Finding Creative Freedom w. LIANA FINCK

Author photo by Jorge Colombo.

Author photo by Jorge Colombo.

Episode 36

Liana Finck’s new graphic memoir, Passing for Human, was published by Random House in September. Liana is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Awl, and Catapult. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. She has had artist residencies with the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Tablet magazine. Her first book, A Bintel Brief, was published in 2014.

Discussed In This Episode

“It takes so long to start something.” Having just enough confidence. Instagram as creative freedom. We love Jenny Slate. Big Mouth. Longing for childhood and home. The many narratives in a family. “I think that’s the secret to a good relationship, listening to each other’s versions of the stories.” What to leave out. Our ideas of artists and seeing the kind of artist you want to be in the world. Surrounding yourself with the people who keep you going. “It’s a real art, learning how to read the fears and not take them literally.” Tara Brach, Pema Chodron and sitting with your fears. The confidence to say who you are (and who you’re not). “I had some really weird years of making really bad paintings.” Being more creative within constraints. Joan Didion: “What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.” Meta-narrative and feeling close to the writer you’re reading.

Recommended Reading

Passing for Human, Liana Finck
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Vladimir Nabokov
Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach
Véra, Stacy Schiff

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