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This is Time Signatures with Jim Irvin, a podcast and radio program presented by the Capital Area Blues Society in Lansing, Michigan. Most any contemporary musical style can trace its roots back to the blues. Time Signatures explores the blues and its musical connections with captivating interviews, lively discussions and news from the world of the blues. And now, here he is, your host, Jim Irvin.

Well, thank you so much, Parker, and welcome to Time Signatures. I'm your host, Jim Irvin, and this episode is something really special to me because I get to introduce you all to a woman I have a great deal of respect for. The National Women in Blues was formed to support Edify, mentor and promote female blues artists. It all began when Michelle Seidman went to a large blues festival featuring 55 acts on four stages, but only four women on the bill for that event. Now, obviously, we're going to delve much deeper into that initial event, but it set in motion a mission for Michelle that she continues today. In fact, the National Women in Blues became a registered 501C3 on November 24, 2015. So much to talk about and we're going to just go ahead and get rolling. Michelle Seidman, welcome to Time Signatures. How are you?

I'm hanging in.

Thanks for having me here.

Yeah, you just got done with a really, really big move, didn't you?

Yes.

So you're, you're breathing a sigh of relief at this point.

Yes, yes, yes.

Very cool.

Yeah, I haven't unpacked yet. I'm not even in my own home right now. I haven't yet. Pack everything at the new place.

You'll get there, trust me. So, Michelle, obviously you have a love and a passion for the blues. Talk about your earliest memories of the genre. Where did it all start for you?

Funny thing is, I didn't realize where it all started for me until I got older. I used to joke that the blues chased me. It always chased me. I, you know, I look back and I remember a concert when I was like 19 and it was Johnny Winner.

Okay.

Ever feeling so at peace with the rhythms. Years later, I was dating a guy that was really into jazz, but he was also into some of the old school blues and he'd play it and I would just peace out, you know. But I, I had been classically and corally trained opera prodigy sister. I had done, you know, theater and learned how to do, you know, the standards in the belt and scat and, you know, things like that, and had been in an alt rock band and a comedy cabaret band and eventually started my own blues band when I was 40. And it was not long after that that I was talking to the daughter of a woman that worked for my family when I was young. Her mother, Bernice, was sort of like my second mom. And my mom had polio, and so there were things she couldn't physically do. So Bernice. We hired Bernice to do those things. But, like, her kids would come to our house. We would go to their house. My mom gave her one of our purebred dog puppies. You know, I mean, they were family. And a few years after Bernice had passed away, I spoke to one of her daughters on the phone, and I asked her. I was like, is there any chance that your mom used to sing blues to me? You know? And she's like, oh, she loved her gospel in her blues. Yeah.

Wow.

And so I. I believe that I was hearing it when I was really little. Plus, me and my parents played a lot of swing and era when I was growing up. So, you know, I listened to Jimmy Dorsey and. And sure Cab Calloway. And I used to try to be Louis Armstrong, which technically, there's no way for me to do, but I tried. I used to walk around trying to sing like him. And then when my sister's voice coach heard me doing it over the phone, told my mom to make me stop. So I tried to be Pearl Bailey. That didn't work either. But the blues is, I think, chased me my entire life. And it wasn't until I was 40 that it was like, I'm in my musical home.

Yeah. Michelle, I'd like you to talk about that concert in October of 2006, the one that set your foot on the path that you're traveling today. What were the details of that?

Well, I. I have yet to publicly state what festival it was. Okay. But I was really excited to go because it was sort of in the heart of the blues world. I consider, like, you know, Memphis, Arkansas, Mississippi. That's like, you know, the. The beginning points. And it was in that area, and I had flown in. I was so excited. And I went to look at the roster because a lot of people had told me that I stylized like a man. So I was like, I'm gonna go find some women. I'm gonna go learn from some women. I'm gonna go watch some women. And then I only found four on the lineup. And this was one of those festivals that also had people playing on the streets up and down between the stages. And I started finding women playing on the street that were really talented and including Juke Joint Judy and Valerie June, Big Red and the Soul Benders. And I was like, these women are so great. Why aren't they on these stages? You know, for the whole time I was there, I just kept thinking, where? Why are they on the street? Why are they not on the stages? Why aren't these venues booking them? And it was very frustrating because at the time, I was still a blues performer. And I can tell you how many times I contacted some, you know, blues festival and they go, oh, well, we booked our woman. Wait, wait, aren't you supposed to be booking 16 bands and you booked your woman? Or you're. Aren't you putting 20 bands up and you've booked your woman? It's like, okay, so your representation of female blues is one woman, like. And it was frustrating because only a few. Only about six months before, I'd had a blues manager tell me nobody wanted to hear women sing the blues. And all I could think is, that's not true. My band pulled in people. I saw crowds around Juke Joint Judy and Valerie Jude and Big Red.

Yeah.

You know, big circles of crowds around them. Yeah. They wanted to hear us. And so, you know, being there at that festival that. That fall of 2006, I got a little angry.

Yeah.

And it wasn't while I was there. It was actually on the way home that I said, I have to do something about this. So I started first, did a little research, and went from there.

So at what point of the day did you decide that something had to be done to correct or balance the scales, if you will, and that you would be the person to get the proverbial ball rolling?

I'd like to claim that I'm the one that got the ball rolling, but I wasn't the first. Because on the flight home, I started thinking, wait a second, I have a venue that I was going to do something at, set up in about six weeks, and I haven't canceled it yet. Could I do this? I immediately went home and I got online and started researching women in blues. And the only thing I could really find was Sunny Hess out in the northwestern part of the the US she had been doing events of female blues artists in that region of the the country for a number of years at that point. And I was like, well, if she can do that there, why can't we do this on a larger level? Why can't we do it, you know, make something national? Why can't we bring in artists from other countries? Why can't we, you know, put more focus on the Women. And so it was within a day or two of getting home that I started contacting people like Valerie June and Big Red and the Soul Benders and Juke Joint Judy, because I made sure to get all their names and numbers and said, if I can get you here and get you a little bit of money, because I didn't know what I was going to be able to put together, would you be interested in being part of the very first national Women in Blues Festival? And they all said yes. And we also had the Grit Pixies. And our headliner was Michelle Lundin, the Queen Esteem for our very first one. And I brought in as an opener, beautiful woman by the name of Rose Lucas and her husband Charlie. They were sort of our local grandparents of the blues.

Okay.

So she actually opened all three years of the event. And if we'd continued going, she would have until. Until she passed, because.

Wow.

You know, even though we were doing a national event, I wanted to pay homage to our local grandma of the blues.

Sure. Now, I wanted to ask you, how are. How are the. The current slate of women in the blues responding to your efforts on their behalf?

Surprisingly well. I'm always worried that they're not going to be happy or that they're not, you know, they don't want to necessarily be involved. And then every year we do the event, and I'm surprised by some of the responses and how many of the women have connected with each other and how they've started sort of buddying up and they'll bring each other to play in their territories. And I've had women come to me and say that being part of our showcase launched them or opened a lot of doors for them. And that's the whole idea. Sure. It's giving them a stage and an event that is growing in its fan base. You know, first started doing it, I was on MySpace and I think we had like, you know, 1500 followers on MySpace, moved to Facebook. Now we have almost 10,000 in our group and more than a 44 engagement rate, which is pretty high.

Yes.

For a Facebook group, Meaning that the majority of the people in there really do support what these women are doing. And the women are involved, too. The women are in there posting and commenting and getting involved. And occasionally you'll see them asking each other for advice or offering mentorship to each other, things of that nature, which I absolutely love. So the women seem to be responding really well. We, as you know, we do a lottery for the showcase. We wanted to get politics and favoritism out when Selecting who's going to be on the show. Good. So the lottery was born as a way to give everybody an opportunity. And then we pull names. So we never know exactly who we're going to get other than who we pick as our featured entertainer. And the caliber of women that enter the lottery every year floors me. I mean, I see some that I'm like, I'm not familiar with them. I'll go check them out. Well, they're pretty cool. But then I'll see some that I'm like, holy crap. In a perfect world, I'd be booking you in everything, you know, which is also a little frustrating sometimes because, you know, we pull, right? We get great women, but don't always get my pick. There's been a couple years where I picked out a name and I had to contain myself because it was somebody I really wanted in it. And I was like, I actually picked it. Blind pick. But, like, this past year, some of the people that were like the ones that I secretly hoped would get picked didn't get picked. But it was funny because our chairman of the board, who recently passed somebody who he wanted to get picked got picked. One of the supporters who helps us every year, their pick got picked. And one of the people who helped me start all of this originally, Terry Robbins, somebody she wanted got picked too. And these were all random picks. So it's really funny how, you know, pull. Pulling it out. It's like, I know there's some names in there that I'm like, I would literally my mind if they're on the stage and their name sometimes gets picked and sometimes doesn't and it's. I get nauseous every year doing the lottery. Just so you know, every year when I'm pulling it, I'm actually sick to my stomach because having been a performer, I know how I would feel sitting there watching and waiting and hoping. And so that's my brain's, I think in the same space that the artists are, where it's like, oh, I hope, I hope, I hope. But you get 60 or 80 entries and you're pulling five from in IBC, five from out of IBC and one youth act. So there's going to be plenty who don't get picked. And yeah, it's really weird. But the caliber of women that want to be involved and that have been involved, we've had Sean Murphy and Teenie Tucker were some of our first featured artists. MCs. When we went to Memphis, we were still doing the festival. We had Deanna Bogart and Candy Cane and EG Kite. And, you know, like, we've been very, very lucky with that. Women like Terry o' Dobby and Erica Brown and Anika Chambers has been on our stage. We've had, gosh, Keisha Pratt. And I mean, just the list just keeps going on. And I've got a wish list of women that I, you know, hope we will get on our stage at one point or another.

Very cool.

Yeah, the women are responding well.

Good. I'm glad to hear that.

And you.

You referred to your chairman of the board. I'd like you to. To talk about the loss of your chairman recently. I watched that unfold and my condolences to, to you and to the entire Women in Blues for Family.

Yeah, that, that was really hard because early on when I started this, I kind of felt alone in it. And it was Kyle Dibler and Terry Robbins are the two people that early on were like, here we are. For years, Terry helped me with all of the press and, and, and posters and stuff. She still helps, she still supports, she sponsors. She's amazing. And Kyle started not only, you know, supporting, he flew here for the second Women in Blues Festival to help mc.

Wow.

We'd only known each other at that point, six months, but he believed in it enough that, you know, I'm sorry, it was a year and a half because he wasn't. That he couldn't make it to the first one. It was the second one. But we've known each other a year and a half and mostly, you know, by phone and seeing each other at ibc. And he flew in just to help MC and help run things some. And it was kind of interesting because in 2008, mortgage crisis kind of killed everything. And that was our last, you know, all the small festivals or new festivals in my area basically shut down. And it was kind of sad. And then what happened was in 2013 was actually 2012, technically the end of 2012, Kyle calls me up and says, hey, Michelle, if I get you a plane ticket to go to Memphis, do you think you can put on a Woman and Blues event? I was like, I think I can. I was a little nervous, you know, going, I'm not sure. And so he got me the ticket and I. I got on the Facebook group and I said, hey, because I wasn't going to try to do a showcase or, you know, something like that the first time because I didn't know who'd be there, what would be going on. I was like, what do you women think about doing a Women in Blues Jam. And they were all like, yeah, yes. And we got the center for Southern Folklore and we went and did it there. It was funny because Kyle couldn't even be at the first one because we did it on a Friday and he was at the KBAs and, you know, he was checking on me. How's it going? How's it going? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. And then we packed the place and Kyle was like, I'm proud of you. I'm like, thank you. And when we finally moved on to Beale street, we. We moved to Thursday. So Kyle also became our stage manager because we do a private group every year for the women that are in it. And Kyle would be in there and he'd be getting their stage plots and, you know, prompting them for information and he'd get all that coordinated. When we became a nonprofit, he was one of the first people on the board. And not long after he became the chairman of the board. And Kyle was not just my friend, he was not just the chairman of the board. He was one of the kindest, most genuine people that you'd ever want to meet. Like, everybody that knew Kyle loved him. Everybody felt like his best friend with reason, because Kyle treated everybody with that kind of respect. Kyle had written reviews for Blues Bytes. He'd been in charge of one of the Arizona, I can't remember which one on the Arizona Blue Societies. He was very involved when he moved to Colorado with the Colorado Blues Society. Again, not sure which one. I deal with hundreds of them, so remembering, sometimes those details slip out of my head. But Kyle was just always there for everyone. And Kyle was every year at the Blues Music Awards to help Joe Whitmer. He and Joe were genuinely in the best friend category. They could argue and fight and then, you know, sit down, have a beer together, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And Kyle was always there. I went through medical crap a number of years ago, like really bad and state of depression that went along with 27 medical conditions that within two years that turned into a seven year ordeal. And during the worst of it, Kyle called me Every night at 10pm to check on me. Every night at 10pm and when he was recently hospitalized back in December, I was a pain in the butt. I was calling him not every night at 10pm because it was late, especially 10pm here, it would have been earlier there, but, you know, nurses and doctors going in and out. So I would call him in the early day, try to get in before his lunchtime and bug him and try to do for him what he had done for me, you know, be that sure. But that's there all the time, reminding him he's loved and needed and wanted. And we thought he was going to be okay. He actually, during the 2025 showcase, the night before, he's on the phone with me because when he couldn't come because the health stuff, we had arranged for another artist to help stage manage that work. So we actually ended up getting another artist, Kelly Baker, who's an incredible talent. She ended up helping stage manage and wrangle the artist. But Kyle's on the phone with me and he's like, getting me the files get printed out and all that good stuff. Then during the event, he called me a couple of times. I called him a couple times. And then the morning after called because Kyle was always getting on me about not accepting help, trying to do everything on my own. And so I actually let people help me. And so on Friday morning, I called him and said, kyle, you'll be proud of me. I let people help. I let people help. And he was just. He was laughing about it. And he usually called me Shell instead of using my full name. He'd be like, I'm proud of you, Shell. Good for you, Shell. And it made me feel really good that, you know, he was proud. Kyle was one hell of a human being. You know, just before he died, he had written some checks to some charities.

Wow.

Yeah. They were found when somebody went to check everything after he passed away and got them mailed out for him because they. They knew that he would want that.

Well, sure.

Kyle had everybody's back. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Michelle, I also want to talk to you about another gentleman that you've been working with related to the. The showcase Endless Blues, Mick Colossa, or as we know him affectionately, Ms. Mick because he's from Michigan and lived for many years in Mississippi. But talk about your relationship with Mick and. And what he means to what you do each year.

Uncle Mick. Uncle Mick, yeah.

And for bonus points, who gave him that moniker? Uncle Mick?

Oh, that. I don't know. I've just heard him called that for years.

Chris Stone Kingfish was one of the earliest people to refer to him because he met Kingfish when he was about, I think he said, eight or nine, and he referred to him as Uncle Mick. Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt.

No, that's fantastic. I love knowing that story. Here's the funny part. I don't remember if he reached out to me or somebody told me I should reach out to him. The first time, because we were sort of as far as sponsorship goes, you know, because had to get me to Memphis, have to pay for posters, flyers, you know, press, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's money needs to be spent. And we, you know, didn't have a big budget. We've always been a grassroots, all volunteer kind of organizations.

Sure.

And I remember the first time I talked to him about it, and I was like, oh, you know, and we're looking for this much, which technically isn't a lot, but to me felt like, you know, asking, you know, for the moon and mix, like, okay, yeah. And I'm like, okay. And this is what we're going to do. We're going to make sure you get title credit on everything. Okay, good. You know, and. And I'll have, you know, flyers and stuff and lobby cards. You'll be on all of those, too. You'll be on. Tagged in everything. You'll be on all of our press. It will, you know, say presented by, you know, men who's Blues, National Women in Blues, and we'll, you know, put links and etc. And he's like, okay. And I think one of the things that I loved about it, too, was that he didn't, like, start grilling me or questioning me or second guessing me, which that happens a lot when you're a female doing things. And Mick didn't. Mick had already been sort of, I think, observing us and deciding whether or not he wanted to be involved. And he came on board. And he's. He's been our sponsor for multiple years now. I want to say five or six. Okay, maybe seven. I'd have to actually look at all the posters to mark which year he started.

Okay.

I know it was after we got onto Beale Street. He's. He's also been good at giving advice. And now that I've lost Kyle, I've actually told Mick he's kind of in trouble because I'll be, you know, I'll be contacting him for advice and questioning him because he's got a world of wisdom. He's a very, very smart man. He's also very talented. And it's kind of interesting. I find that you get a lot of people who are very talented, a lot of people who are very smart, but they're not always the same person.

Right, right.

And when I find those gems, I'm like, oh, my goodness. And Nick has, you know, he's had our back and he shows up. Even the year of the ice storm, he couldn't get there. On time. But he did get there. He made sure he got there. He's usually sitting right up front. He talks to artists, he gives them advice. The women will come off the stage and have conversations with him. He has backed some of them, helped them with their. Their albums or getting introduced to people and things of that nature. So it's not like he's just throwing a little money and going, here you go. He's actually not only just putting in money, he's actually giving some of his time, his wisdom, energy to these artists. And that's invaluable.

Michelle, here's the most important part of this chat. Where can people go to find out more about the National Women in Blues? Maybe make a donation, join your cause, or maybe buy some merch.

Well, here's the interesting part. We are nationalwomeninblues.com and then on Facebook, we have two places they can locate us. One is National Women in Blues Group. That's our where we're very active with almost 10,000 people. We also have the National Women in Blues Inc. Page, and it's not as active. We share stuff from the group to the page that was more of a placeholder so nobody else could see Steal our Thunder. And it links back to the group where things are the most active. They can make donations through our website. There's also a contact where they can send a message that gets forwarded to me. And well, there's also, I think depending on where you click, you might forward to somebody else if you're trying to reach a different member of our board. But the majority of that mail gets directed to me. So if there's something specific you want to know, specific questions, just go through that contact link, send a message. It'll get forwarded right to me. I check that daily. And for donations, we are a 501. So they, you know, they can make them through the website or if they want to make a larger donation and they want it to be a little more secure. We have other methods where if they contact me, I can direct them to a private email from for PayPal which automatically sends them the the letter that says, you know, thank you for your tax deductible contribution, nice things like that. So there's multiple ways of going about it.

Very good. Michelle Seidman, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me and thank you for all you're doing. For blues artists, it's really important to have give them platforms where they can be seen and heard outside of just their performance. Thank you.

You're welcome. Well, that wraps up this edition of Time Signatures. Once again, my sincere thanks to Michelle Simon, but also to you. For without you, none of this would be possible. Jim Revin reminding you, keeping the blues alive is everyone's responsibility, but preserving the history of the blues one story at a time, that's my mission. Until next time. So long.

This has been Time Signatures with Jim Irvin presented by the Capital Area Blues society in Lansing, Michigan. For more information on CABS, visit capitalareablues.org you can find this episode and past episodes@lccconnect.org the Time Signature's theme song, Michigan Roads, is used by permission and was written by Root Doctor featuring Freddie Cunningham.

You know I'm done reading.

Diving up and down these Michigan road yeah until.

Next time, keep on keeping the blues alive Baby I'm home.

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Today in school I learned a lot. In chemistry I learned that no one likes me. In English I learned that I'm disgusting. And in physics, I learned that I'm a loser. Today in school I learned that I'm ugly and useless. And in gym I learned that I'm pathetic and a joke. In history I learned that I'm trash. Today in school I learned that I have no friends. In English I learned that I make people sick. And at lunch I learned that I sit on my own because I smell. In chemistry, I learned that no one lives. In biology I learned that I'm fat and stupid and in math I learned that I'm trash. The only thing I didn't learn in school today, the only thing I didn't learn today, the only thing I didn't learn is why no one ever helps.

Kids witness bullying every day.

They want to help, but they don't know how.

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The LCC Arts and Sciences Division will welcome seventh and eighth graders to the Downtown Campus for the first ever Big Steam event on Saturday, February 21st. The event is an opportunity for middle and high school students to explore STEAM programs and career fields with exciting hands on activities and experiences. Those interested in the Big steam event on February 21 can learn more at LCC.edu bigsteam, LCC Connect Voices vibes, Vision.

Washington Square on air is the audio Town square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing. Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin, Editor of Washington Square Review. I'm here today with Harrison Zaiberg, whose piece the Patrolman is in the Summer 24 issue. Hey Harrison.

Hello.

So tell us about your piece. How did you come to write it?

So the Patrolman kind of, I guess, has a roundabout way of becoming its own short story. It's part of a bigger work. Had thought of probably sometime last year I was in conversation with my sister and we kind of were just joking about somewhat outdated technology. So in that like it kind of spun into its own story that became very weird and changed a lot and ended up writing it. But that's this much bigger thing. And in all of that I always try to look for opportunities to submit to different places and I wanted to have a short story and I noticed that there is a small section of the story with the character the Patrolman, who only shows up I think three times throughout the entire longer book that it was a part of like a very, very minor character, kind of just a way to get the main characters from point A to point B. But I was able to see like it's kind of like I wrote this own little chapter for him and I was like, oh, on its own, that could work. So I kind of just took it out of the entire book and made it on its own. Edited a bit, kind of took out the context of the story so it could stand on its own. And then I've just been submitting that to different places.

Tell us a little bit about the bigger piece that it came from.

Yeah. I've always been somewhat bad at describing the things that I've written, but the entire idea was one kind of to challenge myself. I've always somewhat struggled in terms of writing heavy plot stories. I would just get really lost in the details and eventually just sort of never finish it because it became too complicated or became much more about how does a character show up here when they weren't there 10 pages ago and all of that. So it's somewhat of a challenge to myself to write something that was more heavily plot focused. That kind of happened. But the theme of the story, the idea of the story is that. And going back to the theme of kind of outdated technology is that there's this floppy disk that holds some type of government secret on it. Nobody knows what the secret is, but there's all these theories about it and it goes missing or someone steals it and it's about the people who are trying to find it. So with a government official who's trying to find it, a private detective, then it kind of expands and expands into weirder and weirder groups who are trying to find it. And it gives like a multi character perspective. So it's. I also have described this story to my friends as. It kind of would be like Sherlock Holmes kind of, but if everyone was bad at their jobs. Like people who are just really trying to figure out. And this kind of shows my deficiency in writing plot of people don't deduce where it is. It kind of just like other people show up and tell them. Not as they tell them where it is, but they. They end up finding out. Not for their own genius or being able to deduce the plot or the secrets of it, but just kind of like happens and it's more of the character interaction rather than the plot. So I didn't succeed in my first mission, but I still ended up liking the major story.

It sounds a little bit like real life though, that people succeed kind of by accident. They tumble along and sometimes things work out that way.

It definitely seemed more like that than I initially intended. It's much less Sherlock Holmes or a mystery book than I intended it to be.

Okay, so you pulled this slice out. What has become of the rest of the story? I'm wondering if there are other little slices that you could pull out for other slices.

I would guess probably not because this one was for a named character, the one that Shows up the least and it's less context specific. I kind of had to like shave the beginnings and ends of it to make it its own thing and then change it and submit it. The entire story. I'm hoping to look back at it. I want to give it some space and time to edit it again, Maybe send it out at fully to different places. I haven't done that yet. I'm always looking to do things like that. But I wanted to give it time before getting too heavily back into editing. Because I always think if you continue looking at something for month after month after month, you kind of basically lose the forest or the trees.

Yeah. So leaving it alone for a while and you come back to it gives you a fresh perspective.

Yeah, definitely.

You don't necessarily do creative writing for your work. I'm sure there's writing involved. I was wondering, how do you carve out time for these creative projects?

Honestly, kind of whenever I can. I guess that's a good thing. What weekends are for or, you know, my current job at a nonprofit, it's almost all on computer. I work remote a lot of the time. So I found in these last few months that I've started this job after seven, eight hours on the computer. I'm not super thrilled to bring out the laptop and start typing. Yeah, for sure. It can be finding whenever I'm up to it or the weekend or even during my lunch break just to try to get a few more words out or a few more edits in.

I think a lot of people can relate to that. It's just being at the keyboard for so many hours. What do you think it is that motivates you to do the writing?

A good question, I think. I mean, I can't remember a time when I didn't write in some way, even really before I could read. So I had a hard time learning how to read because I have dyslexia. And, you know, I was reading probably grade levels behind my peers. But I came from a family that always, you know, very good storytellers surrounded by books. So even though I was, it took me a while to catch up to my peers. It was always just a part of my life. And I think probably just hearing my family just say different stories or talk or love different stories, Whether it be family stories or even just the movies that they saw or the TV shows or the books that they read, that's part of the motivation. But it's also just comes from something that I can't really name. It's just something that I'VE always done, and I can't really think of not doing it.

For sure. What I was thinking about when you were talking is how storytelling to me is kind of separate from writing because the story exists in multiple forms and writing is one of the ways that you get it down. But telling the story to your friends and your family, just interesting that storytelling and writing aren't necessarily the same thing.

That's definitely true. And I've found with short stories or longer form writing in that sense, it definitely does have a more definitive version. Whereas maybe other types of writing like playwriting, which I've also done, it does change so much over time in a way that I didn't really know. When I started doing that. I kind of finished a draft and I submitted it and I was like, okay, well that's done. And then I got like notes back and I was like, oh, plays change constantly. Even well known plays are always getting cut and added to and rearranged. And that was something I somehow was totally unaware of before I started on that path.

Talk a little bit about your playwriting.

Yeah, I did a little of it in high school. Probably not very good plays, but as always, liked writing. In a lot of my earlier longer form writing, I realized the part I really liked writing was dialogue. So it took me, I guess, probably a bit longer than I should have to realize, oh, why don't I write something that's all dialogue? So then I started writing the play. And the idea for the play came from my first full length play called we the People, which was I was lucky enough to actually see performed, which again, maybe I was a bit too naive to realize that I wrote. I wrote the play and started writing in January, submitted it in May, and by November I saw it performed somewhere, which is not the usual way it goes. This is also the start of the pandemic. So that was also not the usual way. But my first play just started off, I guess, with a pretty basic question. Also being as a history nerd, I was like, oh, there's the signing of the Constitution is probably the most important event or the creation of the Constitution in American history. And I couldn't think of a creative work that described it. So that's where the play we the People came from. And that just set me off on really falling in love with playwriting and getting that as a different way to express my opinions of myself are just writing, getting to write in a different fashion.

So different from short story writing before we started recording. You let me know that you have a background in history and politics. There must be a connection there with the topic that you selected.

It definitely wasn't a time period I couldn't like before I started writing. I couldn't say I knew a ton about it. I mean, maybe more than the average person because I spent years studying history in college and very much a history nerd and from a family of history nerds. I think it just made me deeply interested in the topic where maybe as if I wasn't in as much into history or political science, it would have just maybe seemed a bit more boring. From what I know, there could be a big play out there about the Constitutional convention that I just don't know about. But not knowing that I was like, oh, why there should be one. It's, you know, such an important event and it's just kind of glossed over both in a lot of. I remember in high school was not discussed a ton. And unless you really go out of your way to study it not talked about a lot unless kind of in like vague terms or people wrote a long time after it. So that was just the. Want to write about it. I wouldn't call it historical fiction. It may be kind of a little like that. I just tend to not be a huge fan of historical fiction. So I don't want to call my play that. It takes a lot of liberties. It's less. It tries to get big general themes of historical fact. Right. But doesn't try to get too deep into the weeds of who said what on what day and who was there. And when there's like 50 people there, there's not 50 characters.

It sounds like seeing your work performed within such a tight time frame must have been really exciting. Like, were you expecting that to happen that quickly?

No. And I mean, I was very lucky. I started writing the January of 2020. I started writing it and I was 20 years old. Got the first draft done or submitted a draft I felt comfortable submitting in May of 2020. So pandemic was set in. It's kind of like, let me give me the time to finish it. I was a junior in college. And then August was a different further draft on it gets accepted and performed. Gets part of a virtual play festival. And luckily a little bit after I got performed like a stage rein at a theater. That was the summer of 2021. And from the summer of 2021 till this publication, none of my writing got featured in anything. So I think I got a very good, like crash course and what writing can be like and sometimes how fast it can move and also the long droughts in between where you're writing. And I think I've written much better plays than we the People or like characters I made and characters I'd really want to see on stage. And I haven't seen them. So this is the interesting fact. It was kind of a crash course in what being a submitting writer can be like. Both very lucky, and I know many people who write plays never get to the point of seeing their words performed. And then you have a long drought of just waiting for the next chance, Whether a short story being published or a manuscript being looked at or a play being performed.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of waiting involved with writing. Waiting and more waiting. I wanted to back up a little bit and talk about seeing it performed. Did the performers bring anything to the characters or the lines or the plot points or anything that you didn't expect? Something they gave it a new touch anywhere, perhaps?

Definitely. I would say with the plays, I learned that my writing was very repetitive in certain ways, which is like the most basic thing you hear in the first read through. You're like, these four lines could be one line. Which is honestly something I love most about writing. I've always like. I like turning a page into a paragraph, into paragraph into a sentence. Like, I like nothing more than just getting to delete pages from a short story or any. Or when I was in school, a paper I was writing just to make it more compact. But then just seeing, you know, like I wrote something maybe to think of it as a joke and the actor delivered a more serious or the audience reaction because I was able to see it perform live in front of people. I think it was five times over four days. And just seeing the response. I remember what clear memory. The place someone ends, I guess, probably unsurprisingly, with the reading out the beginning of the Constitution. And the people in the audience didn't know I was the playwright. It was a very small theater and I was like selling concessions and like raffle tickets. And I was like talking to people about the play. And someone next to me was saying the preamble of the Constitution with the actor. Not loudly, it was kind of under their breath, but, like, seeing that kind of reaction to it. Or like, what, get applause or what? Like in the play, there's a character of Billy Lee who is a enslaved man who is owned by George Washington. And I just came up, Cross is reading him and I was like, oh, of course he needs to be a character. You know, they're talking about liberty and freedom. And here's an enslaved man who has to stand there and watch the entire time. And you don't hear much from him throughout the play because you sadly don't, because his voice would have been silenced. But right before the act break, he has a monologue. And seeing what, you know, I could write as the author of the monologue and just seeing the actor of Cross5 performances completely elevated and turned into something different and better than I could ever think or describe it being. And a lot of people have told me that's like their favorite point of the show. So that was something I was kind of nervous about writing because I knew it was going to be the heart of the play. And probably it's for everything I've written. You're always a bit nervous over what you think the center or core of the player are going to be and how it's going to turn out. And then seeing the actor just elevate it completely was like, I definitely decided, you know, sigh of relief for me, but also just grateful that they could do something with it that I never could on my own.

That sounds amazing and beautiful.

It was a great experience getting to see it said out loud and again. So shortly after I had really written it. And I mean, like, end was a large editing process over four days of rehearsal. So the script I went in was nowhere close to the script that got performed.

It makes me wonder if in the future, as you're writing more scripts, if you'll know in the back of your mind that that possibility exists again in the future for someone to do something more with what you've written than you have done yourself.

Oh, I think, definitely. I think that's a part of. As compared to the more of the short story where it's less collaborative, it is more of you sitting and writing and getting your own ideas out there. Theater is inherently collaborative and people bring to it and like it very clearly will show you if it works or if it doesn't work. Like, if over four days of rehearsal, if a joke you wrote isn't landing, odds are it's not going to land on the fifth night and you should probably get it. But if you're hearing good responses from the actors and the people doing it, it makes you know, like, okay, this is probably something I should look at or lean into or definitely keep in. And somewhat similar, I think, with short story writing, where isn't the collaborative, but like, you know, if you. If you hand a short story to a reader and they're just like, I Don't get it. The reaction shouldn't be, you didn't try hard enough. It should probably be okay. What's not clear about this? And that's just also figuring out how to get out of your own way. Like I think with the Patrolman, those who read it, it's not a lot of dialogue. None of the characters really have names. It's more of titles. And I think that was part to serve a bigger purpose within the broader story I was writing. Just because did there need to be another named character? The character shows up a few times. How much time am I going to dedicate to writing this relatively minor character? But also somewhat as a writer, I know that if I get too detailed, it kind of loses something to it. It's going to get too lost in the weeds of the 3,000 word story I'm trying to tell. Like you can't go into this guy's entire life backstory because that's not really relevant to what this story is.

I think that's part of the magic of the short story is that you can accomplish so much with so few words and still leave an impact on the reader. One of the other things that you let me know is that most of your educational background has not been in writing. So I'm wondering how have you. You formed yourself as a writer? Have you sought out any instruction or read craft books or just talk to people? How did you make it happen?

Honestly, there's probably little things I've done more than just write in my free time, and I think it's been trial and error through that way. I'm not really a part of any writing groups. I didn't study creative writing in college. I have friends who are also creatives, so I've been able to read some of their work and they've been good enough to read mine, which I've always appreciated. But it's honestly just largely been me throwing words on a page over 24 years or whenever I first picked up a pencil, or most likely when I began crayon. What I learned from then to now, it's just one of my favorite things to do. I'm always happy when I've gotten to write in a day. It doesn't always get to happen. I'm always happy when it does happen.

You were talking about crayons. That made me wonder, do you have any of your really early works?

Oh, probably buried somewhere in a box. I do come across various notebooks sometimes where it will be like two pages of semi legible writing of some Usually fantasy story, most likely just a ripoff of Percy Jackson or Lord of the Rings or anything that I saw on TV that day. There was always stories like that that I was starting off with. And that's, I think, where I learned, especially with fantasy stories, they tend to be so plot heavy or so context heavy. And although I love those stories, I haven't been very successful in writing those stories. Like I said before, plot is not one of my strong suits. It tends to just really be focusing on like the emotional story or the character of it. So I think once I moved away from fantasy, that's actually when I started trying to write plays and it turned out well. I'd love to get back to fantasy at some point, but again, I may need to get much better at plot before I try that.

What about poetry?

Well, I have tried it somewhat. I can't say I've put a lot of effort into it. I've been interested in it both because it would be a new challenge and also maybe the practical side of me looks at the different, like submission, like websites, and it's like there's a lot of poetry out there, not always a lot of plays or short story. So somewhat is the practical sense of it. But I also want to make sure that I'm. If I'm going to dedicate my time to it, I want to make sure I actually like doing it. I don't think I've found the poet yet who I connect with the most. Like, I found poems that I like, but I don't know if I found a poet who I really connected with and thought, okay, this is something I could really sink my teeth into.

Okay, who knows? Maybe it'll just happen one day.

Exactly. I've tried a little bit, haven't looked back too much, but I've been thinking about it.

Yeah, it sounds like for the most part you just trust your intuition about what you're called to write and then that's what you write.

I tend to. I don't really do work with outlines all that much. I tend to, if I get an idea, I'll write it and I'll see how many words I can get out of it. And if it's more, so probably with plays than with anything else. But I've noticed that with plays you can edit it, redraft it, add new characters as much as you want. If it's not working, it's not going to work. There's not much you can do to it. And I've found over the, I guess four and A half years I've really been writing them is that the play that is supposed to be written does end up being written in some way. It takes a long time or different forms or. The last play I wrote originally it was set very much, very plot heavy, very like a lot of backstory to it. And then I was like, this isn't working, but I know what the core is. And I just threw out everything that I had written over a few weeks and just restarted from page one. And it turned out so much better to me than I think I ever could have really tried to just force dialogue into this structure that was never going to work.

How can you tell when it's not working?

It's kind of like when I can't string it together. I guess I don't always write in order for the Patrolman and for the broader story it came from that I wrote in order. But for plays, I tend to just think of characters and, okay, what would this character say in a scene with each other? And I'll try to string it together and you know, and I realize, okay, this is overlap and it's like this and work it out into a structure from there. But if I get to the point where I write everything I can think about and I try to put it in order and it just isn't working, if it just doesn't make sense or there's nothing I can do to make the dialogue sound right, or the story or the emotional story, these characters to connect. I know it's probably something deeper than just like clunky first draft dialogue. And that's usually. That's how I write for play is very rarely is it in order. Honestly. This last. The broader story that the Patrolman came from was the first thing I think I wrote or one of the first things I wrote in order. Even like the previous, I guess, novel, kind of a collection of interrelated short stories. I originally didn't write them in order at all. And then kind of realized like, oh, this will make no sense if it's not chronological. No one's going to understand any of this.

It kind of sounds like the story exists somewhere in the. Your subconscious and you pull it out piece by piece.

I haven't thought about it in those words, but I think it's. I think there is something at the core of each story that will get out and will make its way through all of the bad writing and the early writing and the missteps, because that's a story you want to tell. There was a plot device I was trying to work into, like, three or four different plays and a lot of, like, failed attempts at plays. And it was supposed to be a character who was reading Letters from Home. And I tried, like, every which way I could to really shove that into a story. And it never worked until it eventually did. Until it worked within the context of the thing I was looking for. And for me, it just. When I edit in a short story or a longer work or a play, it tends to just be cutting out unnecessary context and unnecessary plot and get into really what's at the most basic of it and expanding there. I've often described it as my first drafts. If it was a steak, it would just be all fat, the first draft. And then the second draft would be just a bone. And then I have to work to try to get meat back on it at the final draft. And that's just in my process, been, I guess, somewhat successful over the last four and a half years. At least. I've been enjoying it.

Yeah. I think understanding your own process as a writer is probably one of the most important things, because each writer has a different process, you know, and you can't. Somebody else describes, I do this and that, and then you try to do what they do. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

Yeah. And I'm very interested in how other people write. Not just creatively, but not too far removed from college. And I loved asking my friends, how do you write? And for me, I love drafts. I love just the act of writing itself. And also part of having dyslexia is knowing that I need the extra time. What may take some people for writing an hour will probably take me two hours, two and a half hours, three. And I had some friends who said, first draft. And that's where you turn in. Some even people who. Creative people who. That's how they would write. And for me, I just tend to throw everything on a page and see what comes out and then figure it out from there. Like I said before, no outlines, no real preconceived notions of what I want to happen. Just some ideas of a story, a general theme, a general plot or structure, and then just throw everything in there. Yeah.

Writing is mysterious, definitely.

Everyone does it differently.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that makes it so intriguing, is that there is not one way to do it.

There's.

There's your way, and then a year or two can go by in your way. Make not be what it was, and it changes. And then you have to try to figure out why Am I doing it so differently? Yeah, that's something else. Any last thoughts about anything that you might want to suggest to someone perhaps that's interesting in writing a play? What would you suggest to them for writing a play?

I would probably. What's something I've noticed and I've seen, you know, other sometimes like student work. Never, never write slang. It never turns out well. Seeing that's a very basic one. I'm. I'm sure that's there's hundreds of thousands of examples of how that's not true. But I've just always found in seeing like a 10 minute play showcase of just seeing people was like, oh, slang never turns out well on a script. You need to have really good actors to make that seem natural. That's the most basic one. And I guess besides that, just keep editing and keep. Because you're eventually going to find the play that you were supposed to write.

Well said. I think if I was gonna add something I heard you say is to give the actors something to work with and you know, to know that to trust the future actors to bring something to the page. So that's what I got out of what you said. Well, it's been great talking to you. If people are interested in connecting, they can find you on LinkedIn.

Yep, I do have a LinkedIn. It's just my name, Harrison Zaberg. I'm going to probably be working on a creative like a website for my creative stuff.

Okay. All right, well, I'll put your LinkedIn in the show notes in case anyone would like to get in touch. Thanks a lot for joining us today.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

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