Speaker 1 00:00:52 You are listening to Right on radio, on k a i 90.3 FM and streaming Live on the
[email protected]. I'm Annie Harvey, and, um, tonight we are going to be joined by, um, Dave, you wanna tell us a little about your guest?
Speaker 2 00:01:05 I will. I'm joined by, uh, Richard Terell. He's back again, uh, with his book of essays titled Essentially, Richard's essays have appeared widely in journals such as River Teeth, Crazy Horse, and New Letters as well in various collections. Um, he's an award reunion writer. Um, you must check out his poetry. And he's been a lifelong teacher. 40 years of teaching. We had chatted earlier, roughly 40 years, and many of those in Mankato. Um, and this book is out from Holy Cow Press. Our friends from Duluth we love Holy cow, we love our local publishers and, uh, we love Jim up there in Duluth.
Speaker 1 00:01:39 I thought I was your main friend from Duluth. Well, yes, just kidding. Holy cow is too. Yep. Um, after the break, uh, we'll be airing an interview between me and Mari Naomi, um, prolific graphic novelist about their newest graphic novel. I Thought You Loved Me. And also just a quick shout out at the top of the hour that it is Pledge Week. Pledge Week, Br Brown. Yep. Um, <laugh>, let's call people. If you want to support K A I, which is your independent non-profit community radio for Minnesota's communities, we do book reviews, but we also do amazing new music. We have shows in all kinds of different language made by a variety of communities here. Um, you can get in on supporting all that goodness and get some merch for yourself in the mail by calling 6 1 2 3 7 5 9 0 3 0, or pledging on the internet from wherever you
[email protected]. And without further ado, take us into your interview, Dave.
Speaker 2 00:02:36 Thank you Annie, and welcome back, Richard. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you back again. So, we're gonna talk about your new book, essentially, a collection of essays, and we're gonna hear from, uh, that book. But before we do, I'd like to, um, have you talk about the essay form in the sense of how you got involved in writing essays. We're gonna talk about the essay form later if we have time, but what, what, what, what day did you wake up and say, I'm gonna be an essayist? Oh,
Speaker 3 00:03:01 That's, that's a pretty good story. I'll try to make it a short story, but I was teaching in South Korea Oh, wow. And, uh, 40 years ago. And <laugh> and, um, I was writing, still writing poems exclusively. And, you know, I was the, I was there for a year and it was kind of experience. Everything's new and my poems got longer and longer and longer. Interesting. And I came back and I was living in, moved back to Wisconsin. And a friend of mine, the, uh, John Hildebrand, who's a really good non-fiction writer, uh, in Wisconsin, said, Have you ever thought about trying to write pros? You know, Cause your poems are getting so long. So then a couple years later, I, I went to Chi and I taught in China for a year. Right. And I went there with the idea of writing a memoir. Um, um, and I did. Um, and so that got me going on, on pros. And I still do do poems as well as, you know, cause course I was here at my last book a couple years ago.
Speaker 2 00:03:53 Yes. Well, that's great. That's, And, uh, again, hopefully as time permits, I wanna talk about the essay form later on. But with that introduction, how about, uh, sending us up with a reading? Tell us what you're gonna read and, um, let's, let's hear
Speaker 3 00:04:05 You. Yeah. There's, uh, among the topics in this book, they're varied, but a lot of, a lot of the essays have to do with either music or the outdoors. Then the, the last section of the book gets into aging, uh, which at my age is <laugh>, is a logical thing to subject to take up. So I'm gonna read this essay called The World Away. Um, and one thing I wanted to do with this, I always wanted to start, uh, an essay in the middle of a sentence. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that's what I've done here, gave the book designer fits. It starts with an ellipses, <laugh>, so dot, dot, dot. Nor are we tempted to sing praises of the beauty of portages, like the one along the Basswood River called the Horse Portage. According to our outfitter before the boundary waters in cortico where the large wilderness parks they are today, loggers did indeed use horses to haul equipment on this mile and a quarter long trail.
Speaker 3 00:04:58 You feel like a horse or a spartan slave doing the horse portage. And if like us, you're not hefty enough to carry both a pack and a canoe in the same trip. You cross each portage three times there and back and there again. So a mile and a quarter portage like this one becomes nearly a four mile walk, two-thirds of it under the weight of what you foolishly thought you had to bring on your canoe trip. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I start such portages feeling fresh and confident, finish them feeling thirsty, sore and overmatched. It always seems to be raining on a portage or it has rained, and the trail is slick rock. And deep puddles being young or in outstanding physical condition should not be allowed in this wilderness. Those who fit that description can never know how good a cold swim feels in the evening after such work that you're not in shape for.
Speaker 3 00:05:53 They can't know the numbing taste of the first sip of rum that night, or how much more silent silence is when you've been humbled by your middle-aged body. And then a bit later, I say, we're all on some kind of portage in the cortico and beyond. This is an idea so corny, so obviously symbolic as to almost have to be true. We all schlep things. Pat packs the food. We need to eat the shelter. We need to stay out of the rain. We also bear crosses in between the varied experiences of our excursions, the scenery we see going by in life. There has to be this drudgery that turns muscles and tendons to salty twine, drudgery, looking at its own feet. I have all the character I need. Thanks. And this won't build anymore. We're always walking between two lakes, the known lake of the present and the unknown lake that's next. And which is always more beautiful because you haven't seen it yet. This is the world away from the known world, the next world that awaits.
Speaker 2 00:06:55 Thank you. That was Richard Terrell reading from essentially his new collection of essays out from Holy Cow Press and Duluth. So Richard, you mentioned poetry early on, and I know you as a poet, but this is one of the essays which made me think about poetry ah, when I was reading them, because it's beautifully written, it's evocative of nature, and it, and it made me wonder how you decided to write an essay versus a poem about these experiences in nature.
Speaker 3 00:07:20 Hmm. That's, that's a good question. Uh, it, it, it, it always seems to be pretty easy to des to decide that, but I don't know if I can generalize about it. Um, I guess poetry, in this case, I had maybe more of a concept of the whole of it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, um, describing the Portage to do it in a poem, um, I would, would have to be so brief. Yeah. It would be so truncated. And usually with a poem, I like to, I like it not to end up being about what I started writing about. Sure. So it might start writing about a portage, but I find in the next draft, it's not about canoeing at all, it's about fishing or playing chess or something. Whereas with this, the, the subject matter was important to me. And poetry, I think you don't want to be corralled by a subject. You need to let it flow.
Speaker 2 00:08:09 Yeah. Yeah. By the way, nice Finnegans wake move, starting with an open sentence at the beginning. Very nice. <laugh>. Um, so, uh, you really had me at the get go was this collection, Richard, you're opening essay solstice about your mother, um, experiencing memory issues. Uh, both my parents are still alive and both are experiencing similar things. Uh, and lead me to wonder to what degree, and I ask this of poets often and may have asked it of you also, but to what degree are other people in your life exposed, laid, bare on the page for you? Well, do you have any boundaries, any rules
Speaker 3 00:08:44 Here? Yeah, that's, and you know, I taught, uh, creative nonfiction writing for 27 years in man in Minnesota State, uh, in the graduate program. And that is one of the things we talk about. Uh, I call it it the responsibility issue that, um, you, you, you always, we'll put it this way, Joan Didion, one of the great nonfiction writers, uh, said the non, the nonfiction writer is always selling somebody out. Interesting. And it's <laugh> it's, it's unavoidable. Yeah. So the, I think what you do, what I used to tell my students is write it all down. Don't leave anything out, and then go back and see if there's some things that you just don't want to say and cut them out. You know? But you have to write it all first. Yeah. You, you can't, you can't, uh, you know, stifle it. Um, um, so that's, that's,
Speaker 2 00:09:33 That's really
Speaker 3 00:09:34 One point. And, and, and I think then you, you have to decide for yourself. So if it's, if it's worth it, if it's worth the price, but, Oh, and the other thing is tell the truth. Yeah. Because if you tell the truth and you treat all characters fairly, then some of those stinging details won't maybe be so, so hurtful to yourself or others. And the other thing is too, be hard on yourself as well as the narrator, the character of yourself. Don't put yourself up above people. If you, if you reveal your own flaws, then you have license to give a more complete portrait of others.
Speaker 2 00:10:09 Excellent advice. I hope everyone's paying attention. We just got schooled on how to write non-fiction. I, I'm recalling now, I won't name names in enough time has passed, but I interviewed an essayist once, um, who said, Yes, I'll be on your show, but please don't ask me about this and that essay, because it's, it's causing me more trouble than, And I thought, well, how did this get to press? It happens, I guess. It,
Speaker 3 00:10:30 It happens. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:10:31 Yeah. So I'm more sort of alive to that, uh, idea. When I read from Now, I know you mentioned music and that that came to mind as I was reading your essays. Also, you, you are a musician of sorts. You play. Uh, and so I'm gonna ask you about parallels, if any, between music and writing, either as a composer and a writer, or as a guy who picks up a sax and a guy who picks up one of these pens mm-hmm. <affirmative> and starts playing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:10:57 I don't write music, but, but jazz is an improvisatory art. So in a sense, I'm making, making up music as I go along. Um, one difference is that writing is something you do alone, and music is something you do with other people. And, and therefore, good point, music is a lot more fun, <laugh> <laugh> because you've got your band mates and you have a, an, an audience, um, immediately Right. Writing, you never see your audience, even if you're giving a reading, you know? Uh, it's still not the same as playing for an audience. I mean, uh, if I play a good solo, people will applaud, but nobody applauds. When I write a good sentence, I look over my shoulder. It's not happening. <laugh>. So, so, uh, that's, uh, true. The other difference in compo, in the composition of it is that with music, un, unless you're doing something in the studio where people are turning a bunch of knobs, um, you don't get to revise. But writing, writing is revision. The real writing happens in the second and third and fourth and 10th and 20th draft. Whereas jazz, you, you, you may play things that you've practiced when in your solo, but the, you know, what hap what comes out. That's it. You're, that's it. You know, revision,
Speaker 2 00:12:08 I've read, and you have two writers talk about jazz and how they're, how, maybe not their own writing is like jazz, but critics saying this writer is, is, is, you know, jazz inspired. It's like listening to jazz. What does that mean to you? And, and what is your music? What is it, what, what do your words sound like?
Speaker 3 00:12:23 Well, I mean, what that means to me is, is that, again, I was a teacher, so Yes. Is that the process in the early drafts has to be, I like an improvisation. You can't control it too tightly. I mean, if you think about it, this isn't an idea that I, that's that I thought of it. Right. You know, when you, whenever you speak a sentence, you're improvising. You start the sentence, you never know how it's gonna end. Exactly. Yeah. So writing has to be like a, that times 10, and then you go back and revise. But you, but I think with a lot of writers, because we, we value candor mm-hmm. <affirmative> in our culture, that the, they still want the end product to feel like it's just improvised or just e emoted, you know, that it's not too polished mm-hmm. <affirmative> in order to sound natural. And that also is jazz, like, I think.
Speaker 2 00:13:09 Yeah. Interesting. What's also difficult are you don't want to have it be too forced or contrived and more improvised is humor. Yeah. Um, and I want to read from, um, a couple of snippets from essays here. Um, this is from the Vantage, It's the elderly section, if you will, which I can relate to <laugh>. Uh, and I'll just cut it to the quick here. The stranger who, when I said I turned 60, partly asked, but mostly said, Yeah, but how old do you feel? And I answered 60, I laughed out loud, Richard <laugh>. And, um, and then in another, going to the dogs, um, I'm gonna call you out on this. You write, uh, people shouldn't write about their pets. I know that, nor should they tell funny stories about their pets at already start find dinner parties. The only thing worse in those settings is people telling funny stories about their grandchildren and so on. I could go on and read this, but I found that to be very funny. Uh, but also you say people shouldn't write about their pets, and I know that, and then you proceed to write a bunch,
Speaker 3 00:14:10 Bunch of pets. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2 00:14:11 So it is also funny, <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:14:12 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:13 How do you handle humor? This is ask it directly.
Speaker 3 00:14:15 Oh. Um, well, humor is a device. I can tell you the, the value of it for me is that if, if you, if you can say funny things mm-hmm. <affirmative>, then you can turn around and say something that is heartfelt, serious, maybe devastating. Yeah. And you can sneak it in. Yeah. That's good. Because, you know, you've got the reader laughing, and then you, you've, again, I'll use the word license. You have the license to say something maybe sentimental, maybe you know, something over the top that if you, if the whole essay were like that, people would, you know, throw up or something. Yeah. But humor, humor allows you to, to get the, the, the serious part. And also I think for me, part of the essay writing is, um, I, I like to try to say things that are a little outrageous sometimes and test them out and see how much of, how much of the statement is true. Um, and humor is of course the best way to do that, because you're allowed in humor to exaggerate. Yes. So, so I say all kinds of things in this book that if you put a gun to my head, I say, Well, no, I don't really believe that. Sure. But it sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Made you think, didn't it? You know, So, so humor is one way to sneak in. Uh, Id, Well, ideas.
Speaker 2 00:15:26 D speaking of sneaking, does humor sneak into your writing? That is to say, talk about writing improvisationally and jazz. Like suddenly you've something funny happens along the way and you surprise yourself.
Speaker 3 00:15:36 Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's true. Um, I, I think more, more often, Well, I maybe, maybe you can remember better than I can, but in these essays, the ones that are humorous are pretty much humorous from the start. Yeah. Yeah. Um, um, or like the one I just read, I mean, it's not laugh out loud funny, but I'm complaining about how much it hurts. Yes. But then later I'm allowed to appreciate nature and talk about how beautiful everything is, which would be pretty sappy if I just did that for starting the
Speaker 2 00:16:05 Whole essay. Yeah. Yeah. Reminder listeners, we are speaking with Richard Terell about his new collection of essays titled essentially out from Holy Cow Press in Duluth. And it is pledge week, day one of pledge week Plus, I guess we're on for more than a week. Please give us a call at (612) 375-9030 or k f a i.org. Five $5 10 bucks or not fussy. Uh, and give us some love at, uh, right on radio here. We would appreciate that too. So, um, how about another reading? Okay, Richard?
Speaker 3 00:16:39 Yeah, I'll read, uh, there's a long essay in the second section of the book, which, uh, is, um, essays about music, jazz, and, and film. And it's, this is on the jazz penis, Bill Evans, who I've loved for years. My band plays a lot of his music. We do Bill Evans shows. We play only Bill Evans music. Um,
Speaker 2 00:17:03 Okay, before you go on, what's the name of the group?
Speaker 3 00:17:05 Oh yeah, the Larry McDonough Quartet. Wonderful.
Speaker 2 00:17:08 Yeah, I'm writing it down. Okay.
Speaker 3 00:17:09 <laugh>. Um, and, uh, the name of it is who was Bill Evans and, um, the name of the essay mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And because, and I call it that because, you know, nobody knew who this guy really was. He was just a mystery to even the people who were closest to him. Um, so, and it starts out with a list of assertions, things that are true about Bill Evans. Just simple statements, some of them even banal perhaps. So who was Bill Evans? Start here. His music, like his personality, had a questioning quality. Two, he wasn't the narcissist, apparently. Three, He sought the essence of the material in its harmonic implications for Miles. Davis said, It's a drag. He's dead now. I'll never get to hear him play Alphie again. Five. He started as a flute player. Six. He didn't live as long as he might have, otherwise he didn't live to be old.
Speaker 3 00:18:10 Seven. Whereas many people don't eat properly when they're kids. He didn't eat properly at the end of his life. Malnutrition was listed as a contributing cause of death, coffee, also cocaine. Eight, he loved to golf. Bowl nine, his longtime girlfriend, Elaine, threw herself in front of a subway train in 1970. Wow. 10. He had lifelong feelings of inadequacy. 11. He played early on with saxes, Herby Fields whose career ended tragically in suicide. 12. He was left-handed, which may account in part for his cordal proficiency. 13, He wasn't African American and he never resided permanently in a foreign country to escape racial prejudice at home. 14, at his death, Oscar Peterson said maybe he found what he was looking for. 15. He knew a great deal about the novels of Thomas Hardy and the poetry of William Blake. 16 Lone Sharks threatened to break his hands. 17. He said, I had to work harder at music than most cats, because you see, man, I don't have very much talent thesis.
Speaker 3 00:19:30 Why would one of the great artists of his day be so self-destructive as to kick a heroin habit? Only to start a cocaine habit. When I get into something, I really get into it. He is known to have said. Does that explain? Shortly before his death, he told his young bass player how amazed he was at the insidious of his new drug. We can read that his life was a 50 year long suicide. We can read that. He was a nice man, had a sense of humor better than your grandfathers wanted a child. And when he had one thought his life was complete, then moved out from his family dying of cocaine. He thought he was happy. Some jazz musicians junk, some jazz musician junkies played the music only to get money to score. Chet Baker would forget his trumpet on a bandstand in his haste to shoot up. Charlie Parker had to borrow money for Cab Fair. But Bill Evans practiced constantly. I heard him practice Ravel Wy, his wife Nanette said after his death, but I never heard him practice jazz. He said, You don't understand. It's like death and transfiguration every day. You wake in pain like death, and then you go out and score. And that is transfiguration. Each day becomes all life in microcosm.
Speaker 2 00:20:52 Thank you. That's Richard Terell reading from essentially his new book of essays. And if essays can be a page Turner <laugh>, this was a page turner for me. Uh, I encourage you to, uh, pick this book up and, and finish Bill Evans. Um, I'm glad you read this, Richard, because, uh, the, recently I got the new re New York Review of books. There's a long essay in it about essays. Um, I'll pass this on to you, but, uh, <laugh>, it made me think of your collection of course, because obviously I'm reading a book at the same time. But also, what is the essay form? I mean, this essay, I wouldn't think this is what an essay looks like. I mostly think of essays as wall towa, carpeting in terms of words, long paragraphs, and really serious things. And here we go with a list. Yeah. What is an essay form? Look,
Speaker 3 00:21:37 What does that mean, do? Well, I mean, this is, uh, I would call what this essay does, Fragmentations, um, I, I just read two sections, the list section and the section called Thesis. And there, you know, I haven't counted them probably 15 Yeah. Sections mm-hmm. In this, in this essay, none is as long as a page. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Uh, some have titles, some don't mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so the idea is really this, the form of this essay is almost like a poem. Yeah. And, and the parts are almost like stanzas or perhaps lines and they bounce off of each other, um, by just their being juxtaposed next to each other, or maybe five pages later. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they recall something earlier in the essay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's one technique that you can use, especially if it's not a story, If you're not telling a story, if it's not a narrative, well, you can either organize things as you would in expository writing, having a, a thesis and supporting it and arguing and so on. But, but creative nonfiction usually doesn't do that. It usually doesn't have a thesis. I was being ironic when I called that section thesis. Sure. You know, because it, cuz this whole essay doesn't answer the question. Who was Bill Evans? Yeah. It tries to answer. Yeah. Uh, and I think because
Speaker 2 00:22:49 That's poetic
Speaker 3 00:22:50 Be because it, it's, nobody knows. I can't answer it either. Right. That's why this form of juxtaposing the small sections is I thought would be appropriate for this because I couldn't pretend that I knew the answers. Yeah. I just gave you what I found out through research and listening. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:07 Yeah. It's unbelievable. But we are in the two minute warning, Richard. Oh, isn't that something? So, um, I have a numerous other questions, but, uh, just in case we run out of time and we will tell us about what you're working on next and, uh, what we can expect from you.
Speaker 3 00:23:22 Well, uh, I don't know, <laugh>, Oh, there we go. I, I can't tell you. I have some appearances. Can I plug them?
Speaker 2 00:23:28 Yes, please. Oh gosh. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 00:23:30 Um, November, Tuesday, November 15th, I'll be in the readings by writer series at the university club in St. Paul on Summit Avenue. That's a really great reading series. Awesome. And on December 8th, the midstream reading series at Unity Church Unitarian. And I'll be reading it. I think maybe my piano player's gonna come and we're gonna do a little music beforehand.
Speaker 2 00:23:48 Hey Richard. Re mention that Summit Group again. What's the name of that?
Speaker 3 00:23:51 Oh, Readings by Writers
Speaker 2 00:23:53 Readings Barriers.
Speaker 3 00:23:54 Okay. Thank you. Um, yeah, at the University club. It's the long running series in the Twin Cities. Thank you for
Speaker 2 00:23:59 That.
Speaker 3 00:23:59 Um, the band, Larry McDonough Quartet, another commercial here. Ooh. Uh, December 10th at K j's Hideaway, The old artist quarter. Oh yeah. In St. Paul.
Speaker 2 00:24:08 Great venue
Speaker 3 00:24:09 Kids. And on December 23rd, our festival us for the Rest of Us program at the Astra Cafe. Oh, I love that. Where we do our Seinfeld thing and we will have feats of strength and airing of grievances and
Speaker 2 00:24:19 Jazz. Oh my God. I can't wait.
Speaker 3 00:24:21 So that's what I'm doing now, is, uh, what I'm doing is talking to people about this book. Good for you to I'll make it quick. Yep. If, if I did have a a project I probably wouldn't tell you about it because I get it. I don't want to talk about stuff I haven't written yet. I get so you can, you can decide if I'm lying or not, whether I have a, a project
Speaker 2 00:24:40 Going. And I believe you're also on our calendar that Eric's gonna be reading shortly. Ah, you have something up next week and maybe you don't even know it, but I hope someone tells you about it. <laugh>. It might Well, we'll get to that later. But Richard, it's been a delight and a pleasure and it went too fast as it always does. Always treat to have you on. Um, please come back and back and back. Keep writing and I know you will.
Speaker 3 00:25:00 Okay. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 00:25:01 Richard Terrell, essentially, new book of essays out from Holy Cow Press check it out everyone. And now this,
Speaker 1 00:25:08 Welcome to the pledge corner everyone. Liz, are you here?
Speaker 4 00:25:14 I'm here. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 00:25:16 Yes, I sure can. We have a special caller and by special call, I mean really valuable team member who is home tonight calling in. Um, Liz, what do you wanna tell us, um, on this wonderful pledge week season?
Speaker 4 00:25:30 Just just two brief things. The first thing is right on radio is a show that brings you authors like the last one. Uh, you won't hear, uh, interviews by essay writers. You just won't hear that anywhere else. And so that's, uh, one of the reasons that donating to write on radio is good. And the second reason is that because we do long form interviews, uh, a half hour rather than five or 10 minutes, we can go into depth. We can, uh, ask questions that are, uh, more serious and then will we'll bring out more, uh, interesting information. A half hour interview is so much more, uh, nice than a five minute interview. And so, uh, these are two reasons why you should donate to right on radio today. 6 1 2 3 7 5, uh, 9 0 3 0 or on the web at uh, k a i.org.
Speaker 1 00:26:29 Yes. Couldn't have said it better myself, Liz. So thank you so much. I just wanna add on to that and echo what Liz was saying. As someone who has worked in publishing, who has written book reviews, um, on a freelance basis, um, having the space and the autonomy to truly bring books forth because you believe in them and getting long spans of time between 30 minutes and an hour to talk about them, honestly is not common. And I feel really lucky to be here and to have that platform. And I try my best to use it to bring, um, diverse, intellectually engaging content. After the break here, we're gonna be talking to Mari Naomi, who's a great independent queer comics maker. Um, and it's just so nice to be on non-commercial radio and be able to do that. And K F A I is what makes that happen. Do you have anything you wanna add to that, Dave?
Speaker 2 00:27:21 Uh, yeah. So where else are you going to hear someone reading from their book? And maybe you guys have already covered this, I had to step out for a moment. Uh, an extended passage or passages from their work on radio live here in the Twin Cities. Nowhere else is that happening even on, uh, quote unquote public radio stations who say they're dedicated to the arts. Well, we really give time to the arts a lot of time to the arts and, uh, you're not gonna find it anywhere else. And we're all volunteers. By the way, everyone on the soundboard, everyone on the mic is a volunteer. So, um, we don't need that much to keep going, but we could use a little bit of love this week. K a i.org right, Annie?
Speaker 1 00:28:00 Yes. And it's amazing how much can get done here if we just have enough funding to have the lights on, to have the sound on, um, the, the number of people that I meet here who are so dedicated and so creative and bring perspectives that you wouldn't hear on more nationalized public radio is really inspiring. And all these people donate their time. All they need is, um, a little upstart money to like put the lights on, keep the tower on IDs going. Yeah, it's, it's really, it's really great to be on this station and um, if anything you could throw our away at 6 1 2 3 7 5 9 0 3 0 or kfi i.org is much appreciated. Also, you don't have to do it entirely for non-self reasons because there is really cute retro look and merch, all design all designed by local artists.
Speaker 4 00:28:47 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:28:48 Great. I definitely get compliments on the merch when I wear it. So
Speaker 2 00:28:52 Great sway. Yeah. Wonderful stuff.
Speaker 1 00:28:54 Yeah, I was reading, and this is a book people comment. I was reading an Allison Bechtel book last year who now's like nationally award winning. One of our books got made into a Broadway play. I was reading the last Allison Beto book and there was a character in one of the books wearing a kfa I merch shirt
Speaker 2 00:29:12 <laugh>, right?
Speaker 1 00:29:14 Yeah. So be be part of the legacy y'all. Be part of the legacy and get your Kfa I merch shirt.
Speaker 2 00:29:19 Oh, that is wonderful.
Speaker 4 00:29:20 Yeah. So last but not least, if we're ready, uh, one of the cool things we do is a weekly calendar Yes. Of events.
Speaker 1 00:29:28 Yes. Um, our newest member, the wonderful, wonderful Eric is gonna kick off our calendar. So I'll start up the tune for that. Liz, thank you so much for stopping by
Speaker 2 00:29:37 Liz, Good to hear for
Speaker 4 00:29:38 You. You bet.
Speaker 0 00:29:43 All right.
Speaker 5 00:29:51 You are listening to K a i, uh, 90.3 FM and on the
[email protected]. I'm Annie on Right On Radio and I am so excited to have Mari Naomi returning to the show. Um, Mari Naomi's latest, um, memoir, graphic memoir is, I Thought You Loved Me Available Soon. And they're a prolific author of other graphic memoirs and, um, graphic books for young readers and adult readers. Welcome to the show, Mari.
Speaker 6 00:30:20 Thank you. So nice to be back.
Speaker 5 00:30:22 Thank you. Um, so tell me a little bit about, um, I thought You loved me.
Speaker 6 00:30:30 Well, <laugh>, I could talk about this for years, actually, the radio cannot see it, but I'm holding up my book. It is, um, as you mentioned, a graphic memoir and it is about a complicated friendship that I had throughout my teens and twenties. And one day she ghosted me. And, um, and then 20 years later I was ready to write about it and get over, um, everything that had happened. And uh, and I decided to write a book about it. Um, I didn't necessarily think that I would publish the book, but I thought that might be a possibility. So, uh, so I did keep that in mind when I started writing about it. And what I was surprised by, I had very few memories of the friendship. Uh, she was my first girl kiss. Um, we spent just so much time together, but all that was pretty much wiped out my brain. And so really the book is me trying to remember things so that I could get over the friendship and also just others along the way that I've forgotten and also kind of doing a deep dive into memory and what that means and how, you know, how reliable is that in that she <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:31:56 Yeah. To elaborate a little on that, um, as you mentioned now and mentioned in the book, um, you were visited some old journals, um, to kind of plot out this book and you saw experiences and memories and photos that you just had no memory of <laugh>. Um, what did it feel like to recreate something that you don't remember? And did it ever feel like your fiction work at all?
Speaker 6 00:32:21 It did not feel like fiction at all. Mostly because I was, uh, like this book is, is really different in that it's, it's sort of a process book. So I feel like I'm taking the reader along with me as I'm figuring out not only what went on in my brain and what was going on in my friendship, but also going through the process of making a book and figuring out the narrative of of me, which is one of the hardest things about writing memoir is figuring out what is the story here and how did it end? And throughout the NE's book, and as I've, um, the book is told kind of chronologically as I'm making the book, um, I really not know how this story was gonna end or if it would end, it would, you know, even have a narrative to it. Uh, and all my other books were more carefully plotted out, whereas this was definitely like, I'm, I've taken the reader along for a ride here and a lot of positive me going through my old journals, um, for many, many years of 'em and, and sharing those, sharing excerpts and sharing letters that we exchanged and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 00:33:28 Um, it's a very unusual book. It's because I used only comics to tell the story about collage and old letters and, and just fera. It's, it's all over the place. It's, it's a pretty bizarre book. <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:33:45 Um, I love the kind of texture that the book takes on because of the fact that a lot of it is done in collage. Um, like for those who haven't seen parts of the book online or anything like that, um, a lot of images in the book are cut. There's like illustration layered with cut images of flowers or water or wood or other textures, um, which really gives, um, poignant that simple illustrations like an extra dimension sort of. Um, could you tell me kind of your process creating that style and what you wanted to do with that style?
Speaker 6 00:34:24 Sure. Uh, I've been practicing, I've always done collage. I always loved collage, but it's very hard on my hands, uh, because of the scissors and all that. Like, it's just, it, if you're someone who draws for a living, it's a really bad idea to get into collage or anything that involves like blades or, or scissors, especially if you're older and you're getting towards the age of arthritis, which I'm getting towards there. And I've also had like probably carpal tunnel issues and back issues. So like, it's not something that I was able to do a whole lot of. Um, there were a number of years where I was working on a life size self-portrait collage and it was double sided, so it's about six feet across double sided and it was just, and there it's actually featured in the book and that's sort of what I based the whole book on, like aesthetically, uh, unfortu.
Speaker 6 00:35:21 So I spent years making this and it was destroyed by accident, by a gallery before it ever got shown. And I was devastated. And it's still really sad to me that, you know, it never got to see the light of day. So in some ways, this is my way of giving it the light of day is by showing it in the book. But the, um, the collage is called li um, I think it was Love and Death and it shows in one side it's me pat filled with roses and uh, and just on a bed of grass and is all made from tiny bits of collage that I've been collecting for years and years and years. And on the other side it's, uh, me in the sky also filled with other kinds of flowers, um, at the end of the book. And, um, would, and I cut out lots of bits of sky and, and um, and clouds and, and stuff like that.
Speaker 6 00:36:15 And that's kind of where I started from. And I knew, I, I quickly started thinking a lot about visual metaphor and the cover of the book is those purple flowers that kind of hang from trellises. They're very smelly. I love the smell of 'em. But the thing is, every time I smell them like it, it gives me a dejavu feeling cuz it just wakes something up from my memory. And so I made a collage of a bunch of these flowers that I photoed and I did the collage in procreate on the iPad. And that's actually what changed everything was, it's so much easier to do collage on the iPad than it is to, um, cut out pictures. So it made it really easy, um, and accessible for me. And, um, and so these purple flowers symbolize memory. Um, and so every time you see them in the book, like you see like a faint whiff of them, that means part of my memory is coming back.
Speaker 6 00:37:13 And when you see them at force, that means I'm having like an intense, oh my god, epiphany of like, Oh, this was, this is what happened. I'm remembering everything. Ah, I got chills. Um, and so, but like every, pretty much every image in this book and there are hundreds, thousands of them, I don't know, they, they all have meaning in, in some way or another, but I'm never explain them. Um, and I'm hoping that they'll kind of be intimidated by the reader as they go along. It's an easy book, honestly, <laugh>. It's kinda, it's a difficult book. It, uh, you have to really, it's not some, it's not like a, a beach read. It's, it's definitely something that, um, you're plumbing the deaths of my brain and I'm hoping to help the reader actually go through their own reign and like bring up thoughts about friendship means and memory and like what, you know, how different memories can constantly be changing for yourself and others. Um, it's very complicated. <laugh>
Speaker 5 00:38:09 I had noticed the, um, I had been considering asking you actually about the kind of the purplish flowers that are used with you throughout the book, like when something dramatic is happening. So I appreciate you bringing that up of like when a realization is happening or something like that. And it was just interesting to see emotion and realization depicted in a and emphasized in a non-human way. Like obviously the, the you that is realizing these things is human. Um, but the way that you use kind of non-human life forms or non-human textures to emphasize emotion was really interesting in reading this book that kind of was a lot about the forces of the world or like how people process the world around them. Yeah. Just a thought.
Speaker 6 00:39:01 Cool. Yeah. Um, but you're curious. The the roses are, um, are symbolic of love specifically for my friend or trust and love in my friend and I, um, I, I kind of go between using collage of real roses and collage of fake roses and you can take what you want from that <laugh>. And when I'm filled with the roses, not always, but on most, most of the occasions where I'm filled with the roses, that means I'm trust and love her. Um, and when the roses are outset of my body, that's kind of like this tenuous state of like, wait, what's going on? And so they're not there at all, which means like there's kind of a disconnect. And she's also represented by this sort of mossy green, I believe. Um, I looked up the, the flat the plant afterwards and it's licorice, but, um, but I didn't wanna know while I was making it. I, I just found this plant in the wild and I took a photo. I'm like, Okay, this, this is gonna be Jody and this, this reminds me of her in a lot of ways. So yeah, throughout the book, like, I mean we could point to anything and I'll tell you what it means, <laugh>
Speaker 5 00:40:05 <laugh> when you're
Speaker 6 00:40:07 Taking these,
Speaker 5 00:40:08 When you're taking these images that are so charged with meaning or association for you and then adding an illustration on it to like literalize it a little more like the licorice plant is Jody, but also you're like literally drawing woman on top of it to like make it clear who it is that it's your friend. Um, how do you decide a level of specificity versus simplicity in that image? Like there are so many images in the book where it's something that's so simple but so poignant. Like there's a page that I just love that is a photo of a ripple of water and then there's a thin outline of a hand emerging from it. Um, like how did you choose the amount to draw over or the amount to enhance? Or was it just kind of more intuition?
Speaker 6 00:40:57 It was mostly intuition, but there was a lot of try fail, try fail, like there that, that particular image, I went to so many iter iterations for um, originally that, so that was originally a photo that I took of a duckling in a pond and I, so I basically just drew out the duckling, which was like the most painful thing I've ever had to do cuz that definitely was cute. I'm like, I don't want erase the duck thing. But, you know, for the purpose of metaphor, and I mean it's, that one I think is a little heavy handed because it's like me literally drowning, um, and reaching out for a network of support from friends or, or whatever. And that's part of the book. Um, and I really, I really just had to think about that a lot cause I'm like, well how, how easy do I wanna make this for people to understand? Um, but, uh, heavy handed get it cuz it's a <laugh>. Oh no, <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:41:56 Hold on.
Speaker 6 00:41:57 Um, there was a lot of, there was a lot of trying and then trying again and trying again until I had it right. Um, just that one especially. But, um, yeah, it was, it was hard. That was really hard. Cause you don't wanna, you don't wanna overdo it with, um, with the character Jody, who this book is about, like I, I kind of did wanna show her face at all. Um, but there's a couple, like towards the end, you, you sort, you sort of see her face a little more. Um, but at particularly during the times where I wasn't sure who she was, like I thought it was important to keep her kind of nebulous. Um, yeah, <laugh>,
Speaker 5 00:42:40 Yeah. Having a very simple drawing of someone and then kind of back filling it with other colors and textures and stuff was a good capturing of the way that someone can me in different things to you in different points of your life where you can feel differently towards them at different points of your life.
Speaker 6 00:42:58 Yeah, it was, uh, I mean part of it too was just me like, yeah, not not really knowing who she was. Like I thought I knew her, but then did I really know her? So it's like it was, I I it was, there was a lot of just intuitive drawing there. Definitely.
Speaker 5 00:43:19 Um, so in this book you confront past regrets and misunderstandings and mistakes pretty openly, which I think is the mark of a good memoir. It's always interesting to see how someone, uh, reckons with their regrets while also creating, uh, I guess a cohesive notion of themself learning from it and moving forward. Um, how did it feel to draw your mistakes and share them and how did that inform how you shaped this narrative?
Speaker 6 00:43:54 I kinda, so in the other memoirs that I've done, I've been really, really far away from the subject matter. So where I had enough perspective like distance or just emotional distance at least, where I was able to kind of see, hey, that that is not black and white. I didn't wanna demonize anyone. I didn't wanna idealize anyone. I don't wanna blame myself too much. Cause then that's just another form of, you know, it's, it's a little emotionally dishonest. Um, and so that, that's sort of my role with doing memoir is like, well, you know, get enough space and then you can write about it. Uh, and in this case, like even though there was a lot of time space, um, my emotional space was not, not as, as, uh, advanced as I wanted it to be, which was part of why this was like supposed to be a cathartic writing versus everything else I've done.
Speaker 6 00:44:49 Um, and so I'm really used to putting all my faults out there. Like, I think that's kind of the fun part of memoir is to, to admit like, Hey look, I'm a dope <laugh>. Like it's no fun as a reader to read or someone just like, this person wronged me, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's like sometimes I feel that way, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm the victim and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like I'm the jerk. And I feel like the reality is usually somewhere in between that when, um, when it's something pretty complicated. Um, which is pretty much everything. Like I don't believe that there are any actual evil people in the world. I don't think there are any actually good people in the world. Like people are people and we make mistakes and we have good times and bad times and whatever.
Speaker 6 00:45:38 So I'm pretty comfortable with putting my faults out there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it was sort of like, you could tell, I could tell in this book that I was still sorting things out. Cause I'm like, well what part did I plan this relationship? So to when I was doing that, I was definitely trying to sort things out and I wasn't, I hadn't come to a conclusion yet mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, which is that. And that's very unusual for me as a writer to be writing about. Um, because I didn't know, like what, what role did I play? Who was I in that friendship? Who was she? Um, yeah. And I've also, I think I've trained myself enough to not be self conscious when I'm writing. Um, the self conscious time comes now when I'm putting it out into the world. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 00:46:32 <affirmative>.
Speaker 6 00:46:33 Yeah. It was a little weird <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:46:37 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:46:37 But, uh, but yeah, it was, it was just, I've just, I've trained myself. I've been doing this for, I don't know, since 1997. So I've trained myself not to worry about what other people are gonna think while I'm in it.
Speaker 5 00:46:52 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:46:52 But now <laugh>,
Speaker 5 00:46:55 Yeah, it's nice to have writing out in the world about, um, that talks about issues of like hurt and morality and stuff like that that provides a nuanced discussion because I think it's too simple to either assume that people can never change or that people can never be wrong. And it's nice to have a example of someone genuinely going through a reckoning and being like, Oh, I'm hurt, but also did I hurt the other person? And then kind of allowing it to evolve and allowing, um, people to really process and take accountability. And, um, that's something I love about how long chronologically this memoir spans. Um, like you start pretty young and it goes decades and decades and I feel like a lot of friendship stories are relatively short. They're usually about younger people. And it's nice to see a book with like huge changes and twists and turns.
Speaker 5 00:47:53 I don't wanna spoil anything, but there is someone who makes some pretty, uh, unkind and possessive and bad, uh, <laugh> choices towards others. And then someone else's unkindness turns out to not be what it seems not to be just way too cryptic, but, um, <laugh> and like, it really throughout the book kind of how, at least how I felt as a reader about whether forgiveness was warranted or not really changed throughout. Um, kind of as you were going, this might have changed as you were writing, but like what did you wanna convey by creating a picture of life that goes that long and encompasses that much change?
Speaker 6 00:48:34 I wouldn't say particularly trying to convey anything, um, other than just my own naval gazing truly. But what I want to do and what I would like to see more of is basically put more realistic friendships out in the world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I feel like I've seen a lot of, you know, movies and, um, and stuff that involve female friendships, but they're always re revolving around some guy or revolving around romance or, you know, something like often like a male is like the center of of, of all of it. And like, there, there are men in this story, but like, that's not who this story is about. Um, but you know, they're kind of side players, but like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I just haven't seen a lot of, well first of all in literature, like I've seen, I read a few books that involve like female friendship and, you know, and, and actually the only one I could think about is Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, which I thought was, um, and I've heard that there's one other that people keep referring to when they talk about my book, but I've never read it. Um, I think it's called My Beautiful Friend, um, which I intend to read, but I haven't read it yet. But like,
Speaker 5 00:49:52 Like Ante my brilliant friend. Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause that's a, that's the only other book that I've read that has a female friendship that spans this
Speaker 6 00:50:01 Long. Cause I don't wanna start getting into my head and start comparing. Um, but I, like in general, I wanna encourage more people to, you know, more writers and people who aren't writers who wanna be writers to tell stories about their friendships and like, I am so interested in how people connect with each other and how their connections might mean different things to each person or different things to the same person throughout time. Like, I find that so fascinating and so that part of, you know, part of me putting my stuff out there is I put out things that I wanna see in the world and, um, and I mean that quite literally. Like I wanna see other people do the same thing, um, and, and write about these subjects more. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that was kind of my first intention also. Like, I wanna see more bisexual stuff talked about.
Speaker 6 00:50:50 I wanna see, um, more biracial stuff talked about. Like, although this book doesn't really delve into that, um, I wanna see more examples of how the patriarchy affects people in, in the workplace. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, in general. And these are all things that I talk about in the book. And um, because I, you know, I just, I do, I wanna compare my experiences with others as everyone does. Everyone wants to know if they're normal, if these, their friendships are normal or not even normal, but like where do I fall on that spectrum? Like, is this, I mean part of this, you know, me examining this friendship was like, is this normal? Like these things that we went through, is this how friendships are supposed to be? Um, you know, it was very different than some of my other friendships. Like, are those normal? Like, what's going on?
Speaker 6 00:51:40 Like it's, you know, it's sort of a yeah, spectrum check. Like where do I fall on the spectrum of friendships and where what, you know, how true was our relationship and how, how true are my friendships now? Like it's, it's all very interesting. And um, so that was really my intention was just to put the subject matter out, but really I'm just, I've learned over time not to really talk to the reader, but just to tell my story and the reader's gonna pick up what they're gonna pick up and it's never what I think they're gonna pick up <laugh>. So when you're talking about like, as a reader, like my ears just perked up like a dog. I'm like, Wait, tell me more. What did you get out of this book? What did you think of this? How did, how did this relate to you? Have you had a friend who ghosted you? Have you ghosted a friend? Like, I'm so interested in this stuff and
Speaker 5 00:52:30 It's very important and it kind of gets talked about it in a superficial way as if it's a thing for young people. And then additionally the idea of like processing, am I a good friend? Are others a good friend to me? How could I support people better? Was there anything I could have done differently? And feeling in very different places about that. Um, I really appreciated that as well.
Speaker 6 00:52:52 Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah, it's amazing like going, like, I remember being, being your age, but like being the age of, uh, what was it? My first high school reunion and a lot of people are like the high school reunions. Uh, that sucks. But honestly I went back to my first high school reunion and um, and even though I didn't graduate high school, but I still went and a lot of those people were people that I hadn't seen since middle school. So like even the tech high school, I was checked out, I was hanging out with an older crowd for the most part, but my time in middle school was so fraught and I felt like such just like the biggest loser. I thought everyone hated me. And it was really eye-opening going back to the, and meeting those people and realizing I was barely on their radar. Like they didn't
Speaker 5 00:53:39 Hate me,
Speaker 6 00:53:39 They didn't notice me. This was all in my head like yeah. Or mostly into my head. And these, these people were also literal children at the time where, you know, when I think about those times, I think about God being seven years old and this like little kid, like he was a crush of mine and like he until like, he like put his fist to my, he didn't hit me, but he put his fist to my face and like that ended my crush. And I've always like, when I think about it back on it, I think about it with the same consciousness as I do as as an adult. You know, I'm almost 50 and I'm like, but like it, it still has the same impact on me. But now I have these nephews who are about that age and I'm like, oh my god, they're little, little children.
Speaker 6 00:54:20 Like, but like it really, like, it's really hard for me to sometimes to just mesh my current knowledge with that old feeling cuz it feels like it happened yesterday in some ways. But I'm like, Oh okay, this was, this was not what I thought it was. And I think that's really useful to me now. Cause I think sometimes I get in my head and I think people are thinking about me a lot more than they are and it's a huge relief to know, well no actually the world does not revolve around me and that's great. I don't want it to <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:54:55 Yeah. I like how young people, well I'm relatively young, but I like that like Gen Z people will use the phrase like main character syndrome. I think that it's nice to examine friendships and be like, I was a side character in this person's life and I love that. Like I'm a side character in many places in the world and that is good. And I'm happy functioning that way. <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:55:19 Yeah. We're a main character to ourselves and then maybe to the people that we just absolutely traumatize or absolutely like lift up. But like, I don't think we get to be a main character for some, some do. We sat next to in math class in sixth grade,
Speaker 5 00:55:35 <laugh>. Oh, totally. <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:55:46 I mean, as a, as a young person, like what is, like what, like how did you relate to like the older stuff? Like the stuff like in my forties? Like did it, did it seem like something that you felt like you related to, that you, that you've been through? Or was it something that you can project and see yourself going through later? Or was it something that you just, I don't know, like how did, how did that feel to read something like that?
Speaker 5 00:56:12 I think that there's this kind of mainstream media perpetuated like tapering off of women after 30 where you don't really <laugh> get to learn about their interiority anymore. They simply become caretakers for others in kind of our collective stories and things like that. And as much as a lot of women do go on to like, have kids and spouses and pets and stuff like that, those people are all still having their own interiority. So I like reading stories about um, middle aged and older people, especially like women and feminine people having those experiences cuz you don't really get to hear of that kind of sneak peek that often.
Speaker 6 00:56:55 Yeah. I really like talking to, um, people much older than me and seeing how they reflect back. Cause it, I feel like it kind of gives me a glimpse into how it might be later for me. Yeah. And, and, and it, and it helps with the perspective, especially when things seem so traumatic or something seems like a really big deal but like, you know, it's not gonna be a big deal later. It's, it's just not.
Speaker 5 00:57:17 If you joined us part way through, I've been talking to the delightful Mari Naomi author most recently of I Thought You Loved Me, Mari Naomi, where can people find your work online, including this book?
Speaker 6 00:57:32 Um, if you just Google my name, Ma Naomi or do mari naomi.com, you will find this, um, me and my books. I also, uh, do other things. Like I run these databases for the cartoonists of color, queer cartoonists and disabled cartoonists, which are just basically what they sound like where you can find thousands of people who fit that identity, um, and, and uh, and find their stuff.
Speaker 5 00:57:58 Well thank you so much. It's been so great to have you back. Um, it's really a treat.
Speaker 6 00:58:03 Thanks so much. It was really fun,
Speaker 5 00:58:06 <laugh>. Thank you.
