Beholding Art & Life: Robin Lippincott (Episode 22)
Charlotte Donlon talks to Robin Lippincott about his book, Blue Territory, Joan Mitchell, lots of other art, writing, and a wide range of related topics.
Learn more about Robin Lippincott and his book Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell here.
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Why It Matters: Robin Lippincott is a writer, teacher, and lifelong seeker whose works explore the intersections of art, memory, and empathy. In this episode, Robin shares how art became both sanctuary and catalyst—from growing up in a flat, small town in Florida yearning for more, to discovering the radical color and complexity of Joan Mitchell’s paintings. His creative path offers insight into how deep attention to beauty, loss, and transformation can shape both artist and viewer. Robin invites readers and listeners to experience art not as static achievement, but as an ongoing conversation across time, identity, and place.
Robin’s commitment to elevating overlooked artists, especially women, and his belief in "revision as re-seeing" challenge us to look again at what’s familiar, and to find new forms of belonging. His stories of chance encounters with Joan Mitchell’s work, brisk walks through wild Vermont gardens, and the companionship of books, music, and teaching, inspire a way of living and creating rooted in authenticity, openness, and hope.
Embrace the unseen layers of your own creative evolution. Trace how encounters—with art, literature, and landscape—help you connect with deeper truths and find community across difference. Let art’s abundance and unpredictability open you to wonder, activism, and the courage to imagine otherwise.
>>> Art is a living, sustaining force—capable of healing, connecting, and reminding us of our own soul.
>>> Advocating for overlooked stories and persistent revision creates pathways for personal and collective transformation.
>>> Allowing the rhythms of nature, relationships, and beauty to inform your practices leads to richer creativity and deeper belonging.
After Listening to This Episode, You’ll Walk Away With:
New perspective on making and encountering art as a form of spiritual practice and ongoing risk, not just achievement or possession.
Insight into how community—through friendships, gardens, activism, and teaching—sustains and complicates the creative journey.
Encouragement to approach your own creative work, daily routines, and personal history with renewed attention, agency, and a sense of invitation—allowing for delight, resilience, and transformation along the way.
Please check out this fourth mini-season and subscribe on your favorite platform. I’d also appreciate it if you could take a minute to rate the podcast and leave a comment to help others find it. Thanks so much for your support!
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Creative Prompts for Listeners:
1. When have you encountered a work of art-- visual, literary, musical-- that made you see the world or yourself differently. And what did that moment reveal? How did it influence your perspective over time?
2. Robin and I discussed the power of art to foster belonging and sustain us during difficult times. Reflect on a creative practice or artistic community that has helped you feel connected or supported. What do you notice about how those experiences shape your sense of belonging to yourself, others, the world, the divine? All and any kinds of belongings are welcome in this reflection.
3. Consider Robin's dedication to revision and writing and art as a way of re-seeing. What is something in your life-- creative, personal or relational-- that could benefit from a fresh perspective or revision? How might slowing down and giving your attention to that thing help you transform or grow as you try to see it with new eyes in new ways.
Robin Lippincott
Robin Lippincott is the author of six books. He has been teaching in the MFA Program of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing since 2001. He lives in a cottage outside Brattleboro, Vermont.
Show Notes + Links: (MORE LINKS COMING SOON!)
Blue Territory: A Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell
Episode Transcript:
Charlotte: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to All of This & More. I'm Charlotte Donlon and I'm so glad to be talking to Robin Lippincott today. I came across Robin through one of his books, Blue Territory, which is a book about Joan Mitchell and, thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with you about your writing and art and how you see what you see. For those who aren't familiar with you or your work, can you, tell us a little bit about yourself and include any information that you think is interesting or helpful?
Robin Lippincott: Thanks for having me, Charlotte, and thanks for reading my book. I really appreciate you reaching out to me. I guess I'll start way back. Like you, I'm a southerner. I grew up in central Florida, which I know a lot of people don't think of as the South. But, when I grew up there, it was really the deep south.
I grew up in a, a very small town. Um, the center of town was a gas station. Most of the roads were [00:01:00] unpaved. The population was less than a thousand. And, my father was a commercial printer. My mother ran a daycare center out of our home from the time I was three months old until I went away to college. I also have two older sisters with whom I'm close. And, um looking back, I can see now how growing up where I did really informed my whole life. Central Florida was and is, uh, topographically very flat. For me it was kind of emotionally very flat too. I was really bored and I really wanted to, uh, get out of there and, live a bigger life. Originally I wanted to be an actor. I was in some plays in high school and I took some private acting lessons. Ultimately I realized I didn't have the, um, sort of outsized, um, personality for that. And then I thought I [00:02:00] wanted to be a dancer. I took some ballet classes and modern dance classes, Martha Graham Technique, which I really loved when I was in college, but I thought I had started too late. I had started writing during that same time, in, in response to grief, which I know has been a catalyst for a lot of writers. I realized ultimately that my more introspective personality was more suited to writing. And so it was then that I decided that I wanted to be a writer. So as an undergraduate, I majored in writing and literature, and I minored in philosophy with a concentration in aesthetics. After college I moved to Boston, lived there for almost 40 years, realized my dream of becoming a writer. I've published, a collection of short stories, three novels, a novel for young adults, and also my book, Blue Territory, which is subtitled, A [00:03:00] Meditation on the Life and Art of Joan Mitchell. I've been on the MFA faculty of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing, uh, since 2001, and I also taught at Harvard's Extension School for nine years. A couple of years ago I moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, to live with my partner who's a musician and an artist. So that's a little bit about me.
Charlotte: Thank you for that background information and personal, the personal details. I really appreciate knowing. About, um, well, a little bit more about your childhood and your writing life and when you knew you were a writer. I feel like we could talk for an hour just about everything you just said.
But I will throw in that I have a classical dance background also. I was gonna be a professional dancer and had a back injury and had to stop dancing, but didn't realize I was a writer until I was in my thirties. So I'm glad you discovered it sooner [00:04:00] and I look forward to reading more of your books.
I've read Blue Territory, but I definitely wanna read more of your work. And it is so interesting knowing that you're from Central Florida. I don't think I knew that about you and the small, the smallness of your town and everything. So I have one question for you. I don't even know if this is on our list of questions, but what was your introduction to visual art?
When did you get interested in visual art generally, and Joan Mitchell specifically?
Robin Lippincott: I started out going to a community college and I took an art history class there, and I think that was, you know, that was what did it. And I can, I can remember going to the library, there and checking out a book on Picasso and, you know, just kind of really falling in love with visual art and, that began a really lifelong love and passion of mine. Oh boy, Joan Mitchell, [00:05:00] that's a really long story. Are you sure you wanna launch into it now? I mean, I'm happy to, but Yeah.
Charlotte: Well, let's go ahead and do it, because that's the main thing I want to talk to you about. So. Might as well start with it now, and then we can return to some other things later if we have time.
Robin Lippincott: Sure. Sure. So. My story with Joan Mitchell began, um, late 1980s, early 1990s. I was in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and I was walking from one room to another and, all of a sudden I encountered what I thought was the most beautiful wall I'd ever seen, but it, it actually wasn't a wall, it was a painting. It's a very large painting by Joan Mitchell. It was nine feet tall and 22 feet wide. It's a quadriptych, four panels. The painting is called La Vie en Rose and I just kind of fell in love with the work. So then in 1993, which was the year after she died, [00:06:00] the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where I lived, showed a documentary about her called Portrait of an Abstract Painter, Joan Mitchell, which is still available. My interest in her just sort of grew. then in 2002, the Whitney Museum, put on a retrospective of her work, which I went to was just completely blown away by. And what was great was that she started finally getting the recognition that she had deserved for a long time, and all the male critics who had previously not paid attention to her were tripping over themselves saying, what a glorious painter she was and how, how she deserved the attention she was getting. And this is one, this has been one of my pet peeves. I was a feminist very early on. I, I was one of the first male subscribers to Ms. Magazine. [00:07:00] My oldest sister, was in the first class of women admitted to Notre Dame Law School, and you can just imagine the sexism and misogyny that she experienced. There's also a great book by Germaine Greer called The Obstacle Race, which is about the history of women in painting. As is true of so many other fields, women have just been terribly discriminated against. So. I decided around 2006 that I wanted to do my own small part and write a little book about Joan Mitchell I started researching her and really fell in love, not only with her work but with her as a woman. She was very tough on the outside, but inside, she was very fragile and sensitive. I think she's sort of needed to develop. to develop that tough exterior, to just to survive in the [00:08:00] world. When she was coming up, people like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were the stars in the art world, and it was a very macho, heavy drinking period. So that's another reason why I think she, she worked big to, to get attention. I started my book and. It, it took me from the beginning of my interest to getting the book published about 10 years. The book I originally wrote was about twice as long as what I ended up with because I didn't like what I had.
I wanted it to be reflective of her work. I wanted the form to mirror the content. So I really drew on her painting style in the way that I wrote the book. If you're thinking of one of her big canvases, the way she uses paint on the canvas, there, there are a lot of different methods and I wanted to use a lot of different methods in the book. Hopefully that sort of [00:09:00] addresses your, your question in a very long way.
Charlotte: That's wonderful. It's so fun to hear about the painting that makes a Joan Mitchell fan, a Joan Mitchell fan, you know. And I love, I haven't seen Le Vie en Rose, and I don't even know if it's on view right now at the Met, but if it is, I want to see it as soon as I can.
Robin Lippincott: sure you check before you go.
Charlotte: Yeah. Yeah. I did see Hemlock at the Whitney before they took it down in April.
And I love that you were at that 2002 retrospective. I've read about it and wished that I had known in 2002 to get myself there. I fell in love with her work a couple of years ago through a postcard in our museum gift shop at the Birmingham Museum of Art. They have one of her triptychs, Bonjour Julie, and I just fell in love with the postcard and they [00:10:00] finally put it on view this year, I think for her centennial. And it's, it's with another sort of exhibition on gesture, I think. Gesture or markings, one of those. And I, when I saw it in person for the first time I fell in love with her work even more, and it was so wonderful to like see it in person-- the real thing after just looking at a postcard for a few years that they happened to have in the, in the gift shop.
So, I would love for you to read some of your book for us. Is there an excerpt, you know, a couple paragraphs that sort of encapsulates the beginning of your journey with her, like maybe it's in chronological order, but not necessarily in the way you did it. What excerpt would you say, is one of the encapsulations of your relationship with her art? I mean, it's just one glimpse. It doesn't have to tell the whole story.
Robin Lippincott: Kind of a tough question, [00:11:00] but I'll, I'll see what I can do. Um, I think I'll start with this one, which is about a page and a half. Is that too long or is that
Charlotte: That's, that's great.
Robin Lippincott: As you know, there are a lot of very short chapters throughout the book, and this is an early one called Big Joan, Little Joan.
She is a woman you will never see without a cigarette between her fingers or her lips until it is too late. The cancer and a drink preferably scotch and much later, wine is rarely very far away from the other hand when it is not holding a paintbrush. Because of how she paints actively, she will be always slim, forever fit with broad shoulders, strong arms and torso, and thin shapely legs. There is the unvarying mop of brown shoulder length hair atop. Bangs brushing characteristically raised eyebrows, and there [00:12:00] is that wry shy smile. Later, there are the oversized face- obscuring glasses. It is all about hiding and seeing. She has been farsighted since age three. Many will say that she has the mouth of a sailor. That she is tough, irascible. In France, they will call her sauvage as both Van Gogh and Cezanne were sauvage. In her case because she is direct, says what she thinks, is not careful or diplomatic, or as she defines it, hypocritical. Lying, really. But she is also an innocent, downright girlish. Big Joan little Joan is how she explains herself to herself with the help of a few shrinks. Big Joan goes out into the world and travels. Little Joan stays home with her dogs and paints. [00:13:00] She admits to being afraid of death. Her father dies, her mother dies, and then her sister dies. Countless beloved dogs- perhaps the loves of her life- die too. Abandonment is also death, she says, and her longtime lover, my 24 year live-in is how she refers to him, abandons her for the dog sitter. She never says goodbye and forbids her friends to say it. Somebody comes for dinner and later they leave. In her mind, they have already left before they have come. She begins to dread goodbye at Hello. It is the reason, or one of the reasons, that she loves painting because in paintings there is stillness. There is no time and so there is no death.
Charlotte: Perfect. Beautiful. Thank you.
Robin Lippincott: Thank you.
Charlotte: I love that excerpt and [00:14:00] I really appreciate how you see her, the fullness of her, and her art, and her presence. And I'm wondering, since the book has come out, how has your view of her changed since then? Or has it changed or what else have you discovered or learned about her and your relationship with, with her art?
Robin Lippincott: I've just been so grateful that , you know, when the book first came out and, and I would do readings and people would say that they had never heard of her and they thought I was talking about Joni Mitchell, who, who I also love, quite deeply actually. Um. And so I feel like the book really satisfied what I wanted to do, which is just kind of spread the word about her and her work.
As you know, this is a [00:15:00] small book by a small publisher, and I'm sure the outreach has been, really minimal as far as publishing books goes, but the word has been spread and people have become more aware of her. And, just beyond my book, that's also just happened in the wider world. She's become one of the best selling women artists and her works are now going for millions of dollars, which wasn't the case at the time that I first discovered her so that's just been very gratifying, you know from having read the book, that there are no images in the book. That would've been prohibitively expensive for a publisher. But also one of my favorite things as a writer is to involve the reader for the, for the reader to have to be active. And so in this case, I hope to send readers out, preferably going to museums to see her work, but if not that, at least looking up her work online. As you experienced, there's nothing like [00:16:00] seeing the work in person. But that's not possible for everyone. So at least looking the work up online and, and seeing it there. Readers have done that and gotten back to me, and it's been really wonderful.
In its own small way, the book has been more successful than I could have ever dreamed.
Charlotte: I love that. I love how, um, you know, a smaller book that's not a New York Times bestseller still does its work and finds its people and accomplishes what you set out to accomplish when you began writing it. And I love how you handled the phrasing and the invitation to readers to go find the art online. And I will say right now, because it is the centennial, so many of her pieces are in museums, maybe they aren't usually on view. Like my local museum put Bonjour Julie out this year and it'll be out for at least a year. I've traveled to [00:17:00] maybe seven or eight cities in the past six months for different reasons and have found a Joan Mitchell painting in just about every art museum in those cities. Seattle, Indianapolis, um, St. Louis, Raleigh. Like, now's a good time to try to find one. So if you are, within a couple hours from even a midsize museum, you can probably get yourself in front of one of her paintings right now if you, if you try. Do you still try to see her art now when, when you're in a different part of the country or world?
Robin Lippincott: Sure I do, you know, whenever I travel, like you, I, I check out the museums and I see a Joan Mitchell whenever I can. Unfortunately, there was a big, retrospective not too long ago that traveled on the East coast. It traveled only to Baltimore and I was, I didn't make it there.
Charlotte: Yeah.
Robin Lippincott: I'll continue that to my, [00:18:00] to my dying day.
Charlotte: Yeah, I think, um,
Robin Lippincott: um,
Charlotte: It's interesting, I didn't know art museums rotated art as often as they do. I don't necessarily want to know how, like, the backend about museums, 'because I only want to know the good parts. If it's not there in. What's the month? August of 2025, it might be there in August of 2026. So you always have to check whenever you travel anywhere. I appreciate how, I see you connecting with, with Mitchell and her art and, this sense of belonging that you receive from her and her work. Are there other artists or musicians or writers who also help you find like a sense of belonging to yourself, others, and the world?
Robin Lippincott: Oh gosh, yes. Where do we begin? There's a quote that I've known for about, 30 years from, of all people, an acting teacher, Stella Adler. She's one of the great acting teachers. She, she [00:19:00] taught, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, people like that. And she said, life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. And so for me, art is really my spirituality. It's what feeds me. I love the making of art, doing it myself, and also seeing what other people make. I think we put our, our best selves forward in our making of art. And so in all its forms has nurtured me my entire life. I think it's what helped me get out of central Florida, which I really, you know, I don't wanna offend anybody because if, if you love it there, that's wonderful. It just wasn't for me and I needed to get out and Art helped me get out of there. And so all my life, literature, paintings, sculpture, dance, film, music, all of it has just fed me and, and made me the person I am, and hopefully me a better [00:20:00] person. Do you
Charlotte: Um I definitely feel that way. I think making art and encountering art has saved my life, to be honest. I don't know if I would be alive if I didn't have it, and I, I'm a Christian, I'm more of a contemplative Christian. I'm in the Episcopal church, more progressive is a good way to say it.
But for me, art is more spiritual than many of the religious things one can do. When I look at art, it feels like prayer. It is a form of prayer for me to make art. And when I encounter art, it feels very spiritual to me too. And it helps me have conversations with people like, about belonging and like soulful, meaningful conversations more so than questions about religion or God specifically, you know? I feel like it's more inclusive and inviting and accessible to all, as from like a [00:21:00] spiritual and soulful standpoint, which I think is one reason I'm drawn to it. And, and that means visual art, like all the music, film, all of it.
And one thing I love about it too is how you'll never run out. There's so much, and so there's no scarcity it is just an abundance of riches and even like my love for Joan Mitchell has led to learning about all of the abstract expressionists and then her, you know, reading Ninth Street Women, which is amazing and has given me all these other books I want to read and things I want to learn.
And, while I wasn't able to go to any of the Joan Mitchell retrospectives from the past years, there was a Grace Hartigan exhibition in North Carolina that I was able to get to, and you know, now I'm learning about her. And, it's an unending story that keeps unfolding that never runs out.
So,
Robin Lippincott: Yeah.
Charlotte: What are some art, film [00:22:00] any medium or genre, really, that, that, you've been encountering over the past few months? Like this summer specifically?
Robin Lippincott: Well, I just finished reading a biography of the poet James Skyler, been one of my favorite poets for a very long time. This is the first biography of him. I've been waiting for it for years and years and years. So that was thrilling for me. And I really ate it up. I probably read it too fast. I was so excited. I also read a really, really interesting book. I, I don't wanna blow the title, so I'm gonna look it up here. Oh, Stranger than Fiction: Lives the 20th-Century Novel by Edwin Frank. It looks at the great novels of the 20th century and it's just extremely well written. And one of the things that, it did for me is it just reminded me of the value of the form of the novel. I think it's a really incredibly valuable form and so there was that. I guess in terms of literature, the, the other thing I wanted to mention is, [00:23:00] my friend Alice Bingham Gorman, who is 88 years old, just published a collection of poetry called Daffodils in December. It's not her first book, but it's her first collection of poetry. It's so wise and beautiful and simple, and it's summing up of a life. So I wanted to mention that. I saw a painting by Lee Krasner that I really liked this summer the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. There's a film that's not new, but it's called Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Sort of too difficult to summarize, but it, it has portrait painting as a very key part of it. Let's see. I'm always listening to Joni Mitchell. She's my favorite musician, has, has meant a lot to me and taught me so much. So those are a few examples.
Charlotte: Wonderful. Thanks for sharing. I. Have started [00:24:00] reading the Schuyler biography. I haven't finished it yet 'because I had a big deadline I needed to, to handle. But I was led to him through, you know, the new New York school. And, um, can you describe for those listening his connection to, to Joan Mitchell and some of that community or those threads that are, are interesting, I think for writers and artists and how they collaborate.
Robin Lippincott: Sure. That period, and those people have always been fascinating to me because, you know, I love it when a bunch of artists come together, a bunch of creative people. And so, you know, back in the late forties, but more in the fifties and even into the sixties in, in New York, probably in a, in, geographically in a very, small space , in Manhattan, the village, probably mostly there were, you know, the [00:25:00] painters Will de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, grace Hardigan, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner. Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Franz Klein, James Schuyler, the painter, Joan Fraelicher, and they all, John Ashbury, the poet, if I didn't mention him, all knew each other and collaborated and, um. You know, and then there were the jazz music musicians. They went to see Billie Holiday. It was just such a, such a creative time. And, james Schuyler and Joan Mitchell, collaborated on a book. John Ashberry and Joan Mitchell collaborated on a book. All of these things now are, prohibitively expensive. I have seen pages from some of them, but I think that gives a sense of just, artists inspiring each other, and, either collaborate collaboratively or, or not. so I think that gives a sense of the New York [00:26:00] School. They're referred to often as the New York School of Painters and the New York School of of Poets. And, some of them, I think, bristled against those categories. There's a, there's a line in my book, Joan Mitchell quotes someone else, and I can't remember who it was she was quoting, but it's such a great line.
He said, hardening of the categories creates art, disease. And I think a lot of those artists sort of resisted being pigeonholed , put into a, a box in which they didn't want to fit.
Charlotte: Yes, yes. I, I don't like being put into boxes, so I get it, but it is helpful to be able to say the New York School of Artists or poets, and you kind of know what you're talking. So categories are helpful, but I don't think they should be the, the only way to describe someone in their art or their poetry.
The show I saw in North Carolina was specifically focused on, the collaboration between poets and Grace [00:27:00] Hartigan and her. She collaborated with, Schuyler and with, Barbara Guest and there were a lot of notes, from the curator who did the research found notes between her and Barbara. And it's just fascinating to me how they informed each other. You know, the, the paintings informed, the, the poetry and the poetry informed the paintings at times also.
How did writing about art sort of intersect with your viewing of art? Can you describe that a little bit? Like how was that different than writing about other topics and did you learn anything through that process?
Robin Lippincott: I feel really passionately about art. I really love it. I'm really inspired by it and, and just, I think bringing that to my writing. I think can only fuel it. but I would say also that, one of my [00:28:00] earliest teachers and mentors, the writer, Sena Jeter Naslung, who was born and grew up in Birmingham, she gave a great lecture and, and often talked about the importance of vividness in writing and one of the ways of bringing vividness to your writing is through the use of color. So that's something I always pay a lot of attention to in my writing is the use of color, which I've also learned through film. so I hope that answers your question.
Charlotte: Yeah, that's a great answer. And I can see, well, now I want to reread your book. Mitchell's use of color is a great, you know, for someone who's, who's paying attention to color, she's a good one to, to be drawn to. So,
Robin Lippincott: Yeah, AB absolutely.
Charlotte: Is there anything else you've been, beholding this summer Beyond art, or is there anything that helps, you know, it's summer [00:29:00] that you see every summer or most summers or something new this summer?
I guess I'm interested in the intersection of what you see in the summer, , and your responses to those things.
Robin Lippincott: I'm a walker. I love to walk. I need to walk. And I often, you know, I think this has been true of many writers true of Virginia Woolf, for example. I can work, I can actually work on my writing while I'm walking. Walking is very rhythmic and rhythm is very important to my writing. And also I think, I think walking, encourages, slowing down paying attention, both of which are very important to writing. Vermont is still somewhat new to me. And one of the things I've, I've been noticing, which is so interesting, is that almost the opposite of what I grew up with topographically. It's very hilly around where I live. also mountainous, there are the Green Mountains. And [00:30:00] so i've been noticing that and, and noticing my, my neighbor's, my neighbor's yards. And people's gardens here, instead of paving Paradise to Joni Mitchell, which I think more often people tend to do, I feel like here, people sort of work around the natural world more than the opposite. And I really like that people's gardens tend to be wilder here, more gardens run riot, which I, which I really love. So I've been noticing that. I should say this probably goes against how most people feel, but Summer has never been my favorite season. I think probably from having grown up in, in Florida and where summer's, were increasingly hot and humid. But i've embraced it more living in Vermont because it's blueberry season and I love going to pick blueberries and we have a blackberry bush in our backyard [00:31:00] and I love summer tomatoes. So those are the things, some of the things I associate with summer now and really appreciate.
Charlotte: Not liking summer is welcome here. Uh, I don't, it's not my favorite season. It's probably my least favorite season and, I think especially in the south, people just get crazy in the summer because of the heat. And I live with bipolar disorder and it, it feels like all of my bad, hard things that have happened, which has been a while since it happened, was in the summer or like early summer and got worse over the summer.
So I tend to not love it, but I do love, wild gardens also, which I've noticed more in Birmingham, it's becoming more common. But when I was in Asheville, North Carolina for an extended period of time a couple years ago, I noticed it very much there. Like the wildness of the gardens and the landscaping and the natural, letting what wanted to be there, be there sort of thing.
And I [00:32:00] really loved that. And of course, blueberries and tomatoes are wonderful and there are some good things from summer. Um,
Robin Lippincott: Absolutely.
Charlotte: we can't throw it all out. But I'm with you on the, on the heat thing. And I think.
Robin Lippincott: too, if I, if I could, as I've been walking, I've been noticing my neighbor's, signs of resistance against this monstrous administration that we're living under. And, you know, as I walk, I mean so many signs, which has just been very encouraging to see. And then also I have to say, I'm, I'm sadly beholding climate change, as, as these summers just get hotter and hotter. So I wanted to mention those things too.
Charlotte: Yeah, thanks for mentioning those things. I appreciate the yard signs too. I mean, they, we don't have as many probably here in Birmingham, of resistance and, the types of signs I want to see and probably you want to see, but they are here and whenever it's like, oh, there's one [00:33:00] safe, at least one safe home in the neighborhood, or a few, it was easy to tell during the election season where the, you know, those of us with Kamala signs
Robin Lippincott: yeah.
Charlotte: We, we found each other, and we've only lived in this house for a couple years, so it was good to, to find some of our people. And climate change, it's wild. The more I read and the more I learn about what's actually happening. Honestly, what got me interested this year is spending time at the Cahaba River, which is one of the rivers that flows through Alabama and feeds into the Mississippi further south.
There's a park about a two minute drive from my house where I can go, like sit on the river and there's a dog park there and it's a lovely space and I've been trying to go a few times a week. And so I started researching and learning about the watershed and the river and it's, it's so disheartening, to learn like what we have done, and how [00:34:00] climate is affecting the river, and how all of it works together to paint a very scary picture for our future.
Robin Lippincott: Yeah. Yeah. And for those of us who were walkers, it's much less inviting to get out for a walk when it's , 95 degrees and humid. So there, there was an article in the Atlantic recently talking about how summer has become the new winter in that. Keeping people inside and from going out and doing what they want to do. And it's a new kind of seasonal affective disorder. Instead of getting depressed in the winter, people getting depressed in the summer.
Charlotte: Yeah,
Robin Lippincott: be more my case
Charlotte: I haven't read that particular article. I have read about summertime seasonal affective disorder, and now I want to read that because, the only way I get to walk as much as I want to is if I get up at 5:30 and go do it early, which I enjoy doing, but so many people don't or don't want to.
I'm interested in how you help your writing [00:35:00] students see. What, what do you help them pay attention to, or how do you help them pay attention and then respond?
Robin Lippincott: I would say, well, in the program I teach in, which was also true of the program I attended as an MFA student, one of the things that the first two semester students have to do is read 10 books and then write short article critical essays about them. And what that's about is learning to read as a writer. because reading as a writer is very different from just reading as a reader, as I'm sure you know, because you're paying attention to. How the writer did, what she or he did, the choices they made, how, how they made them, why they made them. And so I think those essays are really, are really valuable. And so my students and I, um, we will, we'll work on the reading list together. Maybe things they want to read and things that I think they should read. And then when I read their [00:36:00] writing, I point out. What's working, what's working well and, and what's not working, and why it's not working, and how to make it work. So I think hopefully all of that helps them see. And then also I really stress the importance of revision, which is a re-seeing, because that, you know, that's, that's when we really craft the work. I don't know if you've experienced this, but a lot of writers, when they're young, don't really like the idea of having to revise. But I think you come to really love it because that's your opportunity to get it right, make the art of it. Very few of us pour out, you know, something beautiful and true. In the first draft, occasionally that happens. Virginia Woolf called those the angel visits, but it doesn't happen very often.
Charlotte: I love that term, the angel visits. I love revision. I feel like that's where the magic is. That's where, [00:37:00] like when you're, especially if you have the time to do it leisurely and find the perfect verb for that one sentence that just transforms a whole paragraph. You know, like one word changing a whole paragraph is. That's magical to me, and I agree. Yeah. I love your, your take on what we see as writers and that's, that's where it starts, is with what we read and how we pay attention to what other writers are doing, what they do, how we're doing what we do, how we can improve what we've done, and rewrite it and revision it.
Yeah. Lovely. Thank you.
Robin Lippincott: sure. People often will ask me, you know, do I think writing can be taught? And my answer to that is that, that I think writing can be learned and I think a good teacher facilitates the learning. And what I mean by that is I think writers learn by reading, you know, by reading great examples. And also by [00:38:00] writing, and as I said, a, a teacher can really accelerate that process. That's what going to an MFA program did for me, and I think it's what it it does for most writers. One of the thing I wanted to say is that, I always encourage my students to read their work aloud I think the ear catches things that the eye And, it's a really valuable thing to do.
Charlotte: I agree. I almost skipped it when I was turning in the last draft of the book that I'm working on now. And I will have another opportunity during the copy edit, which is the main place I want to do it. Because I'm thinking about rhythm and diction from that same point. But, I caught so many things by reading it aloud and it's just, I need another syllable in this sentence, or I need, I need to cut two syllables here.
And I know not every writer thinks of it that way, but, or every prose writer, but I do. And, I agree with you. I, I didn't start [00:39:00] writing till later in life. And my low res MFA, was such a gift to give me that time and space to read the 60 books I needed to read and write papers on. And, find my literary companions and my literary mentors. Sometimes I think I'm a better reader now than writer because I can definitely determine what the good stuff is and the excellent stuff and the mediocre stuff. Is there anything else you want others to know about your creative life that few people know, or anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up?
Robin Lippincott: Maybe this has been obvious, but I would just say that, I feel like my work and and me is, is, a composite of, of all the things that I've read and seen and written and, Watched and danced and listened to. The arts have really fed and [00:40:00] informed me. And,, as you said, I, I was really moved when you said this, and I feel the same way that arts have really saved my life. , I can't imagine life without them.
Charlotte: Well, that's a lovely note to end on. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me and for anyone, for those listening and watching, I will put, links in the show notes for the different art and books and films that have been mentioned, if you're interested in diving into some of the art that Robin has mentioned.
All right. Thanks so much for listening and watching and I hope you have a great weekend, Robin.
Robin Lippincott: Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. You too.