@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:37

The Distinction of Your Voice | Jai Chakrabarti speaks with us about the power of story and identity

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But first I wanted to tell you a little bit about Jai and then I'm going to link your website, his website to you so that you can learn more about him. He's an incredible author and celebrated because his work reaches into our guts. He's not afraid to plumb the depth of family dynamic and history and all that good stuff. He was shortlisted for the Penn Faulkner Award

#authorinterview https://jaichakrabarti.com/ #dbpconvo

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@JaiC
Jai Chakrabarti
@JaiC · 3:10
And I think about storytelling not only narrowly in the sense of authors writing books or folks making films or any kind of professionalization of art, but rather in the sense that we all have stories to tell. And so we each have a voice that is our own, that is unique, that is the sum of all of our experiences and everything that we have ingested that makes us who we are. And so sometimes as writers, we are thinking about cultivating our own voice, finding what is unique about us
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@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:57

When you found your calling to write

But when we think about this idea of finding power in our story and people listening to this and thinking about what is my voice, I'm wondering at what point in your career did you realize that writing stories, literally writing stories, was the way your voice was going to find its its power? Because through your characters we get to find out who you are. But truly it must have been a calling at some point
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@JaiC
Jai Chakrabarti
@JaiC · 2:36

@DBPardes

And so I think that's also part of the joy of being a writer, is that you're also kind of getting to find new parts of your voice, new ways in which you can connect with your voice. So thank you for the lovely question, and I hope to learn from others on how they think of finding their voice and when they became a writer in this world
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@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:21

@JaiC @katharine.coles

But since you are, I hope, listening, maybe you perhaps can speak to the title that I gave this, which is about distinction of our voices and this idea that our commonalities bond us. So we have this universality to our stories. But when we do speak, there's an emergence of singularity. We are all so unique. And I think that as a writer, you must look at your characters as representational as well as having their own unique role in the magical world you create
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@PasjuRelatively
Pasju Kubert
@PasjuRelatively · 5:00

What will you do when the echo returns and it is not your voice.?

But we go through our life and we tell our story, and it's different. Elements of our ego are being engaged with the idea, I believe. And in telling the story, we are freeing ourselves of the burden of holding on to this particular channel of our identity. This particular layer of veneer can be released because it is a story. You've told it. You no longer have to have anything to do with it. It becomes its own myth
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@katharine.coles
Katharine Coles
@katharine.coles · 2:39
My husband can tell that I'm working on a pump because I'm walking around the house muttering to myself and speaking the words, trying to find my way into them and into their exact formulation. So trying to find my way into voice, which, once again, is constantly being built, not just sitting there waiting for me. And then, just as one final addendum, many of my favorite poets are also great, great readers of their own poems
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