Saturday, October 15, 2022

Process LXXIII

Read all the way to the bottom for a special video announcement.

Is transcribing an interview writing? Is editing a transcribed interview creative writing? Is it not simply reiterating what was said? To date I have conducted fifteen interviews on the subject of women’s reproductive rights, spoken to a variety of women on the subject. 

And now I, one not born with a uterus, will edit these conversations into a play for performance on a stage.

Is this writing? And do I have the right to do this? Is it appropriate for me to compose a work on the subject of abortion when it does not affect me directly.

Of course, it does affect me directly. It affects members of my family and so it affects me. But it does not affect my physical person. Me, I am not threatened by this particular violation of civil rights, the right to bodily autonomy.

However, if I put forth the words of those who are – not my words, theirs – am I not doing right by them?

Workshop met in person on Monday night at a local tavern and before class started we spent about a half-hour, the three of us shooting the shit about David Mamet and August Wilson and ill-fated adaptations and whether or not a playwright should give any consideration at all to how some future director interprets their script I realized, “Oh! This is the class!”

We did read and received comments on the monologues we have created, and it does appear that progress is being made.

Also this week, I began to dig into the attic for my creative nonfiction project, reading letters my grandparents sent to each other during the early thirties, when my grandfather was a commercial sailor on the Great Lakes. Grandmother reported the several miscarriages she suffered during that time while he waxed poetic about the lakes and the many cities where they made port: Lorain, Detroit, Chicago, Duluth.

Reading my grandmother describe in details the physical manifestations of her losses, the week I Hate This premieres at Playhouse Square, and also conducting these many interviews about pregnancy and abortion have been overwhelming.

For example, before class on Thursday I was on my way across town and decided to stop in at an abandoned cemetery, seeking the grave of a child who lived an hour. Yes, I did.

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