We were lucky to catch up with Suzette Ferretti recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Suzette thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I often find myself in a neverending teeter-totter of the belief that if I had begun my foray into a creative career earlier in my life I’d be more “successful”, whatever that means. Simultaneously, I recognize that knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have had the emotional capacity or discipline to properly channel my artsy angst. It’s one of those, “hindsight is 20/20” situations and I don’t know if I’m ever going to let myself fall entirely in one direction, but I’m happy that I’m satisfying those creative urges in a veritable playground, surrounded by good people who share my sensibilities. And I like to think that’s a pretty darn good definition of success.

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

I’m a writer whose poison of choice is comedy (because writing is like poison; sweet, sweet poison), particularly comedy that explores dark subject matter through a feminist and first-generation American lens. I was always a creative child, but coming from an immigrant household, anything creative was seen as more of a hobby than a career, so I kept my creativity in my pocket like a dirty old tissue. At the same time, I pursued a degree in psychology. However, all that did was demonstrate that I’d be very, very unhappy without art. So I said, f*ck it, and began pursuing writing as a job.

I can be fickle regarding the mediums in which I present my writing, but it’s all water. Remember that science exercise in school where they would pour water into different containers? You couldn’t pay me enough to remember what the scientific purpose of that experiment was, but the gist was that just because water takes different shapes, it doesn’t change its composition. I feel the same way about writing. Lately, it’s been poured into a jug shaped like screenwriting, but it’s also taken the shape of standup comedy and literary fiction.

I’ve also recently begun to explore directing. I’ve directed three short films thus far, but I think the one that best embodies my voice best is “Red Velvet”, a film about an overweight ex-stripper where a “demon” born out of a sugar-high hallucination convinces her to rob her ex-husband for weightloss surgery money. All of my shorts and writing are dark, silly, and a little avante-garde if that’s your pleasure.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I’d like to remain as true to myself as I possibly can. I feel like there’s this urgency, particularly when it comes to the entertainment industry, that you must adhere to the status quo before someone is kind enough to invite you in. You have to see what’s selling, what executives think is “good”. I think if I ever manage to slip into the mainstream, my goal is for it to not come at the cost of losing myself. It took such a hell of an effort to accept myself and my creative identity that it feels like a failure to give that all up to be exploited by a broken system. I don’t want others to have to surrender themselves either, so I hope I can encourage others to be unapologetically themselves and let their freak flag fly.

I try and make sure that my writing embodies this as well. I feel like many stories these days with women or minorities at the center have to depict their characters as these righteous beacons of light. But we are not all righteous. We are flawed, we make mistakes, we’re multidimensional human beings. We all do not bleed and suffer to make others feel less guilty for their sins.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Personal deadlines. I always made myself believe that if I didn’t achieve success by a certain point in my life that I was no longer deserving of it. Yet, as the years flew by, the more I learned about myself, and the more I discovered that the meaning of life was adventure. Turning over stones and finding the shiny golden key to the next stage of your life amongst the creepy crawlies and moist dirt is much more fun than staying still and waiting for someone to hand you all the answers.

I think as a woman especially, we’re taught that we expire at a certain age, or that our insights are not as valuable because we are no longer desirable. I subconsciously fed into that so much throughout my life, and I’m closing that chapter. Cheers to doing whatever we want, when we want. We still matter.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://suzetteferretti.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzetteferretti/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzette-ferretti-386643121/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx6FZ5UrW_yF_wSVi5xXRCQ

Image Credits
Picture of me on stage solo taken by Sophie Forcioli