The Archive Project

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Liars’ League PDX May 10, 2017

Show notes

This Liars’ League event is filled with stories on the theme “Natives & Transplants,” and features stories by writers Lowrey Brown, Vanessa McKiel, Dan Coxon, Evelyn Sharenov and Hamish Rickett; performed by actors Karen Farley, Reema Zaman, Gabriella Kirby, Kim Bogus and Karen J. Moore. This event was hosted at Literary Arts on February 18th, 2017.

Liars’ League was founded in London and has taken root in New York City, Hong Kong and Portland. The company is devoted to creative collaboration through showcasing great new writers and talented local performers. With a specific theme in mind for each show, Liars’ League calls upon writers to submit thought provoking and emotionally engaging short fiction, which a crew of actors then rehearses and performs in front of a live audience. To learn more about Liars’ League, visit https://www.liarsleaguepdx.com.

Elmore Leonard May 03, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, Elmore Leonard shares stories, often humorous, about his correspondences with his readers—from teenagers who ask how he has perfected the portrayal of criminals in his writing to adults who sell his letters for hundreds of dollars. He also notes how the letters portray varying reactions to his writing, demonstrating how readers and writers often view the same material in contrasting ways. Leonard goes on to discuss the gap between novel writing and screenwriting and how it is ultimately a story’s characters that do all the work and have all the power, not the writers themselves.

They love themes in Hollywood. I never think of theme; I just think of what’s going to happen next, and I know when I reach the end. I always wait for someone else to tell me what it’s about.”

“Your [writing] style blooms from your attitude and the way you see the world.”

“What kind of writing brings in the most money? Ransom notes.”

Elmore Leonard was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1925. A storyteller from the start, Leonard wrote his first play—a war story inspired by the novel All Quiet on the Western Front—at age 10, utilizing the furniture in his fifth grade classroom as stage props. In 1949, he began his professional writing career in advertising, penning Westerns on the side and primarily selling them to pulp magazines. One of his first publications, the short story “3:10 to Yuma,” went on to be adapted to film in 1957 and again in 2007. In 1961, Leonard became a full-time writer, adding crime fiction and suspense thrillers to his list of genres and publishing more than 50 novels, short stories, and screenplays throughout his 60-year career. The most famous among these includes the novella Fire in the Hole, which served as the basis for the award-winning television series Justified, and the novel Rum Punch, which was adapted into the 1997 film Jackie Brown, directed by Quentin Tarantino. In total, 26 of Leonard’s novels and short stories have been adapted for the screen. He died in 2013 at the age of 87.

Francine Prose (Rebroadcast) Apr 26, 2017

Show notes

Francine Prose begins by discussing the differences and similarities between writing fiction and nonfiction, which are not always what one might assume. She finds that both require obsessive attention to detail and clarity. Reading from her novel in progress, A Changed Man, she remarks that she has “about three hundred more drafts before it’s done.” Using excerpts from several different books, Prose illustrates how language shapes character and how information is transmitted while maintaining storytelling in both genres. She teaches close reading to aspiring writers, comparing it to surgeons looking at an appendectomy, and tries to illustrate how to transmit information through showing instead of telling. With humor and great insight, Prose touches on revisions, the sources of ideas, and teaching writing.

“I knew that [my student Elissa Schappell] was going to be a real writer; she gave me a story and she called me up that evening and said, ‘I need it back.’ And I said, ‘Well, I started reading it and it seems perfectly fine.’ And she said, ‘There are five typos in it and I can’t stand to think you’re reading a story with typos in it.’ And I knew she was the real thing.”

Prose is the recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright. A Director’s Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in New York City.

“I can remember being in college and being taught Moby Dick for the first time and having a professor say, essentially, y’know, ‘Melville was looking for a way to talk about the struggle between good and evil, and he was looking for a symbol of evil, and he thought, “Oh, I know, the White Whale.”’ Well, once I started writing myself, I began to notice that it doesn’t actually work that way, that it seemed much more likely to me that Melville started out wanting to tell a story about a whale, and 50, 75 years later, somebody else came along and said, ‘Hmm, symbol of evil. That’s what it’s about.’”

“I’ve had writing classes where every student had a different personality disorder, and they were all kind of complimentary—they played off each other.”

Salman Rushdie Apr 19, 2017

Show notes

In this lecture, recorded shortly following the 25^th anniversary of the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie shares personal stories and his insights from his time spent in hiding. The consequences Rushdie faced following The Satanic Verses, largely from the fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, are brought to life in his memoir Joseph Anton, which takes its title from the assumed name he traveled under. He shares stories of his personal encounters wrought with dark comedy and talks about the delight of his return to normalcy. He also clears up some common misconceptions about the book, explaining how it was written to be a funny novel and how it is largely about the migrant experience of Indians relocating to the UK.

There are absolutes that have to do with our nature as human beings, and one of those absolutes, perhaps the bedrock of those absolutes, is the freedom of expression, because without that freedom all the other freedoms disappear.”

“It’s not difficult to defend the freedom of speech of people that you agree with or people who don’t particularly upset you. It’s when somebody says something that you think is genuinely objectionable and awful, that’s when you discover if you believe in free speech.”

“The secret of an open society is that people will say things you don’t like, and you have to just deal with it.”

Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize. His epic fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the subject of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over The Satanic Verses. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations.

Elizabeth Gilbert and Ann Patchett Apr 12, 2017

Show notes

This episode of The Archive Project features best-selling authors, and long-time pen pals, Elizabeth Gilbert and Ann Patchett. Their devoted and supportive friendship sparkles throughout their conversation as they weave comfortably through topics at the forefront of their lives as high-profile female authors.

Taking an honest and open approach, they discuss the challenge of balancing the demands of being professional, committed writers while simultaneously facing expectations from society, as women, to spend time and energy on nurturing, supporting, and caring for others. They also discuss fame and the desire/necessity for privacy and invisibility from the public eye, as well as the ups and downs of writing fiction and dedicating themselves to this craft.

“We should be miked whenever we’re together.”

“You have to write the thing that causes a revolution in your mind. …The thing that makes your heart race, that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, that you can’t not write.”

Ann Patchett is the author of seven novels and three books of nonfiction, including The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, State of Wonder, Truth & Beauty, and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her Books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. In November of 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with her business partner Karen Hayes. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores publicly. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Elizabeth Gilbert was born and raised in rural Connecticut, living on her family’s Christmas tree farm. She is best known for her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which was also turned into a blockbuster Hollywood film. The memoir was an international bestseller, having sold more than 10 million copies in thirty different languages. In addition to her memoirs, biographies, and other works of nonfiction, she has also written two novels: Stern Men and The Signature of All Things. The Signature of All Things was recognized as a Best Book of 2013 in The New York Times.

Verselandia! 2016 featuring Portland High School Students & Anis Mojgani (Rebroadcast) Apr 05, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we’ll listen to compositions from several students who participated in the 2016 Verselandia! Poetry Slam Competition, the grand slam of the individual school slams held throughout the year. Touching on such topics as race, gender, loss, and love, these students confront issues that are core to the human experience. The top five winners for the night were:

1^st Place: Tea Johnson from Grant High School

2^nd Place: Lily Lamadrid from Franklin High School

3^rd Place: Alexis Cannard from Roosevelt High School

4^th/5^th Place (tie): Zoe Stuckless from Wilson High School & Maia Abbruzzese from Lincoln High School

This episode also features an extended interview with Anis Mojgani, the host of the 2016 Verselandia! Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. He is the author of three poetry collections—Songs From Under the River, The Feather Room, and Over the Anvil We Stretch—and a fully illustrated poetry memoir, The Pocketknife Bible.

The majority of us don’t care about poetry, or believe we don’t care about poetry, or don’t believe that it’s something for us—that it’s not something we’re smart enough to understand, that it’s for a very small percentage of people. As opposed to the idea that poetry is simply a tool for explaining what it means to be human—for processing that, for communicating that, for sharing that, and for being shared that with by others.”
—Anis Mojgani

“I always fluctuate back and forth between how much I loathe poetry and how much I love it. But one thing I don’t swing back and forth about is how much I love young folks being introduced to poetry, and writing it, and finding their voice through it.”
—Anis Mojgani

Colum McCann Mar 29, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, Colum McCann gives a talk he’s titled “Can’t Go On, Must Go On.” Drawing from the famous quote by Samuel Beckett, McCann uses this talk to explore storytelling and his refusal of cynicism. He shares insights into the inspiration and process behind some of his most famous works and discusses how four books that he’s written are connected in compelling and surprising ways. He asserts that, ultimately, all things are given to us for a purpose, including struggles and darkness, to help shape our lives.

Everywhere we’ve been is everywhere we are now, and everything experience is something that helps us move into the present moment.”

“I love writing books because I get to write what I don’t supposedly know. I get to investigate the world and see new things and go to new places.”

“We have to engage with the darkness. Only by engaging with the darkness do we recognize that there is some form of light that is apparent.”

Colum McCann is the author of six novels, including Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009) and three collections of stories. His most recent book is the collection Thirteen Ways of Looking (Random House, 2015), a novella and three stories, which earned him praise from the Wall Street Journal: “McCann is a passionate writer whose impulse is always toward a generous understanding of his diverse characters.” Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many international honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Impac Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish Arts Academy, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, and an Oscar nomination. He is the co-founder of the nonprofit global story exchange organization, Narrative 4, and he teaches at the MFA program at Hunter College.

Barbara Kopple (Rebroadcast) Mar 15, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, Barbara Kopple opens by talking about being grateful that documentaries are moving into the mainstream, with audiences appreciating these “real-life, nonfiction films.” She then tells about her journey to becoming a filmmaker, which started while she was studying political science in college and, instead of writing a paper, decided to make a short film showcasing people who’d had lobotomies. “My professor was outraged,” she said. “I got a D….but I was hooked.” Kopple goes on to discuss her process making several films, including Winter Soldier, Harlan County, USA, American Dream, Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson, Century of Women, Wild Man Blues, and My Generation. She emphasizes her desire to portray people in truthful ways—to delve deeper than the headlines and expose her audiences to new perspectives that they would never see otherwise.

Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker. A director and producer of narrative films and documentaries, her most recent project is the documentary Running from Crazy, which examines the personal journey of writer, model and actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, as she strives for a greater understanding of her complex family history. Barbara has received several awards, including the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Irene Diamond Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, the SilverDocs/Charles Guggenheim Award, the White House Project’s EPIC Award, the International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award, and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. In 2010, Kopple received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from American University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Director’s Guild of America, New York Women in Film and Television, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and actively participates in organizations that address social issues and support independent filmmaking.

I had parents who did, and still do, everything they could for me and gave me a real sense of self so I could take risks. And I decided that I really wanted to do films that were so far from what I understood and what I knew to sort of bring me closer and make me able to communicate.”

“What was the most important thing for me, really, was to go beyond the headlines, and go beyond the tabloids, and really find out who this kid is, and what he’s about, in a way that nobody else could. And something that I really like to do is to look under a blanket where you’re not supposed to see, and pull things out, and that’s what I tried to do in the Mike Tyson piece.”

Tracy K. Smith Mar 08, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Tracy K. Smith, explores why our position as readers and writers continues to be crucial to the viability of our culture. She discusses literature’s role in both her private and public life, shares excerpts from her own writings, and gives insights into the process and struggle by which her poems come about. She also shares selections from other writers, including George Orwell, Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, Yaa Gyasi, Solmaz Sharif, and Federico García Lorca, describing the achievements these writers have made with their works, and why those achievements have impacted her and are valuable.

The success of both of those poems, and any poem really, relies upon creating a palpable sense of encounter with the reader; creating a discernable mindset, a mood, a time and a place where the poem’s speaker and its reader might meet.”

“Literature is about facilitating the necessary realization that we are not so very different from those we pity and those we abhor.”

“As a writer, I’m convinced that the only defense against the degradations of our market-driven culture and our increasingly vulnerable political process is to cleave to language that fosters humility, awareness of complexity, commitment to the lives of others, and a resistance to the overly-easy and the patently false.”

Tracy K. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light (Knopf, 2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, and three books of poetry, including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Life on Mars (Graywolf, 2011). Toi Derricotte said of Smith’s work: “The surfaces of a Tracy K. Smith poem are beautiful and serene, but underneath, there is always a sense of an unknown vastness. Her poems take the risk of inviting us to imagine, as the poet does, what it is to travel in another person’s shoes.” Among her many honors and awards, Smith was the recipient of the 2014 Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, which is awarded to one poet each year in recognition of distinguished poetic achievement. She is currently the Director of Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program.

Michael Lewis in conversation with Hanna Rosin Mar 02, 2017

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, Michael Lewis – in conversation with NPR’s Hanna Rosin – discusses his latest book, The Undoing Project. He describes the unique and powerful emotional core of the working relationship between Nobel Prize-winning psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the monumental work they did in the field of mental biases and flawed perceptions, and why he was inspired to put their story to page.

On the work/relationship between Kahnerman & Tversky: “The ideas don’t happen without the love affair. The work they do together is unlike the work they do apart. It is a pure collaboration.”

“On accessibly writing on difficult topics: “I don’t want to try to seem smarter than my reader, because I don’t feel smarter than my reader.”

“On our flawed memory and mental biases: “We’re always responding to the last tragedy. We’re not calculating the odds in any way. We’re only responding to what just happened.”

Michael Lewis, the author of the best-selling books Moneyball, The Blind Side, Flash Boys, and The Big Short, will join NPR’s Hanna Rosin for a live onstage interview. His latest book, The Undoing Project (December 2016), examines how a Nobel Prize–winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality. The book explores the work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, whose research into decision-making and judgment offered new trends in behavioral economics, politics, advanced medicine, and sports.

Hanna Rosin is the co-host of the NPR podcast Invisibilia, which debuted at #1 on the iTunes podcast charts. She is the author of several books, including The End of Men. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and GQ magazine.

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