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Pivot reading series introduces trial voluntary author “trigger-warning” program

tw2Trigger warnings identifying stories that contain potentially traumatic themes or images have become an increasingly prevalent – and controversial – subject in the news, on social media, and in classrooms. Now, in what could be a first for CanLit, Toronto’s Pivot Readings is introducing a warning program to its biweekly authors’ series.

Jacob Mooney, organizer of the series, says that over the past year he’s received several requests to identify content that is potentially triggering, such as scenes of sexual assault, in material read by authors on stage. It wasn’t until the fourth request that he began to consider more seriously adding warnings to the series.

“I didn’t want to at first,” Mooney says. “It’s taken a more honest and considered accounting of my own reactions to the suggestions to come around to it. It’s difficult to understand when someone says they’re triggered by something that they don’t just mean they’re offended by it or it makes them mad. We’re talking about a functionally different psychological reaction.”

After consulting with several people and researching established lists of triggers, Mooney developed a trial checklist of 10 sensitive subject areas for victims of trauma, including sexual abuse, child abuse, racial slurs, and domestic abuse. Authors booked to appear on the Pivot stage have the option to voluntarily fill out a form, identifying any triggers that appear in their readings. The list will not be read onstage, but will be included with authors’ biographical information on the Pivot website.

In her bio for a forthcoming Pivot event, author Liz Worth volunteered that her reading would include “drugs and alcohol” and “mental illness.” While Worth isn’t convinced the warnings are necessary, she was open to the experience, especially given that Pivot was not asking to read her work first, or to sanitize it in any way.

“Pivot is coming at this from a very genuine, empathetic place,” she says, “and if they are working to create a space that feels welcoming and secure for their audience, then great. They were clear that we should by no means censor ourselves onstage, which is fair.”

But Worth adds there is still a careful line to tread: “Sometimes I wonder if the word ‘trigger’ is becoming a bit like the word ‘bullying,’ where it is being misinterpreted. Being uncomfortable is not the same as being triggered. I still think literature should be dangerous and it should make you uneasy – all art should. … You don’t want to give people the opportunity to opt out of something just because it makes them squirm.”

Other festival organizers contacted by Q&Q had varying responses to the need for content warnings. Cynthia Gould, who hosts Toronto’s Art Bar Poetry Series, shares Worth’s belief that live art must be unpredictable. “If you go out to partake of the arts, you never know what topics will be covered. You could be in for anything,” she says. “If someone is so sensitive that they cannot handle a few poems about a certain topic, then they should seek a professional to help deal with this.”

Danielle LeBlanc, executive director of Moncton’s Frye Festival, says the annual event doesn’t have an official system, but does want its patrons to be able to choose events that reflect their personal needs and interests. The staff “reviews the works that will be presented in advance of the authors’ appearance, and advises audience members of any particular sensitivities that were identified.”

Heather Wood, artistic director for the Rowers Pub Reading Series in Toronto, says that in her experience, authors always “introduce difficult subject matter with sensitivity and care.” Although she plans to discuss Pivot’s strategy with the Rowers board of directors, Wood believes a reading series has different audience needs than a classroom. “Everyone who attends the series does so voluntarily, because they want to hear what the authors have written, so official trigger warnings might not be necessary,” she says.

Mooney says so far he’s received a “95 per cent favourable response” to the checklist idea, but knew his decision would be controversial and could potentially alienate both those who feel the warnings are a capitulation to politically correctness and those who think the voluntary system doesn’t go far enough, or that the list doesn’t cover a sufficient range of issues.

“We’re trying to balance reader comfort with audience comfort,” he says. “It is less than what was suggested, but we’re trying to find a way to protect people who have had life experiences that are different than ours, while also not frontloading the trigger warnings by making them mandatory or announcing them during the show.”

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October 6th, 2015

5:35 pm