We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrea Askowitz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Andrea, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Nineteen years ago, I was a student in a memoir class. I liked writing stories, but I still had another full-time job. I was single and a lesbian and eight months pregnant. I’d gotten pregnant on my own because I was approaching 35 and I didn’t want to miss the chance to have a baby. One night, a man I knew from work offered to give me a massage. I thought the massage meant sex. I know I’m a lesbian, but I was lonely and worried I’d be single and alone until my kid went off to college. Also, this man was hot. The man worked my body until my clothes were on the floor. I begged him to take his clothes off too, but he said, “I’m good.” Then with my legs spread, he said, “Your kitty is pretty.” Then he left.

It was a low moment I swore I’d never talk about. A few days later, I went to my memoir class. My teacher gave a prompt. It may have been: “Write about a moment you felt desperate and pathetic and humiliated.” Or maybe she tossed out a single word, like “Cat.” Whatever the prompt, I wrote about the massage man and then, since I’m a obedient student, I read the story out loud.

What happened changed my life: My classmates laughed. They leaned forward, held their sides, cried laughing. I don’t think there were any pregnant lesbians in the room, especially not ones who had thrown themselves at a man and gotten rejected, but I could tell by their extreme reaction, that they’d all had their own pretty-kitty moments and I knew they understood me. I knew I wasn’t alone.

That’s when I know I wanted to pursue writing and teacher professionally. Since, I’ve become a storytelling missionary. And I want to bring as many people as possible into my writing class.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

About 25 years ago, I started writing by taking a memoir writing class with Terrie Silverman, of Creative Rites. I went to class once a week and felt more connected in that class than I’d ever felt in any class, or anywhere probably. I loved the ritual of writing and workshopping stories. I love the connections that type of intimacy created. So, I kept going back. I took Terrie’s class for five years and in that class I wrote my first memoir, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy (Cleis Press).

A bunch of my classmates started a show at a local bar called Lip Service, where eight people read an eight minute story each. The first rendition of that show didn’t make it, but a few years later, I moved from LA to Miami, where I was born and grew up, and in 2006, I started Lip Service again at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Soon Lip Service grew too big for the bookstore and we moved to the Miracle Theater where we played to audiences 600 people strong. There was/is a hunger for true stories in Miami and soon Lip Service became a Miami institution. I produce Lip Service four times a year for nine years (along with Esther Kenniff) and won a John S. and James L. Knight Arts award for our work.

In 2015, I left Lip Service in the hands of the Miami Book Fair and with co-host and co-producer Allison Langer, started a storytelling podcast called Writing Class Radio. Now, Writing Class Radio gets 18,000 downloads a month. We’re coming close a million downloads overall.

I love to promote other writers. I love to edit stories. I love to teach memoir writing, which I’ve been doing since starting Lip Service in 2006. I teach two classes a week now, through Writing Class Radio.

I also love to write and perform my own stories. I’ve written for The New York Times, Salon, Glamour, Huffington Post, The Rumpus, and a bunch of other cool publications. I really believe that writing and sharing our stories could heal the world.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

If we’re serious about creating a thriving creative ecosystem, society has to prioritize art more both individually and as a society.

Individuals can support artists by buying their art. You would not believe how many times I heard someone consider buying my book and then deciding against it. My book costs $15. I realize not everyone has $15 to throw away. But that $15 could provide someone with several hours of entertainment. And that $15 goes a long way in furthering a writer’s career. People just don’t think about it that way.

As a society, we could allocate more tax money to support artists of all kinds.

I believe we need more art. Art provides catharsis. Art provides connection. Art might be the only way to understand ourselves and each other.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Two giant rewards come to mind when I think about being an artist. One, the ability to connect with myself. My wife, Vicky, says I spend my days in therapy with myself. She’s sort of making fun of me, but she’s also sort of jealous. She realizes, as I have, that focusing inward is a practice. It takes practice. The benefits of this practice are that I learn and relearn who I am. Okay, who cares? But knowing who I am helps me understand why I act the way I do. It also helps me understand why other people act the way they do. Focussing inward gives me more compassion both for myself and for others.

The second reward I gain from being an artist is connecting with other people. I tell my students all the time that I think we, people who take writing classes are the luckiest people. We care about connecting. We want to connect in the strongest way possible, that’s why we write.

For this reason, I want the whole world to take writing classes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.writingclassradio.com www.andreaaskowitz.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andreaaskowitz
• Twitter: @andreaaskowitz

Image Credits
Stephanie Howard