May 29, 2024 • 22 mins
Have you ever wondered how one can transition from a taxing job at a student loan company to becoming a celebrated fiction writer and filmmaker? Join us as we sit down with Jon McConnell, whose journey from computer engineering to creative writing is nothing short of inspiring. Jon sheds light on his initial struggles and how his acceptance into Emerson College's MFA program became a turning point in his life. You'll learn how this prestigious program honed his writing skills and expanded his career horizons, leading him to success in film and television acquisitions. Jon's story is a testament to the value of a creative writing degree and the power of effective communication skills across various fields.
In the second chapter, we shift our focus to the significance of artistic communities, especially those in Delaware. Through Jon's experiences, including his time at Penn State Behrend's BFA program, we explore the delicate balance between job training and nurturing one's artistic craft. We delve into the creation and growth of Art Focus Delaware, a unique community group that supports artists through committed work sessions on personal projects. This group's emphasis on long-term creative endeavors has fostered a thriving environment where artists feel a true sense of belonging. Tune in to discover the invaluable insights on the intersections of creativity, perseverance, and career development in the arts.
The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is committed to supporting the arts and cultivating creativity to enhance the quality of life in Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Learn more at Arts.Delaware.Gov.
Delaware State of the Arts is a weekly podcast that presents interviews with arts organizations and leaders who contribute to the cultural vibrancy of communities throughout Delaware. Delaware State of the Arts is provided as a service of the Division of the Arts, in partnership with NEWSRADIO 1450 WILM and 1410 WDOV.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
For Delaware State of the Arts, I'm Andy Truscott.
My guest today is JohnMcConnell, a prolific fiction
writer and visionary filmmakerwho calls the vibrant town of
Newcastle his home.
In 2021, he took the world bystorm with his debut novel Thrum
, an immersive work thatgarnered widespread acclaim.
(00:24):
Beyond his prowess as awordsmith, john boasts a
remarkable career spanning overa decade in film and television
acquisitions Locally, john'spassion for nurturing the
creative spirit led him toestablish Arts Focus Delaware, a
thriving meetup group thatfosters creativity through an
(00:44):
hour-long independent worksession catering to writers and
artists alike.
John, thank you so much forjoining me today, and, as we
kick off here, I was wonderingif you could talk to us a little
bit about how you yourself gotinto writing as not only a
career but as a passion, andwhere you think that's taken you
(01:05):
over time yeah, thank you forhaving me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Um, yeah, I mean, writing for me has always been
something that just kind ofoccupied, just my thoughts at
all times, like I can't rememberlike times and dates or names
or anything, because my mind isalready always dedicated to
whatever idea I'm working on.
Um, I think the moment for mewas I was actually I don't know
(01:33):
if it's up there anymore but Iwas working at a student loan
company, um, you know, theConcord mall.
Um, and I was applying to uh, Iwas applying to grad schools
for writing Cause I had gone tomy undergraduate program
originally for computerengineering and I was failing
everything.
I had like a 0.02 GPA.
(01:53):
I had to retake like calculusthree times it.
Just like I wanted to be like avideo game designer.
What I didn't know, whatever inmy minds was like what video
game like people did I was.
I didn't have really an idea oflike what that was like.
Oh, I have a.
I like video games, I'm gonnatry to do it.
And I just didn't have theaptitude at all.
(02:15):
I ended up switching after a.
I was a very fearful call myparents about it and they were
very cool about like, oh, I wantto switch to creative writing
because that was the one classthat I felt like I really
connected with the one and I'vebeen able to keep in touch with
my professor who said this.
But there was like one workshopwhere a short story of mine I
sent through and I was verydeliberately being kind of weird
(02:39):
about the story, like makingthe story weird, and in front of
the class, the professorprofessor said this is either
terrible or genius and that,just like that, uh, a compliment
, I guess.
Um really stuck with me.
It's like that's exactly whatI'm going for.
Um, it's eitherincomprehensible nonsense or
it's really good.
(02:59):
Um, and that just took me.
I switched my I.
That professor ended up beingmy um, my thesis advisor.
I'm still in touch with him, uh, to this day and that really
just started off.
My all right, I'm going to.
This is my thing of like.
This is really where my umagain aptitude is is what I
enjoyed doing.
(03:20):
And so that moment working atthe student loan company
applying to grad schools, it waslike a not, they didn't have a
night shift, but it was like thelate shift where I was getting
home consistently at midnight.
Um, I would have breakdowns inthe car on the way home, just
because it was I had to.
It was a phone job, like aphone bank, and you had to kind
of, you had to ask to go to thebathroom and they would say no,
(03:42):
sometimes it was miserable, yeah, um.
And when I got from emersoncollege the acceptance letter
from my mfa, it was like allright, my short stories are not
only the things I enjoy doing,but now they're starting to take
me places and that was the Iguess the moment for me was like
I'm gonna to dedicate as muchenergy into this as I can and
(04:06):
see where it takes me.
And it ended up doing a lot.
I met my wife in that program.
It kind of got my job, mycareer path, my day jobs through
that program.
It was pretty transformativefor being these weird little
stories.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
For those that may not know what you know, a
creative writing degree mighttake you in pathwise.
Share with us a little bitabout what it is you do in your
day job, but also maybe some ofyour peers that were in that
program maybe what they're alsodoing nowadays.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, of course.
So there's a lot like thecreative writing degree itself
because you don't need, ofcourse.
So there's a lot the creativewriting degree itself because
you don't need, of course youdon't need a degree to go write
novels and make a living off ofdoing that.
If you have the work ethic andjust the amount of ideas that
can sustain that, which a lot ofpeople do.
I don't necessarily, so it wasalways like day job for me, so
(05:01):
it was always like day job forme.
My particular day job is I workin essentially the film
industry.
I'm an acquisitions person.
I work for a streaming serviceat the moment where I'm the
person who goes out and buys thefilm and TV for populating the
service, for people to watch,and I've been doing that for
(05:25):
about 10 years.
The intersection, I guess, wherethe skill set translates, is
just you have to really know howto not the most important thing
, but you have to know how tocraft an email because it's
conversational.
You have to build relationshipswith people, often digitally
first, before you ever meet themin person, especially nowadays.
You have to be able tocommunicate.
It's like the old kind of.
I guess it's almost like a morespecific communication degree,
(05:48):
where it's the same kind ofskill sets.
You have to be able to form acoherent thought and be able to
explain concepts to people whomay have, like, other skill sets
or other sorts of knowledgebases.
So that's really kind ofcarried me there.
Emerson College specifically isboth a it's kind of a film
school, but then they also havetheir publishing department,
(06:09):
which is where the creativewriting degree is under.
So a lot of my peers that Igraduated with went on to
careers in publishing, likeworking for publishing companies
or agencies and things likethat.
I know people who work in lawoffices came out of
administrative careers atcolleges and universities and
things like that.
So it's pretty.
I think a couple of people wentinto film as well, but the
(06:31):
shared skill set between allthose is, like, I think, the
communication aspect of it.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You've not only had a plethora of short stories, but
you've also yourself worked infilm.
Share with us a little bitabout, outside of just the
acquisitions for a streamingservice, kind of what, uh,
creative writing for film lookslike versus creative writing for
short stories or even larger,longer stories this is something
that more, I guess, within thepast five-ish years.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So not something I initially started off doing was
was trying to write for film um,like writing my own shorts as
well.
As I got in my day job, I didget the opportunity to read and
give feedback on films, onscripts that were coming through
.
So what it was is thedifference.
The main difference is, atleast for me, for my fiction,
I'm all about the language andthe sound of the actual like.
(07:20):
I truly treat it like thesentence, like the art of it for
me is in the sentence and thesound of it and the rhythm of it
.
The almost the opposite is truefor film Um where, unless you're
really studying scripts toreally dig into how they're done
, very rarely are people outsidethe actual production going to
(07:40):
be reading that.
Of course, the people who arekind of making the gatekeeping
decisions are reading thosethings.
The production companies arereading it.
There's a lot of people whowill be reading it, but the
general public really they'renot meant to.
It's just not for generalconsumption generally.
It's just not for generalconsumption generally.
So the difference ends up beingit's almost like a blueprint
where you're trying to transferyour thoughts as you're writing
(08:03):
and your ideas and almost theorder of things in a way that
somebody else reading it wouldimagine and think about the film
in the same way that you'rethinking of it.
So you're almost encoding yourthoughts and having them decoded
on the other end of it.
So you think of it more asalmost flashcards, where your
image followed by image,followed by image.
(08:24):
The language itself doesn'tnecessarily have to be the most
elegant.
It's more like a blueprint.
Like I said, it's a translationdevice.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
More than it is an expression of you as a person or
an artist or whatever you'retrying to do, it's a
communication tool, more, moreso for a specific person on the
other end of it as you've beenout of grad school now for a
number of years, talk to usabout either what you might tell
a younger you or a youngerwriter, as they're looking to
(08:55):
wonder whether they should juststart going for it, whether they
should go back for a higherdegree and maybe what you felt
you got most out of your degreeI hesitate a little bit, since I
we heard in our mfa class atemerson that our year my year
was a little bit of an outlierin how I guess close that we all
were and continue to be we are.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Just again, I'm not sure how true this is, because I
didn't go to like every otherschool to research this, but we
heard just from other yearsaround us that we are unusually
close in that aspect andunusually non-competitive.
Okay, I think the general ideais that you're not there to make
friends, but we kind of did,and then I think it's changed a
(09:41):
lot too since I graduated in2012.
So I think there has been a lotof as in all academic stuff,
there's been a lot of shift overthe past decade plus.
In general, though, I think ifa young writer, as long as they
know like at one, first do yourbest not to pay for it, try to
get the scholarships and anyfunding that you can get.
(10:03):
I made that mistake, and sostudent loans continue to weigh
heavily, and just going in withthe knowledge that this isn't
unless you're going intoteaching, this is not going to
be like a job credential, it'smore for the experience and the
(10:24):
community of it.
I'm always coming at it fromthe angle of community myself,
where um, just because growingup in a rural area in
pennsylvania, um didn't knowthat many other didn't, just
didn't come across that manyother people who are interested
in spending their time likewriting Um and so going into
first my, my BFA, and then myMFA, and coming across these
(10:45):
people and just feeling like, oh, this is where these people are
doing the same thing that I'mdoing and like I found my, my
people kind of in a way, thataspect was really good for me.
I guess a little bit of thegoing from the country into the
big city kind of aspect was washelpful for me just in general.
Um, the the day job aspectswere kind of ancillary but they
(11:05):
were real like it was.
It was truly translating thingsinto just real world career
opportunities.
And it's interesting at the atthe bfa that I went to penn
state uh barron's in erie,pennsylvania I'm involved in and
it's interesting at the BFAthat I went to Penn State
Barron's in Erie, pennsylvania,I'm involved in.
I guess it's almost like areview panel of former BFA
students who can give feedbackto the faculty and they can ask
(11:29):
questions and ask us to kind ofrecount our experiences.
And one of the things that cameup was just the conflict
between the job training aspectthat a lot of people are kind of
clamoring for in a creativelike uh, just a fine arts degree
, versus the uh actuallyfocusing on your craft art part
of it.
That I think a lot of facultyand just a lot of like.
(11:51):
I guess older souls are kind oflamenting as being lost a little
bit.
Where it comes up against againthe student loan aspect of it I
think is is an important and avery important decision to make
and there's a reason that thecommerce has been coming more
into it.
It's kind of about what youlack.
If you don't need it, you'llkind of know, because there's
(12:11):
plenty.
Especially if you're in NewYork or LA already or something,
you can kind of fall into thosecommunities on accident almost.
But if you don't have those,there is a lot of.
At least for me there was a lotof value in going out and kind
of finding those people andfinding those communities,
because it kind of buildsyourself up to continue doing it
(12:35):
, even if it has to be your likeserious hobby on the side of
your day job.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It kind of builds your confidence essentially and
if you need that it's worth it,I think I want to take just a
minute here to remind ourlisteners that you're tuned into
news radio 1450 wilm and 1410wdov for delaware state of the
arts.
John, that was a great kind ofsegue into our second half here,
talking a little bit more aboutArt Focus Delaware, which is
(13:01):
currently hosted every otherSaturday at the Route 9
Innovation Center Library.
Talk to us about why it is youcreated the group and maybe just
a little bit about the groupfirst, before we dive a little
deeper.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
The creation of the group came actually one of the,
I guess, co-founding members,Adam, who's a poet in our group.
We knew each other just onTwitter and I was living in LA
at the time, moving back to thearea into Delaware, and he was
the only other writer who Ifound with Delaware, kind of in
(13:34):
his bio, like oh, there'ssomebody else in the place that
I'm going to.
And so we connected on thataspect and we just kind of met
and became friends and we'retalking about what I wanted to
kind of bring back or, I guess,the value of living in LA for me
.
I had gone to a similar writinggroup there.
There was some key differencesthat we kind of incorporated
(13:55):
into what this is.
But the community aspect of itand especially in la it's a
little bit.
You can find a writer on everycorner in la.
In delaware it's a little bittougher.
You have to, you have to kindof build a, build it so they
come kind of thing.
Um, so we wanted to be very, wejust wanted to build that
community, especially as I thinkat the time Twitter was going
(14:17):
through its weirdness, and so wewanted to kind of replicate and
bring offline just the sense ofcommunity because writer
Twitter was a big thing for me,especially the timing of it was
right and we wanted to bringthat into the real world because
there were a lot of like realbenefits to just feeling like
you were a part of somethingthis group specifically in
(14:39):
person, not online, which, uh?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
we've seen a number of uh groups, not even just
writer groups, but in essence,artistic kind of share groups
that have flourished themselvesonline, uh, but not in person.
Why do you think this has doneso well in person?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think because of those, not rules for ourselves,
but because of the guidelinesthat we wanted to bring on, like
, like, why is this group goingto be?
What's going to make this groupspecific and like different
from other uh groups, which was,uh, not having it be a workshop
format, like just not just nothaving like the the sharing be
the point, like people can shareoff if whatever they want and
(15:19):
they do, um, but not having itbe the point of the hour that we
spend with each other, nothaving prompts, not having like
speakers come through, just haveit focused on the work which
ends up meaning the people whogo are people who are focused on
it's like kind of more than ahobby for them.
They're working on like aproject, they're working on a
book or they're working on umlike a specific.
(15:42):
There's some people working onuh social media stuff for their
small businesses.
In the group there's peopleworking on textile projects that
they're doing on a loom.
They're literally weaving inthe in the room with us.
But the sense of like, literallythe focus piece of it, of the
title of the group being what itis, the people, it kind of
filters for that dedicationalready.
So it's the momentum startingto go towards oh I'm getting
(16:06):
this thing done, that I've beenmeaning to get done.
It carves out some time andeverybody's busy schedules to do
it, the people who end up kindof continuing it.
It just it builds up thatmomentum like a snowball.
It filters for people who arekind of not not to denigrate
people who are just dabbling andstuff, but it kind of filters
for that because the interestcan be lost very easily if
(16:29):
somebody's not taking it to thatlevel of seriousness, and so
the people who are kind ofremaining are people who tend to
be in it for the long haul.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You bring up a good point there, which is that this
is not just a writer's group butrather an arts holistic group,
so you have people of all kindsof mediums there.
Talk to us a little bit aboutsome of the maybe more
surprising mediums that you'veseen in the group, and maybe
what are some of the mediumsthat you wish that you would see
more, as the group kind of uhmorphs no, the loom was fun to
(17:00):
somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Pull out a loom and start, uh, weaving in the room
with us.
Um, we have people working onneedlepoint.
Uh, we have people working onthe kind of pod like podcast
prep for their own podcast thatthey're doing.
The initial idea to expand itjust beyond writing was actually
it was kind of prompted bysomeone who wanted to do
sketching.
Um, they just asked like, oh,is the the library okay with it?
I I reached out and the answerwas kind of just as long as
(17:22):
you're not like practicing yourtrumpet, you can kind of do, or
making a big mess with paints,you can kind of do what you want
.
So any of like the kind ofquieter art forms are are
welcome.
But I was glad that theyactually had suggested that.
It kind of opened up a variedand welcoming space and it's
been cool to see what peoplebring in.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Do you find at all that sometimes there's
cross-pollination, so maybe awriter sees a drawing and then
starts writing something aboutsaid drawing or something like
that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Not yet.
It'd be cool if it did.
I think what happens more isafter the hour is done and we
kind of just like all right,pencils down, everybody kind of
relaxes and sits back in theirchairs and just gets to talking
about stuff.
It ends up that those thingsare shared across all the
mediums.
So that part's cool, because itjust kind of reinforces that
everybody's on their own rightpath.
Because no matter what you'reworking on, getting something
(18:12):
done is the same, no matter whatyou're doing on getting
something done is the same, nomatter what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I can imagine outside of just the hour that you all
are together.
There's probably this desirefor more from the group.
Do you ever find that the groupmeets outside of this scheduled
hour to kind of foster a senseof community?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, we actually have started fairly recently.
We actually have a we just callthem Sunday sessions where
maybe once a month one of ourmembers very generously offered
up their house in Wilmington forus to kind of get together.
Now it's kind of morphed intothis longer, several hour
session where there's more kindof mingling in the beginning.
We still have the hour in themiddle where we get things done,
(18:51):
but around it there's more,because we kind of we that's
more invite only for people wholike show up at least once to
the normal Saturday sessions,that we can just see that you're
a real person.
So we have a discord group thatwe then, if somebody shows up
to the group in person, they'llbe like oh, come join our
discord group, where the news orlike just we can share things
with them there and organizethings, um, and then the Sunday
(19:12):
sessions that, uh, are generallyonce a month.
That's where that invite comesfrom and so that's more.
I don't want to say casual, butyou're not at the library,
you're in someone's house, soit's very warm and more
conversational.
All the time people aren't atthe library there's a time limit
for booking the room, so peoplearen't necessarily rushing out.
So those are fun, and thenevery now and then, when the
timing works, that I'll try toset up a party, maybe a couple
(19:36):
times a year, and that's justcompletely.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Uh like, obviously nobody, nobody's going to bring
their work to that, we just hangout you typically find that
this is a group where, say, anindividual can kind of come and
go, meaning they might be therefor a few weeks, maybe take a
few weeks off, as they're eitherin between projects or just
don't have the time to dedicate,but that it's still always
welcome for them to come back toyeah, there's, that happens
(20:03):
with me too.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Um, and I'll using that, the discord group.
I'll just kind of make it knownlike, oh, I'm gonna have to
miss this one and or whatever itends up being.
But yeah, people, uh, justlives are busy.
I think that was when we wereinitially setting up the group,
adam and I.
Having a change that we wantedto institute from the groups
that I saw in LA was definitelyhaving no kind of entrance fee
(20:26):
or anything like that was veryimportant to us.
That's why we chose going tothe Route 9 library in the first
place, taking down thosebarriers to entry, just the
entrance fee included, but alsojust the having it open enough
to accept that, because we don'thave any sort of structure
beyond the time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Tell us where people who might be interested can
learn more.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, so we have the main thing.
The main place is the meetuppage that we have.
That was the first centralorganizing point.
That's where all the events areposted for people to RSVP to,
which is helpful for booking thedifferent size rooms at the
library, depending on how manypeople are coming.
I think we generally getbetween six and 10 people on any
given day, and then the Sundaysessions are generally more,
(21:08):
just because there's more roomand people, I guess, generally
have more free time on Sundays.
The meetup is the first point,I guess, point of contact.
Then we also have our Instagrampage where we post reminders of
when Saturday sessions arecoming up as well as we try to
share as many kind ofaccomplishments or readings that
our members also.
The Instagram itself canfunction as just, I guess,
(21:30):
publicity and getting the wordout there.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
For those on Instagram, you'll find them at
at Arts Focus Delaware and onMeetup meetupcom.
Backslash arts-focusdelaware.
John, thank you again so much.
For Delaware State of the Arts, I'm Andy Truscott.
My guest today is JohnMcConnell, a prolific fiction
writer and visionary filmmakerwho calls the vibrant town of
Newcastle his home.
In 2021, he took the world bystorm with his debut novel Thrum
, an immersive work thatgarnered widespread acclaim.
(00:24):
Beyond his prowess as awordsmith, john boasts a
remarkable career spanning overa decade in film and television
acquisitions Locally, john'spassion for nurturing the
creative spirit led him toestablish Arts Focus Delaware, a
thriving meetup group thatfosters creativity through an
(00:44):
hour-long independent worksession catering to writers and
artists alike.
John, thank you so much forjoining me today, and, as we
kick off here, I was wonderingif you could talk to us a little
bit about how you yourself gotinto writing as not only a
career but as a passion, andwhere you think that's taken you
(01:05):
over time yeah, thank you forhaving me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Um, yeah, I mean, writing for me has always been
something that just kind ofoccupied, just my thoughts at
all times, like I can't rememberlike times and dates or names
or anything, because my mind isalready always dedicated to
whatever idea I'm working on.
Um, I think the moment for mewas I was actually I don't know
(01:33):
if it's up there anymore but Iwas working at a student loan
company, um, you know, theConcord mall.
Um, and I was applying to uh, Iwas applying to grad schools
for writing Cause I had gone tomy undergraduate program
originally for computerengineering and I was failing
everything.
I had like a 0.02 GPA.
(01:53):
I had to retake like calculusthree times it.
Just like I wanted to be like avideo game designer.
What I didn't know, whatever inmy minds was like what video
game like people did I was.
I didn't have really an idea oflike what that was like.
Oh, I have a.
I like video games, I'm gonnatry to do it.
And I just didn't have theaptitude at all.
(02:15):
I ended up switching after a.
I was a very fearful call myparents about it and they were
very cool about like, oh, I wantto switch to creative writing
because that was the one classthat I felt like I really
connected with the one and I'vebeen able to keep in touch with
my professor who said this.
But there was like one workshopwhere a short story of mine I
sent through and I was verydeliberately being kind of weird
(02:39):
about the story, like makingthe story weird, and in front of
the class, the professorprofessor said this is either
terrible or genius and that,just like that, uh, a compliment
, I guess.
Um really stuck with me.
It's like that's exactly whatI'm going for.
Um, it's eitherincomprehensible nonsense or
it's really good.
(02:59):
Um, and that just took me.
I switched my I.
That professor ended up beingmy um, my thesis advisor.
I'm still in touch with him, uh, to this day and that really
just started off.
My all right, I'm going to.
This is my thing of like.
This is really where my umagain aptitude is is what I
enjoyed doing.
(03:20):
And so that moment working atthe student loan company
applying to grad schools, it waslike a not, they didn't have a
night shift, but it was like thelate shift where I was getting
home consistently at midnight.
Um, I would have breakdowns inthe car on the way home, just
because it was I had to.
It was a phone job, like aphone bank, and you had to kind
of, you had to ask to go to thebathroom and they would say no,
(03:42):
sometimes it was miserable, yeah, um.
And when I got from emersoncollege the acceptance letter
from my mfa, it was like allright, my short stories are not
only the things I enjoy doing,but now they're starting to take
me places and that was the Iguess the moment for me was like
I'm gonna to dedicate as muchenergy into this as I can and
(04:06):
see where it takes me.
And it ended up doing a lot.
I met my wife in that program.
It kind of got my job, mycareer path, my day jobs through
that program.
It was pretty transformativefor being these weird little
stories.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
For those that may not know what you know, a
creative writing degree mighttake you in pathwise.
Share with us a little bitabout what it is you do in your
day job, but also maybe some ofyour peers that were in that
program maybe what they're alsodoing nowadays.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, of course.
So there's a lot like thecreative writing degree itself
because you don't need, ofcourse.
So there's a lot the creativewriting degree itself because
you don't need, of course youdon't need a degree to go write
novels and make a living off ofdoing that.
If you have the work ethic andjust the amount of ideas that
can sustain that, which a lot ofpeople do.
I don't necessarily, so it wasalways like day job for me, so
(05:01):
it was always like day job forme.
My particular day job is I workin essentially the film
industry.
I'm an acquisitions person.
I work for a streaming serviceat the moment where I'm the
person who goes out and buys thefilm and TV for populating the
service, for people to watch,and I've been doing that for
(05:25):
about 10 years.
The intersection, I guess, wherethe skill set translates, is
just you have to really know howto not the most important thing
, but you have to know how tocraft an email because it's
conversational.
You have to build relationshipswith people, often digitally
first, before you ever meet themin person, especially nowadays.
You have to be able tocommunicate.
It's like the old kind of.
I guess it's almost like a morespecific communication degree,
(05:48):
where it's the same kind ofskill sets.
You have to be able to form acoherent thought and be able to
explain concepts to people whomay have, like, other skill sets
or other sorts of knowledgebases.
So that's really kind ofcarried me there.
Emerson College specifically isboth a it's kind of a film
school, but then they also havetheir publishing department,
(06:09):
which is where the creativewriting degree is under.
So a lot of my peers that Igraduated with went on to
careers in publishing, likeworking for publishing companies
or agencies and things likethat.
I know people who work in lawoffices came out of
administrative careers atcolleges and universities and
things like that.
So it's pretty.
I think a couple of people wentinto film as well, but the
(06:31):
shared skill set between allthose is, like, I think, the
communication aspect of it.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You've not only had a plethora of short stories, but
you've also yourself worked infilm.
Share with us a little bitabout, outside of just the
acquisitions for a streamingservice, kind of what, uh,
creative writing for film lookslike versus creative writing for
short stories or even larger,longer stories this is something
that more, I guess, within thepast five-ish years.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So not something I initially started off doing was
was trying to write for film um,like writing my own shorts as
well.
As I got in my day job, I didget the opportunity to read and
give feedback on films, onscripts that were coming through
.
So what it was is thedifference.
The main difference is, atleast for me, for my fiction,
I'm all about the language andthe sound of the actual like.
(07:20):
I truly treat it like thesentence, like the art of it for
me is in the sentence and thesound of it and the rhythm of it
.
The almost the opposite is truefor film Um where, unless you're
really studying scripts toreally dig into how they're done
, very rarely are people outsidethe actual production going to
(07:40):
be reading that.
Of course, the people who arekind of making the gatekeeping
decisions are reading thosethings.
The production companies arereading it.
There's a lot of people whowill be reading it, but the
general public really they'renot meant to.
It's just not for generalconsumption generally.
It's just not for generalconsumption generally.
So the difference ends up beingit's almost like a blueprint
where you're trying to transferyour thoughts as you're writing
(08:03):
and your ideas and almost theorder of things in a way that
somebody else reading it wouldimagine and think about the film
in the same way that you'rethinking of it.
So you're almost encoding yourthoughts and having them decoded
on the other end of it.
So you think of it more asalmost flashcards, where your
image followed by image,followed by image.
(08:24):
The language itself doesn'tnecessarily have to be the most
elegant.
It's more like a blueprint.
Like I said, it's a translationdevice.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
More than it is an expression of you as a person or
an artist or whatever you'retrying to do, it's a
communication tool, more, moreso for a specific person on the
other end of it as you've beenout of grad school now for a
number of years, talk to usabout either what you might tell
a younger you or a youngerwriter, as they're looking to
(08:55):
wonder whether they should juststart going for it, whether they
should go back for a higherdegree and maybe what you felt
you got most out of your degreeI hesitate a little bit, since I
we heard in our mfa class atemerson that our year my year
was a little bit of an outlierin how I guess close that we all
were and continue to be we are.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Just again, I'm not sure how true this is, because I
didn't go to like every otherschool to research this, but we
heard just from other yearsaround us that we are unusually
close in that aspect andunusually non-competitive.
Okay, I think the general ideais that you're not there to make
friends, but we kind of did,and then I think it's changed a
(09:41):
lot too since I graduated in2012.
So I think there has been a lotof as in all academic stuff,
there's been a lot of shift overthe past decade plus.
In general, though, I think ifa young writer, as long as they
know like at one, first do yourbest not to pay for it, try to
get the scholarships and anyfunding that you can get.
(10:03):
I made that mistake, and sostudent loans continue to weigh
heavily, and just going in withthe knowledge that this isn't
unless you're going intoteaching, this is not going to
be like a job credential, it'smore for the experience and the
(10:24):
community of it.
I'm always coming at it fromthe angle of community myself,
where um, just because growingup in a rural area in
pennsylvania, um didn't knowthat many other didn't, just
didn't come across that manyother people who are interested
in spending their time likewriting Um and so going into
first my, my BFA, and then myMFA, and coming across these
(10:45):
people and just feeling like, oh, this is where these people are
doing the same thing that I'mdoing and like I found my, my
people kind of in a way, thataspect was really good for me.
I guess a little bit of thegoing from the country into the
big city kind of aspect was washelpful for me just in general.
Um, the the day job aspectswere kind of ancillary but they
(11:05):
were real like it was.
It was truly translating thingsinto just real world career
opportunities.
And it's interesting at the atthe bfa that I went to penn
state uh barron's in erie,pennsylvania I'm involved in and
it's interesting at the BFAthat I went to Penn State
Barron's in Erie, pennsylvania,I'm involved in.
I guess it's almost like areview panel of former BFA
students who can give feedbackto the faculty and they can ask
(11:29):
questions and ask us to kind ofrecount our experiences.
And one of the things that cameup was just the conflict
between the job training aspectthat a lot of people are kind of
clamoring for in a creativelike uh, just a fine arts degree
, versus the uh actuallyfocusing on your craft art part
of it.
That I think a lot of facultyand just a lot of like.
(11:51):
I guess older souls are kind oflamenting as being lost a little
bit.
Where it comes up against againthe student loan aspect of it I
think is is an important and avery important decision to make
and there's a reason that thecommerce has been coming more
into it.
It's kind of about what youlack.
If you don't need it, you'llkind of know, because there's
(12:11):
plenty.
Especially if you're in NewYork or LA already or something,
you can kind of fall into thosecommunities on accident almost.
But if you don't have those,there is a lot of.
At least for me there was a lotof value in going out and kind
of finding those people andfinding those communities,
because it kind of buildsyourself up to continue doing it
(12:35):
, even if it has to be your likeserious hobby on the side of
your day job.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It kind of builds your confidence essentially and
if you need that it's worth it,I think I want to take just a
minute here to remind ourlisteners that you're tuned into
news radio 1450 wilm and 1410wdov for delaware state of the
arts.
John, that was a great kind ofsegue into our second half here,
talking a little bit more aboutArt Focus Delaware, which is
(13:01):
currently hosted every otherSaturday at the Route 9
Innovation Center Library.
Talk to us about why it is youcreated the group and maybe just
a little bit about the groupfirst, before we dive a little
deeper.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
The creation of the group came actually one of the,
I guess, co-founding members,Adam, who's a poet in our group.
We knew each other just onTwitter and I was living in LA
at the time, moving back to thearea into Delaware, and he was
the only other writer who Ifound with Delaware, kind of in
(13:34):
his bio, like oh, there'ssomebody else in the place that
I'm going to.
And so we connected on thataspect and we just kind of met
and became friends and we'retalking about what I wanted to
kind of bring back or, I guess,the value of living in LA for me
.
I had gone to a similar writinggroup there.
There was some key differencesthat we kind of incorporated
(13:55):
into what this is.
But the community aspect of itand especially in la it's a
little bit.
You can find a writer on everycorner in la.
In delaware it's a little bittougher.
You have to, you have to kindof build a, build it so they
come kind of thing.
Um, so we wanted to be very, wejust wanted to build that
community, especially as I thinkat the time Twitter was going
(14:17):
through its weirdness, and so wewanted to kind of replicate and
bring offline just the sense ofcommunity because writer
Twitter was a big thing for me,especially the timing of it was
right and we wanted to bringthat into the real world because
there were a lot of like realbenefits to just feeling like
you were a part of somethingthis group specifically in
(14:39):
person, not online, which, uh?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
we've seen a number of uh groups, not even just
writer groups, but in essence,artistic kind of share groups
that have flourished themselvesonline, uh, but not in person.
Why do you think this has doneso well in person?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think because of those, not rules for ourselves,
but because of the guidelinesthat we wanted to bring on, like
, like, why is this group goingto be?
What's going to make this groupspecific and like different
from other uh groups, which was,uh, not having it be a workshop
format, like just not just nothaving like the the sharing be
the point, like people can shareoff if whatever they want and
(15:19):
they do, um, but not having itbe the point of the hour that we
spend with each other, nothaving prompts, not having like
speakers come through, just haveit focused on the work which
ends up meaning the people whogo are people who are focused on
it's like kind of more than ahobby for them.
They're working on like aproject, they're working on a
book or they're working on umlike a specific.
(15:42):
There's some people working onuh social media stuff for their
small businesses.
In the group there's peopleworking on textile projects that
they're doing on a loom.
They're literally weaving inthe in the room with us.
But the sense of like, literallythe focus piece of it, of the
title of the group being what itis, the people, it kind of
filters for that dedicationalready.
So it's the momentum startingto go towards oh I'm getting
(16:06):
this thing done, that I've beenmeaning to get done.
It carves out some time andeverybody's busy schedules to do
it, the people who end up kindof continuing it.
It just it builds up thatmomentum like a snowball.
It filters for people who arekind of not not to denigrate
people who are just dabbling andstuff, but it kind of filters
for that because the interestcan be lost very easily if
(16:29):
somebody's not taking it to thatlevel of seriousness, and so
the people who are kind ofremaining are people who tend to
be in it for the long haul.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You bring up a good point there, which is that this
is not just a writer's group butrather an arts holistic group,
so you have people of all kindsof mediums there.
Talk to us a little bit aboutsome of the maybe more
surprising mediums that you'veseen in the group, and maybe
what are some of the mediumsthat you wish that you would see
more, as the group kind of uhmorphs no, the loom was fun to
(17:00):
somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Pull out a loom and start, uh, weaving in the room
with us.
Um, we have people working onneedlepoint.
Uh, we have people working onthe kind of pod like podcast
prep for their own podcast thatthey're doing.
The initial idea to expand itjust beyond writing was actually
it was kind of prompted bysomeone who wanted to do
sketching.
Um, they just asked like, oh,is the the library okay with it?
I I reached out and the answerwas kind of just as long as
(17:22):
you're not like practicing yourtrumpet, you can kind of do, or
making a big mess with paints,you can kind of do what you want
.
So any of like the kind ofquieter art forms are are
welcome.
But I was glad that theyactually had suggested that.
It kind of opened up a variedand welcoming space and it's
been cool to see what peoplebring in.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Do you find at all that sometimes there's
cross-pollination, so maybe awriter sees a drawing and then
starts writing something aboutsaid drawing or something like
that.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Not yet.
It'd be cool if it did.
I think what happens more isafter the hour is done and we
kind of just like all right,pencils down, everybody kind of
relaxes and sits back in theirchairs and just gets to talking
about stuff.
It ends up that those thingsare shared across all the
mediums.
So that part's cool, because itjust kind of reinforces that
everybody's on their own rightpath.
Because no matter what you'reworking on, getting something
(18:12):
done is the same, no matter whatyou're doing on getting
something done is the same, nomatter what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I can imagine outside of just the hour that you all
are together.
There's probably this desirefor more from the group.
Do you ever find that the groupmeets outside of this scheduled
hour to kind of foster a senseof community?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, we actually have started fairly recently.
We actually have a we just callthem Sunday sessions where
maybe once a month one of ourmembers very generously offered
up their house in Wilmington forus to kind of get together.
Now it's kind of morphed intothis longer, several hour
session where there's more kindof mingling in the beginning.
We still have the hour in themiddle where we get things done,
(18:51):
but around it there's more,because we kind of we that's
more invite only for people wholike show up at least once to
the normal Saturday sessions,that we can just see that you're
a real person.
So we have a discord group thatwe then, if somebody shows up
to the group in person, they'llbe like oh, come join our
discord group, where the news orlike just we can share things
with them there and organizethings, um, and then the Sunday
(19:12):
sessions that, uh, are generallyonce a month.
That's where that invite comesfrom and so that's more.
I don't want to say casual, butyou're not at the library,
you're in someone's house, soit's very warm and more
conversational.
All the time people aren't atthe library there's a time limit
for booking the room, so peoplearen't necessarily rushing out.
So those are fun, and thenevery now and then, when the
timing works, that I'll try toset up a party, maybe a couple
(19:36):
times a year, and that's justcompletely.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Uh like, obviously nobody, nobody's going to bring
their work to that, we just hangout you typically find that
this is a group where, say, anindividual can kind of come and
go, meaning they might be therefor a few weeks, maybe take a
few weeks off, as they're eitherin between projects or just
don't have the time to dedicate,but that it's still always
welcome for them to come back toyeah, there's, that happens
(20:03):
with me too.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Um, and I'll using that, the discord group.
I'll just kind of make it knownlike, oh, I'm gonna have to
miss this one and or whatever itends up being.
But yeah, people, uh, justlives are busy.
I think that was when we wereinitially setting up the group,
adam and I.
Having a change that we wantedto institute from the groups
that I saw in LA was definitelyhaving no kind of entrance fee
(20:26):
or anything like that was veryimportant to us.
That's why we chose going tothe Route 9 library in the first
place, taking down thosebarriers to entry, just the
entrance fee included, but alsojust the having it open enough
to accept that, because we don'thave any sort of structure
beyond the time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Tell us where people who might be interested can
learn more.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, so we have the main thing.
The main place is the meetuppage that we have.
That was the first centralorganizing point.
That's where all the events areposted for people to RSVP to,
which is helpful for booking thedifferent size rooms at the
library, depending on how manypeople are coming.
I think we generally getbetween six and 10 people on any
given day, and then the Sundaysessions are generally more,
(21:08):
just because there's more roomand people, I guess, generally
have more free time on Sundays.
The meetup is the first point,I guess, point of contact.
Then we also have our Instagrampage where we post reminders of
when Saturday sessions arecoming up as well as we try to
share as many kind ofaccomplishments or readings that
our members also.
The Instagram itself canfunction as just, I guess,
(21:30):
publicity and getting the wordout there.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
For those on Instagram, you'll find them at
at Arts Focus Delaware and onMeetup meetupcom.
Backslash arts-focusdelaware.
John, thank you again so much.
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