October 11, 2007

In two weeks, I got a year’s worth of work done. No joke. Because of my residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, I have now completed two thirds of a short fiction collection. No one would believe it, and I might not, if I weren’t there for the miracle.

How? First, I was plucked out of my usual responsibilities; here I exist only as a writer, not as a professor, not as a problem solver, not even—and take this correctly—as a friend. Second, KHN gave me access to the best parts of my day to write. I could wake up early and get to my computer before the contamination of the rest of the day, of other voices, of my own to-do list set in. I burned my best energy writing.

Third and worth emphasizing, each artist here is devoted to his or her work and genuinely interested in the art of fellow colleagues. I become encouraged when I see Jenny Windler’s studio light on at 1:30 in the morning, or when Jamie Burmeister comes back to our apartment excited and pinging on pot covers and other found materials, or hearing Joan Waltemath explain the politics of the art world, or finally listening to Stan Charkey’s nimble third movement after hearing about it for days. Over dinner, we follow each other’s work like a soap opera. So what happened to the character who was playing Chopin?

Somewhat disembodied, I have observed my writing process during this residency. I understand the phases a story goes through; when one must craft, when one must go for a walk, when one must read. And I’ve hit my groove in creating stories that sound like me, stories which use double narratives and sometimes double voices to create resonances of language and plot.

At KHN, I could skip all the justifying of art, Art, that I need to go through in the outside world. The premise here is that art is valuable, and that the artist should simply be trusted.

Sincerely,

Ian Williams