On Research, Movement, and Mixing Mediums: An Interview with Ben Green

“Movement is just another language used to convey an emotional experience or fantasy. There are many things your body is capable of that you are not exactly consciously aware of and Gaga in particular allows you to continually surprise yourself because of its non-structure. The most satisfying discoveries for me are when through movement I find how to articulate something I cannot accurately put into words.”

On Research, Movement, and Mixing Mediums: An Interview with Ben Green Read More »

An Interview with Arthur Miller

“I generally work because I am struck by something that someone has said. Playwriting is an oral art; it’s not an art of a writer expecting to be read but a writer expecting to be heard. And so I think that if I hear a character speaking, either one I’ve invented or one I’ve confronted, it starts a process of creating which I can’t control or even describe properly. If I could describe it I probably wouldn’t do it.”

An Interview with Arthur Miller Read More »

On “The Mothers”: An Interview with Brit Bennett

“Deciding which medium I use to explore an idea comes down to immediacy. If there’s something urgent that I want to think through — the pool essay, for example — I like addressing it through nonfiction. The Internet makes it easy to join a ongoing conversation. Fiction, at least for me, moves much more slowly. The ideas I take on in fiction are usually ideas that I’ve been thinking about for years.”

On “The Mothers”: An Interview with Brit Bennett Read More »

Writing Exercises 101, 201, and 301

Oh, the energy of autumnal days! Summer has its blisses, winter its purities; spring lays out romance and adventure, but these short weeks, the light falling like a voice into the distance—they grip me like nothing else. These are the days of the private pleasures of the mind opened into conversation, days in which I thrill at blank pages, new music, appointments fulfilled in the noise of crowds, and my breathe materialized in the cooling air. It’s a time of study and practice. It’s a time of education.

Writing Exercises 101, 201, and 301 Read More »

“The New World,” by Chana Bloch

My uncle killed a man and was proud of it. / Some guy with a knife came at him in Flatbush / and he knocked the fucker to the ground. / The sidewalk finished the job. // By then he’d survived two wives and / a triple bypass. He carried the plastic tubing in his pocket / and would show it to you, to anyone. / He’d unbutton his shirt right there on the street / to show off the scar.

“The New World,” by Chana Bloch Read More »