Speaker 1 00:01:16 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber for the first part of the hour. Dave fig talks with journalists, Natalie Moore, about her new play, the billboard, a book turn play. The billboard follows a fictional health clinic at the south side of Chicago at the center of political race and fight for reproductive rights. As the issue of abortion writes takes a national spotlight. This new play offers an indepth look at abortion and a person's right to choose.
Speaker 2 00:01:44 And I'm Dave fed in the last part of the hour. We we'll be featuring one of our legacy episodes where we do a deep dive into our archives to pull a surprising interview of your, you won't wanna miss that all of this and more so stay tuned to write on radio. And now this
Speaker 3 00:02:05 Welcome back everyone. We are very delighted this evening to be speaking with Natalie, why Moore, author of the billboard a play about abortion. We have much to discuss tonight with Natalie. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 00:02:19 Thank you for having me, David.
Speaker 3 00:02:21 Yeah. We're, we're thrilled to have you, uh, before we get started, Natalie talking about the play and everything else that's going on around this issue these days. Uh, why don't you give us the background for this play a little bit about yourself and how you came to write a play about abortion?
Speaker 4 00:02:38 Well, I first wanna say that I used to be a twin city resident. Oh. I used to work for the St. Paul pioneer press back in the early two thousands.
Speaker 3 00:02:46 Um, wonderful. Well, now we're, now we're just really thrilled to have you on
Speaker 4 00:02:50 <laugh> and I've always loved theater. Uh, you know, even as a journalist, didn't see this as a career path of mine, but living, uh, in the twin cities, you know, I saw a lot of theater and love going to penumbra. Yeah. Um, mixed blood Pillsbury. So I just wanna give a shout out that the, the area helped foster my love for, for theater theater.
Speaker 3 00:03:18 Well, thank you for that. And especially shouting out Pillsbury that that's near to my heart for a lot of reasons, but, uh, wonderful.
Speaker 4 00:03:25 And I just another, I mean, just as I'm, uh, thinking about this, I started my career in, in newspapers and I mentioned, I worked at the St. Paul St. Paul pioneer press. I became a public radio listener in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 00:03:40 Ah,
Speaker 4 00:03:41 I didn't grow up listening to NPR, but I discovered Minnesota public radio. And that, um, I, I, I used to joke that I was a groupie who got hired <laugh>. Um, but yeah, that's, that is where I, I cultivated that love also. So I worked for w B E Z, the NPR member station in Chicago. Yep. And I, I cover neighborhoods, uh, a lot of issues on housing, race, inequality, segregation. And I've been here for 15 years. Okay. I've written non-fiction books. The, uh, the most recent book was the south side, a portrait of Chicago and American segregation. So I've stayed in the nonfiction field. I wrote a book about the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang here in Chicago. I co-wrote a book on black masculinity and the hip hop generation that I'd started on back, uh, when I lived in, in Minnesota and the idea of a, of a play. Um, and it sometimes as a storyteller, a story speaks to us in a certain way. And I said, I want to try writing a play. And I had an idea in my head and I, I, I had, I had a relationship with a theater and sh suburban Chicago called 16th street theater. And they had adapted, they reached out to me about adapting the south side into a one night scripted reading.
Speaker 3 00:05:12 Oh,
Speaker 4 00:05:13 And this was completely out the blue. And this is around the time that I had been thinking about a play that I wanted to write. And I said, well, this is serendipitous. And I said, you know, I have this idea. I wanna write a play. And the artistic director commission beam.
Speaker 3 00:05:28 Nice,
Speaker 4 00:05:29 But I didn't wanna embarrass myself. So I took a playwriting class at Chicago dramatist. And what I learned from that class was that my training as an audio reporter equipped me well to do playwriting because my feature audio scripts as with playwriting, you're writing for the ear. Ah, so it was a really good natural transition. But when I took the class, we had a homework assignment to write a four page scene about an object or a person showing up. So for people who are play, go goers, that might sound familiar. There's a certain urgency in playwriting that you don't have in novels. Uh, you don't get to meander or, you know, oh, this is a good topic. I'm going to create a plot around there's, there's an immediacy and urgency. Um, and if you think about the plays that you love something, or someone is showing up and yeah, that's where the conflict starts. And this was back in 2018 and there had been two billboards up in Dallas, one by put up by a probl lifer, likening abortion to genocide. And then there was a black women's organization called the Thea center that put up its own billboard, affirming black women's rights to make decisions for their family. And it, that abortion was self care. And the billboard had three women on the, on the billboard smiling. And it was quite controversial to talk about abortion and self care and to have women smiling.
Speaker 3 00:07:15 I looked up the billboard, Natalie, I online and, and, uh, yes, it, it was striking.
Speaker 4 00:07:21 And I will admit that I was taken aback by it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, but I wanted to challenge myself about why I felt taken aback. So I thought this would be a cool assignment wow. To write about. And I did, and I sent it to the theater to say, look, you know, I'm getting this thing down, this playwriting thing down, look at this assignment <laugh>. And she said, you know, I don't wanna tell you what to do, but I think this is your play.
Speaker 3 00:07:49 Wow.
Speaker 4 00:07:51 And, uh, I didn't take that lightly until I pivoted <laugh> and developed that into the billboard.
Speaker 3 00:08:00 Wow. Well, you're an accomplished writer leading up to this, but to in effect, pitch a, play your first play and, and get it produced. That's pretty good. Congratulations.
Speaker 4 00:08:11 Thank you. Um,
Speaker 3 00:08:12 Uh, uh, two notes, uh, for our listeners. Uh, this is a, a script that has been produced. It's published, it's a book. So, uh, it's sold wherever. Find books are sold. Get online, look, let up the billboard by Natalie Moore, M O O R E. Um, it's a book with the script and also some front and back material that, um, uh, you know, go deeper into this subject in what Natalie was working on. And then also the play is currently in production. Do you wanna tell us about that?
Speaker 4 00:08:43 The play is running through July 17th, but there are virtual tickets. So the, um, you know, your listeners can go to 16th street theater.org. That's one six street theater.org, and click on, get tickets, you'll see a calendar and there are some virtual dates.
Speaker 3 00:09:04 I'm glad you mentioned this, Natalie. I didn't realize that I've been on this website a few times. Um, listeners who pay attention might note that, uh, or Ray call that I'm in Chicago frequently for, for work. And, uh, I've been dying to hoping to get there, to see it, but this, this is wonderful. It's virtual. We can all get online and, and watch it. Yes. So, um, before we get in the deeper issues of what we're talking about here, you wanna describe the arc of the story for us. Give us a sense for what the Billboard's about. Yes.
Speaker 4 00:09:33 So this, uh, this play is not a reenactment of what happened in Dallas or a reenactment of what happened in Chicago, the same black pro-lifer in 2011, put up an anti-abortion billboard on the south side of Chicago that I covered as a reporter at w B E Z. Um, so because I'm in Chicago, I decided to put it in a city council race <laugh> because we're known for our rep ensemble politics. Yes. So what happens is that a, a man running for city council who's from the Englewood neighborhood of south side community puts up a billboard that says the most dangerous place for a black child is his mother's womb. Abortion is genocide, keep Inglewood black vote Demetrius drew for city council.
Speaker 3 00:10:19 Wow.
Speaker 4 00:10:20 Also in Inglewood, there is the black women's health initiative of a fictitious, uh, clinic medical clinic that also does abortion services. And the doctor executive director founder is from Inglewood as well. And she wants to use Demetrius's billboard as an opportunity to change the narrative. So Tonya convinces the, the board to put up their own billboard that says black women have the right to make decisions for their family. Abortion is self care, hashtag trust black women. And there is a picture of three black women smiling mm-hmm <affirmative> and social media erupt. So the, the play is about these dueling, uh, billboards and their messages, and the reactions, the subtext of the play is also about who gets to speak for community that's disinvested, Inglewood, um, struggles with unemployment and violence, but it's also a community with block clubs and people who want to make their, their community better.
Speaker 4 00:11:33 Um, and so rounding out the cast is the board chair of the clinic. Who's the cautious one, the incumbent city council member, and then a 19 year old program assistant for the clinic who is, um, running all of the social media and the little fun fact that sounds like gross nepotism, even though I did not do the casting. My 19 year old stepdaughter is in the play playing, uh, Kayla who has become a fan favorite because she's mature. She never loses sight through the, through the entire story. And I wrote Kayla as an, as an O two black girlhood, because sometimes when we talk about black excellence, black girl magic, it's sometimes through a middle to upper middle class lens. And I wanted to highlight a girl from Inglewood yeah. Who is capable and, and bright and has something to offer.
Speaker 3 00:12:41 I smiled when you,
Speaker 4 00:12:42 Even though she didn't, even though she's not in college, at least, you know, not, not yet,
Speaker 3 00:12:46 Not yet. I smiled when you mentioned Kayla, because she was a favorite of mine also. Uh, you readers, you will really, and, and those who watch the play and I hope you do will really enjoy Kayla. Uh,
Speaker 4 00:12:57 Well, can I ask you why Kayla was your favorite?
Speaker 3 00:13:00 Well, she just brung off the page. Um, putting everything aside, what the story's about and whatnot. She just seemed so genuine. And, um, uh, at a point in life when she was encountering a lot of these real issues for the first time, uh, I, I, I think I did that with her. I think I, I think we come along with her, uh, even though I'm an old guy, uh, I don't know. She's so genuine and, um, and, and, and fun and somebody you wanna meet. Right. Do you wanna be with <laugh> so nice job on her and, and the other characters. I, that was a nice, um, description of Kayla and thank you for introducing her to us, but I was gonna ask you about the characters you told us where one came from, uh, do these other characters sort of come together from your experience as a journalist or a personal life, or
Speaker 4 00:13:53 Absolutely. So no one is based on anyone. Although I, I would ask my stepdaughters about slang and <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:14:02 Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 00:14:03 <laugh>, you know, to, to help me, help me out, uh, from, from time to time. Um, but yes, my reporting helped me, um, you know, August Wilson, I believe one said that he liked to sit in cafes to hear people talk, and that helps him with his dialogue. And I would say that being a reporter on the ground and getting to interview different kinds of people, mm-hmm, <affirmative> puts me in touch with issues and individuals, whether they are, you know, political gaff lies who show up at public meetings, raising hell mm-hmm <affirmative> or they are an elected official. So I brought that experience, even though I, I didn't model any of these, these people Demetrius who's running for a city council. Um, you know, I, I wanted, I, I didn't wanna make anyone one dimensional, you know, it's pretty cynical for him to link black population laws to abortion.
Speaker 4 00:15:07 But on the other hand, he has an understanding of the issues that his community faces as far as the housing crisis. Um, you know, the effects of redlining banking, uh, economic development, not coming to the community is his 10 point plan realistic on point, no, but he does understand the, the issues and he's rooted in, in his community. Um, but I, but I've seen characters show up with bullhorns in my time reporting. Um, you know, I've, I've seen them, you know, rightfully or wrongfully, you know, rail against systems that, that are in place. So that's what I was thinking about with him, but I was also thinking about addressing patriarchy yeah. In, uh, a, a black community without being preachy. So he's someone who, you know, is pro-black and, you know, nationalist, but falls far short on, on gender and the incumbent city, Councilwoman Cheryl Lewis has been in for 20 years and she represents stagnation in community, but also someone who understands politics mm-hmm <affirmative> very well mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, I wouldn't, I didn't write her.
Speaker 4 00:16:38 I didn't intend for her to be a, a villain. I think people will have different reads on these characters based on, you know, their own experiences. Um, and she's never had competition before, but Demetrius is billboard gives them all the spotlight, which forces her to have to campaign harder than she's had to mm-hmm <affirmative> and Tanya, the founder. Um, as I mentioned from Inglewood, um, she, Cheryl and Kayla all tell their abortion stories in the plane. Yes. The three of them had abortions for different reasons. And the point of that was to show that there is no single abortion story. Yeah. And she's, uh, she gets in her own way a little bit because she wants to keep changing this narrative. Right. Um, and seizing this moment, but she let some balls drop along the way. And Dawn, who I see as a little bit of her foil, the board chair who supports her, but she's the numbers person she's like, are we compromising, you know, are we, is our, self-righteousness going to be our demise?
Speaker 3 00:17:53 Yeah. So listeners, you can tell from Natalie Moore's description of the characters, interplay the billboard to play about abortion, that there is a lot going on. And these are very deep in real characters. We need to get Natalie here, back to the twin cities, theater managers who are listening. Uh, let's get this play produced here and let's have her come up for a little preview party.
Speaker 4 00:18:15 Um, I would love if the play were in, um, that would just be so full circle in, in many ways. So anyone, I, I have a script handy, I can email it. Anyone who's interested,
Speaker 3 00:18:26 We need to make this happen. Uh, so much to talk about, and we're gonna run out of time. We have to talk about Roe V Wade. But before we do, um, help us people like me, uh, who, you know, I'm, I, I I'm near Englewood on a regular basis, but I will never live there. And most of us will never step foot in Englewood. Um, to what degree are these dynamics? These tensions that you've described real in a neighborhood like Englewood that is to say, um, fears about, you know, white feminism or whiteness, uh, intruding into the lives of people in the neighborhood, uh, these tensions of, um, genocide versus power, uh, the Demetrius character. Uh, there's a lot of reality in these things. I imagine you're giving us a lot here, um, help us understand these dynamics in a neighborhood like Englewood, if you could. It's a big question. I
Speaker 4 00:19:30 Know. Yeah. Well, this, this play is set in Chicago on the south side in Englewood, but I do think through specificity, there is universality. Yeah. So I think that there are communities in Minneapolis. Sure. Um, you know, on the north side <laugh>, um, you know, it, it, it is not, you know, apples to apples, you know, these are different, different places, but I think, you know, black neighborhoods and the legacy of segregation and disinvestment and feeling left behind are sentiments that are around the country. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, you know, as far as the genocide, you know, and the white feminism, these are not things that people in communities are thinking about on a daily basis. Right. But I am making the point that, you know, black men are victims of victims of patriarchy just as white men are. So, you know, there is racial anxiety among some groups of white people.
Speaker 3 00:20:47 Mm-hmm,
Speaker 4 00:20:47 <affirmative> who feel like there should be more babies. Our population is dropping. And even through my research on abortion, these were sentiments in the 18 hundreds
Speaker 3 00:20:55 <laugh> yeah.
Speaker 4 00:20:56 Oh, you know, white Protestant Anglosaxon women are not having enough babies. Wow. And someone like Dimitri's is saying the black family is gonna save us black women. Like you have to have baby, like we have to, we have to populate mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so for very different reasons, but again, it's, it's still patriarchy. So I, I wanted to, to show that, and you know, there there's a debate scene between Cheryl, the incumbent and Demetrius where some of these issues are teased out about disinvestment and what can you do to turn a neighborhood mm-hmm <affirmative> around. Yeah. Um, and so I think that those things are, are real and the, the specter of white people coming to a neighborhood mm-hmm <affirmative> um, does cause fear for some people, because they worry about displacement, right? Somebody, if white people come into this neighborhood, are we gonna get priced out? Is it going to be gentrified?
Speaker 3 00:22:04 Yeah. For, for the wonky people among us. And that's probably everyone listening to this radio program because otherwise, why would you be listening to it? <laugh> uh, Natalie mentioned these other themes, and I'm glad you did, Natalie, that, uh, these themes about neighborhoods, what neighborhoods are, how to develop them, what does that mean to develop them? Um, these are big, big issues in cities, all across America. And they, they come out very nicely. So that's, that's a bonus for you readers out there. Um, but now before time runs out and it will sooner than I want, we need to talk about the RO Devi, Wade reversal, Natalie. And we can talk about it in many, in many ways, but I wanna keep focused on your play here. You wrote a play that was really hot in terms of current current issue. Suddenly last Friday, it becomes an historical play in mid flow while it's being produced. It becomes a piece of history because now it's changed. Everything's changed. Uh, so what does this mean for your plane, Natalie? Uh,
Speaker 4 00:23:06 Going through, I would say when I started writing this, I did not think row would be overturned.
Speaker 3 00:23:13 Right.
Speaker 4 00:23:15 <laugh> yeah. Which maybe was naive as someone who was reading up on these, these issues. And I knew what other states were doing. I knew that Illinois, um, was starting to enact more protections it, you know, it, it, in 2018, we, we aren't where we are now, but you know, a lot of people were coming from outta state to get abortions in Illinois. But then when the Supreme court decided in December to take up the Dobbs V Jackson case, which overturned Roe mm-hmm <affirmative>. I said when, and we had our play dates, we got our dates out in January. Okay. I said, Roe will be overturned when this play is out.
Speaker 3 00:24:03 Oh, wow.
Speaker 4 00:24:04 Because I knew what the Supreme court was. I mean, it was, I mean, of course, I didn't know this for certain, but this was my, my hunch. Right. The surprising thing was the illegal leak. No one saw that coming. And I have not yet read the final opinion or the dissents or the concurrent, but I did read the, the leak. And there were a lot of nuggets in there that were really surprising. Some that we are still talking about today, um, that, that remained in, but the idea that abortion is not protected in the constitution. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so what does that mean for other protections? Um, and you know, one thing that I've been that the play addresses is the difference between reproductive rights and reproductive justice. So reproductive rights is the legal framework about protecting abortion. Reproductive justice is a movement that was started by black women here in Chicago at a pro-choice conference back in 1994. And abortion has often been framed as my body. My choice mm-hmm, <affirmative> a reproductive justice thinks about access and movement building. So the pillars of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right, not to have a child, the right to parent the way you want, what the necessary support and then the right to sexual pleasure, bodily autonomy.
Speaker 3 00:25:45 Wow. Uh, so again, bring this back to the play. What do you do, um, do you do anything with the play Natalie as it stands? Uh, because again, it was written pre role reversal.
Speaker 4 00:25:59 Well, it's set in 2018. And so I, um, I didn't wanna mess with the timeline because it wouldn't make sense. Like it's a city it's in fall 2018 because our municipal cycle, and this is the journalism, like we have to stay accurate. So <laugh> it's before the 2019 race, this play wouldn't, I would have had to change so much more dialogue if I wanted to set it now. Yeah. Got it. Um, and that's okay. I mean, you, you write something it's done, you know, what the timeframe is and, you know, that's that's, but I, I still think it's speaking to the moment because there are so many, you know, people, the mainstream is not talking about abortion the day before the illegal leak
Speaker 3 00:26:54 Right
Speaker 4 00:26:55 Now. And especially after Roe was overturned, our whole discourse in this country has changed. So I think this play is adding to the discourse about reproductive rights versus justice. What, you know, what is it, does it matter? The reason someone has has an abortion. Um, and you know, one of the taglines on the book is that the play is more than, you know, pro-life or pro-choice. I think that people, no matter what their view is, will see themselves reflect it. But I think the more nuance in the play is among is between people who are pro-choice and how do you get that message out? And how do you, uh, the, the play really gets a lot into destigmatizing abortion and treating it as a healthcare issue. And not as there, there's still a lot of shame associated with abortion.
Speaker 3 00:27:57 Mm-hmm <affirmative> that is so well said. Uh, this play is much more about a point in time. These issues are real, they're raw, and they're still with us even post Roe V Wade decision last week. Uh, and maybe even more so, because we're dealing with this on a state by state basis now locally. Right. Um, it's become real again. So well said. Um, what a great time, what a, for this play to come out again? Congratulations. We're speaking with Natalie. Y Moore, M O O R E. Look, her up, Google her, her play is the billboard a play about abortion. It is published as a book with some other, um, a forward and an afterward that are well worth reading. Also, she's been in St. Paul. We need to get her back, Natalie. It's been a real treat to have you
Speaker 4 00:28:48 Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 00:28:50 Absolutely. And before we go, what's next for Natalie Moore?
Speaker 4 00:28:55 Hmm. Getting through, COVID getting through this play. And, um, I, I honestly, I would love to see other theaters pick it up and to keep the conversation going,
Speaker 3 00:29:07 Gotta believe that's gonna happen. I really do. Yeah. Once again, ladies gentlemen, Natalie Moore, author of the billboard. Thank you, Natalie. Thank
Speaker 4 00:29:15 You.
Speaker 3 00:29:15 And now this
Speaker 5 00:29:42 K a I 90.3 FM and live on the
[email protected]. This is Annie, and I'm really excited to have here today. Lisa Zeidner author of who says, Lisa, can you hear me okay?
Speaker 6 00:29:55 Yes, I can.
Speaker 5 00:29:56 Great. Would you like to explain a little bit what who says is about and read a short passage from it?
Speaker 6 00:30:02 Sure. Uh, so the book is called, who says mastering point of view and fiction. And I argue in the book that point of view is the thing that most people who are trying to write understand least, and that it's actually kind of complicated. It's not just first, second and third person. So I kind of lay out a method to think about point of view, and I'll just read three or four paragraphs from the beginning. There's always a Menina TA when you're reading you the author and the character, at least a threesome, though in sprawling epic, the trio can morph into an immense tribal polygamous family. You're in Paris or Pittsburgh in bed, or at a cafe holding the book or your device in your hand, your lips moving or not as your eyes scan the page. But even if you belong to a book club, you read alone.
Speaker 6 00:30:55 And unless he is James Patterson with a Samis workshop full of ghost writing elves churning up thrillers for his insatiable fans. The author is alone too. When he creates the characters who basically don't exist, except insofar as the author, Frankensteins them into Lu and life. The author is an intermediary. He's a guide and translator, and that is true even, or as will later see, especially when the story is being told in first person or involves facts or historical events, point of view choices involve skillful manipulations in and modulation of your Alliance with your characters. In fact, I'll argue in these, this book that those manipulations are the very heart of fiction, more central and crucial than plot, that only fiction that challenges your allegiance to author a character ever fully succeeds.
Speaker 5 00:31:57 Perfect. Well, I think that really summarized why I found this book so exciting, really getting into the meat of why different lenses of storytelling that may, may feel like there's simply a factor. A piece of convenience are actually a deeply thoughtful and really evocative way to get to certain parts of the story and the level of detail in which you talk about voice in this book and go into different examples, strongly evoked for me, creative writing classes that I took at the collegiate level, like having that kind of meet, which makes sense as I believe you teach creative writing. Um,
Speaker 6 00:32:28 Not forever <laugh> since childhood
Speaker 5 00:32:32 Teaching creative writing since forever, but it was also a fun read for me that flew by and it had a fun and friendly, friendly mood. It felt a little conspiratorial, like you were letting me in on some secrets about how writing works. And I was just wondering, as you wrote this book, who was the audience in your mind? I'll say
Speaker 6 00:32:50 <laugh> well, I do teach a craft course in point of view at, uh, the MFA program at Rutgers university in Camden. So I I've been talking to graduate students about this material for some number of years and they're pretty good writers. Cool. Uh, they're not beginning writers. So I see this book as a book for serious writers. I think it could also ask, be sorry, useful for serious readers, because if you're in a book club and you're saying, I don't like this character, it helps think of about a way of what do you do with not liking a character? What does that mean? And as you know, I argue in the book that you can like, or not like a character, but if you don't like the author, you don't like the book. Yes. So you're always in some sort of relationship with the author.
Speaker 5 00:33:41 Well kind of following that with the, the book, being a conversation with the author and reading this book, being a conversation with you, how did you find a voice that would be good in this conversation with your reader and how did you craft that as you went
Speaker 6 00:33:56 Well, I mean, you just can't lecture and there are a lot of creative writing books that are very, very dry. You know, you might as well be writing, reading a math textbook. Uh, and I haven't found that it works with students, uh, and people who are trying to write. And if you've got, you know, your own 300 page novel and you know, that something's kind of wrong with it, but it's hard to get a grasp of exactly what's wrong with it. You really don't just wanna be given a checklist of things you have to change. You need to be given some way to think about what you need to do that will allow you to dive in. So, um, you know, writing your writer yourself, right, <laugh> writing is it's a process. It's not, you know, it's not like you get a final product and then you fix it. It's a process of going through stuff. So I'm really engaged with the process and with talking to people where they are when I teach.
Speaker 5 00:34:57 Yeah. I think just feeding right into that. The book depicts writing techniques in a couple ways that I thought both provided something really valuable, which is both a manual, kind of, these are the elements of voice and techniques that can feel kind of like manual, just something you do to create a certain effect, but it also expresses the subjectivity and personal experience that will go into whether or not someone likes a book, like what you were saying earlier about, you may, you may hate the main character, but it's, if you don't like the way the author does things, you won't like the book as someone writing this book, who is one human being. Were there any times when you were trying to figure out if you should describe something in like an objective manual way or a subjective personal experience way and had to consult outside sources or bring in another person?
Speaker 6 00:35:47 Well, I will say that my editor and a couple of friends who read the book, cut out some snark <laugh>, uh, you know, my personal voice, uh, can get a little, um, buoyantly sarcastic at times <laugh> <laugh>. And so, um, you know, I think somebody said, as I was making a joke about ed grow, pose character, approaching the fall of the house of usher, uh, that I was kind of making fun of ed grow and Poe, and that maybe I should be a little more respectful of the writers. So <laugh>, um, uh, you know, that impulse, I had to check a little bit and, you know, there's some, I do quote a lot of both positive and negative reviews in the book. And, you know, I just try to be pretty balanced and show different sides of how people approach work. I mean, just as one example from the book, uh, there's a book by Gabriel talent called my absolute darling that involves the incestuous rape of a 14 year old girl.
Speaker 6 00:36:50 That's pretty charged material. Uh, and I quote a kind of negative review of that book that says, you know, this is a male author and he doesn't really understand how a 14 year old girl would feel. And that was a review by a woman. And so, you know, I talk about issues of authenticity would, uh, would we feel differently about reading this if, uh, a woman wrote it then as, as a man writing it mm-hmm <affirmative> and would we feel differently if it was in third person or first person, because all of those involve what I describe as your distance from the character or your closeness to the character. So if you're writing about the incestuous rape of a young girl, and you're pretending to be in her head, but a reader feels like, oh, you're like this, you know, this is torture porn. You're kind of outside looking at this girl being mistreated. That's a point of view failure. And so even a casual reader who isn't necessarily writing can maybe better understand what their reacting to, by going through those, um, those kind of delineations in the book.
Speaker 5 00:38:06 Yeah. And that's so important, especially with all the cultural conversation today about authenticity and voices behind books. And that's something that I think is really valuable about this book in this particular moment. And I'm glad you mentioned, uh, having different reviewers and different sources in your book to pull samples of language and samples of reviews from, because for those who haven't read the book yet, there's literally everything from Shakespeare to cat person in this, this book, there are things that I read in my intro English classes, and there are things that I've gotten from the library in the past two years and amidst this kind of timeless, everything goes, we're interested in whatever, feel the story itself. And the voice feels very situated in the present. Both in the casual tone you discussed the reader. The, I found the sarcasm that made it through pretty fun. So
Speaker 6 00:39:00 Thank you. I'm glad <laugh> yeah.
Speaker 5 00:39:02 <laugh> um, to referencing modern phenomena like cultivating a personality on Instagram made it feel like even though the texts were everywhere in time, the book was very much in now, the book is in the 2010s and 2020s was dating the book to now a conscious decision. I'm assuming it was because you're a writing teacher. And why did you choose to do so?
Speaker 6 00:39:26 Well, you know, I teach creative writing. I also teach film. And when I teach, um, even Chinatown from the seventies, the students are like, wow, this is really old. You know, they weren't even born <laugh> so, you know, people are born, but then they get really engaged when you're talking about Spider-Man the universe or whatever it's called, you know, so people, I always feel like it's better to meet people with the stuff they're writing and excited about. So, you know what I tried to do, I think there are like 250 short excerpts in the book. And I first tried to keep 'em really short, because again, since I'm really talking about a method for breaking down pros, I'm not like it's not an English class. We're not, you know, analyzing, uh, the lady with the dog by checkoff, you know, we're, we're trying to think of a way to approach a sentence and to approach the way you tell a story. So I wanted a, a lot of range of examples, but you're right. I, I wanted them to be current and it was frustrating working on the book because every time I finished something, some other example would come up that was, you know, newer, like Charles U just published a book that's in screenplay format and it won the national book award. And it's not in this book, uh, maybe, maybe a future edition. Right?
Speaker 5 00:40:49 Yeah. To that, to that extent, how did you decide that this project was done and is going to be situated where it is in terms of both chronology, like stopping it now, even though groundbreaking books will come out in the future. And also it, it comes in pretty tidy around 250 pages and like, I'm sure you could have made it a lot longer with the amount of stuff you've probably read in your life.
Speaker 6 00:41:16 Uh, well actually I had hoped to make it a lot shorter, you know, kind of shrunken white size, like something this big that would teach you everything that you needed to know about point of view, but it's just a complicated subject, you know, it's really more complicated than you'd think. Uh, so, so I mean, I, I couldn't go on and I think I've said everything I have to say about point of view in this book. I mean, I could certainly entertain other examples and I'm really curious when I talk to people, the questions they have, like, I they'll say, you know, I'm working on a book and it has two points of view. And is that okay? And do I, when do I switch between one and the other? And you know, when you start applying it to your own work, different things can come up. But I hope I'm done with this, with this process. It wasn't, uh, it was, it took a while
Speaker 5 00:42:08 I recently read, I think it was the newest Patty Smith book, but it had two afterwards because more events had transgressed. And that was not just a hardcover to paperback thing that was hardcover, paperback, paperback, they made conditions.
Speaker 6 00:42:21 So, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, people are talking now, you know, the, the big universe of Twitter, uh, friends of mine, most of whom are writers. Yeah. Uh, okay. Who's writing the first big COVID novel.
Speaker 5 00:42:35 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:42:36 Who's writing, you know, who's gonna be in COVID universe. And how does stuff date when you start using current events? I mean, tho that's, those are really interesting questions that you're asking.
Speaker 5 00:42:48 And I feel like that's also kind of been treated somewhat by essay writing and online essays and stuff, but it's already been being treated by normal television. And I find it kind of hard to watch either way, like it's stressful to watch a TV show where there are people in a bar drinking and slapping each other's backs when it's like, there's a
Speaker 6 00:43:07 Yes. Yes. So the show
Speaker 5 00:43:09 Is in 2005, where
Speaker 6 00:43:11 Is your, where is your mask?
Speaker 5 00:43:13 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:43:13 But, but, you know, uh, the movie contagion that Fauci, um, consulted on is 10 or 15 years old and it gets a lot. Right. Yeah. So, you know, good research. I mean, I do have some stuff in, in the book about research and ways to use research in third person accounts. Yeah. Um, so, you know, good research can get you pretty far the, the combination of good research and imagination, uh, gets you, gets you where you need to go.
Speaker 5 00:43:44 Cool. Did you undertake research besides I know you've cobbled sources and critics and your own discoveries and learnings. Did you do craft research that you then also cited into this book?
Speaker 6 00:44:00 Well, I tried to read a lot of the scholarship on point of view. There's, you know, there's a lot of it, a and I realized how strongly it's not useful for writers. <laugh>, uh, you know, a, a lot of it. And I almost finished my PhD. I didn't quite pull it out. A lot of it really goes over my head and I've been in this game a long time and I've sat in interviews with scholarly colleagues when we're interviewing candidates for creative writing jobs and seen the way, way they talk about literature. And it's so not the way we talk about it, a workshop. Yeah. Um, so, but I did have to do some consulting. Like I, I find out that most writers don't know the term free and direct discourse, which is when, uh, you go you're in third person, but you go into a character's head and you don't demarcate it with oh, my she thought, yeah, <laugh> with the thought in, in quotation marks, you just wanna make a quick kind of flash of change in voice so that we know we've gone interior with the voice, but that's not a term that most people in workshops know.
Speaker 6 00:45:13 So I did, I did bone up a little on, on the scholarship and on, um, I mean, there is an entire field of critical inquiry about the, the delineations of third person aligned first person, Omni mission. I, I didn't wanna get too into that in the book. I, again, just because it's not that useful when you're writing.
Speaker 5 00:45:36 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:45:37 I don't think,
Speaker 5 00:45:38 Yeah. When you are teaching in the MFA where you teach, do you try to give terminology or literary theory and history education in that context, are you very much shopping the pieces that are in to be hopped in a given week?
Speaker 6 00:45:55 Well, it depends on the class. I mean, I just finished a class called the history of the short story and we do it from PO to, I think we end with, you know, more like Alice Monroe and, uh, other writers. So we, we kind of are looking at a whole history I do there, but not obviously in a workshop. Yeah. You know, in a workshop we're just talking about people's people's actual work. Yeah. So
Speaker 5 00:46:23 I wanna talk a little more to the way your experiences at a writing as a writing educator, visibly fed into this book. So you do everything from like referencing topics for cliche student papers, like writing a paper about the topic that you can't find a topic paper <laugh> to, um, have you
Speaker 6 00:46:43 Read that one? <laugh>, you've read that paper
Speaker 5 00:46:47 To acknowledging like your gratitude for your student's feedback. And I was wondering if your, how your, how your students and your experience as a teacher shape this into the book that it is both directly and indirectly.
Speaker 6 00:47:00 Well, very much so. I mean, a lot of the examples came from the students and sometimes the students push back pretty hard against ideas. So I knew where I had to, to, you know, kind of make a stronger case. You know, it's very different teaching, beginning writers and more experienced writers. And with beginning writers, you know, it's a little like teaching swimming. It it's like here's the arm movement. Here's the breathing, here's the kick now put it all together. So I kind of have a way of talking about different elements of what goes into fiction for undergraduates, but with graduates, since they've already got some pages they wanna show to you. So the question is, you know, let me give one example. It's, it's actually in the book really good first draft from a student set in Saudi Arabia where we have an American guy who's working there as a computer program and a maid at his office building who's native to the country. And the point of view of the young man was great. And the point of view of the maid was just not that convincing
Speaker 5 00:48:11 Mm-hmm
Speaker 6 00:48:11 <affirmative> and it's easy to see how that can happen. <laugh> yeah. You know, because the guy knows the guy, the American guy better than he knows this, this kind of solid, silent, abused woman, poor woman. So we'll have a conversation about how do I get into the head of this character? Do I want to get into this head of this character, maybe having the guy just observe her and talk to her is enough, what am I gonna gain by getting into the character? Do I wanna do some research? Do I wanna do some interviews? You know, so there are a lot of questions you can ask about that once you get to it. Um, but you're never telling a writer what to do. You're always trying to think of a way to tell a writer how to think himself or herself about what they wanna do differently.
Speaker 5 00:49:06 Yes. What do you think on kind of a similar note? What do you think about scenarios in which something in a workshop environment reads as unrealistic or perhaps not thoroughly researched, and then it turns out it actually had happened in someone's life. Um, I took fiction undergraduate workshops, and this was kind of a staple occurrence. And I was just wondering from a technical perspective, what your thoughts are.
Speaker 6 00:49:31 Oh, wow. That happens so much. You know, I don't believe this conversation between the divorcing couple. Well, that was my divorce. The student will say, you know, okay. But it's not, it's not coming across on the page is believable. So how do we solve that problem? And it's like, you know, sometimes with autobiographical fiction, it's like looking at yourself in the mirror, you know, there's how you think you look, and then there's how you look in the mirror. So you're kind of thinking about your lighting filter. You're thinking about what angle you're being shot from. You know, there are things you can think about that would make the scene more believable and, and more sympathetic because a lot of the time, those accounts of quote unquote, real events are in first person and you get into what in the book I call the TMI problem. You know, I do not want to hear everything about your divorce. You have to choose a couple of good things here and really get them right. Not write me a 50 page screen about how much you hate your husband. So sometimes, um, that's the way into getting believability on the page and also interest in likability because nobody wants to be blathered to in a book
Speaker 7 00:51:26 You are listening to ride on radio on K I, 90.3, FM and streaming live on the
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