In advance of their PEN Out Loud event on January 29 at the Strand Bookstore, Saidiya Hartman (Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments) and Leslie Jamison (Make It Scream, Make It Burn) spoke with us about their writing process, the importance of freedom of expression, and books we should be reading.

Saidiya Hartman and Leslie Jamison

Saidiya Hartman

1. Why do you think it is valuable for writers to be in conversation with each other about their work and current events through series like PEN Out Loud?
 I think it is invaluable for writers to exchange ideas and to address the political and ethical stakes of writing, especially in a global context in which propaganda and misinformation threaten to eclipse critical thinking. I would hope that such public discussions and exchanges introduce the public to writers and to work with which they are not familiar. I do believe that books can change the world, or at least, how we inhabit it. The act of writing is a process of defamiliarizing the given and remaking the world.

2. What does PEN America’s work defending freedom of expression mean to you?
 Most people define “freedom of expression” in the literal and restricted sense of defending writers against censorship and state repression. Freedom of expression is a “negative liberty,” freedom from constraint or interference. This is of critical importance, but it doesn’t exhaust the meaning of freedom of expression. As PEN’s work with imprisoned writers and indigenous and minoritized writers makes clear, repression and silencing take many forms. The literary marketplace and social precarity, as well as the impositions of form and genre, can also silence writers and thwart freedom of expression. It is unbelievable that in 2019 Joy Harjo is the first indigenous poet laureate. Whose voice counts and which histories and experiences matter are inseparable from the issue of free speech.

3. What does a typical writing session look like for you?
 A typical writing session begins in the quiet of the early morning with a strong cup of coffee, printed pages of a draft, and a note pad on my desk. I like to begin writing at an hour when the world is quiet, when the only voices that are audible are those in my head.

“I do believe that books can change the world, or at least, how we inhabit it. The act of writing is a process of defamiliarizing the given and remaking the world.”

4. What behind-the-scenes snippet in your life would probably surprise your readers the most?
 I spend a great deal of time staring out of the window and looking at trees and the Hudson River. I enjoy the sense of being one small speck in the great scheme of things.

5. What are five books you suggest for recommended reading?
 There are so many great books. The books I would recommend are those that have changed how I see and understand the world and have shaped fundamentally how I think about writing.
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction
Toni Morrison, Beloved
W.G. Sebald, Rings of Saturn
Jamaica Kincaid, Autobiography of My Mother
Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter
If I could add one more book, it would be Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

 

Leslie Jamison

1. Why do you think it is valuable for writers to be in conversation with each other about their work and current events through series like PEN Out Loud?
 Every live conversation allows for an original moment—an unfolding dialogue that hasn’t happened before and won’t ever happen again, collaborative thinking that lets both minds go somewhere they couldn’t have otherwise gone.

2. What does PEN America’s work defending freedom of expression mean to you?
 Making room for voices that might not otherwise be heard.

3. What does a typical writing session look like for you?
 Getting down whatever I can before my daughter wakes up from her nap!

“Every live conversation allows for an original moment—an unfolding dialogue that hasn’t happened before and won’t ever happen again.”

4. What behind-the-scenes snippet in your life would probably surprise your readers the most?
 I take a strange pleasure in red-eye flights—something feels secret and stolen about those dark hours in the sky.

5. What are five books you suggest for recommended reading?
 Renata Adler, Speedboat
Kiki Petrosino, Fort Red Border
Kathryn Scanlan, Aug 9-Fog
Kaveh Akbar, Calling a Wolf a Wolf
Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights