Ep. 69 Writing and Personal Narrative with Kate Devine

Pitcher from “The Poetics of Mistaken Forms” by Aubrey Broquard

The knot of meaning contains nuance and contradiction, just like life. It is not easy to articulate in a few words. If it were, we wouldn't need to write the narrative, wouldn't feel compelled to wrestle with the questions for days and weeks and months and years. Often, the knot of meaning asks the reader to see two opposing truths as equally true. Or it is like a crystal that shatters a truth of light across the room. Or it is a dense knot of rope, unraveling thread by thread.

Perhaps you knew this but it’s new to me, did you know the point of writing, especially personal essay is not to know? You’re not coming to the page with the answer. Really it’s a lot more about figuring out what the question is or allowing yourself to explore your hunch and see what it nets. Sounds obvious but try approaching any self expression this way. I found it life changing.

I’ve been pretty loud and proud about my love of Kate’s writing classes and it’s not just because she’s a great teacher but because she creates a container of experience. Something every writer I speak to enforces is the idea of meaning making and I’m so grateful to Kate that she’s facilitated a lot of my own recent meaning making.

I have no idea if I personally will ever really pursue writing but what I have longed for is to understand how it fits into my own stuff. I’ve had hunches, or themes that I suspected were meant to be explored via writing but I just couldn’t link it together. Now I suspect it was to learn how to clarify my own narrative and trust my meaning making.

Tell me your own writing thoughts! Who here longs to write a book?? Tell me your writing secrets and dreams.

xx. A

Kate’s thinking about:

I started reading The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood yesterday, and I'll probably finish it today. The writing is so lively, and for a novel it is very interior, close to the main character's inner world, which I dig. I've been on an Annie Ernaux kick since winter, my most recent read was Happening. Also on my desk is Bending Genre, Essays on Creative Nonfiction, edited by Margot Singer and Nicole Walker. 

It's bookmarked and dog-eared, as I've been using it for reference and research for my writing and classes. I'm also slowly and closely rereading The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick. I have a lot of on-going dalliances with books about writing. That's one of my favorite parts about teaching, I get to revisit these texts again and again.

Last week I watched the Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which was stunning. I actually watched it two nights in a row, once by myself, and once with my mother. I like thinking about documentaries as visual essays, and loved how this one was structured, especially how it began and ended. 

On my mind (and in my body) a lot lately is improvisation as a concept - in movement and dance, in running a business, in teaching and leading, and in daily living.  Also, running. I just trained for and completed my first half-marathon and now - much to my surprise - I'm thinking about training for a marathon. Words I never thought I'd say! I do love surprising myself, à la improvisation.