NOTE: The interviews were conducted by Geosi Gyasi and were published either in his book or on his book blog.
GEOSI GYASI: Can a writer survive only by writing?
ROBERT FANNING: Well, Mahatma Gandhi went three weeks without eating. So most writers would be able to live for about a month or so. However, they’d be probably hallucinating and having trouble typing after a couple of weeks. Therefore, it’s good to try to eat, drink, and exercise and have some occasional social relations in between writing. In order to eat, drink, and have shelter, however, one needs money. Writing can be a way to attain money. But it’s not the easiest or quickest way to attain money. Crime is much quicker, but tends to be risky. Therefore, if one chooses to write to make money in order to survive—one should plan to write books a whole bunch of people will buy. Unfortunately, poetry is definitely not the form of writing to undertake in order to attain such a readership. Thankfully, poetry is very much at odds with money. Therefore one ought to have several contingency plans of primary income if one chooses to be a poet.
GEOSI GYASI: At a point in your life, you quit the highly paid corporate banking job to become a writer. For Christ’s sake, why would you do that?
ANDREW BLACKMAN: It always felt dishonest to me, and I hated who I was becoming. Day to day it was not too bad, but when I thought about doing it for the rest of my life, I felt as if I’d made a terrible mistake. Things reached a head when I was working on Wall Street and saw the World Trade Center buildings collapse just down the road from my office. I walked home covered in the ash of several thousand dead people, and decided that I didn’t want to die doing something I hated.
GEOSI GYASI: Do you think prizes and awards are important to the writer?
BARBARA CROOKER: I’ll go with what William Stafford said, “Prizes and awards are nice, but let’s not fool ourselves by thinking they mean something.”
GEOSI GYASI: Have you gained anything from writing?
MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN: Writing has given me a voice. When I was young, I was very shy and poetry has always been my way of telling my story and reaching out to the world.
GEOSI GYASI: Do you think winning the Nobel Prize put unnecessary burden on your public life?
ROALD HOFFMANN: Fortunately, in America one is let alone. I survived, did not make a fool of myself. And I did not become an administrator. I just went on to do good science, and had fun in the process.
GEOSI GYASI: As a professor in the creative writing program at the University of Michigan, do you think it is worth it for a budding writer to study writing?
KEITH TAYLOR: Absolutely. Young writers need to take the time to do the work and do the reading that shapes the work. Studying the process in a university setting helps focus the mind. But it is certainly not the only way of becoming a writer. Perhaps the school of the streets might lead to more interesting writing, or perhaps it may simply lead to an early death.
GEOSI GYASI: This certainly will sound odd as the first question, but why are you a writer?
BERN MULVEY: I guess I’m a writer because I can’t imagine being anything else. And yes, I’m also very lucky in that I can make a living doing what I love to do. However, to be honest, I’d be writing regardless.
GEOSI GYASI: I find it difficult to ask this, but what took you to prison and how long did you spend there?
ACE BOGGESS: I was a drug addict for many years–Oxycontin and the like. Over time, that took away most of my sanity, and I ended up robbing pharmacies for drugs. I spent five years in the penitentiary.
GEOSI GYASI: Your father was a brave human rights activist who was painfully executed for speaking his mind. Could you comment on this statement?
NOO SARO-WIWA: My father’s bravery never ceases to amaze me. He took on one of the biggest multinationals in the world and Nigeria’s most oppressive military dictator. He knew the risks, but it was important for him because the Niger Delta is an issue that goes right to the heart of everything that’s wrong with the world: exploitation, corruption and destruction of the environment.
GEOSI GYASI: Permit me to dig into the film proper. What is your judgment about the killing of a chicken and how it dies to determining whether a person is a witch or not?
YABA BADOE: I think it’s horrifying that in the 21st century in Ghana, in a country lauded for its human rights record, a woman’s future can be determined by the way a chicken dies.
END.
Geosi Reads 