WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:04.920 align:middle line:84% In regard to the eagle repository 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:09.555 align:middle line:84% and ordering from it, is there a fee schedule? 00:00:09.555 --> 00:00:12.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:12.510 --> 00:00:15.840 align:middle line:84% Are you ordering from a shop, "add to your shopping 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:16.830 align:middle line:90% cart" kind of thing? 00:00:16.830 --> 00:00:19.860 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.860 --> 00:00:21.300 align:middle line:90% It's pretty specific. 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:25.230 align:middle line:84% You need to prove, with your carrying card, 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:29.550 align:middle line:90% that you are Native American. 00:00:29.550 --> 00:00:30.890 align:middle line:90% You have to fill it all out. 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:32.700 align:middle line:84% Maybe there's just a shipping fee. 00:00:32.700 --> 00:00:34.340 align:middle line:90% I think they ship it free. 00:00:34.340 --> 00:00:34.840 align:middle line:90% Free? 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:37.540 align:middle line:90% I believe so. 00:00:37.540 --> 00:00:38.040 align:middle line:90% Free? 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:39.060 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:39.810 align:middle line:90% From like up-- 00:00:39.810 --> 00:00:42.588 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:42.588 --> 00:00:45.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:45.370 --> 00:00:49.230 align:middle line:84% So I'm wondering, thinking about the same essay on the eagles, 00:00:49.230 --> 00:00:51.900 align:middle line:84% can you talk a little bit about your process of composing? 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:53.310 align:middle line:90% Do you start with an outline? 00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:56.730 align:middle line:84% Or do you let ideas just wander from one to the other? 00:00:56.730 --> 00:00:57.900 align:middle line:90% And how does it take shape? 00:00:57.900 --> 00:01:01.980 align:middle line:90% Yeah, no outlines, at all. 00:01:01.980 --> 00:01:05.865 align:middle line:84% It's the pressure of accretion for me, very often. 00:01:05.865 --> 00:01:09.200 align:middle line:90% 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:11.160 align:middle line:84% The essay was essentially a list-- 00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:13.530 align:middle line:84% my first eagle and second eagle, and then I 00:01:13.530 --> 00:01:16.530 align:middle line:84% crunched a bunch of eagles into one category. 00:01:16.530 --> 00:01:19.110 align:middle line:90% 00:01:19.110 --> 00:01:22.500 align:middle line:84% So the sighting of eagles, and thinking about eagles 00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:27.450 align:middle line:84% as symbols and what it does to a living creature when 00:01:27.450 --> 00:01:34.950 align:middle line:84% it becomes symbolized or stands in for, 00:01:34.950 --> 00:01:38.370 align:middle line:84% was an issue I'd been living with for a long time. 00:01:38.370 --> 00:01:50.980 align:middle line:84% And for me, really, I hold these collected pressures in mind 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:51.760 align:middle line:90% for a while. 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:59.740 align:middle line:84% And at a certain point, they brim, and tip, and explode, 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:00.530 align:middle line:90% in a moment. 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:02.650 align:middle line:84% And then it's time to write about those things. 00:02:02.650 --> 00:02:07.810 align:middle line:84% And it feels-- the collection of pressures, 00:02:07.810 --> 00:02:11.455 align:middle line:84% the urgency produces a shimmery moment. 00:02:11.455 --> 00:02:15.220 align:middle line:90% 00:02:15.220 --> 00:02:19.600 align:middle line:84% It feels like the right time to then approach the subject. 00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:24.340 align:middle line:84% So there is no outline, specifically, 00:02:24.340 --> 00:02:27.460 align:middle line:84% but there is a build-up and line-up 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:32.950 align:middle line:84% of ways I'd like to get at a certain subject. 00:02:32.950 --> 00:02:38.680 align:middle line:84% So it's a chaotic outline, Vesuvius-style approach, 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:39.220 align:middle line:90% I guess. 00:02:39.220 --> 00:02:40.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:42.070 align:middle line:90% I have a related question. 00:02:42.070 --> 00:02:43.378 align:middle line:90% What's pressuring you now? 00:02:43.378 --> 00:02:44.920 align:middle line:84% What are you obsessed with right now? 00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:45.420 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:02:45.420 --> 00:02:49.200 align:middle line:90% 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:52.370 align:middle line:84% I'm writing about a moose sighting. 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:53.070 align:middle line:90% Woo. 00:02:53.070 --> 00:02:54.690 align:middle line:90% My first moose. 00:02:54.690 --> 00:02:58.470 align:middle line:84% My first eagle, my first moose, it sounds bedtime story-like. 00:02:58.470 --> 00:03:02.280 align:middle line:90% 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:06.630 align:middle line:90% But the oddness of it-- 00:03:06.630 --> 00:03:12.060 align:middle line:84% this very small essay has to do with the oddness of feeling 00:03:12.060 --> 00:03:15.975 align:middle line:84% that this thing was about to emerge, and then it did emerge. 00:03:15.975 --> 00:03:18.690 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:19.860 align:middle line:90% But in a larger sense-- 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:21.660 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's just nowhere right now. 00:03:21.660 --> 00:03:25.700 align:middle line:84% But in the larger sense, what is obsessing me 00:03:25.700 --> 00:03:34.170 align:middle line:84% or is a certain kind of urgency about how 00:03:34.170 --> 00:03:42.540 align:middle line:84% to get writing to talk about ruin 00:03:42.540 --> 00:03:52.200 align:middle line:84% without being a complete downer and somehow capping 00:03:52.200 --> 00:03:55.230 align:middle line:84% the kind of energy we need to act. 00:03:55.230 --> 00:03:59.880 align:middle line:84% So perception, with a kind of urgency attached to it. 00:03:59.880 --> 00:04:02.580 align:middle line:90% 00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:03.570 align:middle line:90% Two-part question. 00:04:03.570 --> 00:04:06.270 align:middle line:84% First, you didn't happen to bring any crabs, did you? 00:04:06.270 --> 00:04:07.830 align:middle line:90% Baltimore-wise, no. 00:04:07.830 --> 00:04:11.010 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:11.010 --> 00:04:12.270 align:middle line:90% Not otherwise. 00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:13.767 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:13.767 --> 00:04:15.264 align:middle line:90% Can I ask you-- 00:04:15.264 --> 00:04:16.769 align:middle line:90% We're good. 00:04:16.769 --> 00:04:22.800 align:middle line:84% Do you consider yourself, because of your language 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.100 align:middle line:84% is so in between, a poet or an essayist? 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:30.000 align:middle line:84% You keep talking about essays, but your language is so poetic. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.970 align:middle line:84% What do you consider yourself to be? 00:04:32.970 --> 00:04:33.750 align:middle line:90% Really, both. 00:04:33.750 --> 00:04:37.530 align:middle line:84% Absolutely, riding both rails at the same time. 00:04:37.530 --> 00:04:41.760 align:middle line:90% I started writing as a poet. 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:45.930 align:middle line:84% And so my sense of what shapes a sentence 00:04:45.930 --> 00:04:49.920 align:middle line:84% is influenced by what shapes a line, as well. 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:59.550 align:middle line:84% So there's a density that I'm interested in using 00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:01.770 align:middle line:84% to shape a sentence of prose that's 00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:03.810 align:middle line:84% very similar to the kind of density 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:09.180 align:middle line:90% you'd receive reading a poem. 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:11.070 align:middle line:84% So I always feel I ought to begin 00:05:11.070 --> 00:05:13.340 align:middle line:84% reading these essays with that caveat, yep, 00:05:13.340 --> 00:05:14.550 align:middle line:90% you need poet attention. 00:05:14.550 --> 00:05:16.920 align:middle line:84% You need poetry attention, dear audience. 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:20.100 align:middle line:84% It's just not a narrative story coming your way. 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:25.530 align:middle line:90% 00:05:25.530 --> 00:05:28.263 align:middle line:84% It seems like first three eagles are very descriptive. 00:05:28.263 --> 00:05:29.790 align:middle line:90% Mm-hmm. 00:05:29.790 --> 00:05:33.120 align:middle line:84% Whereas, the fourth one is rather cryptic. 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:37.320 align:middle line:84% You sprinkle all this cryptic imagery. 00:05:37.320 --> 00:05:40.320 align:middle line:84% I wondered why you kept it until the fourth. 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:43.410 align:middle line:84% It is more inviting, in a sense of use of language. 00:05:43.410 --> 00:05:45.720 align:middle line:84% And it gives a little bit more of liberating 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:49.190 align:middle line:84% way for the readers navigate their own way, 00:05:49.190 --> 00:05:50.190 align:middle line:90% chart out their own way. 00:05:50.190 --> 00:05:51.720 align:middle line:90% Mm-hmm. 00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:55.980 align:middle line:84% And I find that the more prose poem, like [INAUDIBLE] 00:05:55.980 --> 00:05:57.780 align:middle line:84% the first three, is a more descriptive-- 00:05:57.780 --> 00:06:00.000 align:middle line:84% Is there any reason for maybe you hold it, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:01.750 align:middle line:84% it's kind of like a crescendo at the end? 00:06:01.750 --> 00:06:02.670 align:middle line:90% Mm. 00:06:02.670 --> 00:06:07.260 align:middle line:84% I think that's probably more the case, the sense 00:06:07.260 --> 00:06:10.800 align:middle line:84% that the discussion or the observation 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:14.640 align:middle line:84% has been moving along in a certain register, almost 00:06:14.640 --> 00:06:19.860 align:middle line:84% a musical register, and then it intensifies. 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:24.930 align:middle line:84% And the sound of it, the need, the pressure in the essay, 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:28.380 align:middle line:84% at that point, needs to break into a more 00:06:28.380 --> 00:06:31.530 align:middle line:84% lyrical, as you're saying, language 00:06:31.530 --> 00:06:36.180 align:middle line:84% and then needs to come back down. 00:06:36.180 --> 00:06:39.580 align:middle line:84% To think of it as a musical line, I think, is very helpful. 00:06:39.580 --> 00:06:45.990 align:middle line:84% | don't have a why that's any more specific than that, 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:55.290 align:middle line:84% except that the motion of observation and the drive 00:06:55.290 --> 00:06:56.910 align:middle line:90% needed to vary, at that point. 00:06:56.910 --> 00:07:00.300 align:middle line:84% And it opened up into a different kind 00:07:00.300 --> 00:07:03.920 align:middle line:90% of sonorous quality. 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:07.950 align:middle line:90% 00:07:07.950 --> 00:07:11.970 align:middle line:84% Lia, how would you distinguish these hybrid essays you read 00:07:11.970 --> 00:07:14.355 align:middle line:90% to us from creative nonfiction? 00:07:14.355 --> 00:07:15.630 align:middle line:90% Hm. 00:07:15.630 --> 00:07:21.030 align:middle line:84% Well, I don't really know how to define creative nonfiction. 00:07:21.030 --> 00:07:25.140 align:middle line:84% I think "hybrid" is a really cool term. 00:07:25.140 --> 00:07:27.510 align:middle line:84% Ander would have to talk more about that. 00:07:27.510 --> 00:07:31.120 align:middle line:90% 00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:33.730 align:middle line:84% I think of these things as essays. 00:07:33.730 --> 00:07:36.340 align:middle line:90% They're just essays. 00:07:36.340 --> 00:07:39.910 align:middle line:84% If you'd like to call them "lyric," that's great. 00:07:39.910 --> 00:07:44.770 align:middle line:84% "Hybrid," in that they sound both prose-like and poem-like 00:07:44.770 --> 00:07:48.400 align:middle line:84% at varying moments, that's great, too. 00:07:48.400 --> 00:07:50.560 align:middle line:84% I'm so comfortable with the term "essay" 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:54.520 align:middle line:84% because I think the essay is an enormous, capacious form 00:07:54.520 --> 00:07:59.110 align:middle line:84% and within it, you can move around and really define it 00:07:59.110 --> 00:08:01.040 align:middle line:90% in whatever way you'd like. 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:05.770 align:middle line:84% So I've never used the term "creative nonfiction," I guess. 00:08:05.770 --> 00:08:09.300 align:middle line:84% The "non" part is always kind of-- 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:10.300 align:middle line:90% makes me a little antsy. 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:11.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:12.850 align:middle line:90% I'm a not. 00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:14.200 align:middle line:90% I'm a not that. 00:08:14.200 --> 00:08:15.025 align:middle line:90% I'm a not man. 00:08:15.025 --> 00:08:17.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:17.880 --> 00:08:19.660 align:middle line:90% 00:08:19.660 --> 00:08:22.630 align:middle line:84% So I don't really know what the difference 00:08:22.630 --> 00:08:28.420 align:middle line:84% is because I probably just corral some prose piece doing 00:08:28.420 --> 00:08:33.580 align:middle line:84% hybrid-type work up against what might be 00:08:33.580 --> 00:08:36.309 align:middle line:90% called "creative nonfiction." 00:08:36.309 --> 00:08:39.169 align:middle line:84% I can't really use the terms very adequately, 00:08:39.169 --> 00:08:39.669 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:08:39.669 --> 00:08:44.295 align:middle line:84% We have two more questions, one here in the north. 00:08:44.295 --> 00:08:45.920 align:middle line:84% I'm sure you've been asked this before, 00:08:45.920 --> 00:08:49.390 align:middle line:84% but what most inspires you, as a writer? 00:08:49.390 --> 00:08:51.190 align:middle line:90% What most motivates you? 00:08:51.190 --> 00:08:55.150 align:middle line:90% Well, it's harder-- 00:08:55.150 --> 00:08:59.440 align:middle line:84% I really should have an answer, just ready for that. 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:01.980 align:middle line:84% It's right up there with, who's your favorite poet? 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:04.180 align:middle line:84% And I just want to say, Dickinson, OK? 00:09:04.180 --> 00:09:07.060 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:07.060 --> 00:09:13.294 align:middle line:90% What most inspires me? 00:09:13.294 --> 00:09:14.710 align:middle line:90% Hm. 00:09:14.710 --> 00:09:22.660 align:middle line:84% Reading something, anything, really well done 00:09:22.660 --> 00:09:24.490 align:middle line:90% often kicks me into gear. 00:09:24.490 --> 00:09:28.780 align:middle line:90% And it can be a poem. 00:09:28.780 --> 00:09:34.390 align:middle line:84% It can be another essay, or a story, 00:09:34.390 --> 00:09:40.000 align:middle line:84% something that makes me want to do that thing. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.170 align:middle line:84% Not do it better, not top it, but think 00:09:44.170 --> 00:09:49.450 align:middle line:84% to match the sensation I get from reading 00:09:49.450 --> 00:09:55.390 align:middle line:84% that brilliant thing in my own work, just make my hand 00:09:55.390 --> 00:09:57.910 align:middle line:90% do that thing. 00:09:57.910 --> 00:10:01.210 align:middle line:84% And that's a really broad, broad answer. 00:10:01.210 --> 00:10:07.330 align:middle line:84% Very practically, what I find head clearing and inspiring, 00:10:07.330 --> 00:10:10.840 align:middle line:84% in the really practical sense of the word-- the inspiration, 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:13.360 align:middle line:90% breath taking in-- is walking. 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:15.130 align:middle line:90% I walk a lot. 00:10:15.130 --> 00:10:20.590 align:middle line:84% I have a great, accommodating dog, 00:10:20.590 --> 00:10:28.660 align:middle line:84% and we just walk, daily, for three or four miles. 00:10:28.660 --> 00:10:32.710 align:middle line:84% And the rhythm of moving the body through space 00:10:32.710 --> 00:10:38.290 align:middle line:84% allows for all kinds of roaming and catching 00:10:38.290 --> 00:10:45.430 align:middle line:84% of very odd snippets of phrases and ideas 00:10:45.430 --> 00:10:47.710 align:middle line:84% that patch together in ways that are 00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:52.040 align:middle line:84% totally unexpected because I'm up, and out, and moving. 00:10:52.040 --> 00:10:54.550 align:middle line:84% So I have a little piece of paper. 00:10:54.550 --> 00:10:57.760 align:middle line:84% Or it's usually just a scrap of paper and a pencil. 00:10:57.760 --> 00:11:00.310 align:middle line:84% And whenever I stop to take it out, she sits down. 00:11:00.310 --> 00:11:00.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:04.343 align:middle line:84% And I know she's thinking, OK, this is going to be a while. 00:11:04.343 --> 00:11:05.260 align:middle line:90% I'm just going to sit. 00:11:05.260 --> 00:11:05.760 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:12.040 align:middle line:84% So that is the movement through the world in a very blank way 00:11:12.040 --> 00:11:15.700 align:middle line:90% is deeply inspiring. 00:11:15.700 --> 00:11:18.520 align:middle line:84% OK, we have one more question over here. 00:11:18.520 --> 00:11:21.670 align:middle line:84% One of the delightful and confounding things 00:11:21.670 --> 00:11:26.350 align:middle line:84% about the essay is its relationship with truth. 00:11:26.350 --> 00:11:30.700 align:middle line:84% For those of us who are poets or fiction writers, 00:11:30.700 --> 00:11:33.280 align:middle line:84% we wonder why you don't just make it up? 00:11:33.280 --> 00:11:34.660 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:34.660 --> 00:11:39.610 align:middle line:84% What is the connection to truth that frightens us so much 00:11:39.610 --> 00:11:43.210 align:middle line:84% that we lean back and lie, and talk about our feelings 00:11:43.210 --> 00:11:44.605 align:middle line:90% or what might be? 00:11:44.605 --> 00:11:45.310 align:middle line:90% Hm. 00:11:45.310 --> 00:11:49.210 align:middle line:84% How are you how are you brave enough to assault the truth 00:11:49.210 --> 00:11:50.920 align:middle line:90% or to approach it? 00:11:50.920 --> 00:11:53.470 align:middle line:84% Wow, well, I never really thought about fiction 00:11:53.470 --> 00:12:03.910 align:middle line:84% as lying because I thought of it as creating and imaginatively 00:12:03.910 --> 00:12:12.320 align:middle line:84% making a scene, and character, and encounter. 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:18.735 align:middle line:84% And so what is brave about essay writing? 00:12:18.735 --> 00:12:24.600 align:middle line:90% 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:28.860 align:middle line:84% I'm constantly stunned by what the world is offering, 00:12:28.860 --> 00:12:36.640 align:middle line:84% and what is put in my path, and my need to figure things out. 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:39.720 align:middle line:84% So a lot of writing, for me, writing of the essay 00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:42.420 align:middle line:84% is trying to figure out what it is I'm thinking, 00:12:42.420 --> 00:12:49.830 align:middle line:84% figure out what it is that's been put before me. 00:12:49.830 --> 00:12:57.300 align:middle line:84% And I don't tend toward heavy, dark family secret writing. 00:12:57.300 --> 00:13:01.950 align:middle line:90% 00:13:01.950 --> 00:13:03.390 align:middle line:90% Not that we don't have them. 00:13:03.390 --> 00:13:07.990 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:07.990 --> 00:13:13.950 align:middle line:84% It's not a form that I'm particularly moved by. 00:13:13.950 --> 00:13:19.080 align:middle line:84% Though everything that goes into dealing with big issues 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:24.150 align:middle line:84% makes it into the writing, just not in a frontal way. 00:13:24.150 --> 00:13:27.330 align:middle line:90% 00:13:27.330 --> 00:13:33.480 align:middle line:84% I think, in general, really, to sit down to a blankness 00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:40.170 align:middle line:84% and to make something is an act of great dignity, 00:13:40.170 --> 00:13:45.960 align:middle line:90% and creation, and affirmation. 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:47.890 align:middle line:84% So whatever form you're working in, 00:13:47.890 --> 00:13:56.350 align:middle line:84% I think it's a truly spirit-infused thing 00:13:56.350 --> 00:13:57.370 align:middle line:90% to do with your life. 00:13:57.370 --> 00:14:00.688 align:middle line:90% 00:14:00.688 --> 00:14:01.640 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:03.490 align:middle line:90% Thank you, so much. 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:08.000 align:middle line:90%