speaking with Springfield native David martini one of the many authors behind the new

book write more good a parody of The Associated Press Stylebook Thanks again Dave. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at. Kelly Crossley become a fan of the Kelly Crossley Show on Facebook today show as Engineer by Antonio all the art produced by Chelsea Merz will Rose lip and Abbey Ruzicka. We are a production of WGBH radio Bostons in PR station for news and culture.