Ask the Author: Tom Pearson
Answered Questions (4)
Tom Pearson
Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Ruby Fruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown
Parable of the Talents – Octavia E. Butler
Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Norse Mythology – Niel Gaiman
The Electric Michelangelo – Sarah Hall
It – Stephen King
Siddhatha – Herman Hesse
Big Sur – Jack Kerouac
Ruby Fruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown
Parable of the Talents – Octavia E. Butler
Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Norse Mythology – Niel Gaiman
The Electric Michelangelo – Sarah Hall
It – Stephen King
Siddhatha – Herman Hesse
Big Sur – Jack Kerouac
Tom Pearson
I tune into my dreams and have techniques for recording them as well as practices for catching those random thoughts that seem like such great ideas but come at the most inopportune moments, always when doing something else. So, I have practices that help me stop to listen and record and then other structures for going back and organizing later. I also gather a lot of information and inspiration by sifting ideas through multimedia and through iterative processes. I think it is vital to the work to leave it alone sometimes, to go away in the middle of working on something and then come back. And, of course, so much comes from collaborative relationships and working on art and performance with others. Now that this new book and film are out, I am also finding myself able to go back into a more relaxed period of intake, beautiful long hours spent reading other writers, seeing films and performances, listening to music, taking long walks, visiting places, communing with others and the deep conversations that come from these hours of leisure—especially because when I am working on something, I don’t look at or read other works. I tend to isolate then. So, now I am embracing the openness of this summer, where I get to go enjoy other people’s creative work.
Tom Pearson
I have a film that is currently out now, gathering some momentum and doing well in the short film festival circuit. It’s called THE NIGHT GARDEN and is based on a concept of shared dreams and co-creative processes with a group of five artists/friends. Plans for releasing that as a streaming option is slated for fall or winter. Meanwhile, I am writing new things. I am rehearsing new performances.
Tom Pearson
I began writing this book in 2019 in Italy, in a studio overlooking the Ligurian Sea, watching seagulls nest in the cliffs below. I started by gathering my previous writings and notes on themes related to coming-of-age and struck on the idea of organizing it all through images of sky and sea which led me to the mythologies of Icarus, Daedalus, and the Minotaur. There was something about all that vast space that created a natural longing, for places, people, past selves. So much of what I did at that time was very much environmentally informed and a real highlight in the process of writing this story. After that period, for the next few years, I wrote and revised in my living spaces in Providence, RI and finally in Nyack, NY—all through the pandemic, but those early pre-pandemic days in Italy became even more nostalgic for me as I wrote with the sense of things slipping away.
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Aug 03, 2022 08:53AM · flag