The Creative Independent

Photographer and art director Julia Comita on prioritizing meaningful projects

2025-01-03T03:00:00-05:00

Can you tell me why you’ve always used your creativity to spotlight political issues?

It wasn’t always like that. I went to school for photography, and then I moved to New York with a dream of working in fashion. This was around 2011. I came here and I started interning, then assisting. As I got more involved with the industry and I got more of a behind-the-scenes look, I was not super inspired by the lack of community and the superficiality of it. I started transitioning more into beauty, which led me to portraits around the same time as the Black Lives Matter movement was starting to build steam [due to the murder of] Trayvon Martin and some unfortunate events that happened in 2015, 2016, when we were having public conversations around systemic racism in America. I used that conversation to examine my own contribution. I just had never—I mean, I’m a white person, privileged—examined that before.

I started looking at my own work and realizing that I was probably contributing to the problem of having a one-size-fits-all beauty standard because I was working a lot with the stereotypical thin, young, white, cisgender female. Around 2015, I began to take an active stance in my personal work where I said, “I’m not going to contribute to that anymore.” You don’t have so much flexibility with [paid work] because you’re working for a client, but at least in my personal work, I felt like I had control to exercise decisions around casting, who I was going to collaborate with, and making intentional work. Everything for us, [in] New York City as creatives, goes on Instagram, where you can have a small audience or a huge audience, and I think that a level of responsibility goes with that.

After Trump got elected the first time, I saw a lot of people in Brooklyn try to get involved in organizing and put their politics front and center in their work, but then they burnt out on it within a few months. You’ve had the opposite arc with politics in your work, so what advice would you give to creative folks going through a similar reckoning, who want to figure out how to prioritize more left-leaning politics in their creative work?

As someone who works commercially—and Brenna [Drury, makeup artist for Prim ’n Poppin’] does as well, as do a lot of my other collaborators—I think it can feel disempowering when you have other people in power dictating what you can and cannot do. In that case, I recommend having casual conversations with people in the creative force who could potentially be swayed to make a different decision when it comes to the message they’re creating with their work or the type of person they’re casting… Sometimes just giving a seed of an idea to people in the creative field who also are in corporate can be really useful.

And then, I recommend exercising your power as much as possible in your personal work. For me, what that’s looked like is collaborating. I’ve taken an interest in many issues that don’t necessarily affect me personally. In doing so, I’ve developed many conversations and relationships with different communities that I’m collaborating with. In that way, a lot of the work I do, I consider partner-oriented. For example, with Prim ’n Poppin’, Brenna and I came together to do this work. I would never say that I work in a vacuum and it’s all only mine. [Collaboration] can lead to important conversations about, “What messages should we be putting out? What’s important to you?”

I did a project recently around voting, and I collaborated with a queer couple who are both immigrants, and it was their first election cycle that they could vote. We had all kinds of conversations I wasn’t even thinking of, and the project took on new meaning in that context, and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t chosen to collaborate with them.

How do you balance your time between paid projects and passion projects?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken on fewer projects and, at the same time, made sure those projects are more meaningful. I used to shoot casually a lot more in the past, but those projects take a lot of time, resources, planning, and post-production—therefore, having to pay for things—but they weren’t necessarily so developed, or the message was much smaller. If I’m going to dedicate time to unpaid personal work, which is incredibly important to me—especially, again, with the political climate—I want to take the time to do something impactful and meaningful.

Whether it’s a few projects a year that you put a lot of time into, or one day a month, even, if that’s what you can do, great. It’s hard to balance it, and the more you’re doing paid work, the less you can have energy for personal work. I also think having grace around seasons of your life and your career is important. I don’t think it’s helpful to feel guilty.

To ask about Prim ’n Poppin’ a bit more: there was the 2021 campaign, then a 2024 campaign timed around the election cycle. Did you ever think, “Is this still worth doing depending on which way the election swings?” What questions were you asking yourself as you considered relaunching the campaign?

The project has always been based around diversity, equity, and inclusion. The reason, pre-election, that we were talking about relaunching was because we were seeing a decrease in DEI in advertising and beauty. I mean literally a decrease in terms of the jobs available to models that we know. Championing talent is the highlight of what our project is about. We were noticing and hearing—not only just visually and being on set, but also through models that we know who are trans or disabled, for example—that they weren’t booking as many jobs, and it was a sharp decrease from previous years. From 2019 to 2022, we had this inclusivity boom. It seems like after that, people were over it, got bored or were feeling like, “This had its moment, it’s not trending anymore, so there’s no point in us paying attention to it.”

The campaign has always been an excuse to have conversations regardless of which way the election would’ve gone. It wouldn’t have meant that having conversations around inclusion isn’t still extremely important. It just happens that, since the election went the way that it did, it’s even more important, timely, and urgent.

The press release that I got about Prim ’n Poppin’ relaunching describes the 2021 campaign as “massively successful.” What does success mean to you, particularly for personal projects? Is success just being a conversation starter?

We were measuring success in terms of the amount of coverage we got and, therefore, the amount of people talking about it. We were noticing that big places like the Guardian posted, and we were looking at the comments coming in, and it was really interesting to see a certain percentage of the comments being really supportive, and that made us think, “This feels like it was so needed. A lot of people want to be having these conversations.” And then there was a percentage of comments that were quite negative, as I’m sure you can imagine. Troll-y people saying very mean things. Even though there’s buzz and that’s great, obviously we’re not done here.

Your artistic style is very colorful and bold. How did you land on that style?

It’s just what I’m attracted to. It’s that simple. I’m just not inspired by basic color. I like intentional color—strong, intentional contrast. I’m bored by soft, smooth, natural-feeling colors.

Is that something you’ve always known about yourself, or did you have to come to that realization?

I used to—many, many years ago—exclusively do black-and-white, and it was always high-contrast. At the time, I was resolute that I wouldn’t do color until I understood color enough to do it intentionally. This is just my personal opinion, but I think if color’s not going to contribute something to what you’re doing, what’s the point? I think color can be really distracting, particularly in photography. If you’re not going to be intentional with it, shoot it in black and white. I’ll get what I need to know without being distracted by the color.

You also work in video and create GIFs. As you’re approaching a project, how do you know which of your mediums is right?

Producing video is very cost-prohibitive. I only did my first personal project that included film recently. Two projects that I worked on within the last couple of years that had motion were not client-oriented, and that was the first time I could exercise my creative direction in that medium. All other video projects prior to that have been client-led because they have money for that, and producing video, at least the way I would want with strong lighting and color, you need some amount of money to do it. Photography has been a lot more accessible for me in that way, and GIFs [too]. GIFs just take longer on the backend. Photo’s been the easiest medium for me to work in. And then if I feel like it’s appropriate to do a GIF or an animation, I do.

How do you know when a photograph—meaning the post-production image—is complete?

It took me a lot of time to come to a place where I could call something done. It’s just intuitive. Through years of experience—and I have employment history of being a professional retoucher—I know when I’ve taken it too far. Also, with people’s attention spans, no one will care as much as you, the artist, cares. My “done” is already past what many other people would probably consider “done.”

One thing that’s been really nice for me as a creative is this ability to do a gut check, whether I’m on set or working on post-production. In my regular life, I don’t have that same level of intuition, just trusting my gut.

How do you go about starting a photography project?

Because I work a lot collaboratively, it usually starts with a conversation that will lead to a series of actions, and on my end, that next step is usually pulling an inspiration. I’ll use the Freedom Project, which was this political project I worked on recently with acrobats, as an example. Their domain is what they do with their bodies. That’s not my domain. My domain is the photo stuff. It was their job to come to me with a design of, “We want to pose people in this way.” I took that and said, “I have these references I’m really inspired by. I want the light and color to go in this direction.” I mapped out, for each one, my approach.

Is there anything else you want to share about Prim ’n Poppin’?

In terms of approaching things politically or using your artistic expression as a means of activism, I have found it much easier to engage a wider audience if you’re creating work that is beautiful, visually appealing, something that doesn’t make a viewer turn away. There’s a space for that work, and that work is important, but in my case, if your intention is to not only preach to the choir but to reach people who don’t share the same set of beliefs as you, or don’t know as much as you know about a certain topic or community but are open, you want to meet them in the middle. You want to meet them where they’re at.

Julia Comita recommends:

Them: The Covenant: This is not for everyone—it has very challenging subject matter and visuals—but I found the creative and direct approach to discussing post-Jim-Crow race relations for Black people looking to escape the south for “a better life” in the west to be eye-opening, humbling, and designed to create empathy for a wide cast of characters with different personal and societal challenges.

The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias: Although not specifically designed for creatives, this book heavily influenced me as an impact-oriented artist, and I recommend it to anyone who’s interested in using their work for impact-oriented purposes with communities outside of their own.

Vivian Maier: Street Photographer: Vivan Maier is a hidden gem of a photographer who’s gained more attention in recent years. Her work only discovered and published posthumously and depicts an intimate portrait a single woman living in the city during the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear: I was nervous this book would be another corny self-help book about “making it” as a creative but was delighted to find an honest, grounded approach to creativity that is rooted more in practicality than naive idealism. It provided me permission to be creative that I found extremely valuable during a time when I was being very self-critical and inducing unnecessary pressure and stress on myself as a professional creative.

Specialty coffee professional Nish Arthur on asking so-called stupid questions

2025-01-03T03:00:00-05:00

Can you walk me through your morning coffee ritual?

When I’m brewing just for myself or with another person, I usually go for the V60, a manual pour-over method. It’s always been my favorite home brewing technique. It doesn’t yield the most coffee, so it’s not great for impressing a crowd, but it’s perfect for small batches. I use a bleached paper filter because it doesn’t leave any extra flavors behind. I find that metal filters can sometimes give the coffee a metallic taste, which can really throw off the brew, and unbleached filters can leave a slight papery flavor. For the setup, I use a temperature-controlled gooseneck kettle and my own grinder.

Do you remember when you first had a “good” coffee?

It was in Edmonton, Alberta. A couple of friends took me to Transcend at the original Garneau location. I think I had a cappuccino or something, and everyone I was with was like, “This is the spot; this is the best coffee.” I didn’t have a frame of reference then, but it completely rewired my brain. I applied for a job there during that visit because I had just moved to Edmonton and needed work. I was hired almost on the spot.

How old were you?

18 or 19.

Would you say that was the beginning of your career?

Definitely. I had just dropped out of university and it wasn’t until I had the 60 hours of one-on-one training that things really clicked. Once I started, I realized, Wow, I’m actually really good at this. I had a strong palate, my retro-nasal senses were on point, and I picked things up quickly.

Does having a strong palate apply to anything else in your life?

Nothing professional, but I’m a big perfume guy. Some people are better tasters and some people are better smellers.

What does it mean to have a good palate?

For me, a well-developed palate can isolate the different flavors, aromas, and textures at play. This can be tricky with coffee, especially if you’re not a regular drinker or not particularly intentional about it. In North America, many people tend to prefer coffee that tastes nutty or chocolatey, whereas something like a naturally processed Ethiopian coffee is very aromatic and bold—it can hit you with flavors like blackberries and Jolly Ranchers. If you build your palate without assumptions, you can sip the coffee and ask yourself, “What else am I tasting?” Often, it’s not immediately obvious. It’s about exploring what else you can detect in the cup.

You work in coffee education. Can you explain what being a trainer entails?

I work as a management consultant and educator for Variety Coffee Roasters in New York. Specifically, for education, I’m responsible for building and executing the coffee program for their retail staff across eight cafes. I redesigned their education program, breaking it into modules. The first module is all about assessing the individual’s experience with coffee. If someone is new to coffee, it will start with a basic PowerPoint covering the fundamentals, like how coffee is a seed inside a cherry, followed by a full menu cupping. The second module focuses on milk-based drinks, including milk steaming and latte art. No one can work in the cafes until they’ve passed the milk training session. The final two modules are all about espresso dialing from scratch.

Before joining Variety, I had been working in coffee education on a consulting basis, helping small restaurants and cafes develop their own sustainable coffee programs. I designed an espresso training cheat sheet, a key part of my consulting. When I joined Variety, I adapted it to their program, and it worked so well that I eventually patented it. This method has allowed me to train people to dial in espresso to a high standard in just a few hours. When dialing espresso, I rely on instinct rather than a clear cause-and-effect process. I just know what to do, but teaching that kind of instinct to others has been one of the biggest challenges in my role as a trainer.

You started your own company recently, Hot Stuff, and you work with Nordic light roast coffee. Can you explain what constitutes a light roast and how you achieve that flavor?

A good way to compare roasts is through sugar: light roasts are like white sugar, medium roasts are like caramel, and dark roasts are like molasses. If you think of fruitier, more expressive coffees you’ve had, they’re likely light roasts. During roasting, after the drying phase and Maillard reaction, there’s a point called the first crack. The first crack is a chemical change when the green coffee stops absorbing heat, then expels it. At this stage, all the moisture is gone, and when the coffee expels the heat, it’s similar to popcorn popping. This is when the coffee’s pores open up, and the sugars inside begin to cook. Green coffee is full of sugar, gas, and oil. The oil and sugars carry the coffee’s natural flavor.

Depending on the coffee’s origin, the flavor can vary widely. African coffees tend to be fruity and tea-like. In contrast, Latin American coffees often have notes of stone fruit, nuts, caramel, and chocolate—flavors that North Americans might associate with more traditional profiles, even though all coffee originates from Ethiopia. For lighter roasts, the goal is to preserve these flavors while ensuring the sugar is developed enough to avoid grassy or underdeveloped tastes. In a light roast, you aim to stop the process just after it has developed enough to avoid those underdeveloped qualities, before the flavors begin to neutralize as the sugars cook… You need to learn how to listen to the coffee and figure out what it wants.

And you’re roasting the coffee yourself?

Yes. It’s a one-person business, but I hired a consultant to help me get started. Coffee roasting is an exclusive field, especially if you’re not a dude, so I brought in a friend who had roasted for Stumptown Roasters for years. Though I had years of specialty experience, he was the only one willing to teach me to roast.

We roast out of my workplace, Variety. I just asked the owner, “Hey, can Patrick and I rent the roastery on weekends for this project I’m working on?” and he said, “You do enough for me, just use it.” It was insanely generous because that saved me thousands and thousands of dollars. I can also store my green coffee there, which is crazy. The reason why most people don’t learn how to roast coffee is because it’s prohibitively expensive.

It feels like there’s so much of you in this project. You’ve been pursuing this since your teenage years, co-owned a café in Montréal for years, worked at Variety, and now launched this Nordic-inspired business. Given that you’re Nordic yourself, it all feels incredibly personal and reflective of who you are. Was that intentional?

I feel like with Hot Stuff, I realized I wanted to do my own thing, and I want to do it the way that I like to do it. I also want it to be less serious! I want someone to be able to walk into a cafe without being scared about asking a stupid question. I want someone trying a fruity espresso to be like, “Why does this taste like this?”

Last year, I hosted a public coffee cupping in my hometown in Saskatchewan, and a huge crowd showed up. I encouraged everyone to dive deeper into tasting coffee. By the end, people were genuinely excited about what they had learned. Even my mom joined in. One coffee was on the table with a noticeable sour defect, and she immediately picked up on it, saying, “This tastes like when a peanut starts to go a little sour.” I was amazed at how quickly she identified it. It made me realize that people inherently know how to taste; they’ve just never been given the opportunity to engage with coffee beyond its typical, commodity-focused perspective.

What do you feel you still have to learn?

I want to deepen my understanding of coffee production and agronomy because they’re incredibly fascinating. With climate change, we’re seeing significant shifts in how and where coffee is grown. Some countries are experiencing frost for the first time, leading to increased defects and challenges in production. Their coffee economies are struggling as a result. Meanwhile, other regions are seeing hotter climates that, surprisingly, are yielding more unique and exciting coffees. It’s been fascinating to observe these changes over the years. In the 11 or 12 years I’ve been in the industry, I’ve noticed how much Kenyan coffee, for example, has evolved in flavor compared to a decade ago.

At the same time, growing coffee is becoming increasingly difficult and costly, which impacts both producers and consumers. As coffee becomes more expensive, I believe it’s the roaster’s responsibility to educate consumers. It’s important to explain why their coffee costs $6—whether it’s due to climate challenges, labour conditions, or production costs—not simply because the roaster wants to charge a premium.

We also can’t ignore the fact that the coffee industry has deep roots in exploitation and slavery. As a coffee company, there’s a responsibility not just to help people enjoy coffee more but also to share the stories behind it—highlighting the producers, the struggles their countries face, and the broader context of what’s happening in the industry.

What does the future hold for Hot Stuff?

When I eventually open a brick-and-mortar roastery, my goal is to establish a program to teach people how to roast coffee, specifically aiming to support marginalized communities. The biggest challenges in learning how to roast coffee are often access-related. First, finding someone willing to teach you the craft can be difficult. As an educator, I’m passionate about filling that gap. But beyond that, sourcing and purchasing green coffee is incredibly challenging, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the process. Then there’s the question of where to store it and where to roast. My vision for the roastery is to address these hurdles and create a supportive environment where people can learn and grow.

I want to create a scholarship program based on a circular economy. The idea is to use still-fresh tasting, past-crop coffee to teach roasting. Participants—two or three at a time—would get meaningful, hands-on experience, not just a quick two-hour session. The coffee they roast would be bagged separately as “scholarship coffee” and sold at a lower price, with revenue reinvested into the program to buy more green coffee and support future participants. The goal is to make this education free and sustainable, reducing waste by repurposing coffee that might otherwise go unsold. There’s a huge demand for roasting education, especially among women and marginalized groups… I hope to create a space where aspiring roasters can learn without the financial burden or logistical challenges. We’ll see who shows up for it!

Nish Arthur recommends:

T.H.C.’s 1999 album Adagio

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)

A staple turtleneck

The Erewhon Hailey Bieber smoothie

The L Word S6E3

Musician Willow Smith on empathy as the seed for creativity

2025-01-02T03:00:00-05:00

What kind of energy has been coming your way recently?

Man, life has been really insane.

In a good way?

The world is in an interesting transformational period right now. We’re all just trying to figure out how to be with reality on reality’s terms. And yeah, there are so many blessings. There’s so much good stuff happening. Just keeping on the path of being a human is difficult. I think we all feel that.

I’m with you. I’ve been questioning my place in a world that’s changing so fast and wondering how I can help. Speaking of our collective experience, I wanted to talk about your last album, Empathogen. The title itself is inspired by molecules found in indigenous plants known for their unique ability to foster empathy. So, how does empathy shape both Willow, the artist, and Willow, the person?

For Willow, the artist, empathy is the vehicle. The vehicle where all amazing art gets done. That place of looking at the world, feeling deeply, and creating. Empathy is the seed of any really good artistic endeavor. It shapes how we live in the world, how we speak, how we move—that’s rare and powerful medicine. Empathy is everything to me in both worlds.

On the same album, you delve into love—for others and yourself. In a Zane Lowe interview, you called self-love “one of life’s biggest lessons.” Where are you now on that journey?

I’m going to be on that journey forever, I feel. But right now, the universe has set up some challenges for me. I tell myself “Okay, this is your next level of learning how to love yourself and how to live authentically without fear.” I’m navigating these challenges and it feels really good.

Can you expand on your current stage of learning?

I’m becoming the musician that I want to be. Musicians and artists that I look up to are starting to see me in a different way. This is challenging my perceptions of myself, my self-deprecating thoughts and my insecurities. It’s like, “Oh no, it’s time to update my perception of myself. It’s time to open up and really start to see myself for what I am and not try to downplay myself.” Being humble is really important, and we need that, but being too humble means putting yourself in a lower place. True humility is knowing exactly who you are—no more and no less. In the past, I sidelined myself; now, I am walking in my power.

I love that.

Walk in your power.

That’s so important. Like you said, it’s tough to keep reminding yourself—especially when setbacks hit. It affects your self-worth. It’s really hard to remind yourself to be strong and not let the imposter syndrome eat you up, so you can live your authentic self.

Yes!

So going off that, I know one of your songs is called “False Self.” I love that song—it’s all about finding your voice and staying authentic. But playing devil’s advocate here—do you think the False Self is always negative, or could it have a constructive role?

In “False Self,” I’m reflecting on my ego, and I’m starting to see it differently. The ego isn’t evil—it’s just trying to protect you. Sometimes, though, the way it does is unhealthy. But think about an animal backed into a corner—it fights back. That’s just nature. I don’t believe the ego is all bad. It can actually be used constructively. In the past, I thought the ego had to be completely eradicated, but now I realize it’s more about healing it so the ways it protects you aren’t toxic. You know what I mean?

Definitely. And how do you feel this plays a role in creativity?

It’s crazy. Me and myself, me and my ego are having insane conversations and confrontations with one another. That’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from. The struggles that I have in my mind are really a huge inspiration for all of my art.

When you get stuck, how do you deal with those creative blocks?

When you’re creatively stuck, there’s something else that’s stuck. There’s something else that’s stagnant that needs to start moving so that your creativity can flow again. Maybe you’re holding it in an emotion. Maybe you need to have a conversation that you haven’t had and you’re putting it off. Whatever it is, your creative energy gets affected by other things in your life. Your creative energy is your life force.

It’s true. I relate to what you say about creativity as a life force. It’s something you need to protect and cherish. It’s precious.

Yes.

When bad energy affects you, it can leave you feeling vulnerable. Sometimes, you just need to let it out and process it, rather than resisting it.

Exactly. Instead of resisting that discomfort we’re all trying to get away from.

Talking about music because music is your life force. What’s the best music for you? Is it about the sound, the story, and how it moves people? Is it timeless and universal?

Oh, wow. Oh, man. I think people have a different perception of what good music is. For me, the best music is timeless and extremely personal. Something that I love about Joni Mitchell is her storytelling. She paints a picture. It’s almost like you’re not even listening to what she’s saying, you’re in the picture of what she’s saying. You’re seeing the planes in the sky, you’re seeing the desert that she’s talking about. You’re feeling the wind. Her lyrics bring you into the story.

It’s like a movie.

Yes. It’s like a freaking movie.

So would you say good music is cinema?

It needs to… Yeah. it needs to have a strong enough energy to transport you into its world.

Is there a song that has this effect on you?

Oh, yeah. It’s a Joni Mitchell song. It’s actually off Hejira and it’s called “Coyote.”

I love that cinematic effect in music. It’s not just about hearing—it should engage all your senses. You should feel it with your eyes, your touch, and even imagine smelling the melodies. As you said, a full 360 experience.

Yeah, exactly. It’s immersive

So talking about songs you love, music spans generations and cultures carrying the echoes of those who came before us. So there’s this lineage that’s inherently very melodic, very in us. How do you see yourself within this lineage of jazz, funk and pop musicians, who have inspired you?

That used to cause me a lot of pain. I didn’t see myself in that lineage. I used to feel I wasn’t worthy. But now I see that, whether I make music or not, whether I’m a musician or not, I am still a part of this lineage because I’m an African-American woman, first and foremost. And that alone holds so much purpose. Every choice I make and everything I do, whether I like it or not, is part of that lineage. The fact that I’ve reached this point in my musical life and my relationship with my instrument, where I feel deeply connected to my ancestors through my devotion to music, is profound. And that connection isn’t just about jazz or funk—it’s about a human lineage that predates culture as we know it today. It’s about those moments when we sat around the fire, sang, and played the bones of our ancestors.

That’s beautiful.

And so yeah, it goes beyond the music for me at that point. It’s deep medicine, calling on your ancestors and connecting to your ancestors.

Are there any musicians that have inspired you in your creative lineage?

Oh man. I don’t know why Björk is really coming to mind right now.

Björk is great! She’s out of this world.

Björk is so tapped into that human lineage, and you can tell with just the art that she creates, you can tell just how deeply connected to the earth and even she’s connected to the star people. I’m like, “Okay, this is a whole thing.” Björk, Ella Fitzgerald. Man, another one, let me give you another one. Brittany Howard.

Okay, yeah, Björk is incredible. I get what you mean about her transcending music. I saw her perform at Bluesfest many years ago without knowing much about her work. She had this massive cage filled with lightning bolts, and dancers, and it was right at sunset by the river. It felt magical—so grand and beautiful, it moved me. I didn’t know her songs or much about her, but her deep connection to the audience was undeniable.

That’s the real deal. Any good artist’s art transcends the art form. That’s why it’s so next level because you don’t need to know Björk songs to walk up to the show and be like, “Wow. I’m changed forever.”

It’s true. There’s the before and after Björk experience. Talking about this spirituality and magic, when I’m looking at your brand and your social media there’s something magical and very spiritual, do you believe in magic?

Oh my goodness, yes. I believe in magic. I studied physics for four years. It made me believe in magic. It’s wild how some scientists resist the idea that the world is beyond our understanding. The more I study science, the more I’m in awe of its complexity—it’s pure magic. Many great scientists feel the same, just like great artists. It all blends together. That’s why mad scientists often look like artists—just look at pictures of Einstein or others like him.

Accurate. If you think of the theory of relativity, it’s magical.

Bro. Yes.

Gravity is magical.

Yeah. We’re on a planet going thousands of miles per hour around a burning ball of fire. What the heck? Are you kidding me?

And also, I guess the people we meet and the people we move, it’s all magical.

Yes.

Have you had a magical moment or experience recently?

Recently, I’ve been waking up with the sunrise. That’s not usually my thing, but it’s just been happening. I’ll open my eyes, and there’s a window right next to my bed. The sun is peeking out from behind the mountain, and I’m just like, ‘Damn. What a beautiful view.’ You can’t make this stuff up. I’ve also been noticing something else. You know that moment when you feel triggered? Like, something happens or someone says something, and you get that little flinch of, ‘Oh shit, now I’m triggered.’ Well, I’ve been focusing on the opposite of that. It’s called glimmers—those moments where something happens, and you’re like, ‘Oh shit. Magic. I see it.’”

I can see that.

I’ve been trying to remind myself every time it happens to say, “That’s a glimmer. That’s a glimmer. That’s a glimmer.” Because when we’re triggered, we feel it—it hits hard. So why not feel those little glimmers just as deeply? Like, “Oh man, magic does exist.”

I love that—I never thought of it that way. I never considered there could be an opposite of a trigger, like a positive trigger. Triggers are so powerful, and the more you’re triggered, the more susceptible you become. I’d assume glimmers work the same way—the more you experience them, the more you notice them. I’m going to practice the observation of glimmers.

Yes!

In interviews, you often mention noticing the little things around you—your curiosity and eagerness to learn stand out. How do they shape your artistry and influence your music?

Empathy and curiosity are the best fertile soil for some good shit to happen. I feel if you’re not curious, you’re not going to be obsessed with an instrument. Because being obsessed with an instrument or being obsessed with a craft requires you to be curious. It requires you to be like, “Oh, how does this work? How does this sound?” To explore your artistic world as much as possible, you’ve got to be curious. It’s fundamental.

It’s true. And talking about being curious and being obsessed with art and crafts. Ella Fitzgerald, one of your favorite artists once said, “The only thing better than singing is more singing.” How does this resonate with you? And how do you balance that between discipline and just the pure bliss of creating?

You can only reach pure bliss through discipline.That’s something I’ve come to realize. My relationship with music was tumultuous for a long time because I hadn’t fully discovered my way of expressing commitment and devotion. Now that I’ve found it—this is exactly how I express my dedication—I’m no longer confused. The real gifts of music are finally revealing themselves. I didn’t think I could love music more after 15 years, but the deeper my devotion, commitment, and discipline grow, the deeper the joy and bliss become. I think that’s just how it’s designed. The same applies to relationships—the more present and committed we are to loving and honest connections, the deeper the experience becomes.

This is how I feel about my connection to craft. It’s all just a labor of love.

The deeper our love can really become, the deeper the love can grow, and the deeper the gifts are.

That’s true. I find it so hard nowadays. We’re so distracted by social media in a world that’s always on fire. It’s difficult to create a space of intention for creativity. How do you make that space for yourself?

Oh man, you ask some really good questions. This place of intention is so important.

It’s sacred.

It’s sacred. I’m so glad you said that. Have you ever been to a meditation retreat or a ceremonial space where gratitude and devotion are central? Those spaces, so intentional, amplify the energy of gratitude. I’m lucky to know people who’ve dedicated their lives to creating such spaces. Spending time with them, and learning from their ceremonies, words, and way of living, has been invaluable. I’m still learning—it’s a deep skill to create spaces of intention.

It’s magic.

Yes. Just like you were saying before. I’m a baby magician, I’m not a full…

Wizard.

[laughs] I’m not a full wizard yet, but we learn and we practice.

That’s the way to go! I have one last question for you. I mentioned before I’m also on a journey of self-discovery—as a creative, as a woman of color, navigating this tumultuous world. So, at the end of the day, Willow Smith, what do you want your legacy to be?

Oh my God. Man, I just love you. I love talking to you. You’re a cool person.

Haha, same!

I know. I’m like, “Let’s just hang out.” What do I want my legacy to be? I want my legacy to be a legacy of care and devotion. It doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to music even though that’s my specific way of injecting care and devotion into the world. I want to inspire people to love each other intensely and with deep presence.

It’s almost utopian, like a hippie dream.

Yeah. I hate to say it, but I’m a total hippie.

Me too. It’s a safe space on a global scale.

Yeah! A safe space, but on a global scale. Imagine this: a space of intention everywhere—that magic of everyone being tuned in. Not just holding it individually, but truly holding it together.

And pursuing this lineage of love, care and music.

Pursuing the lineage of love and care. Yes. I love that.

Thank you for your authenticity and honesty. You’ve inspired me as a creative person to stay true to myself and create for the sake of art and love.

Yes. Everything is really simple, we make it complicated.

Yang Shi’s favorite Willow Smith songs:

“symptom of life”

“false self”

“T r a n s p a r e n t s o u l (featuring travis barker)”

“pain for fun (featuring st. vincent)”

“alone”

Musician Marie Davidson on living with doubt

2024-12-24T03:00:00-05:00

It’s been interesting to see a handful of musicians start newsletters within the last year or so. In your November 2024 newsletter, you talked about the newsletter format being your way of writing longer captions for your social media posts. Can you talk more about that reason for starting a newsletter, and other reasons too?

There were two motivations: to have a space to write, because words are really important in my practice—but I am still, to this day, a musician—and to create a space to connect with people outside social media. I don’t feel complete as an artist to just promote myself on social media.

Can you tell me more about why words are important to you and how you’ve worked with words in your creative practice?

I’m someone who’s really attached to meaning, for better or worse. I like when things are clear. I’m very “on the money” with words. I also love poetry, so I don’t have a problem with abstraction, but I love words. I love language. I love communication. It’s really important for me to be able to communicate with other people and to be understood. I’ve always had a need, even as a child, to be understood.

In your music, I definitely hear an economy with words and a forthrightness.

I’m a generous person when it comes to feelings, emotion, and my capacity to take and give, but I can be also greedy in terms of wanting people to be clear with me. I’ll be that person to be like, “What do you mean?” I never thought about it before but… I guess I have an economy with words. I love communication. That’s why I’m an artist.

You’ve worked in band settings and as a DJ, which, to some people, seems like more of a one-person effort. What does collaboration achieve for you? What do you look for in collaborators?

I started my music process with collaborations. It’s the root of my practice and my background, so it’s my initial point of entry in music. Also, I’m mostly self-taught. I got my music [skills] and social skills through collaborations, playing with different people in bands, duos, trios, ensembles, and different kinds of projects, and I got to learn how to work with sounds by imitation. When you play with people, you listen. I trained my ears to listen and kind of talk back. My first projects were very improv-based, so I had to listen and respond, and this is how I learned how to play music.

I see collaboration as a natural thing. I am working for the music. I’m not working for myself when I work on the composition process. I’m just working for music, and I want to bring the music [to] the best level possible. This is why I’ve always had people working with me on my songs.

How has collaboration has shaped your social skills and led to your ability to get your music out there?

It shaped my social skills in terms of learning how to work with different people within a short lapse of time, and to do that, you have to be able to communicate and exchange ideas and be in dialogue. I was also a waitress [and bartender], so throughout my early adult life I’d have to engage with so many different people all the time—I think it helped my social skills a lot. I’m a rather lunatic and kind of spacey person, and having to be exchanging with different people at a very fast pace has taught me to navigate the world and learn how to, again, listen and talk back. I think this is the base of social awareness and social skills. You have to not only be able to express yourself—someone who has good social skills is also a great listener. You need to have both.

Soulwax’s remix of your song “Work It” has become your most streamed song. Some years after that remix dropped, you’re now signed to Soulwax’s record label, Deewee. What do Soulwax bring to the table for you as collaborators? Why have you chosen to expand your creative relationship with them so significantly?

They bring freshness to the process. They are good at bringing a track to a place unexpected. When you work with people who have [lots of] experience, have been producing for so long, you get this thing where they’re going to bring you somewhere you would have never thought of because that’s their expertise. They hear something in the music that was already there but you would’ve never thought of going for. They also bring some sort of catchiness.

I’m not a crowd pleaser. I’m someone who writes music that has a strong identity and strong hooks, but I don’t have this crowd-pleasing type of brain, and [Soulwax is] good at taking something and breaking it down to make it more accessible sometimes. They’re also very ballsy, which is something I have in my music too. I like weird sounds, kind of almost annoying sounds, and their music has personality—they have their touch. I guess it’s their very own energy. It’s very hard to describe people’s energy, but they have kind of a “fucker” energy. There’s a lot of humor in what they do and what I do too, so that’s why we get along well.

When you started learning proper DJ techniques in 2022, did you face any self-doubt or hesitation? Did you have any feelings of, “I’m not going to do this”? If so, can you talk about how you got through those feelings?

When you start something as an artist, unless you’re a natural, the doubts are always present. The way you manage to overcome the doubts is by playing whatever it is that you do. It’s just by playing. I had to play, and I played a lot on my own in my studio, and then I played a lot of small parties. I would just say yes to any gigs and feel the response from the crowd [on] the dance floor, and I was like, *Wow. Even with very little technique, it works. People are dancing, they look happy… I can feel it in their body language, so I guess I’m not that bad. *The only way is to practice.

I think if you don’t doubt, there’s something wrong—you should doubt. Doubting and questioning are very important in a creative process. It makes you work harder, and this is how you progress. The only problem with doubt is that if you let it overtake you, then you’re done. It can literally stop you. I don’t have this problem. I have many problems, but I don’t have this problem. Doubts usually don’t stop me. They’re scary, but I’ve always lived with doubt.

You’ve put out a lot of music in a lot of different styles. If you ever listen back to your prior music, are there any things that you’ve noticed have remained constant or consistent in your creative approach? What creative elements do you think have evolved?

What has remained is [the] existential tone of my songs. I ask a lot of questions. What has evolved is the humor. My first solo efforts, there’s not much humor. Maybe there’s a little bit of humor on Un Autre Voyage, which came out in 2015, and then the first tracks that I would consider kind of funny are on Adieux Au Dancefloor, which are naive to the bone and good vibes. Not every song I write is meant to be funny. There will always be some darker elements to what I write about. In terms of music and sounds, I think it’s an evolution, but the core of it remains the same. My music is very percussion- and vocal-driven. That has remained.

I don’t question myself a lot on those things. I try not to analyze the music too much. I analyze the feeling when I listen back to what I’ve been doing, and I’m like, Does it feel good? And if it does, then that means it is progressing well, that it’s aligned with what I want to share.

To close this conversation out, is there anything more that you want to say about creativity?

I do honestly believe that everyone is creative. I don’t mean by this that everyone has to be creative. Some people might not want to engage with creativity, and that’s totally fine. But I do believe that everyone is able to [be creative], that everyone has something to say, and people who want to be creative and to express themselves should. There is absolutely no limit to creativity. It’s an endless process.

Marie Davidson recommends:

Speak the truth.

Have quality time with yourself.

Try to cultivate empathy towards others.

Generally speaking, try to avoid lying to yourself. Face the facts although it might be uncomfortable at times.

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

Musician Warren Ellis on respecting the creative process

2024-12-24T03:00:00-05:00

Ellis Park, a documentary by Justin Kurzel about the titular wildlife sanctuary you co-founded in Indonesia, has just had its international premiere at the London Film Festival. It was such a beautiful film—I found it extremely moving in so many different ways…

It’s funny because I was obviously quite close to the process and it wasn’t until I saw it in the cinema, once I’d kind of let go of everything, that I made my peace with aspects of it that were quite confronting for me. Like all things, and this is my experience in the studio and now my experience with documentaries, you set out to do something and at the end, it’s nothing like what you imagined. But when I did finally watch it in a cinema, I found myself being very moved by it, and I was relieved, too, that it’s not just emotional porn. It feels like it seems to garner a response from people for the right reason.

It was a really nice way to do it: to interweave the story of your life with the park’s story—it felt very seamless. Was it always the plan for it to be so intimately biographical?

I didn’t really read Justin’s treatment because I was busy and I was going through a really difficult period. I don’t know if it’s apparent [in the film], but my life was as chaotic as it’s ever been—I’m going through a separation, my parents are sick… I knew Justin wanted to look a bit at me, to give some context for the people watching it who didn’t know who I was, so I wasn’t just this guy who plays in a band and suddenly decides to do this thing with the park. He wanted to find out why I was doing it, and I understood that but I didn’t really think about it. I just thought, “Okay, I’ll turn up on the date, and we’ll do it,” which is what I’ve done with Andrew Dominik [the director of the Nick Cave documentaries].

For me, making this film was one of the most important things I’ve ever done because in retrospect, it allowed me to confront a lot of things that I’d done in therapy—it was like I was doing 40 years of therapy in a couple of days. Justin and I became so incredibly close. It was amazing. He treated me like an actor, he pushed me. At one point, he was ready to pull the plug on it because when we got in the car to go to Ballarat [the city where Ellis grew up], I said, “I cannot go back there.” I couldn’t walk into this conflicting environment that had kind of ruled my life for most of my life. And Justin said, “Look, we can stop the shooting. [But] I think this is a big moment in your life. It’s a time of change. I would encourage you to go with it. We don’t have to use any of [the footage].”

Obviously, the stuff I’m talking about is my family stuff. I had a total freak out about it later on—I made a decision I didn’t even want it in there. But then I saw a mate of mine doing a film and the film’s subject had seen it and said, “I hate it,” and just threw him off the job and made his own cut. I’d been going like, “Fuck that guy. This is your work.” And here I was doing the same to Justin. So I made the call to follow how I’ve lived my creative life, which is to be as honest and transparent as I can. I said, “Justin, this is your film, and I trust you.” And then I let go of the reins. For better or worse, I’m proud of that decision.

The moments that you have with your dad, who was also a musician, are beautiful. They give a lot of insight into your early musical experiences, like the story of when you asked him how to write a song as a kid and he took down a poetry book and set the words to music…

To go back to the question about the film: I thought we were going to make a film about the park. I had this idea to take the gum there [a sculpture made from a mold of Nina Simone’s chewing gum, which Ellis pocketed many years ago and also titled his memoir after] and we were going to have this journey. But Justin was really curious about why I decided to do the park. I said, “I don’t know. Wouldn’t everybody if they could?” And he goes, “No, they wouldn’t. I think the answer’s back there.” I do think it is connected. There seem to be a couple of main narratives that all converge.

You can see that in the way my father talks about the songwriting process, which is an incredibly mysterious thing… Somebody else might have said, “Look, you’re too young to understand.” [But he explained that] it’s just by jumping in that it happens. I think in most of the things we do in life, it’s really about rolling up your sleeves, turning up, and doing it. Then it’ll work or it won’t, but there’s more chance of something happening if you just take that first step and jump off.

That reminds me of a moment in the film where you’re talking about deciding to go ahead with the park and you say, “Doubts poison ideas”…

Yeah, it’s about trust. My creative life has been like that. I’ve turned up for things that I had no clue how to do—how to make music for a film, how to write a book—but I’ve turned up and pushed away my anxiety. Even if I’ve failed in the process, which I often do, I’m at least glad I’ve turned up. The park was like that and I was very fortunate that it led me to Femke [den Haas, the founder and co-director] who has been extraordinary to be involved with.

Do you think that mentality dates back to your earliest projects?

For sure. But I come from a very working-class family where a lot of decisions were financial decisions based on: “We just can’t do that. You can’t have that.” So I’m aware of the reality of things but I do think my father, although he was stuck in the confines of his job and the family, was always curious, and he allowed our imaginations to take flight. My dad was basically an artist, a creative guy that couldn’t find his calling on the spot, but he made his calling where he could. That’s a really beautiful thing because not all artists are celebrated; it’s the process that’s important.

I don’t think many people that succeed are particularly talented or skilled. To succeed, it’s about having the capacity, the potential to let that imagination take flight, and for you to have some belief in the process, and work your way into it, and not be shut down early on. That’s way more important than having the technical skills. Most people you talk to don’t have a clue what they’re doing, and they’re the beautiful people in the circles that I move in. You know a few more things after 30 years, but you still don’t have a clue, in a way. You never know if [successful work] is going to happen again. You just can’t assume it, and the people that do assume it aren’t worth much salt, as far as I’m concerned. You need to be in deference to the creative act.

How do you keep going when you encounter those inevitable moments of self-doubt?

Sometimes I cry, think it’s all over. I’ve had that a couple of times but ultimately, you have to push through that because you know from past experiences that if you drop the ball at that moment, that’s not going to help; you have to step up. Ninety percent of the stuff that I’ve done, I’ve had no clue at all what to do—it’s down to a belief in the process. And if you try and it doesn’t work, that’s not the worst thing in the world.

I learned a massive thing working with Andrew Dominik on [the soundtrack for] The Assassination of Jesse James. He didn’t like what we [Ellis and Nick Cave] were doing and sent us back to the studio. Nobody had ever done that and if that score’s good, it’s because Andrew sent us back in again and made us work for it. I would much rather work with the people who go, “This is good, but I don’t know about this…” My creative life is about collaboration, and the park’s an extension of that. My work with Justin was a collaboration, too, and I see this as a film about the collaborative nature of the creative act, the fact that we aren’t just on our own doing all this stuff. Nobody is. There’s a whole team around us.

It all feels very synergetic. The work in the park is about people coming together to do something amazing with so much passion…

It’s this beautiful idea that everybody’s breathing life into and trying to help keep afloat. And the people that work there… it’s like god molded them with his own hands. My time there—two weeks living in the jungle—was life-changing, one of the most, dare I say, religious and spiritual experiences I’ve ever had. I’m very grateful that it happened because I couldn’t have walked into the things that I did after that—my dad dying, everything else in my life—without the type of filter that I have now. I went there thinking we were making a film about these wonderful animals but what really moved me was realizing that the most extraordinary animals are people when they put their best foot forward. There’s good and bad in everyone. I’ve done enough bad, and I’ll continue to do it too, but these are the things that remind us that we are good, we can do good.

I’m on tour with the Bad Seeds at the moment and the concerts we do are just the greatest moments of my life. Together, the audience, the band, and the technical team, we create something. There’s this thing that’s mutually inclusive. It’s the sum of its parts, and these are the things we need to immerse ourselves in.

What other lessons do you think emerged from the film?

The film turned out nothing like I thought, which is the nature of art and the creative process. I see this across all mediums, you’re following the stream and if it takes a bend, you go with it. Now, if you don’t and you’re rigid, there’s less likelihood that you’ll make something that’s of worth. You have to let go of your better judgment sometimes and just let it go. I know for Justin this film [his first non-fiction feature] was a very unique experience. He usually has a script, certain things he has to stick to but with this, he really didn’t. And the great thing is—and I notice this too when I’m making records and scores—you have these ideas but then actually a lot of the stuff you think is going to be in [the final work] is swept off, and these other little ideas that refuse to back down emerge. They’re insistent, these little ideas that keep raising their voices saying, “Help me. Help me.”

You mentioned the importance of collaborations within your career—like your collaboration with Nick Cave or the other members of the Dirty Three. What’s the secret to a successful collaboration?

The first thing is implicit trust. That’s not easy to find but when you do, you realize it’s the trust—that you can do whatever, make mistakes—that means you can take risks. It’s really about being able to take risks. But also I think by the time you’ve got together, it’s not by chance. It’s this confluence of streams: you’ve been immersing yourself in stuff all through your life, and other people have too, and then eventually you’re going to collide because you have similar [interests]… I’ve been with Dirty Three for 30-something years, and Nick for 25. I’ve worked with Andrew, now Justin, and Femke. It’s these long-standing collaborations that have given my creative life the longevity that it’s had, which I never anticipated.

Did you know quite quickly with each of these collaborators that your rapport was something special?

I think I probably did. It’s worth noting, too, that all of them—with the exception of Marianne Faithfull, who I did a few things with, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, who I did Mustang with who’s French and Turkish, and Femke, who’s Dutch—are Australians. Nick and Justin. Andrew grew up in Australia. Mick and Jim from Dirty Three. There’s something in the water there… I think Australians have a certain Wild West approach to things. We’re far enough away to create our own identity, but then you get out into the big world and realize you can compete on any stage. I only noticed this recently: when Australian art is working at its best, it’s irreverent, it can be funny, it can be poetic, but it’s always serious—there’s a seriousness about the craft.

Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the film’s score—you’re playing the whole thing, right?

Justin’s idea was that he didn’t want anything recorded outside of the film. So everything you hear is in the film, it’s recorded with the camera and stuff like that. So when there’s violin, I’m playing it and you see me play it, which I’ve never seen a film do before. With the exception of the studio stuff in Paris, which you’re technically hearing through the camera, all the music is real time. Early on, I was in Ballarat and I was playing the violin in the theater or wherever and this theme sort of started up, and Justin was like, “Maybe this is something we can develop throughout.” So by the time we got to Indonesia, there were these slightly different versions of it that were happening. I guess the film follows that idea of following a creative act—you see an idea from its genesis and then I develop it throughout. Then we went back to Paris and into the studio, probably a year after the initial shooting, and we recorded it.

I do like that the film shows the development of a piece—where it can go, and how an idea can take flight. I left that up to Nick and Andrew when they were doing the edit. I gave them a total 100 percent carte blanche to work as they wanted, because that’s how people have let me work my whole creative life, and who am I to rip that control out of somebody’s hands? Ultimately, the most important thing is letting people have their vision.

Warren Ellis recommends:

Beethoven’s symphonies 1-9 in one sitting

Seven Psalms by Nick Cave

The Ascent by Larisa Shepitko

Rose Tattoo by Rose Tattoo—best workout album

How to Disappear—photos by Colin Greenwood

Writer and literary agent Jaclyn Gilbert on resisting the pressures of the market

2024-12-23T03:00:00-05:00

You are the founder of Driftless Literary, an agenting collective committed to helping authors develop experimental or genre-bending work. What was your vision for the agency and what did it take to get it up and running?

I started Driftless in 2021, when I was in the wake of a lot of transition, spiritually, professionally, as a new parent and as a writer. In my early twenties, I went to a program called the Columbia Publishing Course in New York, and that was basically how I landed my first job in the industry. But after many years of committing to that path, I realized how unsustainable it was for me, not only financially, but creatively. In 2013, when I left publishing to get my MFA, and afterward—when I published my first novel in 2018—I came to see my path through an entirely new lens, a kind of double lens as both an editor/writer.

Moving forward, I knew I wanted to provide authors with the care and attention most agents are unable to provide around the writing process, focused as they are on bringing in sizable commissions around a future book sale. This incentivizes agents to make edits that serve the market, not based on what the work is asking for at its core, and I wanted to be able to offer this as an agent, to carve out a particular niche for this focus.

Driftless began as an experiment for creating a process-driven space for empowering authors to stay true to their vision in ways the traditional market hasn’t yet made space for. The year I started Driftless, I was working as a freelance agent through a boutique agency on an hourly basis that wasn’t sustainable. When I left that agency, my current list of authors wanted to follow me. But early into [the agency’s] inception, I also quickly learned that it wouldn’t be possible for me to work on a commission-only basis on experimental projects that tend to sell for marginal amounts. I also knew that the care I wanted to provide authors with as an editor far exceeded what I could provide within a standard agenting package, which was a breakthrough for me in terms of the structure I would need if I wanted Driftless to exist and grow alongside a rapidly changing industry.

Over time, I came up with a strategy that creates individual plans for the authors we represent for a flat fee informed by the market and our mutual goals for collaborating on the publishing process. We are very selective about the projects we take on, between 4-7 per year. Now that the agency has grown into a collective of three agents—me, Adrian Shirk, and Christine Kalafus, both of whom are authors and offer a specific set of skills to round out our model—we work in unison to collaborate with our authors to finish the final editing stages of a project to ensure it’s ready for submission, as well as tailor a comprehensive list of publishers that span the literary mainstream, independent, and small press markets. Knowing that our projects are destined for smaller publishers, we also waive our commission on the first $1,500 that comes in to ensure authors receive back their upfront investment in our services moving forward. We want authors to feel that by investing in us they are investing in themselves, that they can walk away from the submission process clear-eyed in their vision, knowing that no matter what happens they didn’t change their work for a capricious market. I don’t think you can quantify that mentality as an artist; it’s what allows you to keep writing through uncertainty, keep submitting despite obstacles, keep searching for your community among readers and fellow writers.

On Driftless’ website, you write, “The editorial insight is meant to amplify and celebrate a work in progress rather than omit ideas rooted in market-based fears.” I like that phrase, “not omit ideas,” which I take to mean allowing space for the unknowable. Do you think a reason the publishing industry is so risk-averse has to do with low tolerance for nuanced literature? Is the fear around market value a fear of complexity?

Definitely. I think you really razor into this question well. It is another guiding impulse for why I wanted to create something like Driftless within an increasingly commercialized landscape. As a writer, I faced this issue the most when my second unpublished novel was on submission. This second novel—the one that has not yet sold—received the same feedback from larger-scale trade publishers that it was too quiet, that there wasn’t enough action or plot-based salability to sustain a larger readership. But when I took a step back to think about what they were saying, I realized that it was less about “plot” and more about the resistance to ambiguity in our contemporary marketplace because this book dealt with a lot of gray area around the question of Amish forgiveness in response to human atrocity, and what it means to free ourselves from past narratives that no longer serve us.

This generalized feedback from editors—that the work needed to be louder to sell—was hard for me to confront as someone who reads literature that lets me sit in the gray area, challenging me to ask more questions than it does provide answers, opening me up to the vast unknowns of the human conditions, the ironies we can’t clearly pin down or contain, hard as we might try. And the industry doesn’t like this, because their goal is to market a book, and often that requires taking a stance on things, rather than working together to consider what the book is trying to do and building a vision and platform around that. The industry wants to feel clear on what ideas they are advocating when they publish a particular book, rather than what are the core philosophical questions the work is asking the reader to grapple with and inhabit.

When a bookseller calls a book too quiet this usually means: “What do we write for the sales copy on the back of a book?” Or “How are we going to plug this into a measure algorithm for our marketing plan?” Ambiguity becomes a big deterrent that way. I think we’re also living in a climate of extremes—a fear-based political climate at odds with the inherent unknowns of artmaking. There’s a huge middle, a wide gray area, within the edges of extremes, and when you’re not in a specific camp about something, or you aren’t taking a stance on it in the work then, there’s a sense that maybe it’s not as valid. But why can’t we allow multiple points of view to coexist in a given work, just as we allow paradoxical dualities to coexist in our human condition as we navigate our mortality, grief, and loss?

In our current climate, there’s also a resistance to nuance as it relates to genre. Mainstream publishing insists on classifying books across a broad commercial to literary spectrum that needs more sub-genres to diversify and celebrate world literature. Our current labels are designed for the ease of bookstores for reaching a target market—in terms of which book will be easy to read or popular and likely to sell out (commercial books), and which books are designed for readers looking for more out of their reading experience (literary books)—a classification that is far too broad to serve a much wider gamut for literary artmaking today. As it stands, genres exist as placeholders for market-concerns, not as true markers of what a book is or can be when it is absorbed inside a reader’s mind separate from what they expect. I am curious about how we can work together to open people up to the possibility of reading something that they might have never picked up or thought they’d enjoy otherwise.

With your knowledge of the agenting world, and experience navigating pushback regarding marketability, how do you approach your own work as a writer now? How has this shifted your perspective and process?

From a kind of concrete market perspective, I knew the industry wasn’t serving writers, especially out of MFA programs where you’re given all this freedom to tell your story in different ways and are encouraged to embrace your individual process—but once you leave your MFA community and consider publishing—whether that means submitting on your own to small presses or querying agents—you start getting all of these voices from the industry that are super confusing to reconcile.

Before my second novel went out to publishers, I struggled with this myself. My agent wanted me to change the gender of a character and take out my favorite parts of the book according to market factors—mainly her desire for the book to sell to a book club market. I remember telling myself: this is just what you have to do sometimes; you have to reconcile with the market if you want the story to reach a larger audience. But then when the book didn’t sell I was left with the knowledge that I’d changed the core of my work for an end goal that not only didn’t enhance what I was trying to do, but fundamentally undercut what I loved best about my project. I felt a kind of dead energy around the manuscript afterward—one I’m just starting to find the energy to reinvigorate now. It required writing a whole other book quietly for the past three years, with the support of my colleagues Adrian and Christine. As a result, it’s asking me to go far deeper into my process, informed by my vision for Driftless as a space that lives in the gray, along with my struggle to write simply for the sake of it: because it enriches my life, giving me the energy to do what I love and share that energy with those I love, hoping it gives them something to build from and out of, too.

More than ever, I am on a journey to align my writing with the process of Driftless: which is that failure and rejection are at the heart of everything we do as artists, but you can’t change your work for an illusory outcome. The most important thing is that we keep working. A book deal is separate from the work of showing up for your voice, separate from capitalism, because we can’t define our worth through a published book, only through the joy we feel when we make space for our inner lives to flourish.

Having been on both sides of that writer-agent dynamic, what are your thoughts on processing editorial feedback? You used the word ‘prescriptive’ before—do you have rules for how to incorporate critiques and suggestions while staying true to a vision?

One of the things that has become definitive for me around starting Driftless is that I don’t ever want another writer to look back and feel regret that they conformed to another person’s feedback. To the point where they would always wonder what it would have been like to have stood by what they believed in. I feel the same about my work. I’m at a point now where I’ve done the thing where I pleased my agent. I’ve made changes for market factors that I don’t think were worth it in the end, even if a book had sold and I’d made a lot of money on it. In the end, we need to find our readers, to build community from that space—and my job as the agent is to provide that community by asking the right questions. When I’m reading, more than whether it will sell, I ask: Can I help the author do this even more clearly? How can I help amplify the voice, the structure, the language? I welcome authors to come back and say, hey, that’s actually not the direction I want to go, or, I see what you mean, but I meant this.

In offering feedback, my goal is for it to be always generative, for it to align as closely as possible with the original intentions of the work, allowing me to determine not just what I take on, but why and how I take it on long-term.

It’s like part of your job within Driftless is to help the writer not become distracted or clouded by all the noise.

Exactly. And it’s good practice for me too, because I really struggle with incorporating feedback that is focused on what the work wants rather than what the reader desires separately. Another writer whom I trust could say something really prescriptive about what they want from my writing, for instance—and tempted as I am to listen and follow their direction, I’ve also learned to listen only to the feedback which sparks something within my own process, regardless of whom the feedback is coming from. If the feedback sparks a question lurking below the surface of the work I hadn’t yet discerned—suddenly illuminating it, I will think: yes, that’s a really good question, I do want to go deeper with that. But if the feedback doesn’t provide the spark—and I realize that I’m going to have to perform massive surgery to make it work—it’s probably not organic, threatening to take me away from the core of the project. So much of the real work is separating voices that are generative from those that aren’t—and when we do it right—taking in that which serves the fire, and letting go of that which distracts—we are filling ourselves with the energy we need to return to the drawing table again and again. The more I write and edit and agent, the more I believe we have to go where the energy is, both inside and outside our process, holding tight to it if we’re going to stay true to ourselves and build community with the right readers along the way.

In an interview with L’Esprit Literary Review, you said, about working on your most recent manuscript, “I let myself write a kind of monologue that asked for repeated expansion.” Could describe this idea or sensation of a repeated expansion and what that looked like for you?

It’s really interesting you say that because I’m actually at a crossroads with this idea in general, which I think is part of finding my voice. This is hard for me and actually makes me a bit emotional to consider in a larger sense. I guess that with this project, I felt something bigger than me when I was working on it, a voice that felt a bit, unbridled, one that needed more space than I was giving it, or was allowing myself to give it. When I say repeated expansion, I think I mean, something that needs more room to exist outside of linear time and space. That which you can’t name or easily contain. This otherness inside of us.

But it’s hard to manage this process on the page. When I think about revision, I think we have these specific scenes or moments or ideas that want to add up to the story we are exploring within us in ways that feel largely unknown. We have to sift through a lot of inner monologue to get there, a lot of fear and censorship. But beyond that space, there is the chance for expanding into an otherness that becomes transformative—for me, it feels like a particular interiority hungry to beat out beyond the page. I feel most alive in the language, and in the images and emotions that want to ripple out of that space. It fills me with joy, one that runs counter from the desire to contain, measure, or control. Expansion is the other side of myself I’ve been in constant dialogue with since my teens; my achievement-focused-side, which stems from years of competitive distance running at odds with my most poetic, human impulses.

It’s reassuring to encounter an agency like Driftless, to see a commitment to the advancement of literature that is unconventional, by mainstream standards.

There is a lot of sparkling imagery around what success looks like in publishing. But for 95 percent of published writers on this path, it doesn’t look like what we see online or in bookstores at all. Through Driftless, I want to create more transparency around what the actual process of publishing looks like. Even when you’re getting published, it’s actually really terrible for a lot of people. They’re grieving the process of letting go of something that has lived inside of them for years, something that is sacred, and when you go into the market, you are asked to challenge your values, to shift your attention away from the quiet work of writing to the outward enterprise of marketing and publicity. Suddenly you’re expected to spend more time on social media than you ever imagined you would. Suddenly you have to advocate for yourself in all of these uncomfortable ways to stay on top of the process with your publisher, all while bracing yourself for the unknowns of reviews and sales that threaten to take you away from your writing process.

As writers we have to learn to compartmentalize this space separate from the artistic space that we write from. I want Driftless to be a community that helps authors do that by educating them on everything we’ve learned as an agency on their behalf, as well as giving them strategies for conserving their energy so they are saving the bulk of it for their writing, the thing that gives them meaning and purpose moving forward. In December 2024, we are going to start a series of online classes for writers available through our website. We want writers to become their own agents at the end of the day, deciding what path feels right for them season by season, project by project.

Jaclyn Gilbert recommends:

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway - to get out of linear time

Investing in a pen you love to free-write until you can no longer read what you are writing

Mixing up texture of paper (ledgers, napkins, onion thin journal paper)

A favorite loop to walk to think + record ideas

Looking for a particular type of bird (common or not) while walking

Writer and editor Aiyana Ishmael on finding authenticity

2024-12-23T03:00:00-05:00

Something I’ve always admired about you is your drive and your ambition. Can I ask what helps you stay focused on your goals?

For me personally, everything I do, I’m doing it because I love it—desperately, wholeheartedly love it. That is where that motivation comes from. I think a lot of people sometimes are chasing a career, a path, or a creative platform because they see everyone is doing it, not because they’re actually interested in the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with it.

I stay motivated because it’s the only thing I love. I make time for it. I make time to learn and I make time to grow and to get better at this thing that I say I love so much.

For me, growing up as an athlete—having a dad who’s a football coach, a mom who played collegiate volleyball—I always approach everything with a sports background, where like you either go to practice and get better or you don’t and you stay the same. That’s kind of how I approach my art, my writing, and my work. I can either do something today that puts me closer to my goals or it helps me get better and stronger as a writer, or I can do nothing and I can stay the same and that’s my choice.

There are many days where I do nothing, because I don’t feel like it. But for the most part I always approach it kind of with that almost black and white sports mentality.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think sometimes with creative work, there can be this illusion that, “Oh, it’s all so subjective, so what’s the point in working on it?”

A hundred percent.

But you’re right, you can improve anything with practice.

Yeah. I tell everyone that when I was in college, I was editor-in-chief of our student magazine, and all these freshmen and sophomores came to me and said that they want to be a better writer. But there was this one girl, and she was the only one that actually showed up every day. By the end of that freshman year, her writing had grown exponentially, especially when you compare it to the other people that weren’t showing up and writing articles.

It’s hard, because it is creative. But there is something to say about someone that doesn’t give up, and they keep fighting and pushing for it. Especially in the creative space, you will get better if you chase after it every day.

My next question is, where do you go to seek inspiration?

Honestly, I go outside. It sounds so silly, but I think people are quick to trap themselves in a room and think they need to get work done that way. You have to feel inspired. Living in New York City has also really changed my perspective, because it’s such an interesting city. There’s so many people that just when they walk past you, there’s just this energy about them that makes you wonder what’s their story and how did they get to where they are today.

I also love volunteering. Volunteering and meeting people of all ages from all backgrounds, it really has helped me just have more creativity. And I think the only way I can get inspired is just by seeing the world.

Obviously some people don’t have the privilege to travel. But I think it’s also just in your city. When I was in Tallahassee, that’s also how I got a lot of my story ideas for my publication. I would go walk around because it’s like you need to take in the world around you. It just reminds you that you’re in this present moment and that there’s so much to be explored.

I feel like you’ve had a slightly less traditional path to media, which I think can be viewed as kind of this archaic, super-elitist profession. So I’m curious, did you deal with any self-doubt early on in your career and how did you deal with that?

Yeah, I 100 percent dealt with self-doubt I think from the beginning. I always tell everyone I wasn’t the strongest writer in high school. Everyone took AP [Advanced Placement] Lang and AP Lit. I took them as well. I remember my junior year of high school just feeling so demoralized because I was sitting in my AP Language course, and I was getting fours on our practice exams. I was in a class with some of my friends and some people I didn’t know, who were literally getting the highest score. I can’t remember if it was an eight or a nine. Whatever it was, they were getting eights to nines. I remember just feeling so down about myself and my writing.

Then I just remember this one moment has honestly stayed with me. It was the day before the AP Lang exam and our teacher was going around the room hyping everyone up individually. I was getting so anxious when she was coming to me, because obviously she had just gone by all the girlies that had gotten eights and nines all year long and said, “I’m not worried about y’all, y’all are going to do perfect.” So when she was coming to me, I got so nervous. I remember she stopped and she looked at me and she said, “Aiyana.” I was like, “Oh Lord, here it goes. She’s going to tell me just do your best, sweetie.”

But she looked me in my face and with all sincerity was like, “Some people are born with it and some people aren’t.” She was like, “You are born with it.” She was like, “There’s nothing else to it.” I just remember taking that in so deeply, because I needed it.

I think it also stuck with me because it reminded me that I don’t have to be the best in the room, but that there’s a quality about me that is worth it. That really pushed me.

Then there were a lot of ups and downs obviously once I got to college. I didn’t immediately go to university. I went to community college, so that obviously played a huge part in just me doubting my abilities because I felt like I was going to be behind. I honestly just had to remind myself, I’m Christian. I grew up very Christian, and just believing that God has me on a specific path has really been helpful for me personally.

I think even taking God out of it, it’s just knowing that you have a specific journey, you have a specific path. Everything that has happened to me and everything that will happen is a part of my story. And so honestly, when I’m feeling down, I have to remind myself that my journey is mine only and everything that happens is for a reason.

What scares you at this point in your career and how do you manage that?

I think there is a constant fear that I’m always thinking about. It hasn’t really happened yet, but it’s the reason why I’m very mindful. I would never want any work I put out to not feel like, “Oh, this came from Aiyana.”

How do you make sure that the work you put out feels like you?

I think on the nine to five side, just being more vocal. The biggest thing is just literally speaking up for myself, and actually not being afraid to push back on an edit, or a specific line that I really like and I feel like adds to the story.

I’ve now done that a couple times, fighting for just—even if it’s just a sentence that I feel like needs to be in the story, for it to feel like an Aiyana story.

Then on the personal, it’s really just not rushing the process. Now I’m in the journey of writing fiction and it’s so easy to compare yourself, and to see other people getting book deals and to be in this weird space where I have agents reaching out to me, but they’re specifically looking for something that I’m not working on. It’s like it’s so close, you can taste it. I want to rush the process, but I have to remind myself like “No, slow down. This is your passion project.” I think I’m just trying to remind myself it’ll come and I’m not going to push myself to finish it just to get it done. I want to make sure that it’s done the way that Aiyana will do it.

I’m curious how you have learned to define success after meeting all these benchmarks, like Forbes 30 Under 30, and you have this job at Teen Vogue. So when did you decide, this is what success looks like to me?

I was just having this conversation in a meeting for a panel I’m about to do at our summit, and it was about what happens once you get all your dreams. Obviously I’m 26, I have so many more dreams to create and worlds to want to be involved in. But in a lot of ways, the things that I thought I would be doing at this age, I’ve done, even as simple as getting on the Forbes 30 Under 30. I was just like, “Oh, cool, that’s crazy that that happened.”

Then of course, Teen Vogue is the one place I’ve always said I wanted to work. So it’s hard because it’s like once you’ve gotten to this point, you’re like, “Oh, well, what do I do now?” I think in the last year especially, I spent a lot of time sitting, reflecting, and wondering, “Okay, what do I want next?” “What do I want out of life separate from my job?”

For me personally, it’s now looking at success holistically and wondering what a successful and healthy life looks like when I’m not solely Aiyana from Teen Vogue. I don’t want that to always be who I am and define who I am, especially.

It’s asking myself at the end of the day, if I am just me separate from my job, do I feel happy? Do I feel loved? Do I have community? Are the people in my life supporting me a hundred percent? Are the co-workers and the colleagues that I keep in my inner circle, are they speaking highly of me? Are they fighting for me in the rooms that I’m not in?

If I can’t say yes to those kinds of questions, then I’m not successful and I’m not happy and I’m not where I need to be. I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s become less about titles and awards and more about, am I a good person? Are the people around me good people? I want people that push back and remind me that there’s so much work still to be done, not even just professionally, but just as people and as humans, that there’s so much kindness to give to other people.

My last question is how do you deal with rejection?

I’m big on letting yourself feel what you feel. I’ll never forget this. I was so dramatic. It was when I was in college. I had applied for The New York Times. They have this one-year fellowship that’s usually for early career journalists, and it was something that I thought I really, really wanted.

I’ll never forget, I made one grammatical error that wasn’t that big. It was forgetting a comma or I think putting a comma where I didn’t need one. While it was small, that’s something they definitely check for. I remember I didn’t notice it until after I’d already submitted my application, and I couldn’t unsend the application and reapply again. I literally looked probably so insane to the people that were there.

I was in our Convergence J School area in the Journey Magazine office, but our offices are open, see-through glass windows. You can see through it basically. I remember sitting at the computer in that open space and I just freaked out. I started crying. There was a box of Journey Magazine keychains. I started throwing them at the walls and I was so mad. I was like, “How could you do this? I just was like, “How could you make this silly mistake, Aiyana?” I was so upset, started crying, freaking out.

I remember turning around and then seeing two people that were sitting in the middle of the Convergence, they kind of just were looking at me. And I was like, “Oh.” It kind of brought me back into reality. I got in my car. I drove to this nature hike that they had. I literally parked there and I went for a walk, and I just let myself cry.

I walked for about an hour and I got back in my car and I said, “There’s nothing you can do. If they really want you, they’ll still hire you. They will get over this comma. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” I’m big on letting yourself feel whatever the hell you feel in that moment. I think it’s diminishing to try to say, you shouldn’t feel sad, angry, disappointed about not getting something.

If you really wanted it and you were passionate about it, you will have emotions about not getting something. We’re all human. You can’t pretend or hide it. I think suppressing your emotions is worse in the long run. You’ll just blow up months later. I think for me personally with rejection, you first have to feel whatever emotion you’re feeling.

You just have to do what you have to do to feel what you feel, and then you make a plan, “Okay, am I going to reapply next year? Am I going to pivot and try something different?” That’s exactly what I did. I didn’t get The New York Times, but I got Wall Street Journal that summer, and so I spent the summer at the Journal. And then the first week at the Journal, the job at Teen Vogue opened up, and then I got the job at Teen Vogue. So I think it all works out for a reason.

Aiyana Ishmael recommends:

TirTir Mask Fit Red Cushion Foundation

Neutrogena Hydrating Lip Sleeping Mask

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Subscribing To Your Local Hometown Newspaper

Survivor Season 20

Author Jami Attenberg on establishing boundaries

2024-12-20T03:00:00-05:00

I read your newsletter and I know this year has been full-on with the publication of two books [1000 Words and A Reason to See You Again]. How do you manage to take time for yourself and your work during busy periods like this?

I find it a lot easier when I’m traveling to work on newsletter-related stuff than to work on my new novel. So I just kind of lean into whatever is calling to me or is available to me. When I’m traveling and doing readings and Q&As, and also teaching workshops, so much of the conversation is about process and creativity, either my process or process in general. I end up getting really inspired and taking notes and getting ideas for newsletters from that, more than I’m going to get ideas for my novel, because I’m talking about a different novel. I’m still living in that world, in that universe. That said, I am still looking at my [new] novel every day and thinking about it every day, and I usually get one or two ideas when I go on walks. I try to take walks every day if I can when I’m on tour, just to clear my head.

Why do you think it’s important to share with your newsletter readers—presumably many, if not most, of whom are writers themselves—your weekly practice?

I’m only sharing parts of myself. I have really specific boundaries and things that I’m willing to talk about, so I’m kind of hitting the same notes. I don’t think it’s boring, and I don’t think it’s repetitive, but there are specific themes and parts of my life that I’m discussing. I’m not going to presume that everybody reading the newsletter is necessarily interested in [being a published author nor] what the life of a published author is like, but it is the life that I have and the one that I’m able to share. And hopefully it’s a little bit interesting.

What do you say to people who enjoy writing for the craft of it and don’t have any aspirations to make it their work?

I think it’s the same concern. Everybody has the same concerns if they’re trying to write a book, which are, “How do I stay focused? How do I get rid of distractions? How do I stay inspired? How do I gather and sustain momentum to get me to the end?” I could go on and on. But the challenges are the same for everybody in order to get across that finish line. My newsletter isn’t a newsletter about getting published, it’s just a newsletter about writing.

How do you decide what to keep private?

I come from a place of experience of oversharing. We called it online journals then, in 1998, and I was definitely an over-sharer. Also, nobody was reading me. Nobody was reading the internet, and it was just the wild west. But at some point, you learn that people are reading it. So once I started publishing books and started getting interviewed, I probably started to straighten up my act a little bit.

I started writing a memoir, so I started looking at all the things that I had shared, all these [events] from my past that I had carved into stories. I had a giant Word document that had every essay I’d ever written, ever published. I had to decide which things I wanted to bring to the forefront and which things I didn’t. I was becoming more thoughtful about it. I had a moment where I started to think, “I’ve got to figure out what my boundaries are. I really have to stick to them.” I give that advice all the time because sometimes people don’t ever have that conversation with themselves. Often we’re just like, “It’s instinctual. It’s fun. It’s organic. It’s playful. It’s wild. It’s free. Who’s paying attention? How can I get attention?”

You recently posted about “working smarter.” What does that mean to you?

For me, [working smarter means] figuring out what I need to do and figuring out the least amount of time it takes to do it. I don’t have to answer every email that’s sent to me. I appreciate that people send me emails, but I don’t have to respond to them. Not sitting at a desk any longer than I need to sit at the desk just because I feel like I should sit at the desk. Really trusting myself to know when I’ve done a good day’s work. And I think a really important thing about working smarter is always leaving something for yourself in the morning so there’s always momentum.

Are you ever worried about actually losing that momentum? Like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got this great idea, I’m going to leave that for tomorrow,” and then you pull up to the desk and you’ve forgotten.

No, I’ll write down just enough that I’m like, “Okay, this is what I meant.” A sentence or two. I feel like I know what I’m doing. This is not going to sound good, but I just have been [writing] for so long, so I know my patterns and I know my rhythms, and I trust myself. I leave myself with an idea that I’m really excited to tackle in the morning, and then I often am thinking about it anyway. It’s sort of still in my brain and I’m sleeping on it, and when I wake up, it feels very full and rich and a little bit more developed because I’ve let it simmer.

No, it doesn’t sound bad. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

It’s part of my skill set that I’m a productive person. There are people out there who just are not productive, or they’re going to take 10 years to write their book and that’s one part of their skillset, but they don’t have that other part of it. But they hopefully know how valuable the skills that they have are. I know that this is one of my valuable skills: that I can be productive and hopefully inspire other people to be productive, too.

Part of how you’re inspiring others is through your 1000 Words newsletter that is now a book. How did it eventuate and when did you decide to turn it into a book?

I had been using 1,000 words as a marker of a good day since I wrote my first book. I was working on All This Could Be Yours, my seventh novel, in 2018, and I kind of needed to get to the end of it. I was talking with a friend of mine who was trying to put together a book proposal, and she was a high school teacher so her most productive times were in the summer. It was just about her summer vacation, we were sitting having a drink, and we just decided, “Let’s do 1,000 words a day for two weeks straight, like a little mini boot camp.” I tweeted that I was going to write 1,000 words a day for two weeks and maybe 200 people replied, “Oh, I want to do it, too.” I created a newsletter—not Substack, something else—but it maxed out at 5,000 people. It was just a place I could send people emails from. I asked writer friends to write little notes within the emails. There was no big plan. There was no, “Seven years from now, this is going to be a book that I’ll go on tour for.”

By the end of the first year, we had 2,000 people signed up. The following year, 5,000. Every year, it just kept growing. And 2020 was when so many people were at home and it blew up in a different kind of way. Now about 47,000 people are signed up for the mailing list. I would say between 32,000 and 35,000 people will read each letter, something like that. It’s a pretty good readership. The actual 1,000 Words of Summer, it’s impossible to say how many people do it. There are people who do it who aren’t signed up for the newsletter, who literally have just heard of a thing called 1,000 Words of Summer, and they just do that. There’s also people who do 1,000 Words of Summer all the time, who’ll restart it and get the letters.

What if someone can’t write 1000 words a day? Because there are other elements to writing other than sitting down and actually putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

1,000 words is really a metaphor. 1,000 words is what works for me. I make my living as a writer. I have deadlines to meet. I have schedules. I need a really specific structure, and that number makes me feel comfortable. It doesn’t make sense if you’re a poet or a screenwriter or a science writer. 1,000 words is a good day’s work. That said, there are plenty of people who have full-time jobs or who are caregivers or just have things in their life. And to them, I would say, “Can you find an hour to write? Can you write 200 words and do that every day? Or do that five days a week, or make a commitment to show up for yourself regularly? Whatever you’re capable of, however fast you write, however much time you have, can you carve out a spot in your life that is specifically for your creative practice, whatever that means?” It’s not just about being a writer. There are people from other creative practices who are reading 1,000 Words and getting something out of it. It can be about being really specific about the numbers and the word count and creating deadlines and systems for yourself, but it can also just be about showing up for yourself every day.

How did you manage to make writing your main job?

I just was really passionate about it. I worked in advertising. I worked in copywriting. I did some freelance writing for magazines and newspapers and things like that when it sort of still made sense to do that, where you were making money off of it. Sometimes there were smaller book projects. I wrote a pop-up book once, and I would do city guides. I would go and do copywriting, and I would save up a little bit so that I could take a couple months off to just sit and write. Or I would sublet my apartment in New York, and then I would go house sit for somebody somewhere and have a couple of months. That was after I’d published three books. I just kind of kept scraping along, but there was no hidden source of income. In fact, I was very badly in credit card debt. I really don’t recommend this career to anyone, to be honest with you. Unless you can’t shake it. Unless you’re just like, “I’m so hooked on writing and I have so much I have to say, and I’ll just do whatever it takes to make it happen.” It requires so much work, indulgence, and focus.

Where do you get your ideas?

Everywhere. I always remain curious. Listening to people, paying attention, being out in the world, knowing what I need to fill the well, recognizing those moments—that’s how I access those ideas. I write a lot about where I live, or have lived.

You live in New Orleans now. What’s it like living in a place that’s so vulnerable to climate change? Does that come up for you in your work?

I’m just starting to write about it now in my new novel. Not specifically about [climate change], but [New Orleans] is a crumbling city. It is a beautiful, magical, flawed, crumbling city that I love deeply. It’s a city that’s like nowhere else, but it’s also an American city. You can use crumbling as an apt descriptor for many things about America, and also many things about being a person and getting older and being in the literary world or being in the media world, and all those things feel to me like they’re shifting rapidly. So it’s just a question of how I’m going to connect those dots in fiction.

Do you ever get burnt out?

When I said earlier, “I created these boundaries,” it was part of a bigger plan and putting bigger systems into place. Knowing that the vision wasn’t going to necessarily hold steady forever, but putting a plan into place. I just try to be really responsible. Everything feels really small to me. The form of writing a letter feels very small and intimate to me. I like it that way, and I feel really comfortable about that.

Jami Attenberg recommends:

Good Girl by Aria Aber

Two-Step Devil by Jamie Quatro

Mother Doll by Katya Apekina

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

Janet Planet

Visual artist Jon Pylypchuk on art as an archive of a life

2024-12-20T03:00:00-05:00

What’s your relationship to working with galleries and collectors?

It’s weird. It’s changed so much in the 25 years that I’ve been involved with art. I won’t say it’s unrecognizable from what it was 20 years ago, but there’s definitely a professionalism that takes the soul out of work for me. And I long to see that soul return.

What does that look like to you?

Well, if you look at Leo Castelli as being somebody who was also about artwork—he basically went to people who did other things for a living, and said, “This is important. This is something you should look at, and this is why it’s important.” We used to see that more frequently in the early 2000s, late ’90s, early 2000s. After the economy crashed in 2008, art adapted to what the collectors wanted, which really isn’t the best thing for art. I also struggle about the idea of art now being only about making objects. I think art is an archive of a life.

I see a lot of artists being, like, “I’ve got my shit, I’ve got my outlet, and we’re going to sell as many of these as we can.” And if any threads are out of line, then they need to be fixed, because that’s not professional.

I came up in a much messier art world. I’m sure that it exists, and I need to look harder for it, but I think that’s, to me, the main difference. LA used to be a place where it was significantly cheaper than New York. And as a result, a lot more novelty was created, because you could talk to people that weren’t thinking about the three jobs that they have to do. Artists here don’t have boredom time.

i will stop fighting you when death stops fucking with me, 2005, mixed media; 64 x 72 x 72 inches, 162.6 x 182.9 x 182.9 cm.

How did your show this year come about? Did it come from boredom time?

No, that came from intense time. One of my closest friends, when we were in midst of the pandemic, was always making art. And we were getting charged up from this excitement, like, “This is the moment where we’re all going to change, and it doesn’t need to be the same.” And I ended up visiting my friend, and the next day, he texted me, “I think I have COVID.”

I said, “I think you’re having a heart attack.” We always ended our texts with, “I love you.” And that was the last thing that he ever texted me.

So I’m dealing with this soul-crushing loss. I ended up making all these ghosts that ended up being shown in New York. But nothing was pre-planned. I wasn’t making it for the show. But it was all, like, using his socks, and things he owned. Hats and stuff like that. I started making bronzes.

Sometimes I think the best things that I make are straight out of, like, who knows where, and I’m lucky to be a conduit. It was not unlike in the early 2000s, when a lot of the work that I made was this fear that my parents were going to die, and then they died.

That’s so hard.

My dad would have been 100 years old this year. My mom was one of the youngest in her family. Everyone was old. We were in and out of the hospital visiting people all the time. People were croaking all the time. The only way we dealt with it was through humor. Sometimes awful humor.

i’ve got love for you, 2023, mixed media installation, dimensions variable.

I can see that. Your work reminds me of the way that people actually mourn.

I remember when I was a kid, so many family members had died, and my mother had congestive heart failure and we were in the hospital. And the doctor’s like, “Do you have a sister?” To my mom. And she said, “Yeah.” And the doctor goes, “She’s one floor above you.” She had congestive heart failure on the same day. So, that was hilarious.

And I go up to her room. She’s sitting on her hospital bed. And I said, “Are you going to die? Do I have to go casket shopping?” And she’s like, “Oh my god, Jonathan. I’m not dying today.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And she says, “do me a favor. Find me an orderly, and get me a cigarette.”

That’s the kind of people my family comes from. And that was the way my young life had started—with death.

When you finished making that show did you feel a catharsis from the grief over these deaths?

It definitely was, but, unfortunately, like, too much of a catharsis in some ways. Because I am finding it hard to make new things.

l, 2023, found object rug with fake fur; 60 x 96 inches, 152.4 x 243.8 cm.

How do you handle these liminal moments where it is hard to create art?

Probably with gratitude and fear. This is the third or fourth time where I’m like, “Okay. It’s over. I’ve got to get a teaching job.”

I think that community-building is important, and I’ve been trying to do more of that. The most prolific output was during the early 2000s in Chinatown where we spent five nights a week working and talking with artists, writers, and actors. Cross-pollinating ideas. I’m sure those spaces exist for younger people, but I don’t know.

I don’t know if they do. The art students that I know seem much more commercially-minded.

I made this comment to somebody this week on Tuesday in a painting class, and this person was talking about that.

He was saying, “How do I put this work in front of this group, or should I not go for that group? Should I go for this group?” And I was like, “You named the band before you wrote any songs.” Like, write some songs, then name your band and figure out what you’re going to wear.

And I get it. If you’re paying $3000 a month for your apartment, and you’re working three jobs to be able to just do that, I imagine you’re probably going to think, “Well, how do I get out of this? I’m going to make the thing that’s going to make me the most money.” Which is not an ignoble thing to do when you’re coming out of grad school with a ton of debt.

But it seems that in ecosystems like LA or New York, the artists have a harder time making the work, and the collectors have a harder time buying the work that is harder. In other places, though, people don’t always think of collecting as accumulation. They think of it as stewardship, and then all you’re doing is saving a bit of humanity.

the pack (i will always love you), 2010, spray foam, exterior house paint, denim, metal, spray paint, resin, wood, and lightbulbs; 60 x 60 x 24 inches, 152.4 x 152.4 x 61 cm.

I completely agree. I really liked the show you curated at Megan Mulrooney. Is curating a kind of community building for you?

That was part of the idea. In 2013, a friend of mine and I opened a gallery in downtown LA. At the gallery, we didn’t have a desk, we just had a giant table. So, if anybody came in, there was a lot of conversation. You would come to see the show, and you’d go upstairs and see what everyone was doing. Collectors come in, and they’re almost ignored, but commerce gets done to make sure that the doors and lights are still open and on for the following weekend.

i have thought deep through this trouble, 2005, mixed media on panel; 60 x 48 x 2 inches, 152.4 x 121.9 x 5.1 cm.

Do you feel like there are ethical boundaries that you have as an artist?

An artist is usually either a witch or a businessperson. I fall into the witch category. The few times that I’ve tried to put myself into the businessperson category, it’s not been very satisfying. So the only ethics that I try and follow is not to be a businessperson. I try to be sincere as much as I can.

How has your approach to artmaking changed since you were starting out?

When I was having a lot of success in my early career, it was really easy to not pay attention to what I was doing. Then one day, I realized that I bought a house in Canada. And then, all of a sudden, I was like, “Oh, I’m good at this. People think I’m good at this.”

But it was in that moment of self-consciousness that I really started to disassemble anything that had brought me to that point. It was this weird struggle of getting to where I felt like I had nothing left, and then, in that despair, having this resurgence where all of that sincerity comes back. Then you realize that you’re good at it again, and then you’re like, “I’m good at this,” and then you can’t make work anymore.

You are covered sweetness, we outlast this worn out time, 2019, fabric, wood glue, watercolor,glitter,black cue balls, polyurethane, wood, on linen on panel; framed Dimensions: 63 1/2 x 93 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches, 161.3 x 237.5 x 8.3 cm.

What is the resurgence like?

I used to listen to Katy Perry’s “Firework” over and over again. As a self-help motivational, listening to “Firework” over and over again in my studio, embarrassingly dancing around to it. I almost get into, like, a trance. Thinking like, “I’m a firework. I know I’m a firework.”

And then I would look at the work after, and say, “How did I do that? I don’t know how I just did that.”

Because I was a firework.

Because I was a firework.

Jon Pylypchuk Recommends:

I would cross a freeway for divacorp_usa

Kyle Chayka’s book Filter World

Artist Eric Wesley

Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters album

Walking

Untitled, 2021, six elements: High Polish Bronze; overall installed dimensions: 17 x 22 x 20 inches, 43.2 x 55.9 x 50.8 cm.

[Credit for all images: Courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.]

Writer and science journalist Sabrina Imbler on not waiting to release your best work

2024-12-19T03:00:00-05:00

What are you working on right now?

I’m thinking of it as my Bug Book. I’m using “bug” in the colloquial sense—anything small, slithering, creepy, crawly. I’m hoping to write about moths, horseshoe crabs, crickets, leeches, and these self-decapitating slugs that can regrow their bodies. It’s refreshing to work on a book without any vertebrates, so far. Vertebrate privilege is big in animal journalism.

You’ve carved out a niche covering lesser-known, lesser-loved animals. Why are you drawn to the creature beat?

There are so many animals that people see as bizarre, less-than, or uncharismatic, and those animals often have the weirdest life cycles and survival adaptations. I think that tension makes for a great story. In science journalism, a common strategy to build empathy with animals is to say, “this creature is the same as humans” and to stress our points of connection. But I’m really interested in the differences, and the ways we are strange to each other, because that’s just a reality for many, many species. And I think that can also build connection and empathy and wonder, just in a different way.

Wonder feels central to your memoir*, *How Far the Light Reaches, in which you write about marine life with such reverence. Has your experience of wonder evolved over time?

The idea of wonder can be very superlative, right? It’s the oldest, the rarest. It always has some kind of lore, something that makes it distinct. As a journalist, I was raised to see wonder as something objectively beautiful, objectively fascinating—like watching a chameleon change colors. That spirit of wonder drove so much of my first book, but as I’ve spent more time with the creatures that actually live around me, I’ve learned that wonder can also be accompanied by fear or disgust.

Toward the creatures themselves.

Yeah. I grew up, like many people, afraid of insects and grossed out by them all. Recently, though, I’ve become invested in building connections with creatures that make me uncomfortable or squeamish. I’ve been spending time with the centipedes in my house, trying to unlearn my bias. It’s a practice that involves a lot of wonder, but it feels different from the wonder that animated How Far the Light Reaches.

What makes it feel different?

There was only so much I could discover about the animals I knew I loved. Everything I learned about a whale or a goldfish would fit into my narrative: “Isn’t this remarkable? Isn’t this otherworldly?” Now, the things I’m learning are wondrous in a different way. I’m like, “I’m glad I watched a video of this. I don’t want to actually come close to it.” Working through these more complicated feelings—wonder that comes from strangeness, difference, and disgust—has helped me interrogate my biases. It’s also stretched my empathy to places where I feel uncomfortable. I think that’s an important human practice: to constantly try to expand your empathy.

Each essay in How Far the Light Reaches pairs a sea creature with your personal experience. I’m struck by your choice to blend personal narrative and science writing—two genres that, at first glance, might seem at odds.

I was really scared that people would think, these things don’t belong together. Like, how can you talk about this worm and also your experience with sexual assault? I wrote a lot of my first book afraid that people would make that argument, and then no one actually did. Now that I’m not trying to convince some made-up person that these things belong together, I can focus on making work that feels exciting and new to me, and that’s also saying something.

What do you mean by that?

I mean, it’s obviously a really wild time to be a creative person and to have some kind of platform, especially when people like Sally Rooney or Viet Thanh Nguyen are speaking out about the genocide happening in Gaza. I can’t imagine having any kind of platform, even a small one, and not trying to use it for the things I believe in. Which isn’t to say that every book has to be political, but I want my next book to say something about the things that I’m thinking about.

I often struggle to reconcile my values with the ideal of “objectivity” in journalism.

There have absolutely been workplaces earlier in my career, especially in more traditional media, where it was against company policy to be a person in the world. To be political, to be someone who goes to a protest, someone who votes. The moment I realized I could do both was when I moved to Defector, where my coworkers and I are encouraged to be our full selves—to have opinions and let those opinions inflect our writing—which I think results in a more honest account of our stories. This is the first job where I haven’t been scared that someone will sit me down and say, “You can’t write about this incredibly personal thing and also interview someone about a squid that does something weird with its arm.” It’s really such a relief.

How has Defector shaped your approach to science writing?

I’ve done a couple stories from the perspective of animals. One recurring bit has me writing from the viewpoint of a frog subjected to various experiments. They’ll give a frog toxic beetles and then conclude, “Yeah, the beetle is toxic. The frog spit it out.” I’m left wondering, what is the experience of that frog? What stories does the frog have to share? This obviously isn’t traditional journalism—it’s journalism in the sense that I read [scientific] papers and use the findings to inform the blog—but I’m grateful to work somewhere that lets me experiment and bring a voice to the animals I write about, even if that means literally writing as them.

I imagine climate change makes writing about the natural world feel heavier, more complicated.

Sometimes, when I’m doing my job, I’ll read a report and imagine the future of where I’m standing right now, or the natural places that are sacred to me, and I will feel just unimaginable dread.

What helps you move through that?

The only thing is [taking] direct action against climate change, whether that’s writing to a representative, signing a petition, or doing a beach cleanup. Having that practice in my everyday life takes a lot of pressure off the work, because there’s no real way to measure the transformation an essay can provoke. There’s no way to see if a piece of writing has actually moved the needle on anything. I think the responsibility, then, is to make sure you’re doing that in your personal life, and maybe in your job, and in the ways you move about the world.

You’ve shared that your goal this year is to spend more time with the wildlife in and around New York City.

Yeah. I think trying to immerse myself in the city’s wildlife has helped get my gears whirring. New York has a lot of urban wildlife, but it’s very urban, right? There are a lot of pigeons, rats, roaches: animals that we consider pests because of the way they live beside us, or their potential to transmit diseases. It’s been good practice to sit with the complicated, entangled relationships people have with these creatures, because that’s the structure I want for my essays. I want to think about that entanglement. I want to imagine the ways I could be further entangled with the nonhuman.

For many artists, time outdoors can be creatively restorative. For you, it’s often part of the work itself.

When I go into nature, I’m always hoping for some kind of encounter with another species, whether it’s a lichen or a mushroom or a little newt in a pond. But I want to have so many of these encounters that I’m not always trawling for meaning. The more I can be around other species, the less each encounter has to mean, and the less pressure I can put on myself to take notes. I think it’s so important for artists of any kind to have things that are like, this is just for me. This isn’t something I’m going to turn into art or anything I’ll write about.

How else do you recharge? Are you secretly a painter?

I’m not a painter or a sculptor, unfortunately. But something core to my creative practice is watching absolute trash. If I watch all of Love Island USA in a couple of weeks, it won’t bleed into any of my essays. That is just for me. I really believe in the transformative, meditative power of watching trash and letting it purge your mind.

I feel similarly about long-running sitcoms from the 2010s. Does that practice keep you from getting creatively stuck?

I still get stuck all the time when I’m writing memoir and more personal stuff. Initially, I would become mired in the research process, but I quickly realized I wasn’t going to earn a PhD in cuttlefish while writing an essay.

How do you navigate those moments?

I’m a strong believer in letting my stuff incubate. If I have an idea and I get stuck while writing, after a day of trying to push through, I’ll usually set it aside for a couple of weeks. By the time I return to the essay, I can look at it with interest rather than revulsion.

I also really believe in writing what feels most important to you in the moment. I just came back from a weekend retreat where I’d planned to work on a specific essay for my Bug Book, but as soon as I got there, I was like, I actually want to write this new thing I just came up with. I just won’t be able to work on that first essay if I’m thinking about this newer, more fun essay.

I’m picturing the Distracted Boyfriend meme.

The inherent polyamory of an essay collection.

I’m glad you mentioned cuttlefish, because your essay “Morphing Like a Cuttlefish,” about your evolving relationship with gender, is one of my favorites in How Far the Light Reaches—especially because it doesn’t force a resolution. Can we talk about how you made peace with the gap between the self who wrote the essay and who you are now?

I knew I had to make peace with the gap because my book was due. But also, I’d been working on this essay for three years, and every time I wrote it, the answer was different. I conceptualized “Morphing Like a Cuttlefish” as an essay where I would figure out my gender, and eventually, I just realized I wasn’t going to find an answer I could feel locked into forever. And that’s not the point of the essay, right? The reader doesn’t need me to find a label; that’s not the takeaway. The story isn’t about me going from point A to point B, but about the iterative process itself.

I remember reading a tweet years ago that said something like, “If something really important happens to you, don’t write an essay about it when you’re 20.” I thought that was wild. I could die at any second, and you want me to hold off on my best material for when I’m older?

And there’s always revision.

Absolutely. I don’t think it’s a bad practice to publish an essay knowing that you might want to revisit it someday. I would encourage anyone publishing essays to make sure they retain the intellectual property rights to their work.

As a reader, I love when people look back at the original thing and say, “actually, here are the ways I still wasn’t being honest with myself,” or “this is where I still have something to learn.” I was definitely thinking about that with my cuttlefish essay. I realized it would be silly to think, at 26, This will be the only essay I ever write about my gender. But then, not writing about my gender until I was 40 also felt wild, since I process so much about myself through writing. Would I just not understand this part of myself until I chose to write about it? There’s always going to be a gap, in any essay. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that something I’ve written would stand the test of time, or that I’d never have any regrets about it. I think it helps to just get comfortable with letting go.

Sabrina Imbler recommends:

Caramel Apple Pops: It’s fall, and I need my sweetie treaties.

Apple snail egg crushing videos: The snails, which are not native to the US, are a major agricultural pest. Their eggs look just like underripe raspberries and make gorgeous ASMR crunching sounds when you smush them. I wish I could eat the apple snail eggs. But I cannot. So instead I watch people crush them.

Borealis by Aisha Sabatani Sloan: A gorgeous interrogation of space, glaciers, exes, eagles, seals, freedom, nature, lesbians, Lorna Simpson, and love. This is an essay I return to time and time again when I need to remember what an essay is, and what it can be.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard: She swears she was not on psychedelics when she wrote this, and yet! Maybe the greatest drug is watching a frog deflating in real time, drained by a giant water bug. Maybe it is looking for holiness in whatever surrounds you.

Moral courage: If your job, in media or wherever else, demands your silence on the genocide in Gaza or any other moral atrocity, consider that this exchange is not, and will never be, worth whatever your company wants you to believe. Quit your job. Find a new one that will let you grow as a person, expand your empathy, and keep your soul. I promise that you will never regret walking away.