What inspires you (or your writing) to get “political”, and what does the word “politics” mean to you?

What inspires my writing to get "political" is anger. When the world disappoints me, I get political by offering my thoughts on what I am angry about, but my political writing does not end there. Recently, I have become enamored by the visionary sides of movements and by the writing visionaries produce. It is a blending of fact and fiction, creating an entirely new genre that offers hope for the future through political writing. In finding solutions for the political issues large and small on paper (or embedded into the non-erasable database that is the internet), writing has the power to influence politics through being a vessel for personal voice.

The word "politics" used to have a very esoteric meaning for me. I thought politics were in the periphery of the mass media I absorbed, comprised of people and events that influence history. I believed the only people allowed to display their personal politics had to have some fancy and authoritative title like "Editor in Chief" or "Commander in Chief."

This year, how I use the word "politics" dramatically changed. During my new student orientation at college, my faculty advisor, a feminist anthropologist, told her advisees that she is an intense person and because of that, her politics come across clearly in class. I could not understand what she meant by her politics. How could someone have politics? This question was answered through her Gender in a Transnational Perspective class in which my professor transformed politics from the world happening to us to politics being our part in the world. My politics are my beliefs and feelings. They are interchangeable because when I experience my feelings and embody my beliefs, I can take part in political change.