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This week’s feature article for paid subscribers was one of my artist-on-artist conversations – this time with Jed Mercurio, the creator and showrunner of British series such as “LINE OF DUTY” and “BODYGUARD”. You can read it here. In it, we discuss the role class has played in how he pursued his art and career. As the son of Italian immigrants, he was working class to the bone when he broke into the arts and that origin story still drives him today. His story is both dissimilar to mine and yet entirely familiar to me. I grew up in Detroit where I like to say my family had “high hopes but very low expectations” for its members. The arts were for people on the coasts, which was code for “rich and educated”. Sensible people just got a job at the local factory and earned their retirements with their hands. Even more sensible people started their careers with a stint in the military, which might even help you earn a college degree in something useful like electrical engineering – I mean, at least the word “engine” was in there somewhere. The point is: our origins typically dictate who we are and how we fight to escape those limitations/expectations. In short, I’m curious:
How has where you come from impacted how you pursue your art?
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I heard this was a Canadian reunion? Hi from Ottawa, Ontario!
That's not where I come from, though, and I often think about how that shapes what I write.
I wish I had a simpler relationship to my blue-collar roots, but while I wouldn't want it to be different, I can't say it has served me much. It hasn't taught me to value hard work, it has taught me to devalue whatever I do, because it's unskilled labour - even if that's not even true anymore (if it ever was), it's a belief I have internalized so deeply that I struggle with it constantly. It's not just my parents who were blue collar, but I was also a high school drop out, and I thought all I would do my whole life was clean (literal) shit. I'm also fem, queer, and disabled. So the belief that whatever I have to say is unimportant and stupid, and will be told better by someone else anyway is deeply ingrained, even if I know it's a lie.
It means it has taken me years - decades - to start taking my writing seriously, to even dare do it. It's pretty interesting to start writing poetry now, not young - I don't have all of those angsty teenage drafts as a foundation, nor do I have the experience of someone who's been practicing for a decade or two. Also true for other genres I'm writing. I come to screenwriting with no screenwriting experience, but so much of what I've done is experience that does find its way on the page somehow - and not just in the themes, but even in the craft to some extent. It is bizarre. It's like without me realizing it, my brain had been doing some of the work anyway, patiently preparing until I realized what I wanted, until I took myself seriously enough to do it.
It's also fairly new for me to write in English since it's a language I learnt as an adult. I have a complicated relationship with where I come from, and the language. Recently I was compared to an author from that culture - one of the few authors I actually love - even though she writes in that language and I don't, even though the people who compared me to her had no idea I was from there. It definitely gave me pause. I was both flattered and insulted, and also genuinely puzzled. How did they find me out? What is it about me that is so deeply FROM THERE that even if I cross an ocean, change my name, speak a different language, betray my working class roots, it still seeps into what I write. It's a bit of a mystery and I suspect I'm going to keep making discoveries.
It's my first time commenting here, I'm grateful for this space and I enjoy your newsletter immensely. I believe I found you when you wrote about Artemisia Gentileschi -- immediate follow!
Hi Albe, thank you for telling me *aboot* yourself! Sorry, as a Michigander, I am obligated to make terrible and uncreative Canadian accent jokes even though, god, Michiganders largely sound like nasally geese someone taught to speak English. I'm trying to meet a deadline today, but you've introduced yourself for the first time here - welcome! - and did so with a lot of biography I'd like to respond to more thoughtfully than just cracking a Canadian accent joke. I promise I'll respond in greater depth soon!
Albe, my apologies that it took me so long to reply. When someone writes such a thoughtful comment, I feel it’s my obligation to write something equally thoughtful back, but the problem with that is the time I have to be that thoughtful. I then put it off and off and, well, here I am now – almost a week later.
So, your story. Thank you for sharing so much of your biography with me. I don’t know if it was your family or your community or some combination of the two that programmed you from a young age to believe you had nothing of value to say or, perhaps as you say, someone else could say it better reminds me of a quote from Spike Lee:
“It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.”
I think this is true, but our communities tend to be accomplices. Where I grew up, which was a metropolitan area, it was unheard of to think there was a life to be had somewhere else. The arts were something people did, but they were freak exceptions. Not something to aspire to. Responsible people got a job at the factory and, if that wasn’t for them, went to university and became a teacher, a doctor or nurse, an accountant, or an engineer of some modest status. I don’t know one person from my childhood who became a lawyer, so that doesn’t seem to have even been an option.
When I asked old friends about why I felt so claustrophobic, they insist there were no limitations on our ambitions. They all still live within a few miles of where we grew up or, at best, the next county over. I don’t think their argument is sound.
I just interviewed the screenwriter Jed Mercurio, and we discussed this. How devastating it is to be told not to dream before you even had the opportunity to try. It’s not that everyone is meant to be a professional artist, but everyone deserves to express themselves on the page or a canvas or in a sketchbook to feel, at a minimum, more alive. To explore their own feelings instead of bottling them up. To be allowed to create for whatever reason is right for them. I can’t understand why so many working-class and blue-collar communities look down on this so much. I think in some ways it might be a defense mechanism. A way to protect themselves from confronting their own limitations.
My point here is that others tried to take your voice from you. You’re now using it on your own terms, but I expect they’re still in there somewhere, trying to complicate your journey. I hope not, but if they are, they’re part of your story, of course. What you create is a way to deal with that and much more. Almost everything I write is still inflected by where I grew up, the muzzle I felt that life trying to slip over my face, the borders to my imagination I was told were only as far as the county line. Lately, I’ve found some peace about this. It’s taken me years. I think my parents dying helped me find perspective. I doubt that offers anything to you on your journey, but maybe.
I wish I could say something more intelligent about the language you were born into and the one you write with today, but it sounds fascinating and uniquely you. That sounds like a super-power.
I’ve got to run now. I don’t share any of this to offer anything other than personal reflections that might resonate with you. I’m glad you shared your story, and I hope to see you in the comments section more often.
Cole, I realize my comment was maybe a little too much - I was just really inspired by your question and by other people's comments, because I had been thinking about that a lot. Apologies if I came on too strong, I didn't mean to give you homework, ha ha. I really appreciate your thoughtful reply, and all the details you shared.
"I can’t understand why so many working-class and blue-collar communities look down on this so much" is such a great question. Thanks again!
Same. Grew up across the pond from you (Windsor, Ontario) which is also blue collar and an automotive town. I'm a first-generation Canadian son of Italian immigrants. My mom worked at home, dad was a carpenter and concrete finisher all his life. That mix -- humble Canadian, son of hard-working immigrants and growing up in a blue-collar town -- all had positive influences on my art and career. I don't have the privileges of perhaps other people (the "rich and educated" coasters) either and I think that has helped keep my head straight.
One of my father's rote responses whenever I did anything positive -- an A grade at school or job offer -- was "better for you than me." It used to piss me off. I thought he didn't care. What I came to realize was that he was right. It was better for me, in that those things helped better my life, not his. He remained proud of my accomplishments but was realistic enough to know that they did not help him materially.
That's the kind of life lesson that I carried on in life.
(Ahhhh, Windsor, Ontario - you kept my friends drunk and entertained from 19 to 21. I don't miss you, but I kind of miss you.) Like you, I'm incredibly grateful for my blue-collar roots. My father was convinced his entire life that I took nothing from him, but I did - his commitment to working his ass off, without complaint, in pursuit of his dreams. In his case, those dreams were modest enough. A house, food in his kids' bellies, everyone healthy. But sometimes he worked 80 hours a week. It's helped me survive when I was younger whereas other artists around me "died" because they weren't as prolific as I was. Whereas others expected greatness, I expected to work for it, if you follow. My mother was an immigrant; my great-grandparents still spoke German when I was young and they were still alive. Those origins really shaped me, as they sound like they shaped you - in the best possible way.
Texan, raised in Georgia. The south in me (around me) influenced a great deal. Moved to the PNW and that also added a particular cool tone to the warm lightning bug color and cicada sound of my creativity. Most of my creative and artistic work has been performance based, though writing has been an important relationship to that work.
I think, when I was younger, I held onto the southern influence for its gothic, romantic, and dramatic elements. Tall tales, humor that was dark. The PNW felt more moody and well, rain drenched. The South is thunderstorms and heat buzz. The NW fog, mist, and blackberries galore.
The Southern relationship to violence and general darkness is extraordinary. It makes Southern Gothic a personal favorite of mine. Are you still in the PNW? I imagine if you're in Seattle or Portland or in their surroundings that you're a bit more supported in the arts? My family were going to move to Portland in early 2017, but then the election happened and we just high-tailed it out of the country instead.
Yeah, it's a real thing, that darkness and cruelty mingled with magnolias, right? I am still in the PNW, in Southern Oregon. I find it a funny thing though. I found my time in Athens, GA and Austin, TX to be wholly more creative and supportive. There is a yes, and warmth that I have not found in the PNW. I did find a good community in Seattle when I moved there, but of course I also was young and sans kids.
The region I'm in is just small enough that I think that's part of the problem-ecosystem is tight and people defend their niche in a way I didn't find in Austin or larger creative communities.
I've worked in the arts (and education) for most of my career-Fundraising and nonprofit management for my salary; performance, producing and writing for my hearts work. My own father, speaking of place cause family is a place as well, was a Texan by way of NYC and Missouri, and a composer, writer and conductor. So, it's in the bloodline, too.
"The region I'm in is just small enough that I think that's part of the problem-ecosystem is tight and people defend their niche in a way I didn't find in Austin or larger creative communities." ... I feel this in my own life very much right now and empathize.
I like to think about creativity and geology together. Is the soil rich and tender? Is the growing season long and warm? Or, is the soil rocky, and the season short. You have to learn to bloom where you are planted. I have. I have a good life here, but there has been a lot of effort put into it and that costs a bit. My husband probably would move to a larger city (I mean we both would), but I can't imagine him wanting to go back southwards. Also, the south is troubling even more than it's ever been. In a way, I'd rather be there to fight, though our region is very divided, politically. Oregon has odd politics.
It largely meant I didn't. My folks and step-parents were supportive of my writing but in the same way they supported my t-ball or basketball games -- good for me but nothing to take seriously as a career. Being poor enough to not know if the next meal was coming sometimes encouraged a certain mercenary attitude toward work. And while I was the first to go to college, the idea of doing anything other than a clear profession was not encouraged -- even going to grad school was a foreign concept. Between that attitude, having to work to pay for college, and starting a life/career/family, I didn't really try until the last few years.
Privilege is a foundational component of the arts and always has been, but we don't talk about that enough. When you don't have the resources to survive the nightmarish "incubation period", that point where you have to break in, then you have no choice but to give up until life's dimensions change enough to reconsider it. It sounds like that's happening for now, which is tremendous. I came from zero privilege. My parents wouldn't even co-sign my college loans. It was a painful slog I almost didn't survive, realistically. I should write something about that, actually. Maybe it will help others on their own journeys. Thanks for sharing some of yours, and best of luck finding joy and satisfaction in your creative endeavors!
Thak you! I really enjoy your newsletter, for what it is worth. It is very interesting to see how others channel/handle their creative instincts/careers. Thank you for sharing it.
I’ll expand on this later as only now seeing it at supper but off the top, I was a very lucky kid. Great family, mostly stability. What I DIDN’T have was an artistic mentor. There were sympthasizers but no one solid stable here’s how you do it person. Closest would be my two separate moments with Ray Bradbury. He got it at once, but by then, he was a busy man.
I got to meet him once because my wife's neighbor used to know him. She knew everyone. Her maid of honor was Lauren Bacall and best man was Humphrey Bogart. Anyway, he seemed lovely. That would have been a remarkable relationship to forge, I imagine.
My wife was so close with her neighbor, when we got married, we put her wedding photo out with our parents' - so Bogie and Bacall were at our wedding in a way. And yes, the two Rays were monumental talents. My nine year has been forced to watch almost ALL of Harryhausen's films at this point.
fuck dude, we HAVE to hang one day. Maybe this year. I've got to get back to this pilot draft and gearing up for input from my LA contact and others. All is well. cheers mike
Well, since I'm stupid it took me a lot to understand that Italy was kind of the third world (I hate this expression and I apologise for using it) of entertainment. So at the beginning of my career I tried to create products that (maybe) could have worked in USA or Japan... but not here. Have I already said I'm stupid?
So on the one hand I had to accept how limited the Italian market is in terms of opportunities (especially when it comes to the genres you can write if you want an acceptable level of sales; try and write sci-fi or horror in Italy...); on the other hand I understood that if I wanted to make a living at this... I needed to work abroad. That was the start of my everlasting fight with the English language (and with French and Spanish too). No work here? Go where the work is, well aware that you have ten times more opportunities... and one hundred times more competition. ;-)
So, being born in Italy forced me to be a (bad) polyglot and work my a** off to become (theoretically) talented enough to stand out in a crowd of native speakers.
This is such a fascinating breakdown of pursuing arts as a young person in Italy today, what it does to your creative borders and how it drives you to literally leave your borders in pursuit of more freedom and opportunities. It drives me mad that horror isn't a sacred part of the country's cinematic identity - a situation not dissimilar from the U.K. Two countries that created some of the world's best horror for two decades...and then promptly forgot that ever happened. I tip my hat to you for working out how to write in other languages. My Spanish is pretty decent and my French is functional, so I could work with another writer and understood what's been done to English in the translation to those other languages...but write creatively in them? Sounds daunting. My Italian is rubbish, suited only to ordering pizza and reading history off of placards in museums and galleries (which I suppose is useful given how many of them there are in Italy). My point is: it's impressive that you've even dared to do this.
[Thanks. No alternatives considering I don't come from money and this is an an extremely classist country (from the outside it's difficult to imagine how much): either you're a nepo kid/you simply come from a wealthy and well-connected family, or certain careers here are 100% not viable, they are not just "hard to get into."]
I know I'm fortunate to have had the South East England education and ability to travel to historical sites near me for inspiration. Coming from parents who appreciate the arts has always allowed me to experiment and try to get started without being pressed to go to uni like my friends. Its meant I can really focus on and give the time to my creativity and I'm very thankful for that. Hopefully it'll pay off.
My parents always encouraged me to pursue the arts, but didn't understand it themselves. I think I appreciate that contradiction more now that they're gone. They just wanted me to be happy even if I baffled them and they couldn't do more than observe rather than participate in that happiness. Long story short, I'm envious that your parents have that relationship with the arts that allow them to share in your passion and, more, understand you and perhaps you, in turn, understand them.
Being Canadian, I have been strongly influenced by my country's alternating love and hatred of the United States below us, as well as the vibrant arts scene we possess. While Canada is not perfect, it offers writing and interacting opportunities I would not likely have otherwise.
I've always been disappointed by the fact that, despite growing up in Detroit, on the Canadian border, I haven't been able to spend more time in the country or, very specifically, partake more of that vibrant arts scene you describe. Where in Canada are you located, if you're comfortable saying on here?
Despite growing up in Wolverhampton, not Detroit, and in a middle class family, not a working class one (though my parents both grew up in working class/lower-middle class households), I can relate to what you say, Cole. My parents were both teachers - my dad high school, my mum primary school - and despite both being talented (my mum in the arts, my dad in sport), and encouraging us kids to have piano lessons, etc, the unspoken message growing up was that your passion or talent was what you pursued as a hobby, not as a career; and that a dream life/career in the arts was "for other people", not me. I clearly, deeply internalised this and as a result, kept my dreams very close to my chest in both childhood and adulthood, and never fully allowed myself to dream them, let alone pursue them. It wasn't until I was c. 40 that I finally realised that if I never went for my dreams (or at least one of them!) then I would never fulfil my potential, and would forever be regretting that I didn't... or at least that I didn't try. "A life half-lived" and all that. The upside of coming to it (one my dreams, screenwriting!) relatively late in life, though, is that I have a genuine, unbridled enthusiasm for it - after decades doing jobs that I *didn't* love, I'm finally getting to do this, and honestly, I pinch myself some days - but also a strong sense of urgency, of making up for lost time, that 'time is a-wastin'!'... because, well, I guess I *do* have less time ahead of me, doing this dream job, than I would have if I'd started pursuing it in my 20s or 30s. So I need make the most of the time I have!
I heard this was a Canadian reunion? Hi from Ottawa, Ontario!
That's not where I come from, though, and I often think about how that shapes what I write.
I wish I had a simpler relationship to my blue-collar roots, but while I wouldn't want it to be different, I can't say it has served me much. It hasn't taught me to value hard work, it has taught me to devalue whatever I do, because it's unskilled labour - even if that's not even true anymore (if it ever was), it's a belief I have internalized so deeply that I struggle with it constantly. It's not just my parents who were blue collar, but I was also a high school drop out, and I thought all I would do my whole life was clean (literal) shit. I'm also fem, queer, and disabled. So the belief that whatever I have to say is unimportant and stupid, and will be told better by someone else anyway is deeply ingrained, even if I know it's a lie.
It means it has taken me years - decades - to start taking my writing seriously, to even dare do it. It's pretty interesting to start writing poetry now, not young - I don't have all of those angsty teenage drafts as a foundation, nor do I have the experience of someone who's been practicing for a decade or two. Also true for other genres I'm writing. I come to screenwriting with no screenwriting experience, but so much of what I've done is experience that does find its way on the page somehow - and not just in the themes, but even in the craft to some extent. It is bizarre. It's like without me realizing it, my brain had been doing some of the work anyway, patiently preparing until I realized what I wanted, until I took myself seriously enough to do it.
It's also fairly new for me to write in English since it's a language I learnt as an adult. I have a complicated relationship with where I come from, and the language. Recently I was compared to an author from that culture - one of the few authors I actually love - even though she writes in that language and I don't, even though the people who compared me to her had no idea I was from there. It definitely gave me pause. I was both flattered and insulted, and also genuinely puzzled. How did they find me out? What is it about me that is so deeply FROM THERE that even if I cross an ocean, change my name, speak a different language, betray my working class roots, it still seeps into what I write. It's a bit of a mystery and I suspect I'm going to keep making discoveries.
It's my first time commenting here, I'm grateful for this space and I enjoy your newsletter immensely. I believe I found you when you wrote about Artemisia Gentileschi -- immediate follow!
Hi Albe, thank you for telling me *aboot* yourself! Sorry, as a Michigander, I am obligated to make terrible and uncreative Canadian accent jokes even though, god, Michiganders largely sound like nasally geese someone taught to speak English. I'm trying to meet a deadline today, but you've introduced yourself for the first time here - welcome! - and did so with a lot of biography I'd like to respond to more thoughtfully than just cracking a Canadian accent joke. I promise I'll respond in greater depth soon!
Albe, my apologies that it took me so long to reply. When someone writes such a thoughtful comment, I feel it’s my obligation to write something equally thoughtful back, but the problem with that is the time I have to be that thoughtful. I then put it off and off and, well, here I am now – almost a week later.
So, your story. Thank you for sharing so much of your biography with me. I don’t know if it was your family or your community or some combination of the two that programmed you from a young age to believe you had nothing of value to say or, perhaps as you say, someone else could say it better reminds me of a quote from Spike Lee:
“It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.”
I think this is true, but our communities tend to be accomplices. Where I grew up, which was a metropolitan area, it was unheard of to think there was a life to be had somewhere else. The arts were something people did, but they were freak exceptions. Not something to aspire to. Responsible people got a job at the factory and, if that wasn’t for them, went to university and became a teacher, a doctor or nurse, an accountant, or an engineer of some modest status. I don’t know one person from my childhood who became a lawyer, so that doesn’t seem to have even been an option.
When I asked old friends about why I felt so claustrophobic, they insist there were no limitations on our ambitions. They all still live within a few miles of where we grew up or, at best, the next county over. I don’t think their argument is sound.
I just interviewed the screenwriter Jed Mercurio, and we discussed this. How devastating it is to be told not to dream before you even had the opportunity to try. It’s not that everyone is meant to be a professional artist, but everyone deserves to express themselves on the page or a canvas or in a sketchbook to feel, at a minimum, more alive. To explore their own feelings instead of bottling them up. To be allowed to create for whatever reason is right for them. I can’t understand why so many working-class and blue-collar communities look down on this so much. I think in some ways it might be a defense mechanism. A way to protect themselves from confronting their own limitations.
My point here is that others tried to take your voice from you. You’re now using it on your own terms, but I expect they’re still in there somewhere, trying to complicate your journey. I hope not, but if they are, they’re part of your story, of course. What you create is a way to deal with that and much more. Almost everything I write is still inflected by where I grew up, the muzzle I felt that life trying to slip over my face, the borders to my imagination I was told were only as far as the county line. Lately, I’ve found some peace about this. It’s taken me years. I think my parents dying helped me find perspective. I doubt that offers anything to you on your journey, but maybe.
I wish I could say something more intelligent about the language you were born into and the one you write with today, but it sounds fascinating and uniquely you. That sounds like a super-power.
I’ve got to run now. I don’t share any of this to offer anything other than personal reflections that might resonate with you. I’m glad you shared your story, and I hope to see you in the comments section more often.
Cole, I realize my comment was maybe a little too much - I was just really inspired by your question and by other people's comments, because I had been thinking about that a lot. Apologies if I came on too strong, I didn't mean to give you homework, ha ha. I really appreciate your thoughtful reply, and all the details you shared.
"I can’t understand why so many working-class and blue-collar communities look down on this so much" is such a great question. Thanks again!
You didn't come on too strong at all! I just wanted to give your response the thoughtfulness I felt it deserved. I hope to see you around here more!
Same. Grew up across the pond from you (Windsor, Ontario) which is also blue collar and an automotive town. I'm a first-generation Canadian son of Italian immigrants. My mom worked at home, dad was a carpenter and concrete finisher all his life. That mix -- humble Canadian, son of hard-working immigrants and growing up in a blue-collar town -- all had positive influences on my art and career. I don't have the privileges of perhaps other people (the "rich and educated" coasters) either and I think that has helped keep my head straight.
One of my father's rote responses whenever I did anything positive -- an A grade at school or job offer -- was "better for you than me." It used to piss me off. I thought he didn't care. What I came to realize was that he was right. It was better for me, in that those things helped better my life, not his. He remained proud of my accomplishments but was realistic enough to know that they did not help him materially.
That's the kind of life lesson that I carried on in life.
(Ahhhh, Windsor, Ontario - you kept my friends drunk and entertained from 19 to 21. I don't miss you, but I kind of miss you.) Like you, I'm incredibly grateful for my blue-collar roots. My father was convinced his entire life that I took nothing from him, but I did - his commitment to working his ass off, without complaint, in pursuit of his dreams. In his case, those dreams were modest enough. A house, food in his kids' bellies, everyone healthy. But sometimes he worked 80 hours a week. It's helped me survive when I was younger whereas other artists around me "died" because they weren't as prolific as I was. Whereas others expected greatness, I expected to work for it, if you follow. My mother was an immigrant; my great-grandparents still spoke German when I was young and they were still alive. Those origins really shaped me, as they sound like they shaped you - in the best possible way.
To keeping you entertained during those tender years, I say cheers!
Texan, raised in Georgia. The south in me (around me) influenced a great deal. Moved to the PNW and that also added a particular cool tone to the warm lightning bug color and cicada sound of my creativity. Most of my creative and artistic work has been performance based, though writing has been an important relationship to that work.
I think, when I was younger, I held onto the southern influence for its gothic, romantic, and dramatic elements. Tall tales, humor that was dark. The PNW felt more moody and well, rain drenched. The South is thunderstorms and heat buzz. The NW fog, mist, and blackberries galore.
The Southern relationship to violence and general darkness is extraordinary. It makes Southern Gothic a personal favorite of mine. Are you still in the PNW? I imagine if you're in Seattle or Portland or in their surroundings that you're a bit more supported in the arts? My family were going to move to Portland in early 2017, but then the election happened and we just high-tailed it out of the country instead.
Yeah, it's a real thing, that darkness and cruelty mingled with magnolias, right? I am still in the PNW, in Southern Oregon. I find it a funny thing though. I found my time in Athens, GA and Austin, TX to be wholly more creative and supportive. There is a yes, and warmth that I have not found in the PNW. I did find a good community in Seattle when I moved there, but of course I also was young and sans kids.
The region I'm in is just small enough that I think that's part of the problem-ecosystem is tight and people defend their niche in a way I didn't find in Austin or larger creative communities.
I've worked in the arts (and education) for most of my career-Fundraising and nonprofit management for my salary; performance, producing and writing for my hearts work. My own father, speaking of place cause family is a place as well, was a Texan by way of NYC and Missouri, and a composer, writer and conductor. So, it's in the bloodline, too.
"The region I'm in is just small enough that I think that's part of the problem-ecosystem is tight and people defend their niche in a way I didn't find in Austin or larger creative communities." ... I feel this in my own life very much right now and empathize.
I like to think about creativity and geology together. Is the soil rich and tender? Is the growing season long and warm? Or, is the soil rocky, and the season short. You have to learn to bloom where you are planted. I have. I have a good life here, but there has been a lot of effort put into it and that costs a bit. My husband probably would move to a larger city (I mean we both would), but I can't imagine him wanting to go back southwards. Also, the south is troubling even more than it's ever been. In a way, I'd rather be there to fight, though our region is very divided, politically. Oregon has odd politics.
It largely meant I didn't. My folks and step-parents were supportive of my writing but in the same way they supported my t-ball or basketball games -- good for me but nothing to take seriously as a career. Being poor enough to not know if the next meal was coming sometimes encouraged a certain mercenary attitude toward work. And while I was the first to go to college, the idea of doing anything other than a clear profession was not encouraged -- even going to grad school was a foreign concept. Between that attitude, having to work to pay for college, and starting a life/career/family, I didn't really try until the last few years.
Privilege is a foundational component of the arts and always has been, but we don't talk about that enough. When you don't have the resources to survive the nightmarish "incubation period", that point where you have to break in, then you have no choice but to give up until life's dimensions change enough to reconsider it. It sounds like that's happening for now, which is tremendous. I came from zero privilege. My parents wouldn't even co-sign my college loans. It was a painful slog I almost didn't survive, realistically. I should write something about that, actually. Maybe it will help others on their own journeys. Thanks for sharing some of yours, and best of luck finding joy and satisfaction in your creative endeavors!
Thak you! I really enjoy your newsletter, for what it is worth. It is very interesting to see how others channel/handle their creative instincts/careers. Thank you for sharing it.
I’ll expand on this later as only now seeing it at supper but off the top, I was a very lucky kid. Great family, mostly stability. What I DIDN’T have was an artistic mentor. There were sympthasizers but no one solid stable here’s how you do it person. Closest would be my two separate moments with Ray Bradbury. He got it at once, but by then, he was a busy man.
I got to meet him once because my wife's neighbor used to know him. She knew everyone. Her maid of honor was Lauren Bacall and best man was Humphrey Bogart. Anyway, he seemed lovely. That would have been a remarkable relationship to forge, I imagine.
He was close friends with Ray Harryhausen, and of course knew everyone in L.A. Great story, Cole!
My wife was so close with her neighbor, when we got married, we put her wedding photo out with our parents' - so Bogie and Bacall were at our wedding in a way. And yes, the two Rays were monumental talents. My nine year has been forced to watch almost ALL of Harryhausen's films at this point.
fuck dude, we HAVE to hang one day. Maybe this year. I've got to get back to this pilot draft and gearing up for input from my LA contact and others. All is well. cheers mike
Winnipeg, Manitoba.
I haven't been to Manitoba, but the landscape has always intrigued me. Is the arts scene there very strong?
Well, since I'm stupid it took me a lot to understand that Italy was kind of the third world (I hate this expression and I apologise for using it) of entertainment. So at the beginning of my career I tried to create products that (maybe) could have worked in USA or Japan... but not here. Have I already said I'm stupid?
So on the one hand I had to accept how limited the Italian market is in terms of opportunities (especially when it comes to the genres you can write if you want an acceptable level of sales; try and write sci-fi or horror in Italy...); on the other hand I understood that if I wanted to make a living at this... I needed to work abroad. That was the start of my everlasting fight with the English language (and with French and Spanish too). No work here? Go where the work is, well aware that you have ten times more opportunities... and one hundred times more competition. ;-)
So, being born in Italy forced me to be a (bad) polyglot and work my a** off to become (theoretically) talented enough to stand out in a crowd of native speakers.
This is such a fascinating breakdown of pursuing arts as a young person in Italy today, what it does to your creative borders and how it drives you to literally leave your borders in pursuit of more freedom and opportunities. It drives me mad that horror isn't a sacred part of the country's cinematic identity - a situation not dissimilar from the U.K. Two countries that created some of the world's best horror for two decades...and then promptly forgot that ever happened. I tip my hat to you for working out how to write in other languages. My Spanish is pretty decent and my French is functional, so I could work with another writer and understood what's been done to English in the translation to those other languages...but write creatively in them? Sounds daunting. My Italian is rubbish, suited only to ordering pizza and reading history off of placards in museums and galleries (which I suppose is useful given how many of them there are in Italy). My point is: it's impressive that you've even dared to do this.
[Thanks. No alternatives considering I don't come from money and this is an an extremely classist country (from the outside it's difficult to imagine how much): either you're a nepo kid/you simply come from a wealthy and well-connected family, or certain careers here are 100% not viable, they are not just "hard to get into."]
I liked this comment, but only because I can't apply a furious emoticon to it.
I know I'm fortunate to have had the South East England education and ability to travel to historical sites near me for inspiration. Coming from parents who appreciate the arts has always allowed me to experiment and try to get started without being pressed to go to uni like my friends. Its meant I can really focus on and give the time to my creativity and I'm very thankful for that. Hopefully it'll pay off.
My parents always encouraged me to pursue the arts, but didn't understand it themselves. I think I appreciate that contradiction more now that they're gone. They just wanted me to be happy even if I baffled them and they couldn't do more than observe rather than participate in that happiness. Long story short, I'm envious that your parents have that relationship with the arts that allow them to share in your passion and, more, understand you and perhaps you, in turn, understand them.
Being Canadian, I have been strongly influenced by my country's alternating love and hatred of the United States below us, as well as the vibrant arts scene we possess. While Canada is not perfect, it offers writing and interacting opportunities I would not likely have otherwise.
I've always been disappointed by the fact that, despite growing up in Detroit, on the Canadian border, I haven't been able to spend more time in the country or, very specifically, partake more of that vibrant arts scene you describe. Where in Canada are you located, if you're comfortable saying on here?
Despite growing up in Wolverhampton, not Detroit, and in a middle class family, not a working class one (though my parents both grew up in working class/lower-middle class households), I can relate to what you say, Cole. My parents were both teachers - my dad high school, my mum primary school - and despite both being talented (my mum in the arts, my dad in sport), and encouraging us kids to have piano lessons, etc, the unspoken message growing up was that your passion or talent was what you pursued as a hobby, not as a career; and that a dream life/career in the arts was "for other people", not me. I clearly, deeply internalised this and as a result, kept my dreams very close to my chest in both childhood and adulthood, and never fully allowed myself to dream them, let alone pursue them. It wasn't until I was c. 40 that I finally realised that if I never went for my dreams (or at least one of them!) then I would never fulfil my potential, and would forever be regretting that I didn't... or at least that I didn't try. "A life half-lived" and all that. The upside of coming to it (one my dreams, screenwriting!) relatively late in life, though, is that I have a genuine, unbridled enthusiasm for it - after decades doing jobs that I *didn't* love, I'm finally getting to do this, and honestly, I pinch myself some days - but also a strong sense of urgency, of making up for lost time, that 'time is a-wastin'!'... because, well, I guess I *do* have less time ahead of me, doing this dream job, than I would have if I'd started pursuing it in my 20s or 30s. So I need make the most of the time I have!