Big thanks to my friend Kellini who turned me on to this video clip last night. Louis CK talking here about his development as a writer and the role George Carlin played in that process illuminates so much of what my guests and I are talking about this month during Drink’s Emerging Writers’ Series.

What I hear in Louis’ story: How very early on (even in childhood) we can identify our mentors as artists, how we often have to go through a long, bleak period of being very crappy at what we long to do very well, and how those we’ve identified as mentors can model ways to solve our craft and process problems.

As a writer of memoir, I continue to be fascinated by what stand-up comics (Margaret Cho, Louis CK, George Carlin, to name a few) and solo performers (Spalding Gray, Mike Daisey, Tanya Taylor Rubinstein) can teach us about the art of telling our stories.

More soon!
Theo

P.S. I’ll be hosting an event with one of the writers I long ago identified as a mentor on January 18th in Petaluma, CA: Bird by Bird & Beyond with Anne Lamott. Buy tickets here.

Photo: Mark Richards