It can be difficult to keep track of what I've had posted elsewhere as a result of getting published or winning a competition, so I've divided this page into "Published Elsewhere" and "Published On Site." The works are otherwise ordered by date, with the latest at the top and older pieces at the bottom. The dates are listed by them, as well as any honors I won. Underneath, I discuss the themes in the piece, what I was trying to accomplish with it, and the writing process.
There is a certain personality that is overrepresented among the top ranks of competitive debate. They've been bullied or ostracized much of their childhood, and many had a speech impediment. They're smart, but have a hard time relating to their peers, and tend to withdraw into books or research. They get introduced or forced into debate by a counselor, a teacher, or a parent and flourish instantly. The strict rules for how to present yourself, speak, and persuade are taught to them, and they become experts at it. Finally, it seems that their awkwardness as a child and their inability to make friends is gone. They have newfound confidence and tons of friends on the circuit, which they attribute to what debating competitively has taught them.
There's more to being likeable than knowing how to give a compelling speech, though, and these kids often still struggle outside of debate spaces to express themselves and maintain relationships. One example of this is the "debate voice," which is something between an accent and a cadence that debate kids pick up. It's specific to their event, and generally the more obsessed a person is with debate, usually the kids I talked about above, the more they embody that voice. If you have a practiced ear, you can sometimes pick out the category that a debater competes in based on their way of speaking alone. The "extemp voice," and the "congress voice," are the most common and easily recognizable speaking patterns. They are also far more adaptable than the speaking patterns of other events, like interpretative and debate categories, which makes people in those categories far more likely to incorporate their event-specific "voice," into the way that they talk.
The way we speak defines who we are and how we interact with the people around us. By taking on the "extemp" or "congress" voice, kids drop their accent and sometimes even lose the ability to take a conversational tone in place of a more formal, "speaking way of talking," like Robbie does. While they may have become better and more confident speakers, they lose a significant part of themselves while trying to embody the envied personality of a great orater. While kids like this easily find friends within the NSDA and other debate associations, it's still a difficulty to find friends outside of debate spaces. All those years of study ends up screwing them over.
Robbie is an amalgamation of many debaters I've met throughout my career, and myself. He has a speech impediment, he started debate young, he projects confidence but still has self-esteem issues... It's such a common background in the debate community that the other debaters I've sent it to have hesitently asked if I've taken inspiration from them. I did submit this story to a couple litmags like Mudroom and Smokelong (A man's got to dream) but have not tried to submit it anywhere else. I think that it's a good story, but it's not universal. It's impactful in the debate community because debaters all know someone like this, or have lived this themselves, but it can be hard to relate to for someone outside that very specific niche.
It may not be easy to publish because of that, which is fine. It's still one of my personal favorites. There are parts where I think the language feels clunky, so I might rewrite it eventually to make it easier to understand for non-debaters.
This one was a nice surprise. I had very low expectations for this piece. I wrote it in half an hour, submitted it, and forgot about it. A month later I got an email that someone had commented on my post, "Congrats on the honorable mention!" so I clicked onto it. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was in the the top 8 out of so many entries haha.