Thank you for the interview. There is so much to digest and learn about goodness and evil. It seems simple yet so complex, so complex yet seems so simple.
Late to respond, but I love the closing thought that writing eases the pain of some memories more than time does. This is why writing is so powerful for people with terminal illness -- not because it's therapeutic, but because it gives them control, the ability to create order for themselves. I used to teach a unit on cancer narratives, and I began with the master narrative of survivorship that every person diagnosed with cancer must contend with. Are you going to turn into an ubermensch like Lance Armstrong? Are you going to make everyone feel good, like Randy Pausch in his famous "last lecture"? Some of those most powerful cancer narratives are written AGAINST a master narrative like that. It must be true also of other traumas or painful memories.
I do add this thought for us writers: The writing that follows during or immediately after the trauma, for me, anyway, has been more cathartic though art has a played a role in what I journaled. The piece that I'm circulating now via, actually only one literary magazine—not the smartest way to do and waiting forever! for the whatever answer—I wrote five years after my son's death at age 46. Now, though the grief will never subside, that creative non-fiction, part poetic, falls into the category I would hope? is art.
@Mary L. Tabor, what a gem of an interview this is! More to think about than can be taken in at one go, about how we define good and evil. Marvelous synchronicity for me: I just had an exchange with @Sherman Alexie about how we think of the monstrous, in regard to the poem he posted today about a boy he knew who became a serial killer.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for reading so sensitively and thoroughly. It was quite an experience to prepare for this: I read absolutely everything she'd written to prepare and a foot long bibliography I didn't include here. xo ~Mary
Thank you for the interview. There is so much to digest and learn about goodness and evil. It seems simple yet so complex, so complex yet seems so simple.
A perfect, eloquent way to sum up the whole interview, Edgar. Thank you for reading and commenting with such wisdom.
Late to respond, but I love the closing thought that writing eases the pain of some memories more than time does. This is why writing is so powerful for people with terminal illness -- not because it's therapeutic, but because it gives them control, the ability to create order for themselves. I used to teach a unit on cancer narratives, and I began with the master narrative of survivorship that every person diagnosed with cancer must contend with. Are you going to turn into an ubermensch like Lance Armstrong? Are you going to make everyone feel good, like Randy Pausch in his famous "last lecture"? Some of those most powerful cancer narratives are written AGAINST a master narrative like that. It must be true also of other traumas or painful memories.
Great point, Josh.
I do add this thought for us writers: The writing that follows during or immediately after the trauma, for me, anyway, has been more cathartic though art has a played a role in what I journaled. The piece that I'm circulating now via, actually only one literary magazine—not the smartest way to do and waiting forever! for the whatever answer—I wrote five years after my son's death at age 46. Now, though the grief will never subside, that creative non-fiction, part poetic, falls into the category I would hope? is art.
Love ~ Mary
Thank you, @Jessi Diana
Thank you, @Jess Diana
@Mary L. Tabor, what a gem of an interview this is! More to think about than can be taken in at one go, about how we define good and evil. Marvelous synchronicity for me: I just had an exchange with @Sherman Alexie about how we think of the monstrous, in regard to the poem he posted today about a boy he knew who became a serial killer.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for reading so sensitively and thoroughly. It was quite an experience to prepare for this: I read absolutely everything she'd written to prepare and a foot long bibliography I didn't include here. xo ~Mary