As the WORD Christchurch Festival really starts to hit its stride I attended The Faraway Near to hear author Rachel Kushner discuss her career and new collection of non-fiction The Hard Crowd. Beaming in live from a luscious looking room in Colorado the interview is straight out of the gates with a lively discussion about the importance of book cover art (a topic I hold very dear to my heart).
Kushner reveals that she is currently at the ongoing Telluride Film Festival. I find it incredibly apt that she is at an arts festival as so much of the following discussion relates to art, different artists and the artistic process in general.
In a 60 minutes that absolutely flew by, artists including Joan Didion, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Clarice Lispector, and Denis Johnson just to name a few all come up in discussion.
Away from artists, other topics of discussion included a devastating trip she made to a Palestinian refugee camp, her love of riding and restoring vintage British motorcycles, prison reform in America, and the role gender and expectation play in her writing. Did I mention the conversation was varied!
Kushner spoke so elegantly on so many topics it was like having private access to the world’s most interesting curator.
Interviewer Megan Dunn did a fantastic job of bringing some levity to the conversation and there were many moments of crowd laughter.
I’m such a fan of Kushner’s work, I especially enjoyed hearing her discuss how she keeps her writing sounding so authentic and lived in, of the writing process she said she is just trying to deliver “the sulphur on the head of a match”. A perfect description that really stood out to me.
This was a fantastic event enjoyed by all in attendance. Bring on the rest of the festival.
Pics from the Faraway Near
Our set of photos from the Faraway Near
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