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Hosted by Ryerson鈥檚 LitMod program and the Department of English, this fall鈥檚 Distinguished Speaker Series featured Tommy Pico, a lively and dramatic figure who entered the room wearing a 鈥淲ho鈥檚 Yeti to Party鈥� shirt and a hat with the word 鈥淨UEEN鈥� written across it. The title of his lecture, F*CK WRITER鈥橲 BLOCK, was decided under pressure and completely last minute. His answer on how to get over writer鈥檚 block was simple and eloquently put: just write it! Put your butt in that chair and just do it. The inspiration for writing is writing. From Monday to Thursday write everything (stream of consciousness style); on Friday, edit 80% out of what you wrote; Saturday and Sunday, go out and experience the world!

Tommy says these inspirational words while yelling, singing, and telling a lot of dirty jokes.

But this isn鈥檛 the only thing he discussed during his pseudo 鈥榣ecture.鈥� The main topic was actually Indigenous rights, literature, and truth. So why has this amazing man written four books in four years? The average age of death on the reservation he grew up in (and still lives) is 40.7 years. At 35, he鈥檚 only got a short amount of time to fulfil his dreams and write as much as possible before his existence is averaged out.

Tommy鈥檚 passion, use of repetition, and tone made for an exciting and lively lecture. As a very busy LitMod student, I found the event to be an amazing and informative break from my regularly scheduled assignments and readings. Tommy Pico isn鈥檛 an expert or a teacher, but he likes it that way鈥攈e doesn鈥檛 want the expectations and responsibility of being one of the unfortunately few Indigenous cultural icons in pop culture. However, because he鈥檚 in the spotlight, he鈥檚 going to do what he has to do to share it with his cohorts, so that the Indigenous can take back their legacy of survival and be in charge of their own definition.

(From November 12, 2019)