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Why Write? My Answers in an Intervew with Mark Matousek

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real Posted on by

Writing is, to me, a friend with extraordinary benefits. This Thanksgiving, I offer a link to an interview for which I am grateful. Mark Matousek chose to interview me on writing as a healing activity. He asked me the kind of questions that allowed me to dig deep and talk about why writing matters.

I hope listening to this podcast of our interview will help you reflect on the importance of your writing and help you continue writing no matter what.

Comments

Why Write? My Answers in an Intervew with Mark Matousek — 6 Comments

  1. Sheila, What a great interview! Mark was right when he said you answered with such clarity. That’s one thing I noticed immediately. I connected with your feelings about criticism and how it does nothing to really encourage the young or beginning writer to develop their own individual style. A supportive approach certainly builds more confidence and a liking for one’s own work. It also allows for the courage to take risks which I have found, as a memorist, is extremely helpful

    I was a English and music teacher for nearly 30 years. When I began teaching creative writing, unfortunately I relied on a method of “correcting” essays and stories which reflected the way I had been taught. It was very critical. Then, early in my career I started taking writing classes and went through a metamorphosis as a writing teacher. I became more supportive and less critical and saw how positively my students responded.

    While teaching, I was more into my student’s writing than my own. But when I retired and became an inn-keeper in my own bed and breakfast, I soon had the desire to explore my own writing. I started with blogging, moved to writing articles for several on-line magazines, and eventually ended up writing memoir. I’ve tried fiction, but non-fiction is where I feel most comfortable.

    I’m so happy I found you and this site. Your philosophy on writing and why we write, and how we write rings clear and true to me. Thank you, Sheila.

    • Nancy, I am so happy to hear from you. I, too, learned dangerously self-defeating methods from English teachers and then re-learned from poets how to talk about writing, how to think about the writing process and how stop criticizing my efforts as I was inventing my work and to grow it instead. How wonderful the process and how delightful revision becomes! And how willing we become to draft and redraft toward insight and discovery.

  3. Sheila, it’s a good interview. You do make it easy for the interviewer.

    I have a thought, even though the interview is ended. If Mark should ever
    want a word or two from one of your students, I would say that I (and I assume most others ) “feel safe” with you. [I know of a poet, now deceased,
    who taught and was so critical at times that many dropped out of her class — the upshot being that simply they did not feel safe.

    Safely yours,
    Nancy

    • Thanks, Nancy. I think to critique, which means to tear apart, does not help the writer, especially when a work is brand new and growing. We need to unlearn judgementalism as we write if the deepest writing is to come from us and what better way to unlearn it than to respond with true feelings and respect rather than notions like “unearned” “wordy” and “ungrammatical.” Why not let the writer of the work hear that the reader was surprised by the ending which took her in a different direction than the rest of the poem, that the number of works in a line or stanza seemed to slow things down in a way that jarred the reader, that a sentence confuses because a reader doesn’t know who the he refers to in a sentence? I think we judge because it seems an easy way to be on top of things, when in fact, the easiest way is the “I” statement: I felt confused, I felt misdirected, I felt slowed down. We weren’t necessarily taught that in school because it doesn’t sound “scholarly,” but it is what a writer needs. And safety–yes respect for our work and that it will grow.

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