That's a blazing description of the new New York City, showing how struggling artists, business people, immigrants, real estate brokers and politicians all battle to control this rapidly gentrifying city.
Livingroom Johnston is a street storyteller who grew up in New York, living close to the biggest publishing market in the world while taking a totally unorthodox route for his stories--doing street readings, blog posts, self publishing, YouTube and MySpace pages to find his audience.
No matter where we come from, we should listen to his stories and learn from his adventures. Welcome to my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions.
In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
My favorite part about your stories is how people talk. From your narration to your drunken conversations, you write the way real people talk. How do you do it? Any advice for fledgling writers looking to write better dialogue? How did you learn how to tell a story out-loud?
Livingroom Johnston:
In the early nineties I used to speak at and attend a lot of poetry readings throughout New York City.
That’s where I got my start. I would also read on the streets with friends. We would share poems and stories together.
As for literature. I like simple stuff like Charles Bukowski, Walter Mosley, to name a few. I like to write in bars while listening to the people around me talk.
It’s like zoning out and creating a world for my self to live in and everyone in it does what I want them to do. Ha, ha, ha! I do think it’s rather selfish!
One of these days I'm going to finally camp out in my neighborhood doughnut shop, at the counter off to the side, notebook and pen at hand, and just watch the fascinating customers come and go.
Posted by: Pete | March 6, 2007 11:48 AM | Permalink to Comment