WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:05.093 align:middle line:84% They're going to stay with me, just 00:00:05.093 --> 00:00:06.260 align:middle line:90% in case they have an answer. 00:00:06.260 --> 00:00:10.300 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:13.750 align:middle line:90% OK, thank you guys so much. 00:00:13.750 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:84% Yeah, if you got a question, please pass them down 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:19.060 align:middle line:84% and a volunteer will come by and pick them up. 00:00:19.060 --> 00:00:25.070 align:middle line:84% And oh, Sarah has a question for me already, OK. 00:00:25.070 --> 00:00:25.570 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:25.570 --> 00:00:27.670 align:middle line:84% How do you situate your work in relation 00:00:27.670 --> 00:00:32.110 align:middle line:84% to the debate surrounding linearity and nonlinearity? 00:00:32.110 --> 00:00:36.670 align:middle line:84% Do you rebel against the tyranny of the line? 00:00:36.670 --> 00:00:38.830 align:middle line:84% I ask this, especially because of the repetition 00:00:38.830 --> 00:00:42.220 align:middle line:84% of chapter 1 because of your work in digital literature. 00:00:42.220 --> 00:00:48.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:52.330 align:middle line:84% I don't rebel against linearity in a few ways. 00:00:52.330 --> 00:00:56.800 align:middle line:84% I really believe in, the book should be read front to back. 00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:59.170 align:middle line:90% That's linearity. 00:00:59.170 --> 00:01:06.310 align:middle line:84% Within a piece, I do, I think complicate the ways the story 00:01:06.310 --> 00:01:08.690 align:middle line:90% threads work together. 00:01:08.690 --> 00:01:11.800 align:middle line:84% But even so, it's not meant to be random. 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:15.710 align:middle line:84% Therefore, I wouldn't want you to read it haphazardly. 00:01:15.710 --> 00:01:19.720 align:middle line:84% So I think in some ways, I do believe in the flow of time, 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:21.970 align:middle line:90% and the flow of reading. 00:01:21.970 --> 00:01:27.670 align:middle line:84% And I use those, I think to manipulate the stories. 00:01:27.670 --> 00:01:32.800 align:middle line:84% So it's not rebelling against certain kinds of linearity. 00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:35.980 align:middle line:84% I think I'm playing with the way that you 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:44.080 align:middle line:84% can work against the flow of time, but still be within it. 00:01:44.080 --> 00:01:44.700 align:middle line:90% Awesome. 00:01:44.700 --> 00:01:46.014 align:middle line:90% Making any sense? 00:01:46.014 --> 00:01:47.370 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:01:47.370 --> 00:01:50.020 align:middle line:84% OK, how do you think your writing translates 00:01:50.020 --> 00:01:51.700 align:middle line:90% to readings like this? 00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:54.680 align:middle line:90% Why use collaborators? 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:57.500 align:middle line:90% Yes, well, yeah. 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:00.170 align:middle line:84% At first, I tried to use videos and other things. 00:02:00.170 --> 00:02:02.220 align:middle line:84% The pieces are very poly-vocal to me. 00:02:02.220 --> 00:02:04.700 align:middle line:84% I mean, this one has a six-person protagonist 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:08.570 align:middle line:84% for example, so how to manifest that. 00:02:08.570 --> 00:02:13.580 align:middle line:84% If I read it all, I think it would just sound flattened. 00:02:13.580 --> 00:02:15.440 align:middle line:84% So to me, to hear the different voices, 00:02:15.440 --> 00:02:16.940 align:middle line:84% brings alive the fact that there are 00:02:16.940 --> 00:02:19.320 align:middle line:90% six birds telling the story. 00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:21.830 align:middle line:90% So that's a simple one. 00:02:21.830 --> 00:02:24.100 align:middle line:84% OK, I have a boneheaded question. 00:02:24.100 --> 00:02:26.690 align:middle line:84% It's such amazing piece, and includes 00:02:26.690 --> 00:02:31.460 align:middle line:84% so much, like history, biography, autobiography, 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:38.060 align:middle line:84% ecology, environmentalism, fiction, animal needs, 00:02:38.060 --> 00:02:39.320 align:middle line:90% animal talents. 00:02:39.320 --> 00:02:42.890 align:middle line:84% And I just want to know where it started for you. 00:02:42.890 --> 00:02:44.660 align:middle line:90% What was your-- 00:02:44.660 --> 00:02:46.160 align:middle line:84% Now, people are going to laugh at me 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:48.493 align:middle line:84% because I've told this story in a class I visited today. 00:02:48.493 --> 00:02:50.960 align:middle line:84% This piece is actually a play that I 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:54.230 align:middle line:90% wrote when I was in college. 00:02:54.230 --> 00:02:56.330 align:middle line:84% And it was probably the year the poor dusky 00:02:56.330 --> 00:02:58.490 align:middle line:90% sparrow went extinct. 00:02:58.490 --> 00:03:01.670 align:middle line:84% And I was really intrigued by what that would feel like, 00:03:01.670 --> 00:03:04.550 align:middle line:90% to be six men with no-- 00:03:04.550 --> 00:03:06.690 align:middle line:90% like what that felt like. 00:03:06.690 --> 00:03:10.850 align:middle line:84% So that was where it started, way, way, way, back, then. 00:03:10.850 --> 00:03:13.640 align:middle line:90% The play is unreadable now. 00:03:13.640 --> 00:03:17.690 align:middle line:84% But those six birds, well, actually they're five. 00:03:17.690 --> 00:03:21.680 align:middle line:84% The five birds were really just stuck in my head just 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:23.122 align:middle line:90% to feel that feeling. 00:03:23.122 --> 00:03:25.580 align:middle line:84% And then, it thought, well, what's different than the rest. 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:28.040 align:middle line:84% I mean, we're all kind of-- except what 00:03:28.040 --> 00:03:30.590 align:middle line:84% is the difference between dying and really dying, 00:03:30.590 --> 00:03:32.510 align:middle line:90% like extinct dying? 00:03:32.510 --> 00:03:36.560 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I was just fascinated by these poor last birds. 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:39.450 align:middle line:90% 00:03:39.450 --> 00:03:41.280 align:middle line:90% Who do you write for? 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:43.880 align:middle line:90% Who's your ideal reader? 00:03:43.880 --> 00:03:46.220 align:middle line:90% My own perfectionist self. 00:03:46.220 --> 00:03:49.340 align:middle line:90% 00:03:49.340 --> 00:03:52.670 align:middle line:84% If I can stand behind it, then I feel like it's OK. 00:03:52.670 --> 00:03:56.710 align:middle line:84% And then if others don't like it, that's totally cool. 00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:59.530 align:middle line:84% This question is, how do you hold a book together? 00:03:59.530 --> 00:04:00.880 align:middle line:90% Maybe, how do you-- 00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:03.970 align:middle line:90% when do you feel it's together? 00:04:03.970 --> 00:04:04.720 align:middle line:90% It takes a while. 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:06.220 align:middle line:90% That's a complicated question. 00:04:06.220 --> 00:04:08.500 align:middle line:84% The book can get bloated, and then there's 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:11.740 align:middle line:84% pieces that are too much, and then those have to come out. 00:04:11.740 --> 00:04:14.785 align:middle line:84% Yeah, the book has to function as a whole-- 00:04:14.785 --> 00:04:17.410 align:middle line:84% the whole discussion of all of the parts of the book 00:04:17.410 --> 00:04:18.370 align:middle line:90% have to work. 00:04:18.370 --> 00:04:20.200 align:middle line:84% So that's actually a long process. 00:04:20.200 --> 00:04:24.010 align:middle line:84% Once I decide that a certain set is going to become a book, 00:04:24.010 --> 00:04:28.960 align:middle line:84% then really being ruthless about what's going in, why, order, 00:04:28.960 --> 00:04:32.220 align:middle line:90% that kind of thing. 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.658 align:middle line:90% OK, in my poetry. 00:04:35.658 --> 00:04:36.450 align:middle line:90% Two more questions. 00:04:36.450 --> 00:04:37.020 align:middle line:90% Two more questions? 00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:37.680 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:40.350 align:middle line:84% In my poetry class, you described your writing style 00:04:40.350 --> 00:04:42.000 align:middle line:90% as the only way you can write. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:84% Even though your writing style is unique, 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:45.930 align:middle line:84% are there any writers who have influenced it? 00:04:45.930 --> 00:04:48.290 align:middle line:90% If yes, who are they? 00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:51.590 align:middle line:84% I think there's writers who gave me permissions. 00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:52.850 align:middle line:90% And that's really important. 00:04:52.850 --> 00:04:55.400 align:middle line:84% And I'm sure all of you know that the thing you really 00:04:55.400 --> 00:04:57.380 align:middle line:84% got to look for in life are the permissions 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:00.800 align:middle line:90% to do what you want to do. 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:02.540 align:middle line:84% Certainly, there's historical people, 00:05:02.540 --> 00:05:05.882 align:middle line:90% whose work felt really risky. 00:05:05.882 --> 00:05:08.090 align:middle line:84% I mentioned earlier, like well Virginia Woolf's book, 00:05:08.090 --> 00:05:11.540 align:middle line:84% Three Guineas had a really profound influence on me 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:12.170 align:middle line:90% when I read it. 00:05:12.170 --> 00:05:15.950 align:middle line:84% I just thought, wow, she went somewhere I couldn't imagine. 00:05:15.950 --> 00:05:20.300 align:middle line:84% And in a way, it was so inspiring how she went there. 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:23.060 align:middle line:84% I've mentioned this too, but like Bouvard et Pécuchet-- 00:05:23.060 --> 00:05:25.940 align:middle line:84% very little known work of Flaubert's which I think is 00:05:25.940 --> 00:05:29.060 align:middle line:84% just one of the best books ever written. 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:32.240 align:middle line:84% Anne Carson of a contemporary-- in a contemporary mode. 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:34.500 align:middle line:84% When I was very young, she was really important to me. 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:35.720 align:middle line:84% She's was one of the first people-- someone 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:37.850 align:middle line:84% handed me and said, you should read this. 00:05:37.850 --> 00:05:39.860 align:middle line:84% A lot of playwrights have been important to me 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:41.902 align:middle line:84% because that's where I started with some theater. 00:05:41.902 --> 00:05:45.650 align:middle line:90% 00:05:45.650 --> 00:05:47.480 align:middle line:84% You know, I think it's a personal thing. 00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:50.120 align:middle line:84% I mean, I can say some things, but they wouldn't necessarily-- 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:52.787 align:middle line:84% sometimes I say like, oh, I love Milan Kundera, because I really 00:05:52.787 --> 00:05:53.810 align:middle line:90% do love Milan Kundera. 00:05:53.810 --> 00:05:56.227 align:middle line:84% And then say, "Oh, really, I can't see that in your work." 00:05:56.227 --> 00:05:59.010 align:middle line:84% And it's like, it's not really about seeing the thing. 00:05:59.010 --> 00:06:01.010 align:middle line:84% It's really about what gives you the permission. 00:06:01.010 --> 00:06:03.470 align:middle line:84% And he was an early person who gave me the permission 00:06:03.470 --> 00:06:05.930 align:middle line:84% to talk about things at the same-- like rupture 00:06:05.930 --> 00:06:09.140 align:middle line:84% my own narrative surface with thinking. 00:06:09.140 --> 00:06:13.610 align:middle line:84% And that ability to think through text was something he-- 00:06:13.610 --> 00:06:16.280 align:middle line:84% it was just a matter of probably luck It happened 00:06:16.280 --> 00:06:17.900 align:middle line:90% that I read him when I did. 00:06:17.900 --> 00:06:22.160 align:middle line:84% But the rupturing of thought into the authorial surface 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:25.680 align:middle line:84% was something he permitted me to do, I guess. 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:26.180 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:31.760 align:middle line:84% And the last question is for Mike, Erin, and Kendra. 00:06:31.760 --> 00:06:38.180 align:middle line:84% How did speaking the voice of encyclopedic erudite birds 00:06:38.180 --> 00:06:39.080 align:middle line:90% change your day? 00:06:39.080 --> 00:06:42.350 align:middle line:90% 00:06:42.350 --> 00:06:45.877 align:middle line:90% I speak this way naturally. 00:06:45.877 --> 00:06:47.210 align:middle line:90% Well, we did rehearse yesterday. 00:06:47.210 --> 00:06:48.770 align:middle line:84% And what was going to be scheduled 00:06:48.770 --> 00:06:53.118 align:middle line:84% as a rehearsal was more of like, can you handle these big words? 00:06:53.118 --> 00:06:54.410 align:middle line:90% Which wasn't what she asked us. 00:06:54.410 --> 00:06:56.150 align:middle line:90% It wasn't patronizing like that. 00:06:56.150 --> 00:06:59.150 align:middle line:84% It was more like an internal question that I had asked. 00:06:59.150 --> 00:07:02.660 align:middle line:84% But what was interesting is that there was no-- 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:04.740 align:middle line:84% there was going to be a rehearsal for this. 00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:07.820 align:middle line:84% There was a potential third piece 00:07:07.820 --> 00:07:11.090 align:middle line:84% we were going to read in place of one of these that would have 00:07:11.090 --> 00:07:12.980 align:middle line:90% required a lot of rehearsal. 00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:15.050 align:middle line:90% And so the fact-- 00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:18.170 align:middle line:84% personally, I didn't want, except for the really big 00:07:18.170 --> 00:07:20.780 align:middle line:84% sometimes Latin words or Hui Shi. 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:24.425 align:middle line:84% I didn't look over too much because it was just-- 00:07:24.425 --> 00:07:26.550 align:middle line:84% I don't want to sound too mystical because it's not 00:07:26.550 --> 00:07:28.008 align:middle line:84% that mystical-- but like inhabiting 00:07:28.008 --> 00:07:30.550 align:middle line:90% a consciousness on the page. 00:07:30.550 --> 00:07:33.642 align:middle line:84% And again, that sounds way too spiritual or whatever, 00:07:33.642 --> 00:07:35.100 align:middle line:84% but it was more like, OK, let's see 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:37.480 align:middle line:90% what happens as this happens. 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:40.120 align:middle line:84% And we'd all encountered the work before in Ander's class. 00:07:40.120 --> 00:07:43.200 align:middle line:84% And so it was kind of-- our second reading 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:44.670 align:middle line:90% was very high stakes. 00:07:44.670 --> 00:07:47.190 align:middle line:84% I think I told you not to have poetry voice. 00:07:47.190 --> 00:07:50.220 align:middle line:84% Yes, which sounds like, always start 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:52.260 align:middle line:84% by saying that this is not a ghost story. 00:07:52.260 --> 00:07:54.343 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I said they couldn't have poetry voice, that 00:07:54.343 --> 00:07:57.160 align:middle line:90% was the one thing. 00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:00.270 align:middle line:84% If I could change bodies with a really erudite sparrow, 00:08:00.270 --> 00:08:02.280 align:middle line:90% I would right now. 00:08:02.280 --> 00:08:04.180 align:middle line:84% Though probably not a dusky Seaside Sparrow, 00:08:04.180 --> 00:08:05.430 align:middle line:90% since there aren't any others. 00:08:05.430 --> 00:08:08.250 align:middle line:84% Probably, a white crowned sparrow. 00:08:08.250 --> 00:08:11.200 align:middle line:84% I mean, unless you want it to be extinct, in which case 00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:12.570 align:middle line:90% it would be a perfect fit. 00:08:12.570 --> 00:08:15.500 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean I think that having the opportunity to speak 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.000 align:middle line:84% through this other voice is a really important thing for all 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:21.510 align:middle line:90% of us as writers and readers. 00:08:21.510 --> 00:08:24.073 align:middle line:84% It's a great opportunity to inhabit someone else's mind, 00:08:24.073 --> 00:08:25.740 align:middle line:84% and that's what reading allows us to do. 00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:28.140 align:middle line:84% And that's what having poetry readings like this 00:08:28.140 --> 00:08:29.520 align:middle line:90% allows us to do as listeners. 00:08:29.520 --> 00:08:31.890 align:middle line:84% So yeah, it's just a fantastic thing. 00:08:31.890 --> 00:08:36.539 align:middle line:84% It's fun, not at all nerve wracking. 00:08:36.539 --> 00:08:37.929 align:middle line:90% You guys did a great job. 00:08:37.929 --> 00:08:39.366 align:middle line:90% Thank you guys, all of you. 00:08:39.366 --> 00:08:40.199 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:08:40.199 --> 00:08:47.738 align:middle line:90% 00:08:47.738 --> 00:08:50.280 align:middle line:84% Thank you, everyone for being a part of a hybrid writing mini 00:08:50.280 --> 00:08:50.850 align:middle line:90% series. 00:08:50.850 --> 00:08:53.910 align:middle line:84% Please stick around, buy some books and say hi to Thalia. 00:08:53.910 --> 00:08:56.500 align:middle line:90% And see you next week. 00:08:56.500 --> 00:08:57.000 align:middle line:90%