that creativity works kind of in quantum leaps more than it does in a straight line. We often think of learning as being this nice 45-degree angle on a graph, and I think creativity works in these leaps where you plateau––you kind of stay at the same level–– and then you will leap up, and you can do something different. We are learning even in these plateaus, but we’re not manifesting it. Asa: Speaking of learning, one thing I learned this fall is the importance of tension in writing, and can you just explain the importance of tension to you and in your writing? Kent: Well, I think there are a lot of ways people can look at how fiction works, and that’s kind of my patented way. You know, if you’ve got another 56
The Talon 2022
writer in residence here, that writer might have based fiction in character development or might have based it in setting or in relationships, and those things all work too. Fiction is so knotted together and so integrated that you could take almost any point and say, That’s the core. For me, when we are in tension, we tell stories, and we tell stories about that tension. We try to make sense of the tension through the telling of the story. I’m really interested in the ways that literature is emblematic of much more basic things. So, as I told you, gossip, I think, is one of the major forms of storytelling in human beings’ lives. But what you do in gossip––that very basic storytelling––is not a whole lot different than what you do in writing literary fiction…. When we’re in tension we tell a story about it, or the other way around is to say the tension itself is the story. Asa: Now switching to a new gear, did anything surprise you during your stay at Woodberry? Kent: Well, the most obvious thing, of course, is the bonfire! That was a surprise. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I’ve been here in a quite controlled environment where people were really incredibly polite and generous and kind and in control. I was amazed at the fact that you guys would leave your backpack just lying on the sidewalks and come back, and there they’d be. I think that was highly unusual, but then, you know, you get to this bonfire, and suddenly there is this craziness going on! So, that did surprise me. Woodberry was surprisingly generous, surprisingly
