What You Reading?

In the spring of 2020, while quarantined in New Orleans and miles away from my family in New York City, I started this as a labor of love. I knew little about technical production, but I had an idea. So, I carved out a small space to sit down in my closet and began recording with the artists, scholars, and friends featured on each episode. The Series took shape at a time when we had to form new ways of being and socializing. I began to wonder: how would the literary saloon evolve in an increasingly digital world? After all, literary saloons have always been essential spaces for creativity, storytelling, cultural and intellectual production. In a period where the world was ailing, what if we began by listen... to each other? What might we learn? ​ Creating What You Reading? also became an opportunity to break down structural barriers around who's included in conversations surrounding language and literature. In some instances, featured artists are formally trained writers and educators; in others, they are members of my community who simply enjoy reading a good book or grew up listening to stories. Episodes were recorded thematically across genres and ideas—poetry, monologues by actors, works from other writers—mirroring the kinds of artistic and intellectual exchanges one might experience at a literary saloon in a bar or in someone’s living room. There are some episodes where I interviewed writers in my community not long after their new work was released, because, as writers, this is the currency of our literary lives: the practice of community. ​ I had not yet started my doctoral program, where I would center my research around the intersections of spoken and literary poetries. Although, I was already conducting the work of a literarian and archivist, preserving literary and cultural history. At the time every episode was produced, I was working on my thesis for a degree in fine arts. Had I acquired the theoretical language I have now, I would have been able to articulate more precisely the methodology underlying this curatorial project, as one of my literature professor had encouraged. ​ The point is that I have always believed language to be a tool of colonialism and resistance, and that intervention, like my dissertation, is how many things begin. So, I wanted to address these concerns as a creative: What would we make of ourselves and each other if we were able to pause, listen, and learn more about our literary history? And how might we get others to witness and affirm the expansive role of the arts in society? ​ This podcast was, undoubtably, created in honor of, and inspired by, the numerous educational programming I watched on local television as a child that, several years later, is being threatened and defunded by government stakeholders. I know now that if we are the ones to make things better and possible for the next generation then beginnings are all about taking chances. This is a podcast [driven by ideas and led] with a purpose.