WEBVTT

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What is your writing routine?

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Well, I like to write in
blocks of three hours or more.

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I can't write in one hour
because I'm usually quite

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dull the first hour.

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And I need the voice
to clarify in my head.

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And I can't write every
day because two days a week

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I teach.

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So I basically write on the
days that I don't teach.

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And depending where I am in a
project, if I'm near the end,

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I may write quite long like
I might write for eight hours

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or I might write on a
Saturday and Sunday.

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But, in general, I've written
so much and for so long

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that I no longer require of
myself to write every day.

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I write when, more or
less when I get the urge.

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I was writing today in fact
because, unfortunately,

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they put me in a room
that had no television,

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so I had to write.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Any other questions?

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Yes.

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How, if at all, does
teaching contribute to art?

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I think of teaching as something
rather similar to writing in

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that I'm improvising a lot.

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And when I'm teaching, often
some thought is flitting

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across my brain and I think,
ought I to say this out loud,

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is this a good idea?

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And I'd like to get to
a place with my students

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where I'm not censoring
myself that much

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and I can just tell
them what I think.

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And also I'm forced
when they ask questions

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to try to come up with answers.

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And a lot of my writing
practice come down

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to like asking a
question to myself.

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Sometimes I put it
actually in the page

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and then try to answer it.

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I think, in general,
it's the questions

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that you generate that keep
you writing for a long period

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rather than necessarily
having answers.

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It's continuously asking
yourself a question

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or setting up a
problem for yourself.

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That's the mark of an
artist, essentially.

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We've got time for one more.

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Yes.

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I was looking at your book
over there called, Waterfront.

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I just wondered what inspired
you to write that book.

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Waterfront was a long project.

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I spent several years on it.

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And, originally, I had
accepted an advance

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to write a big book
about New York City.

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And I realized
after a few months

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that I had no large thesis
about New York City.

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I'd lived there
practically my whole life

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and I didn't know how to do it.

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So I told the editor.

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And, fortunately, she let me
do a book of essays instead.

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But later on, that same
editor had the idea

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that I could write a little,
kind of like an impulse buying

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book about the rim of Manhattan.

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And so I agreed to do that.

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And I started walking
around the edge of Manhattan

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and as I was walking, I
realized that every place

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I was walking in generated
stories or generated

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essays of some kind or another.

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And I then started
to research a lot.

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I was supposed to be writing
my adventures walking around

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but, unfortunately,
almost nothing happened.

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I wasn't mugged.

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I didn't meet any old sailor
or anything like that.

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Nothing.

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So I realized I
had to open this up

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by writing about all kinds of
things in the past and present.

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And that took me
into marine biology,

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into politics,
into architecture,

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and everything else.

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And I started writing
about all kinds of things.

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And so in the end it
became a much bigger book.

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And, essentially, I
think of it as a book

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that really did what I'm
always advocating to students,

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which is to use research.

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There's only so
much you can get out

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of your traumas
and your feelings.

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You basically have five
feelings and that's about it.

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And they keep recurring.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Envy, resentment, what
are the other three?

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I don't know.

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Anyway, so-- [CHUCKLES]
I do like to do research

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and to combine--

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In effect, Waterfront, I
was using the I character,

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the Phillip Lopate character
to be a kind of guide or Virgil

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through these experiences
because I felt like I

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knew how to maneuver him.

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But a lot-- it's about the built
environment, a physical place.

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And the larger
story ended up being

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as I came to see it that so many
cities, not just New York City,

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but so many cities were
formed on the water.

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And their harbors were the basic
reason that they were formed.

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And then because of
containerization,

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the shipping was moved
upriver away from the cities.

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And cities and ports
became disentangled.

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And that seemed to me
a very large story.

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And a sad one in
many ways because I

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think there's something
great about the relationship

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between city and port.

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So I started to write about
how cities could reinvent

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themselves and what
happened when you took away

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the port function.

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And so that became Waterfront.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, Phillip.

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And thank you all
for coming out.

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We have books for sale.

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[APPLAUSE]