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Episode 309: Kelly Loudenberg
231 Plays3 years ago
Kelly Loudenberg is a filmmaker and journalist and she's here to talk about her piece for The Atavist.
In this episode, we also hear from editor-in-chief Seyward Darby.
Show notes and newsletter: brendanomeara.com
Support: patreon.com/cnfpod
Social: @CNFPod
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Transcript
Podcast Release and Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Hi there, CNFers. I know what you're thinking. B.O. First, last week, you serviced a plate of a reanimated podcast in the form of a punk rock. Comedians and cars getting coffee, and now you serve up a podcast on a Thursday? Has the world gone mad? Bear with me.
00:00:21
Speaker
It's the way things fell this month. It's that Atavistian time of the month, and since it falls so close to CNF Friday, and I don't have much in the can, I figured why not just run with the Atavist one, since it's so close to CNF Friday and the Atavist piece goes live today, March 31st. Firth? Ugh. So today, I talk to the Sayward Darby, editor-in-chief and lead editor of this piece.
00:00:48
Speaker
Oh, man, thank you so much. I didn't I did not expect this to go in the direction of Metallica and the Beatles, but I'm really glad it did. And. Kelly Loudenberg, who traded in her documentary film movie camera for the niceties of notebook and pen, I just kind of imagined
00:01:07
Speaker
Danny on his drive, you know, just whatever, smoking a joint, just driving through this wicked snowstorm. Thursday, Friday, we're just molecules floating through the ether,
Non-alcoholic Beer and Subscription Encouragement
00:01:22
Speaker
man. Just molecules. And this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast.
00:01:33
Speaker
That's right, this is a show where we speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Grab yourself a beverage, kick off your shoes and put your feet up. I'm nursing a free wave hazy IPA from Athletic Brewing. The great non-alcoholic beer brewer is based out of Connecticut and I think they've got a brewery in San Diego too.
00:01:51
Speaker
I haven't had an alcoholic beverage since February 13th, the Super Bowl. And I gotta say, I kinda dig it. My goal is to turn alcohol into Mountain Dew. Like, I really crave a Mountain Dew. I never even THINK about Mountain Dew. But sometimes I'm like, I'm gonna have a Mountain Dew. And I have one stinking Mountain Dew. No shame. Nothing. Wow. How'd we get on that topic at the top of the show? Hank! Kevin!
00:02:21
Speaker
Keep me on track. Four legs, two brains, whole lot of sleep. Anyway, Kelly Loudenberg made something special here for The Atavist magazine. Oh, by the way, consider subscribing to The Atavist.
00:02:35
Speaker
for some of the best non-fiction reads you'll come across. It's non-fiction that reads like fiction and bang for buck, my goodness, why wouldn't you? Know you crafty cynic out there. I don't get any kickbacks from subscriptions, so you know it's coming from the magazine.adivis.com.
00:02:58
Speaker
Kelly's piece follows Danny Valentine, a brilliant artist with a troubled past that sent him to prison for several years. His art was noticed by a couple who worked within my artists. Their names are Buzz and Janie, and as Buzz's health declines, Janie calls on Danny to be Buzz's caretaker. It's a tender story and a bit of an amalgam, if I'm pronouncing that right.
00:03:22
Speaker
of many topics the activist routinely reports out and reports on. Kelly's story and her background as a documentary filmmaker lead to some wonderful insights into non-fiction storytelling, so I think you'll really dig that.
00:03:35
Speaker
but a little bit of housekeeping first. Be sure to subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts and consider heading over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for my monthly up to 11 newsletter endorsed by none other than Spinal Tap themselves.
Newsletter and Social Media Promotion
00:03:49
Speaker
Yes, true story. Book recommendations, book raffles, cool stuff I stumble across on the internet that I think will really help you out on your journey. It's all about value, right? If you're gonna open up that newsletter and scroll and read and click some of the links,
00:04:02
Speaker
I want you to have a good time. I know your time's valuable. You're listening to this podcast. I don't want to take up more of your time, more of your bandwidth. We only have so much. So I try to add some value to your day there or whenever you choose to read it or whenever you choose to listen to CNF Pod, right? First of the month, no spam. So far as I can tell, you can't beat it. Also consider keeping the conversation going on social at CNF Pod on Twitter and at Creative Nonfiction Podcast on Instagram.
00:04:32
Speaker
and yes oh my goodness yes there is there is of course a patreon page patreon.com slash cnf pod if you want to help put some money in the pockets of writers for the audio magazine that i put out about twice a year and to keep it well and to help with hosting and other operational costs that come with doing a weekly show
00:04:52
Speaker
Shop around, see what you like. Coming soon will be exclusive month in review podcasts where I riff on that month's docket with some of my favorite tape of that month and maybe something like last week's episode where it was that kind of punk rocky comedians in cars getting coffee kind of thing. So those will likely be exclusive pods for the Patreon crew.
00:05:18
Speaker
For now, though, we're going to hear from Seyward Darby, our good friend Seyward, and you're going to love the twists and turns we take as we shine a light on Kelly's piece.
Editorial Insights with Sayward Darby
00:05:28
Speaker
So let's settle in, Cian Evers. Let's give it up for the Atavist.
00:05:43
Speaker
You know, so far as every piece that comes to your desk or Jonah's desk, they're meaty stories that are often, there's a puzzle, there's an inherent puzzle with most of the pieces that you guys work with. So, you know, with Kelly's particular piece here, as the editor, what was the puzzle like for you to help figure it out and crack its code?
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, this is a kind of a different, not different story for us, but it definitely hit some different softer notes, I think, than some of the stuff we've been publishing recently. It's a, you know, it's a romance, but it's also about friendship and it's also about justice. And there's just a lot of like,
00:06:27
Speaker
I don't know just that there's a lot of beauty in it, I guess, and beauty in some like unexpected places. And in this case I think that you know figuring out how to structure it such that because there are some genuine surprises in it right and just very like human beings.
00:06:44
Speaker
you know, stepping outside of a comfort zone and, uh, you know, how to structure it such that, you know, there are no cliffhangers in this story per se, but there are kind of surprise turns. And so figuring out, you know, where to locate those, but then also, you know, how to keep the line.
00:07:01
Speaker
the wall, if you will, between good writing and good storytelling and something getting a little too saccharine. And because there is a lot of, like I said, beauty and kind of sweetness to the story. And so my job as an editor, and actually Kelly, as a writer, was already, I think, very much in this
00:07:20
Speaker
mindset and already the first draft was not too saccharine or anything. But still, as you're editing, making sure that you're not veering into that territory and letting actions and people's decisions speak for themselves as opposed to commenting on them.
00:07:37
Speaker
because I feel like that's where you can get into like danger danger zone of over sentimentalizing things. So yeah, it was really about, yeah, figuring out as ever, you know, where to put what and why, or sorry, that's the wrong way to put that. Looking at all the pieces and deciding where to put them and justifying why they needed to go where they went, you know, as ever, we kind of toggle in time in this story. And then also just from a writing standpoint,
00:08:03
Speaker
really figuring out how to strike the right balance between tugging at people's heartstrings but not like yanking at them. Yeah. To that point of writing the thing in such a way where you don't commentate on it.
00:08:20
Speaker
it's such a hard place to write from because you have to show so much restraint and is especially true with memoir too because sometimes you want to defend or at least justify a decision or at least maybe acknowledge that you know something was kind of unsavory but but you gotta you gotta find a way to just be like you know I'm guy I gotta let the scene speak for itself and and be the bad guy maybe or let someone else be the bad guy it's it's a
00:08:48
Speaker
It's a really hard thing to navigate as a writer.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It is. And I actually think you just said probably the word I was dancing around and unable to get to in my previous answer, which is restraint. And so this is a piece where restraint is kind of everything. And so figuring out with Kelly how tightly to hold the reins, when to slacken it a little bit, but really trying to keep things in check so that
00:09:18
Speaker
the story is speaking for itself and we're not getting lost in kind of like purple language or unnecessary sentimentality. And I think she did a really nice job with that. It's also on the shorter side for us. It's more like 85, 86 hundred
Storytelling Techniques and Transitions
00:09:33
Speaker
words. And I think there's a reason for that because of the kind of intimacy of the story and also because of the restraint that was really a priority in the writing and editing process.
00:09:44
Speaker
Now, when I spoke with Kelly, she comes from a documentary film background, and this was, at least from the conversation I had with her, I gleaned that this was kind of her first real foray into long-form written journalism.
00:10:00
Speaker
So when you're approached by a writer pitching a story to you who doesn't necessarily have the body of work in this vein, how do you work with a writer like that or make sure that they can pull it off what they're pitching if they don't have that body of work?
00:10:21
Speaker
You know, I think in this case, like the story from like, I remember getting this pitch very clearly because, you know, to me, these three characters, Janie, Buzz and Danny, you know, just really jumped off the page immediately. And I found their story to be an interesting kind of confluence of a couple of stories we've heard before, right, about, you know,
00:10:45
Speaker
people who support prisoners in the correctional system in the United States and ultimately support them when they're transitioning into the wider world after being released. That's a story. There's some really beautiful, we've done some beautiful journalism about that. This is also a story about the people who become surprising caregivers and caretakers for the aging in America. And those are stories we've kind of
00:11:12
Speaker
heard before, and I don't mean that to say that it's overdone or tried or anything, point being there were almost like these little genres of popular stories that this story had various components of. And I was immediately excited by the way that I kind of saw those layers in her pitch. And so as a filmmaker, I think Kelly did a great job. She saw the story, right? Like no question she saw the story.
00:11:36
Speaker
For me, it was a matter of talking to her and getting a sense of how close can you get to these folks. And it was pretty abundantly clear that she really had their trust and their support. And then on top of that, really, and this is in some ways,
00:11:53
Speaker
Because this is a piece that has a lot of restraint in it, like I'm a broken record over here saying that, in some ways, like someone for whom the story is the first thing as opposed to the pros, quote unquote, you know, Kelly was already forefronting exactly what the piece needed. And it was clear to me from talking with her that that was going to be the case. And then in the editing process, you know, she sent something that I'm trying to remember, I feel like the first draft, it was like,
00:12:20
Speaker
too much restraint, almost. Like, okay, let's give it a little bit more love. Like, let's put a little bit more flesh on the bones here. The bones are incredibly strong, but let's, you know, figure out how to just, you know, give it a little more shape. And she was really excited by that. Actually, it was one of those fun moments. I've worked with a couple of people who've never really done long form before, you know, having conversations about editing. And she said something along the lines of like, you know, editing is better than taking a writing class.
00:12:45
Speaker
Um, which is, uh, I mean, I personally agree. Like I love being edited for that reason. Cause I feel like I'm learning in, you know, in process as opposed to, you know, in a more sort of instructional format. Kelly was definitely game, right? To, to try something she'd never tried before, but she also just instinctively got.
00:13:03
Speaker
what the story was supposed to be from the get-go. And to me, honestly, that's always the most important thing. It's not, can you write the best sentences? Are your powers of description off the charts? It's, do you understand, do you feel this story? And it was just so clear that Kelly did. It was one of those pitches I got, I immediately replied to, because I was just really interested. And I think it was because she was already in her pitch, really conveying that she understood the power of this story.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's so important where you say, you know, the story was forefront. And that is really hard sometimes for writers who we may be very seduced by stylists, whether they be
00:13:49
Speaker
David Foster Wallace or Didion or who John Jeremiah Sullivan you know these people that really just kind of leap off the page and I think a lot of us get into writing because oh we're excited by that and we want to find some sort of way to contribute to that and when we fly close to that too close to that Sun of course you know many of our wings will melt and we will most certainly fall and
00:14:10
Speaker
So it's really, it's such a delicate balance to really surrender to the story, but also try to inject some style into it without going over the top. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, I like that sort of Icarus flying too close to the sun. I feel like so often writers, it's all the style stuff that makes that happen, right? That they lose sight of the story. They lose sight of the earth.
00:14:38
Speaker
If you will, and you know, fly too close to the sun and everything kind of falls apart because it comes all about style and not about the substance, not about the story. And to be clear, like I love a great pro stylist, but when in doubt, you know, let the story do the work.
00:14:54
Speaker
And that isn't to say that the writer is not doing the work because the writer had to get the story. The writer had to understand the story. The writer had to put all of those bones together. And I think there's sometimes a misapprehension that the more words you put on the page, the more description you're able to include, the more details about a particular
00:15:13
Speaker
scene or something. Also, I have apparently chimes behind me or bells. Oh, I guess it's a Sunday. I was like, what is that? It's a church. Anyway, sorry. Not something I hear in Brooklyn. So I think that, you know, it's like when in doubt, like keep your eye on the story.
00:15:32
Speaker
people think that good writing is ultimately all about style, right? And I think that's just not true, especially for what we do, right? Because it's like, you found the story, you constructed the story, you know, you are laying it out for people in a compelling way. And like all of that stuff is good writing too. And so, you know, I'm a big fan of
00:15:54
Speaker
Pro stylists obviously, but you know, when in doubt, I always tell people like focus on the story and be more restrained. Um, because if you, if you have a good story, um, and you're able to tell it in such a way that, you know, reader really wants to keep quote unquote, turning the page or scrolling down, you know, you're succeeding as a writer. Um, even if, you know, there's not some flare or panache to, you know, every sentence.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think what really comes to mind when hearing you talk about this is, and I always devolve into Metallica references because I can really overlay a lot of creative pivots with overlaying it over Metallica's career. When you're surrendering to story, I feel like the writer is effectively the drummer, keeping the beat.
Writing Process and Influences
00:16:43
Speaker
Nice and steady, but there are tendencies where a band can be over-stylized in too many fills and too much flourish, too much high tempo. So Metallica did that. They pushed the envelope with their first records and then with the Black album, their most popular one.
00:17:00
Speaker
The drummer really stepped back and just really kind of kept the pretty simple beat throughout the thing and mainly just accenting all the other important elements of the songs instead of going to the forefront. So to me it feels like the good writer who knows the story
00:17:16
Speaker
is just putting the right accent in the right place and keeping the beat and keeping you moving along. And then when there's really a good flourish, like a good riff or a good lyric, the drummer can be there to hit the cymbal, hit the toms, maybe do a little bit of a flourish, but it's all in service of accenting the other elements of the band, if that makes any sense at all.
00:17:37
Speaker
No, it definitely does. And it reminds me, I'm one of the bajillion people who loved Get Back, the Beatles documentary. And one of the things I was so struck by in watching it was that nobody ever had notes for Ringo. They were all arguing about this or that. And Ringo was just there doing his job, keeping the beat, but also not in an important, in an absolutely crucial way. And the whole time, I was like, they could not function without
00:18:04
Speaker
like I mean well of course they couldn't make the music without like a drummer but there was also just a quality of like this is the anchor of everything you know and uh you know I know people say Ringo is the best beatle and I after seeing that documentary it's really hard to argue with that not only because he is a great drummer but also because he's hilarious and just you know gives no
00:18:23
Speaker
gives no shits about a lot of the drama. But it's funny you say that. I know far more about a band like The Beatles than I do about Metallica. But I understand exactly what you're saying. And I think that's right. Which isn't to say that sometimes the drummer can't have a fantastic solo or whatever. But really, it's about, are we keeping the song on track? Are we ultimately? Yeah, it's the backbone. It's the anchor. It's all of those things that
00:18:52
Speaker
hold things in place and together. Nice. I love it. See, every month, and when I get to talk with you and Jonah about these kind of things and the story of that particular writer coming up, certain things just kind of bubble up in my head. And then as we talk about it, other little crafty things pop up. And I think it's really fun that we get to
00:19:13
Speaker
We don't know where these conversations are going to go, but they always, I think, are in service of the piece, in service of what you're doing with the Adivis. And I think the listeners and the writers out there are going to glean just so much from this little conversation about what Kelly's story really triggered for us. So this is, as always, Sayward, this was great. And this was a whole lot of fun. I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it. Oh, man, thank you so much. I did not expect this to go in the direction of Metallica and the Beatles, but I'm really glad it did.
00:19:47
Speaker
You know, it's a good day when I can fold in some Talaga talk. I think there's an essay there about writers being more like drummers than, say, lead singers or soloists. Hmm.
00:20:00
Speaker
Hmm, stroking the beard. Now we're gonna talk to Kelly Loudenberg. She's a filmmaker, and this is her first foray into written long-form journalism, but not her last. She directed Exhibit A, or worked on Exhibit A for Netflix, a series exploring controversial criminal cases through the lens of questionable forensic
00:20:23
Speaker
science, which is often far less scientific than it appears. She also worked on The Confession Tapes, a series that examines false confessions. Man, we live in such a rosy world. We get into some juicy stuff. So why wait? Here's Kelly Loudenberg. Ooh. Given that you have a lot of, it would appear a lot of experience in filmmaking. So in what way, in what way does filmmaking really help your writing?
00:20:54
Speaker
Well, this is my first long form piece. I mean, I've written smaller things, but I think this was kind of more like making a documentary, but I actually enjoyed the process a little bit more because
00:21:12
Speaker
it was more intimate and it didn't involve a lot of other people that I had to rely on, which I do like collaboration, but sometimes like when you're just in the process of working on a story, it's kind of nice for it just to be you and the people who you're writing about and who you respect and admire. So I think that part of it was really, really enjoyable. But yeah, it was really similar to making a documentary where
00:21:41
Speaker
I was talking to not just like Janie and Danny, but also all the people in their orbit. Janie's former students, Buzz's former students, Buzz's work colleagues and old friends, really old friends from before he knew Janie. Janie's friends, you know, I kind of also made friends with one of Janie's friends.
00:22:06
Speaker
who's in the piece and who lives in LA now, which is really nice. But it's just, yeah, I mean, it's kind of just getting to know their whole world and talking to everybody around it and not just directly to both of them. And in documentary,
00:22:22
Speaker
for both of my shows, I would do that. I would talk to a lot of people who I never even planned on interviewing, but who gave me the right kind of context and just helped me kind of embed myself in their story. So I think it was really similar to that. And then the process of writing it is like the process of thinking about the structure of a documentary, like how am I gonna unfold this story? And with documentary, you're more limited because you have
00:22:50
Speaker
to tell it with interviews and footage and archival. And if you don't have things like that to do it, you can't really, you can't use it. You can't do it. But with writing, if you have the scenes and they exist, you can write them. So it was really more creative in a way, in that way.
00:23:15
Speaker
Did you find that it was a bit more liberating and maybe less overwhelming in terms of making a film? Of course, you've got crew, you've got booms, you've got microphones, and then here reporting is kind of like you and your recorder and your notebook. Did it feel more streamlined, I guess, is what I'm getting at. It did. It felt more simple in a lot of ways.
00:23:40
Speaker
I'm not saying it was easier. I'm just saying it was I just kind of kind of felt like I could focus more and I could yeah kind of create things in my head too. And it just didn't have to be the distraction of all the crew and all the money. You know when you're doing like the shows I've done there's just a lot of money weighing on each
00:24:00
Speaker
And each time you go out with a crew, you know, it's cost money. And this is just like, you just have your notebook and your recorder and you don't have to put so much pressure on every interaction. You don't have to get something out of every conversation. You can just kind of flow through it a bit easier. So I like that part.
00:24:23
Speaker
And you alluded to structure earlier as well, and in what ways, or you can talk about the structure of this piece in particular, but also maybe give us some insight into how sometimes the structure of a documentary is similar or different than doing a sort of a long-form written piece.
00:24:46
Speaker
You can open a documentary in the same way I open that story. I mean, it just, I think structure is one of my favorite parts is just figuring out like, okay, it's not just like beginning, middle and end. You don't, it's not like I need to go through a chronology. How am I going to create something interesting that somebody wants to read, you know? And it's the same thing with the documentary. It's like, and you work with the editor too, just like you both ways here are,
00:25:16
Speaker
You know, working with a great editor is so important, but like within a documentary setting to like the editor is also writing it with you. And they're helping you think through what the structure should be and you're kind of talking back and forth about it and it's really important.
00:25:33
Speaker
huge part of how the shape and the form that it takes. But I think with documentary, you are limited to having the right assets visually. And if you don't have them visually, you can't do it.
00:25:49
Speaker
And you talk about the opening element of this piece and it's a really nice scene and I wrote sort of in my notes afterwards just kind of like do like anatomy of the scene, like ask Kelly about this and how she goes about reporting something and reconstructing something like this. So maybe you can unpack the opening vignette of this piece that introduced Daniel and just how you went about reporting that.
00:26:18
Speaker
I mean, the scene for me was that cinematic scene in my head of Danny getting this call from Janie on Christmas Eve that she really, she needed some help and she was worn out and emotionally exhausted and she,
00:26:39
Speaker
She needed a backup and she called Danny and he said, okay, I'll be there. And he, and he left the next day and he, you know, packed up his, his car and came down from the upper peninsula. I just kind of imagined Danny on his drive, you know, just whatever smoking a joint, just driving through this wicked snow storm and getting into
00:27:05
Speaker
and Arbor to this beautiful neighborhood and this beautiful house with the family and what that scene must have been like. I mean, it was also probably very stressful for people involved. You know, it wasn't like a perfectly normal Christmas either. So Danny shows up and did this kind of like a domestic scene. Yeah, but you also have to stick to the facts too, and you can.
00:27:30
Speaker
So that's the other thing I respect about this process that I'm learning about too, as this is my first time doing something like this. Like you really have to, you know, you can make the scene cinematic, but it also has to be true, completely true. So that is something you have to work with truth, you know, so, um,
00:27:53
Speaker
It's still a very cinematic scene in truth, no matter what. So I'm glad that we were able to bring it out. I think sometimes in documentaries, there is a tendency to get further from the truth. I think that's what's happening now in documentaries. That's not how we made our shows and we were very committed to representing
00:28:20
Speaker
what actually happened. I think things are getting more blurry in the documentary genre and it's not something I totally like. Is it getting over stylized and dramaticized? Yeah, very much. Is that what's going on? Yeah. I think some things don't need to be documentaries. Some things are better as a written piece or a podcast or a fiction movie.
00:28:50
Speaker
a fictional take on that story. Sometimes it just gets to be stretched a little bit.
00:29:03
Speaker
Well, yeah, there was, you know, a bunch of years ago there was that whole thing about the lifespan of a fact with John DeGata and the fact checker of a particular piece and there was he was writing this essay and it was part of the things where he liked the rhythm of certain sentences whether I'm gonna blank on some of the details but like if he said like I like the way that this
00:29:27
Speaker
number or this date flows better in the sentence. It doesn't matter that it's not verifiably true. I just like how it sounds better. And the fact checker was like, well, no, if this is going to be something that is true, then we need to stick to the facts. But he's like, no, I don't care. There's the truth here with lowercase t or an uppercase T.
00:29:49
Speaker
truth and it was like so stretching it because he wanted it to be more artistic but if we want to stick to the facts it's like no it's got I don't care how the sentence or the rhythm of the sentence sounds like facts are the facts and we got to stick to it so there's that rubber band reality you know it sounds like you and you and I we like yeah we want to stick to the wireframe of the facts but some people are blurring those lines as you were saying earlier
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's easier to do in a documentary where there's not like such a strenuous fact checking process. I mean, there isn't, I mean, they don't have like an outsider coming in and checking these things. But I think it's kind of up to the filmmaking team and the legal team too. So I think this in the work that I've made because it was
00:30:37
Speaker
Uh, the, the stuff that I did for Netflix, like we did have to stick, we couldn't go, um, you know, off into left field because it was a legal issue too. And like, it was cost a lot of money if we misrepresented things. So we actually, we did have people, legal teams checking everything that we did and making sure that we were right. So that was, I actually appreciate that part.
00:31:03
Speaker
Yeah and like this piece opens up with that scene and then there are more the expositional informational sections as well. So how would it how did you go about you know balancing the the more kinetic scene work versus here's information you need to know to fully you know immerse yourself with these primary characters. Yeah I mean I think it was
00:31:25
Speaker
a lot longer at one point and then a say word really helps cut it back. I think by just like working with her to find that balance of details versus what you were saying, scene work, I guess. And I think what I started from though, basically, and what I gave say word to begin with was something that I felt like, okay, I'm going to take as many
00:31:50
Speaker
pieces of this and make them into scenes like the scenes that they were and just try to like write them like scenes and not get too bogged down in like
00:32:01
Speaker
mundane details so i think like that's just how i started thinking about it and then say it really helped me the editor helped me expand on that and make that even stronger in over the course of you know writing a piece of this nature or whatever it is a lot of a lot of individual reporters or writers they might have their own idiosyncrasies to to get to prime the pump to get into the
00:32:26
Speaker
Into the flow flow of things like I know Susan or lean like she's all about the lead like she can't sort of proceed until The lead is in place and some people can be like, you know, I can put that off to later and do something else So I wonder for you What what are the things that you like to have in place when you're when you're generating the thing?
00:32:46
Speaker
That's a very good question. I think it was a little bit scattered and disorganized for me and I next time will be more organized about how I'm looking through the information before I start writing. At first I was like,
00:33:02
Speaker
This is my first time doing something so long. So first I was like, maybe I should just outline it. And then I realized, because that's what I would do for a documentary. I would outline it in a very detailed way and see if that works and even put it up on the wall, like some people storyboard a film. And I thought about, okay, do I want to storyboard this? Do I want to outline it?
00:33:23
Speaker
Like how am I going to get all this information down? But what I actually did was then I just started writing it. And I just kept going through all the interviews and transcripts. And then I kept also talking to Danny and Janie along the way. So it was not like I went out and did all the interviews and then came to my desk and started writing. I was really like actively interviewing them the whole time, realizing
00:33:50
Speaker
that I needed more here or there. And I just, and they were just so wonderful about answering all these questions. And also their memories are very detailed. And so they helped where I needed to fill in all of these pieces that I just, I didn't have. So yeah, I think for this time, it was like very kind of piecemeal, like working through it until I got through to the end.
00:34:19
Speaker
Did you find that because you were writing it along as you were figuring it out and still spackling in holes with interviews here and there, did you ever run into an instance where you felt like you might have been painting yourself into a structural corner that might have been hard to get out of? Well, I knew the general arc of the story. I didn't think I was going to do that. I did worry that the structure wouldn't work though.
00:34:49
Speaker
not worried, but I, it's hard when you don't have like a ton of distance to know like, is this interesting? Does this build? Does this work? And so also just had to ask, you know, say word if, Hey, is the basic structure working here? And thankfully it was. But then, you know, there were times too, I'm like, wow, how much do I want to go into the prison art world culture, you know, because that's another world.
Exploring the Prison Art World
00:35:18
Speaker
unto itself that I got to know, um, through Danny and other artists that I've interviewed and talked to who are still incarcerated and a couple who are out. Um, but that was also a whole other world that I just loved. And then I felt like, wow, how, how far do I want to go down that hole? And I think I did at one point go pretty far. And then we kind of scaled it back, but like, that's just probably a whole nother piece right there. Um, but not, not the same thing.
00:35:45
Speaker
Right. And I think we should talk about access and how you came to know and meet Danny and Janie and how you arrived at this story. It was kind of a long.
00:35:57
Speaker
road that got me to Janie. I knew about Janie and Buzz before Buzz passed away, years before Buzz passed away. They're kind of legendary people that I had heard about through somebody who was very active in PCAP. Basically, I had these artist friends, activist friends in Michigan,
00:36:23
Speaker
who one of them was an academic at the University of Michigan, and he was like doing a poetry class in one of the prisons at the...
00:36:31
Speaker
it was called writer's block. And they were going all the time to these men's prison and doing, not just like teaching poetry, but it was actively writing it with people there and reading really important texts. And I just was so in awe of this work. And I did a piece for the New Yorker about it. And so I kind of got interested, like I kind of knew about them through that. And then that was like maybe 10 years ago,
00:36:59
Speaker
Then I got connected to this guy, Jim Denkovich, whose son, Chris Denkovich got locked up when he was like 15 or 16. He was very young. Given a life without parole sentence, which I think has been overturned because you can't get those sentences anymore to juveniles. Jim kept telling me all about PCAP, how amazing it was because he was involved, his son was in it, how he'd been collecting work. I'm like, wow, this is amazing.
00:37:30
Speaker
And he's like, you got to meet Janie one day. And finally he connected me to Janie. And I think that he connected me only a few months after Buzz had passed away. And Janie was planning Buzz's memorial when I first started talking to her.
00:37:45
Speaker
And she was just in a very different place emotionally. She was, it was still very new and very, very raw. I think actually he connected me to her because I wanted to put a show of art on, of all the art from the show on in LA. I wanted to curate an exhibition. And so I was talking to her about that. And then I realized what their story was. And I was like, wow, this is such a beautiful story. So that's how,
00:38:13
Speaker
That's how that evolved over a couple of years. And the story is so tender and delicate in these places as Buzz, as his mind starts to deteriorate over years. And it can be really hard to tease out information and interview people about such delicate subject matter. So I wonder, just for you, how you went about interviewing Janie and Danny about things that are so delicate.
00:38:43
Speaker
doing it in a way that sort of honor honored their story but in the same way you know getting the information you need to tell the story you wanted to tell. I felt like just a deep connection with both of them because my as soon as I when I met date sorry when I met Janie I believe my baby I had I had a baby born very early she was born
00:39:07
Speaker
like three months early. And she was in the NICU for four and a half months. And I think, and she was very sick. And then when she came home, it was a process of care, caregiving. Um, that was beyond normal parenting. Um, it was, I think I was, I was still very, very raw from that experience and just, you know, almost maybe still in shock, probably in the same way they, they were from,
00:39:37
Speaker
You know, I don't know, I can't, I can't say what, how they were, but I did feel like a kind of deep empathy and connection to them through just going through this myself. And I don't know, I just felt like, I felt like I could talk about, I kind of felt like talking to them helped me too in a lot of ways. And I kind of felt like we were just having a conversation.
00:40:04
Speaker
about these things that were really hard, you know? Okay, so let's just say that the documentary filmmaker or the journalist who blows your mind is who? That's a great question.
00:40:24
Speaker
Well, I've been seeing a lot of music documentaries lately that I never watched before and that I've also really saw this one about the 13th Floor Elevators, Rocky Erickson recently, that was beautiful. But thinking like the journalists who, I mean, I like, why am I blanking on her name? The journalists and the murderer? Jenna Malcolm.
00:40:47
Speaker
Janet Malcolm. I like Janet Malcolm. I like Rebecca Solnit. I like Rachel Kushner. There's a lot, there's a lot of people. Pam, Pam Kolloff is a friend and somebody I really respect the process. And I think, yeah, I think she's somebody I look up to. Documentary filmmakers like Errol Morris and his early work, Vernon, Florida and tabloid. I those are
00:41:16
Speaker
great films, the Maisles, the Salesmen, such a great film. But there's so many, but yeah. Regarding a lot of the women that you cited for the journalists that you admire, what is it about their work that you look at and it blows you away and you're like, I want to try to emulate that element of what they do to elevate my own work?
00:41:45
Speaker
That's such a good question. Well, I think Pam's work is so thorough and so just so patient. So just she spends time with difficult topics and she really tries to figure it out. But I think the thing I like most of the emotion, the emotion that you get from reading it, the
00:42:11
Speaker
how tactile it is. I think it's just the way of constructing sentences and using language to get an emotional response from all of those writers. I like that I can identify with these human beings and feel like a deep emotion with them or about them. And it feels like literature to me feels like
00:42:39
Speaker
doesn't have to feel like stodgy journalism. It feels like reading a good book, but it's also true, you know, and it's, yeah.
00:42:48
Speaker
I got that sense, the emotion too with your piece, especially how Buzz in his later years really bonded to Danny and vice versa, and how Danny took the care to, how he bathed him and read to him and all that, and that was deeply
00:43:12
Speaker
You know that that emotional kernel that you're talking about with Pam's work and the others It's just like I felt that too in a very significant way while reading this work So I think that those influences really permeate permeated your work here. Oh Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think it's like I want to write things that Make people cry but in a good way. Yeah, and you know like I still
00:43:38
Speaker
cry when I think about their story. And I just, I think it's a great example of love. And I just think any story like that is a story that should be told. Yeah, I guess like accessing those like that deep level of emotion. And that's something I saw a lot when I was working with incarcerated people and their stories, because there's so much at stake.
00:44:05
Speaker
It's just a really heavy place, but this was like a heavy thing that ended in a nice way for Danny and Janie.
00:44:18
Speaker
Right. Well, very nice. Well, Kelly, it's an incredible piece, and I look forward to whatever else you've got coming down the pipeline for sure now that I've been acquainted with what you're up to. So I have to commend you on an amazing job on this piece. And as we close down here, where can people find you and get more familiar with your work online and get familiar with your work?
00:44:43
Speaker
Probably the best place is my website. This is my first and last name, kellyloudenberg.com. I'm going to update it soon. I did a podcast too that came out like five months ago about Landmark Forum, which was heavy on the writing side too. But yeah, I'm not on social media yet, so it's probably just going to be my website for now. Resist. Resist, Kelly. I'm trying.
00:45:11
Speaker
I see you're on it, but I understand why. And I liked your Instagram page a lot. Oh, very nice. Well, thank you.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, I like those little snippets. It's good. Little teasers. Yeah, they help. They help kind of get the word out. I wish I didn't have to use it at all because social media makes me feel icky. But it is a way to celebrate people's work. I try to reframe it in my head that it's to celebrate other people's work. And when I frame it like that, it doesn't feel as gross. And it feels more in service of a community versus being like, hey, look at me. Look at me.
00:45:46
Speaker
Well, that's actually, that's absolutely how I see your, yeah. When I looked at it, I was so happy that it was there because it was a great little teaser, you know, into all these different people that you've interviewed. So I think it's, I think it's worthwhile. You should keep it.
00:46:10
Speaker
Hey, CNFers, thanks for listening. Thanks to Sayward Always. Thanks to Kelly, my goodness, as part of my little partnership with Long Reads. Long Reads. You can read some of this transcript along with a pithy intro written by your buddy, B.O. If you don't subscribe to the show, go ahead and give it a try. It doesn't cost you anything, unless you want it to.
00:46:33
Speaker
More on that later. We get into some great stuff here and there, and I hope you stick around. I hope you can tell that there is little by way of pretension on this little podcast that could. If you want to help the show, consider leaving a kind review on Apple podcasts, or if you've sworn off Starbucks and don't know what to do with $4 of those, uh, $4 of your coffee budget every month.
00:46:56
Speaker
consider heading to patreon.com slash cnfpod and share some of that cheddar you'll get some sweet goodies a chance to ask guests interviews and I I credit you if you submit a question for our future guests I'm not a monster the show is free but it sure as hell ain't cheap
00:47:13
Speaker
I had a parting shot, I really did. Then I forgot to write it down. And then the parting shot disappeared, as they do. But maybe I'll conjure a new one, like I'm the great magician Justin Willman. Love that guy. Funny as hell. You know what? Maybe I'll riff on the writer as drummer. Yes, that's what I'm gonna do.
00:47:31
Speaker
What is a drummer boiled down? Timekeeper, purveyor of groove and pace. And what is a writer except someone doling out information and story blocks at the pace the story deserves? Accenting each element with the right crash?
00:47:47
Speaker
knowing when to step back and keep a simple 4-4. But then there might be chances to syncopate the beat where the story seems to skip a beat and feel slightly unhinged, but then you bring it back laying down that dirty beat that keeps the reader moving along at a clip dictated by the tonality of the story, the material, the song, if you will. Sure he can be showy and fast and all kinds of kinetic and virtuosic,
00:48:14
Speaker
But what is it if it's not in service of the story or the song? It's usually showing some degree of restraint, right?
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah man, we're not lead singers, we're not melting faces with guitar solos. We're at the back of the stage, behind the kit, because without us, that shit falls apart. Speaking of drummers man, Taylor Hawkins, come on, Foo Fighters, geez. That's a gut punch. One of my favorite bands. I was at the Seafoo Fighters twice this summer, hadn't seen them before.
00:48:45
Speaker
50 years old wife kids by all accounts a good dude and my heroes from the 90s are dying man Chris Cornell Scott Weiland Kurt Cobain obviously now Hawkins I don't know what I'm gonna do one of my guys from Metallica dies But I'm not gonna be a fun guy that day. That's for sure. They're that important to me I know they're just a band and I know their music is eternal and that's really what matters as a fan It's like I know them
00:49:11
Speaker
But still, I'm sure you have a band or an artist you really lock into, and you know the world would be a shit-ton dimmer when they die. Anyway, stay cool, see ya in efforts, stay wild, and if you can't do, interview, see ya.
00:49:48
Speaker
you