Meet Grace Caplan, our podcast genius...
Grace, what are you doing in Madrid? What’s your story? Who are you?
I am currently a student in the United States. Because my university has a strange semester system, I had the opportunity to go abroad in the fall and I chose Madrid. I have always loved the Spanish language and felt a particularly literary connection to it; my mom, a Spanish teacher, used to sit with me as we translated short stories. Being surrounded by the language in the city, however daunting, also feels like a gift. I also knew that I wanted my work to be involved in literature. I recently came across a book in my school’s library about a young man going to Buenos Aires with a quest to find out why people write. I took inspiration from this.
For me, reading seems to have always been a source of wisdom for my biggest questions and, at this point in my life, I feel a renewed sense of urgency in answering these questions. I guess I am seeking knowledge and the place that I have always looked is in other people’s writing. I grew up in the rural northeast United States and stayed nearby for university. I have travelled fairly a lot with my family or school but never alone. Perhaps it is due to my tendency to idealise my life according to the things I have read, but being alone in a new city, looking at the people on their balconies in the morning, and walking through the streets at night offers a certain romantic quality that I am drawn to.
So, what’s your idea for the podcast? What have you got for us?
I grew up listening to national public radio in the US and I love some of the big interview shows like Fresh Air or This American Life. In college, I wrote an essay on an early short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (published just after he graduated). For my class, I analysed it using psychoanalytic principles that I was learning about and found that I loved thinking about the common psychological principles that are alive in writing and connect the readers to the work and the author. Underneath the Freudian prescription, was a recognition of common questions and innate feelings. I am curious about exploring poets and authors' work on the podcast, and then hearing their stories, what they have learned, what drives them, and their philosophies. I suppose I simply want to hear about other lives. I did a college radio show with my best friend where we talked about Vogue and our friends' love affairs and our totally uninformed musings on current affairs, so I am not qualified at all and therefore very willing to let this podcast take form throughout this experience.
Who are your own favourite poets and writers?
I have felt specifically enlightened by the books of Herman Hesse. There is something about his underlying spiritualism that manipulates the sense of time in his writing very beautifully. I recently have liked W. Somerset Maugham. The classic choices like Kafka and Nabokov are classic for a reason. I have read a lot of male authors and I have tried to reflect on the ways that this has affected me (many of the books sometimes speak directly to the reader as ‘young man’ etc.). I love George Orwell and I remember thinking that he was perhaps the first male author that I had read that felt like he was writing for me, a young girl. His writing on poverty seemed political in a way that felt meaningful, humble, and compassionate. I remember reading his advice for becoming an author, he said to try to notice five things in the immediate environment that no one else would have noticed and to create sentences. This had me looking under the sofa, the dust shimmers in the light like a beautiful pool. Reading Katherine Anne Porter made me realise that something in me can only be touched by the words of a woman. Margaret Atwood too.
I only recently started reading poetry, it always felt like so much analytical effort for less reward than a novel. I liked Mary Oliver though, especially when I could hear her recite her poems. However, I recently became close to someone who loves poetry and, through their eyes and conversation, I have greatly gained appreciation for the playfulness of language and instead of feeling like there is a correct interpretation, listening to yourself react to it.
Do you write? Would you like to?
Although I rarely admit it, I guess I do want to write. I mean, I do write; I carry a journal around and write reflections or small poems, some short stories although it's hard to finish them. However, for some reason it feels scary to say that I want to write — as a declaration. Writing is sort of my safety valve and I have my notebook on me because no matter what I experience or feel, I understand that I can be free if I can write it. I remember the first time I read a personal narrative out loud to an audience in high school, it felt so intimidating yet powerful. In university, many of my friends write too and we started a group where we read and edit each other’s writing which is very fun. I have recently been thinking and reading about the ways that language can dominate the way that we process the world. I find this an interesting challenge and I am trying to be more conscious of the role that I want language to play in my life. At the same time, I think language and writing also have incredible power that I am not even half understanding of yet but I would like to be. I think that because I have felt my life so immensely imbued with meaning through reading, that it is an incredibly alluring but terrifying task to try to harness language myself. I do write and I want to continue to write — and maybe you will see some of my writing here!
Here's hoping.
And you write to her at the Podcast at madridreviewpodcast@gmail.com