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“It’s a multilayered exploration of not only the intimate details of life aboard a whaling ship, but also subjects from across human and natural history, by turns playful and tragic, humorous and urgent.” In this TED-Ed animated lesson by Sascha Morrell and directed by Martina Meštrović, the unique narration and imagery of Herman Melville’s classic novel is explored and celebrated.
“Once on the back porch my lab barked / and barked. / he was always spooked / by something, garter snake, black / snake, rabbit.” In this Ours Poetica video produced in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, Phillip B. Williams reads an untitled poem by Kayleb Rae Candrilli from their debut book, What Runs Over (YesYes Books, 2017).
“Every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine is an MFA master class—the writers talking about craft, the editors, the agents, the contests. I gulped down every word for a decade before I published my first book. It’s an invaluable resource, and I’m so grateful for its company.”
“They’ve asked that the bookstore be cleared away during the event / they say it’s no place to sell books…” As part of the Writers in Residence at-home video series for PEN America’s 2020 Digital World Voices Festival, Oksana Vasyakina reads her poem “These people didn’t know my father,” translated from the Russian by Ainsley Morse and Eugene Ostashevsky.
Tad Bartlett is a fiction writer, essayist, and recovering poet. He was born in Ankara, Turkey; raised in Selma, Alabama; and married into New Orleans, Louisiana. Bartlett received his BA in theater and creative writing from Spring Hill College and a law degree from Tulane University. He earned his MFA in fiction from the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans, where he was a reader for Bayou Magazine. Bartlett lives in New Orleans, where he practices law and works on various writing projects, including a collaborative novel with fellow Peauxdunquian J.Ed. Marston, a new novel project, and various short stories and essays. He also serves as the managing editor of Peauxdunque Review.
How has this pandemic impacted you personally and professionally?
Personally, the pandemic has been, of course, anxiety inducing. It has had potentially devastating financial effect on me and, more guttingly and assuredly, the communities around me here in New Orleans. Friends and colleagues have experienced sickness and death in their families. I have lost a good friend, not directly to the pandemic, but to depression and substance abuse issues that were undoubtedly exacerbated by the pandemic. I am helpless as to so much of that. My family is scattered from Montgomery to Austin, but even my close friends here in New Orleans I have only been able to see through the magic of technology. I want nothing more than to give them long hugs, to share a drink with them, and I know I’m far from alone in that.
Professionally, as a writer and member of writing communities, the pandemic has been oddly galvanizing. We “meet” (through that technological magic) far more often than we did in pre-pandemic times, and with far more deliberativeness. I have more time to write, which still isn’t as much time as I would want, but my writing feels more clearheaded and focused, and in certain ways, more driven and less obligatory. And the journal for which I’m managing editor, Peauxdunque Review, has provided a great opportunity to engage more with other writers and hopefully bring some positivity to them.
What books are you reading while quarantined?
The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata, A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash, The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah, Pride of Eden by Taylor Brown, Exile Music by Jennifer Steil, and How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon.
If you knew five months ago what you know now, how would you have prepared for this moment?
I don’t know what I would have done differently to better prepare myself for this moment. For example, if I knew even two and a half months ago what I know now, I probably would not have gone to the AWP conference in San Antonio at the beginning of March. As it is, for both personal and professional reasons, I am so glad that I did go, that I had those days of very carefully navigated closeness with old friends and new friends to talk about words and writing and community, even knowing in the back of our heads that this might end up being the last time in a long time for that to happen. There was a sad deliciousness to it that I am glad I experienced.
Have you attended or participated in any virtual readings? Is it here to stay or do you prefer to return to in-person readings?
I have participated in a few virtual readings. They have been invaluable in keeping the various writing communities, of which I am part, together and vital. Though, nothing beats the in-person reading. In my deepest wishes (fantasies?), we can all return to those evenings in a bar or a bookstore or a generous reading space, where we hug and dap and laugh over a cheap cheese plate and crackers and cheaper wine, and then all quiet down in joyful anticipation for the evening’s readers.
I do not fool myself, though. The world will be different coming out of this. I think we will have in-person readings again. But we may be masked. We will certainly be less physically intimate in our greetings and interactions. We will feel sadness in greater portions along with the joy.
What’s your hope for New Orleans during and after this pandemic?
My greatest hope for New Orleans during the pandemic has already been realized—that it will be New Orleans’s writers and artists who will do the good work of expressing our experience with the pandemic to the world. My greatest hope is that our writing and artistic communities will move forward with full respect for how we’ve changed, for how we are still a unique place in America and in the world, and for how we are all tied together.
“Books have been such an important part of my life, from The Brothers Karamazov when I was a teenager to reading Charlotte’s Web to my grandchildren,” says Hillary Clinton in this video of over one hundred book-loving authors, actors, musicians, public figures, and professional librarians sharing their favorite books in celebration of the New York Public Library’s 125th anniversary.
“How many are trying to catch our collective breath?” In this short film directed by Craig Kenny for First Fortnight, Ireland’s Mental Health Art and Culture Festival, Stephen James Smith shares his poem with accompanying music by Gareth Quinn Redmond and Conor J. O’Brien.
As May comes to a close and the temperature continues to rise leading into a long-awaited summer, in Michigan we are waiting to hear if stay-at-home orders will be extended beyond this month. Despite our limitations, literary events continue online and I am happy to announce that this Friday, May 29, we will be holding a panel to discuss funding opportunities from the Readings & Workshops program to help support these events.
I am excited to moderate this panel which will include Readings & Workshops program associate Ricardo Hernandez, and two guest authors, Aubri Adkins and Deonte Osayande, who will be speaking about their experiences securing funds for literary events in Detroit through the Readings & Workshops program.
Adkins is a writer and the founder of the East Side Reading Series, a Detroit literary series featuring original work from writers of all genres. I am interested to hear about her motivations behind establishing the series, and how these readings have made an impact on the literary community of the city.
Osayande is a widely published writer from Detroit, a poet recognized in many slam communities, and currently a professor of English at Wayne County Community College District. I look forward to speaking with him as he offers a variety of perspectives on intersecting literary communities.
I am looking forward to this conversation! I am expecting it to be rich with information not only about Readings & Workshops mini-grants but also about how the Detroit literary community is doing and how we can further connect with other communities.
The panel will be on Friday, May 29 at 5:00 PM EDT. Registration is required and space is limited, so register here. The meeting will also be recorded and made available to the public if you’re not able to make it, but I do hope to see you there!
Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.
The author of This Is One Way to Dance considers the consonances and dissonances between dance and writing.
“It always feels to me…all the way through writing a project, that the characters are actually real people and my job is to do justice to them,” says Sally Rooney about writing and adapting the characters of her novel Normal People (Faber & Faber, 2018) to the screen for the BBC/Hulu television series in this Waterstones interview with director Lenny Abrahamson and actors Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal.
