Permission to Go Through Our Own Fumbling
Conversing with National Book Award winner Andrea Barrett
“Elation and despair are closely intertwined … despair is ego driven, unimportant. The elation is about the real work.” —Andrea Barrett
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 137 with Andrea Barrett
If our podcast had a patron saint, it might be Andrea Barrett, whose most recent book, Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction, is a brilliant book of essays that explore the art of marrying research and storytelling. At its heart, it wonders about the essence of creative practice. How do we develop the muscle of intuition? “Time, repetition, and patience,” says Andrea Barrett. “Just sit with it and keep working.” In this episode, we explore the joys of rabbit holes, the importance of not knowing what we are looking for, the inevitability of false starts (and how to let go of the work we’ve done), why we shouldn’t worry about writing unreadable first drafts, and the questionable wisdom of how we teach creative writing.
Andrea Barrett is the author of the National Book Award-winning Ship Fever, Voyage of the Narwhal, Servants of the Map, Natural History, and other works of fiction. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an NEA Fellowship, and the Rea Award for the Short Story, and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in the Adirondacks.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
While on the beach, I read a very non-beachy book, When Women Were Dragons. The author, Kelly Barnhill, wrote some of my favorite books to read to my daughter—The Girl Who Drank the Moon and The Witch’s Boy. I am so drawn to her characters, her weaving of worlds, her brilliant fantasy. This was her first adult novel, and though I really liked it—it was feminist and fierce—it didn’t have as much heart as her books for kids and I longed for the story to pull me deeper in. I still recommend it for sure—what a great premise. I would kinda like to become a dragon myself someday.
What a beautiful hour Alison Luterman and I had sitting on a couch together reading out loud the sensual haiku of Japanese women and looking at the erotic images of Brigitte Carnochan. The book, Floating World, is also a work of art with hand-stitched bindings and a cloth cover. I don’t see where you can buy it, but you can see the images on Brigette’s website here.
Christie:
I spied Emma Pattee’s debut novel, Tilt, on the “new arrivals” shelf at my local library, and I’ll admit, I was drawn by the bird on the cover. (The story thread about the bird is delightful and uplifting and also quite sad.) The novel follows a very pregnant woman who is briefly trapped in Ikea when the long-expected big earthquake hits Portland and she spends the rest of the day (and novel) wandering around Portland navigating the carnage and looking for her husband. The book is about the heartbreak and hardship of following (and/or not letting go of) creative dreams and the ways that humans can hold one another up — in normal life but especially when disaster strikes. It reminded me of one of my favorite Last Word On Nothing Posts by Ann Finkbeiner.
I fell deeply in love with Andrea Barrett while reading Dust and Light, and after our conversation with her on this show, I went to my local library looking for her previous books. I started with Archangel, and was completely wowed. The book is a series of five short stories linked together by shared characters, all of them living in the world of science. These are gorgeous stories of scientific discovery and the complicated relationships between scientists and their mentors, peers and protégés. I carried this book with me on a trip last week and was totally fine with my flight getting repeatedly delayed, because I didn’t really care where I was, I just wanted to keep reading. This is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve read about science. (It’s loosely based on real scientists.)
Every Poem
has a double-hung window inside it,
the kind that allows you to let in
a little more air when you feel as if you
can’t breathe. Sometimes, seeing through it
helps you find a new way to frame the world.
Sometimes it makes it easier
to feel as if there’s distance
between you and what the poem says,
as if you’re on the outside looking in
instead of the other way around.
Though when it’s dark, you can’t help
but see your own reflection.
When a poem makes you uncomfortable,
its window opens wide enough to let you
climb out, but not without things
getting a little awkward. I mean,
you are climbing out the window
instead of using the poem’s back door.
But mostly, the window lets the light change
so every time you re-enter the poem,
it feels different—familiar, but new;
and you wander around inside the lines
and wonder, did the poem change?
Or did you?
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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This week, we talk with Andrea Barrett about the secret about great writing (there is no secret), the thrill of a “resonant metaphorical framework,” the thrill of the “big pivot,” and the importance of simplification. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What is your relationship with your first drafts?
What’s your favorite recent rabbit hole?
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