We recently connected with Caitlin Turnage and have shared our conversation below.
Caitlin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I decided to pursue writing at the early age of about five years old when I realized that I wanted to play pretend every single day of my life and would actively chase whatever would help me do that. I started writing novels (Very bad, very embarrassing, very necessary tomes) at the age of ten after a spark of inspiration hit me while watching West Side Story. This was to be my first lesson–the best way to become a writer is to never stop writing. I had a portfolio of work before I even hit undergrad and while that portfolio is not something I’d bank on today it taught me absolutely valuable lessons that I would’ve never gotten without it. I pursued my education at the University of Houston for undergrad and it was in my years working with Mark Medoff and Theresa Rebeck that I really started to hone my craft and find my voice. Medoff gave me everything I needed to grow in confidence and Rebeck gave me everything I needed to grow in practicality–the two of them combined made me a sharp writer with clear goals that I was pursuing. After that I grew my new portfolio and honed my craft at Texas State University for my masters under the mentorship of Jim Price.
I don’t know if there was anything I could do to speed up my learning process and I don’t know that I would want that–I’m an avid believer that we are always learning at ever step of the paths we take–it took seven years of formal education, a decade of childlike passion, and now years of teaching and I’m still learning this craft and I wish I could slow it all down and dig even deeper.
Tenacity, Passion, Diligence, Patience, and honesty are the skills most important to being a writer–you need the tenacity and diligence to push through when no one is asking for your story but you know it has to be told, you need the passion to continue the game of sending out your work and sharing it with the world, and you need the honesty for yourself to admit where more work on the story needs to be done–I’ve been teaching new writers for a few years now and honesty is the one that new writers usually lack the most and when you’re missing that honesty it’s going to eat away at the other skills as well.
A few obstacles got in my way during my education as a writer but the primary one that endlessly frustrated me as a student was weak mentorship–of course those mentioned above were incredible exceptions to the rule–they met me at every turn with grace, patience, and pages and pages of notes for a girl who never stopped handing them pages. They each had files on their desktops 100’s of pages long. But I did unfortunately cross my fair share of mentors who just weren’t right for me–they were and are probably excellent teachers but it was an oil meets water kind of situation and I wasn’t ready to take their notes and they weren’t ready to communicate them with me. But these mentors gave me something invaluable in my other path as a teacher because what I didn’t feel like I was fulfilled with in them I take to every class and try and meet my students the impatient, frustrated, and overeager way I was demanding to be met as a young student.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My current job is as a lecturer of playwriting for Texas State University. I got into the this work through a competition pursuing my craft–I was in undergrad and I applied for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival where I was able to be selected as a regional finalist and then National Finalist. This is where I met the masters candidates of Texas State University. We became fast friends and they told their mentor, Jim, that he had to meet me and vice versa. I reached out to him and ended up pursuing grad school there and a playwriting lecturer position became available when we introduced the new course Introduction to Playwriting to the curriculum. So that was my path–there’s so many paths in this industry but I’m very grateful for this magical one that opened for me.
I’m not only a lecturer though I also am a working playwright–I craft scripts both for stage and screen. Right now what I’m most proud of is a pilot that I’ve been sending around about the first group of women anesthesiologists to be staffed at a hospital in Tennessee during the civil rights movement. That pilot has done okay for itself and is my first real foray into the world of television–I’m also enormously proud of a full length I’m working on about motherhood and climate change–that’s where my passion lies right now.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I think a lot of non-creative individuals think of those in the creative industry in one of two ways–they’re either hopeless dreamers who will struggle to pursue their craft–or they are these magical unicorns that give non creatives a “I could never do that” mentality–but being creative–pursuing the arts–just like any other job is a craft. It is work, skill, effort, calculated, measured, built. It is not just a whimsy of inspiration. I think we can support artists as a society by reinforcing that idea of effort in our students, by reminding them that its not always fun–sometimes it really is a job and that’s okay as well–and if we treat it with that practicality then it should be funded with the same practicality as any necessary job–entertainment is a vital part of our world–almost everyone I know watches TV, listens to music, reads books, goes to art museums, attends a play–without that a piece of our humanity would be missing so we should at least fund those arts programs with purpose and like they matter–this requires a universal understanding of art as necessary, and it absolutely is. It has saved my life more than once and I know I am not alone in that sentiment.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me the most rewarding part of being a creative is the lesson of myself I learn in every project–every time I write I am looking to answer a question I have about myself, this world, someone I love–I’m trying to make sense of something that confounds me, and while I don’t necessarily answer it inside of the story I’m writing I find peace and therapy in the consideration of the question which can be incredibly fulfilling.
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