“When Spike Lee screened Do the Right Thing at Cannes in 1989, reporters at the subsequent press conference suggested that his film was too bleak, offered no hope for race relations and presented no solutions. Spike replied, ‘What makes you think that filmmakers are gods…what I have to do as a filmmaker is present problems so that the discussion can start.’ As a writer, I’ve never heard an idea so liberating. I’ll never create anything as meaningful as his film, but his words suggested that I could write in order to explore what wasn’t clear to me, put effort into writing about something that I didn’t understand, not for the sake of finding a solution, but to better articulate the question. I learned that I wanted to write pieces that would be the start of a conversation, not the end. When I get stuck, or when I’m writing poorly, it’s usually because I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to make a point. I’m trying to say just the right thing in just the right way, so nothing comes to the page at all, or what does come is trash. At those times I need to remember that I’m not here to write about the things I understand. I’m here to write about the things I don’t, and that is a much deeper pool of possibility.”
—Lee L. Krecklow, author of The Expanse Between (Winter Goose Publishing)