(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

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Writer, Activist, Comparative Literature Professor
Author of Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back

To explore different worlds. That’s what literature has taught me. Reading has taught me how difficult it is to write well, to do you something other than the mundane or the expected, so all those things point to a kind of human creativity and a human capacity to both create and also to learn. To learn about life in different ways and to pass on those lessons to other people. One thing I think great teachers do is to embody what they talk about, the values that they profess, the things they feel are important in their everyday lives outside of the literature. So when I become involved in politics or a cause, it’s a reflection of what I've learned through any number of things including literature. Literature doesn’t stand alone. Literature is part of the world.

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

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Writer, Activist, Comparative Literature Professor
Author of Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back

To explore different worlds. That’s what literature has taught me. Reading has taught me how difficult it is to write well, to do you something other than the mundane or the expected, so all those things point to a kind of human creativity and a human capacity to both create and also to learn. To learn about life in different ways and to pass on those lessons to other people. One thing I think great teachers do is to embody what they talk about, the values that they profess, the things they feel are important in their everyday lives outside of the literature. So when I become involved in politics or a cause, it’s a reflection of what I've learned through any number of things including literature. Literature doesn’t stand alone. Literature is part of the world.

(Highlights) MICHAEL MAREN

(Highlights) MICHAEL MAREN

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Michael Maren is a journalist, filmmaker and former aid worker. He’s written scripts for HBO, Sony Pictures, and many independent producers. His film, A Short History of Decay was a funny and moving examination of a writer  Bryan Greenberg visiting his ailing parents, played by Linda Lavin and  Harris Yulin. His forthcoming film is an adaptation of Chris Belden’s novel Shriver. It’s a comedy set at a writers conference and stars Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, and Zach Braff.  Maren has taught screenwriting at Wesleyan University, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Taos Summer Writers’ Workshop, and co-directs the Sirenland Writers Conference. He created the film screening/discussion series Under the Influence: Writers on Film.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I don't know how you like to define yourself, you're a writer, you're a director. You came up as a foreign war correspondent, as a volunteer. It's quite an interesting trajectory, I think, for anyone who might want to become a director. Could you describe how you fell in love with telling stories?

MICHAEL MAREN

When I was in fifth grade. We used to have a little creative writing class, and people would write stories. And I don't know why I did this, but I remember when I was in the class, they started their student stories with–so I woke up in the morning and I went to the... I just thought, I'm nine years old, I just cut to the chase and talked about being in the air with the go-cart rolling over, and the teacher was blown away. In fifth grade, she said, "You're a really good writer." And I never forgot that.

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So, I'm very, very much a natural journalist in that way. I had a lot of opportunities to get involved in things overseas, whether it was to stay in aid work or to work for, when I got out of graduate school, offers to like join financial institutions and World Bank kind of stuff or investment banking. I have a masters from Columbia, but I took a job for seventeen thousand dollars a year writing for this little magazine about Africa.

And it gave me the opportunity to keep traveling and keep reporting. And I just loved it. I loved it for years and years. And part of my interest in Africa came from watching movies set in Africa as a kid. And I actually tried my hand at writing screenplays during the 1980s a couple of times just by myself and actually trying to option them. I was reporting out of Uganda in the mid-80s when Yoweri Museveni, who's now the president, was still a guerrilla leader fighting against the regime.

And during that time, I was sort of sleeping outside and doing a lot of stuff. I read a copy of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I thought, "Wow, this would make a great movie." When I got back to New York, I at one point I called, but I ended up realizing that the rights had been owned for many, many years, and I wasn't about to get the rights to make the screenplay.

My mentor in journalism was it was a guy named Richard Ben Cramer, one of the great journalists of all time. And I met Richard in Africa in the early 1980s. And Richard taught me one thing. He said every five minutes as a journalist, stop and ask yourself, what's the story? What's the story? And the point is, you can walk into any world and kind of get lost in the details. But when you know the story you're trying to tell, you know what the details are and pay attention to them.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Katherine Vasiliev. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis* and performed by the Athenian Trio.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.

 
MICHAEL MAREN

MICHAEL MAREN

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Michael Maren is a journalist, filmmaker and former aid worker. He’s written scripts for HBO, Sony Pictures, and many independent producers. His film, A Short History of Decay was a funny and moving examination of a writer  Bryan Greenberg visiting his ailing parents, played by Linda Lavin and  Harris Yulin. His forthcoming film is an adaptation of Chris Belden’s novel Shriver. It’s a comedy set at a writers conference and stars Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, and Zach Braff.  Maren has taught screenwriting at Wesleyan University, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Taos Summer Writers’ Workshop, and co-directs the Sirenland Writers Conference. He created the film screening/discussion series Under the Influence: Writers on Film.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I don't know how you like to define yourself, you're a writer, you're a director. You came up as a foreign war correspondent, as a volunteer. It's quite an interesting trajectory, I think, for anyone who might want to become a director. Could you describe how you fell in love with telling stories?

MICHAEL MAREN

When I was in fifth grade. We used to have a little creative writing class, and people would write stories. And I don't know why I did this, but I remember when I was in the class, they started their student stories with–so I woke up in the morning and I went to the... I just thought, I'm nine years old, I just cut to the chase and talked about being in the air with the go-cart rolling over, and the teacher was blown away. In fifth grade, she said, "You're a really good writer." And I never forgot that.

-

So, I'm very, very much a natural journalist in that way. I had a lot of opportunities to get involved in things overseas, whether it was to stay in aid work or to work for, when I got out of graduate school, offers to like join financial institutions and World Bank kind of stuff or investment banking. I have a masters from Columbia, but I took a job for seventeen thousand dollars a year writing for this little magazine about Africa.

And it gave me the opportunity to keep traveling and keep reporting. And I just loved it. I loved it for years and years. And part of my interest in Africa came from watching movies set in Africa as a kid. And I actually tried my hand at writing screenplays during the 1980s a couple of times just by myself and actually trying to option them. I was reporting out of Uganda in the mid-80s when Yoweri Museveni, who's now the president, was still a guerrilla leader fighting against the regime.

And during that time, I was sort of sleeping outside and doing a lot of stuff. I read a copy of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I thought, "Wow, this would make a great movie." When I got back to New York, I at one point I called, but I ended up realizing that the rights had been owned for many, many years, and I wasn't about to get the rights to make the screenplay.

My mentor in journalism was it was a guy named Richard Ben Cramer, one of the great journalists of all time. And I met Richard in Africa in the early 1980s. And Richard taught me one thing. He said every five minutes as a journalist, stop and ask yourself, what's the story? What's the story? And the point is, you can walk into any world and kind of get lost in the details. But when you know the story you're trying to tell, you know what the details are and pay attention to them.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Katherine Vasiliev. Digital Media Coordinator is Yu Young Lee. “Winter Time” was composed by Nikolas Anadolis* and performed by the Athenian Trio.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.

 
(Highlights) TOM PERROTTA

(Highlights) TOM PERROTTA

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Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of nine works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher, Nine Inches, and his newest, Mrs. Fletcher. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

TOM PERROTTA

TOM PERROTTA

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Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of nine works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher, Nine Inches, and his newest, Mrs. Fletcher. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

(Highlights) JANET BURROWAY

(Highlights) JANET BURROWAY

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Novelist, Playwright & Author of Most Widely Used Creative Writing Text in America

There’s a lot of controversy about that idea at the moment, about whether fiction is truly empathic and how much freedom the imagination should have because, as one of my friends says, the imagination is not free. It comes from all of the places that we come from. So it’s a controversial notion, but I am firmly on the side of literature is empathic. In fact, I think that all the arts are empathic because all the arts basically say, ‘Wait a minute. Look at it this way.’ And they allow us to see from some other vantage point than our extremely self-interested selves.

JANET BURROWAY

JANET BURROWAY

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Novelist, Playwright & Author of Most Widely Used Creative Writing Text in America

There’s a lot of controversy about that idea at the moment, about whether fiction is truly empathic and how much freedom the imagination should have because, as one of my friends says, the imagination is not free. It comes from all of the places that we come from. So it’s a controversial notion, but I am firmly on the side of literature is empathic. In fact, I think that all the arts are empathic because all the arts basically say, ‘Wait a minute. Look at it this way.’ And they allow us to see from some other vantage point than our extremely self-interested selves.

(Highlights) JUNG CHANG

(Highlights) JUNG CHANG

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Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

Writing Wild Swans was the thing that resolved the trauma for me. When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don’t have.

JUNG CHANG

JUNG CHANG

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Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

Writing Wild Swans was the thing that resolved the trauma for me. When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don’t have.