Town Underground – Lauren Korn

Kathleen McLaughlin:

Today’s guest is the host of a beloved Montana radio show on the literary arts. Lauren hosts “The Write Question,” a weekly literary program on Montana public radio that features writers and writing from all around the American West and beyond. A number of our Butte listeners will be familiar with the show. Lauren is also a writer herself, and she has spent a little more than the last week here in Butte as the writer in residence at the Dear Butte residency in Walkerville. Lauren Korn, welcome. Tell us about yourself.

Lauren Korn:

I grew up south of Helena in Montana city, and actually I was not born in Montana. I’m a twin, and we were born very premature. We were airlifted from Helena to Salt Lake, so I was born in Salt Lake, but have lived most of my life here in Montana. I grew up in Montana City, went to high school in Helena, started my college years in Vermont — that didn’t work out the first time — came back to Montana, finished out my Bachelor’s at the University of Montana.

KM: You’re obviously a prolific reader as well as a writer. What sparked your interest in writing and books in your own life? Is this something that you’ve had since childhood?

LK: My mom was a very big reader. My dad is a very big reader. My grandparents were academics. I’ve been surrounded by readers always. And I was also lucky. Growing up in Montana City, I was really blessed with wonderful teachers who, not only encouraged reading, but, I’m a child of the 90s, so reading was incentivized by like the Scholastic book fairs (other) programs. I grew up in that kind of culture where reading was incentivized, encouraged and so fun. I’ve always been a reader. Books have always been a really big part of my life.

KM: Did you know from a young age that you wanted to write?

LK: No. I don’t know that I actually understood that writing could be something that I could work towards until maybe not adulthood, or close to adulthood, books were always just something that allowed me to, I wouldn’t say, leave reality, but I was so immersed in their stories. think if I were to go back to my elementary school years, my younger years, I wouldn’t have said, “I want to be an author when I grow up.” I think I probably would have said, like a doctor or something like that, something a little trite.

KM: What are you working on while you’re here in Butte? I think people would be interested to know about that.

LK:  I recently made what I’ve been calling “a picture book pivot.” When I first decided that I wanted to be a writer and write seriously, I actually started in nonfiction. I was really drawn to the idea of writing kind of memoir-esque nonfiction, but in fragments, so trying to be really concise and really brief in those moments and then thinking about even that form, I then pivoted to poetry, and that’s what I got my master’s in. I got my master’s at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, in poetry, and really learned to love the artifact of the book, the poetry collection. That’s where I really fell in love with the object of the book.

I’ve been a reader and a book lover my entire life, but I think I was enamored with the stories and enamored with the content and poetry. Then my sister had her two daughters. I just fell down the rabbit hole of picture books. I was buying so many picture books for my niece. I was reading them to her, I was remembering the joy of the picture books that I had when I was little that were read to me. I recognized all the illustrations. And I think at this point in my life, I’m in my late 30s, I am addicted to nostalgia. I really am. I get that nostalgia involves a bit of sadness, but I really love the feeling of recognizing in something my past, and so I took a deep dive down into picture books. I’ve been trying to write my own.

I am a former bookseller, and again, I’ve loved books for a very long time, but picture books and children’s lit is different than the adult literature industry.

I was so uninitiated in the children’s lit world. And so a lot of this, it’s been maybe six months a year where I’ve been kind of just relearning, or not relearning, learning about this industry, which is, again, so different from what I know. So here in Butte, I’ve been tidying up some manuscripts, starting a couple new ones, but I actually have been writing prose too.

KM: I’ve spoken to a lot of the former residents who’ve come to Butte for the writing residency at Dear Butte, and there seems to be a pretty wide agreement that there’s something about the place that is inspiring, and it may just be the solitude, it may be the location. You’ve spent most of your life in Montana. I don’t think you’ve spent a ton of time in Butte. What has it been like for you to have this kind of uninterrupted, immersive time in Butte? And has it been inspiring for you?

LK: It’s been so inspiring not only because I’ve been spending time with people like you, other writers, friends who live here, I think the space and the time is definitely a lot of it. I’m a little bit of a workaholic. I have pretty poor work-life boundaries, and so coming to Dear Butte and living in Walkerville for these 10 days, I was given permission, basically explicit permission, by the board and dear Butte as an organization, to say, we believe in what you’re doing. We’re going to give you time and space. And then I kind of had to lean into that and I really ended up having to give myself permission to get that space and take that space.

I will say I haven’t spent any days looking at the wall, but I have been exploring Butte. And there is so much creative creativity here. There’s so much potential energy, and there’s so many people who are inspired to do things here and build community. You can’t help but be inspired here.

KM: Did you have any kind of preconceptions or misconceptions about before you spent time here?

LK: No, growing up in Montana, Butte history is such a rich part of our school curriculum that my knowledge of Butte felt separate from the reality of Butte. I came in with certain knowledge about this history in this place. And I think what I’m learning, and have learned over the past 10 days, is Butte has a very rich living history this, this is a place that there’s so much potential for community and growth.

KM: (The Write Question) is billed as writing and writers from the American West and beyond, which is pretty broad. But how do you select books and find writers when you’re looking for people to interview? What are you looking for?

LK: I’m going to step back and just say, interviewing writers from the American West and beyond, I have sort of really leaned into the beyond. The founder of the show, Cherie Newman, she really focused on Montana authors. She would go regional when authors passed through Montana, but she really focused on local authors, which is amazing. I feel like they need, need their outlet too, of course. And then Sarah, she too focused on Montana authors, but she expanded her reach a little bit too. She was grabbing authors from the book festival that would come through, which meant that there were probably national, you know, other authors outside of Montana or the region. But she was interviewing songwriters and comedians as well, and so we were all kind of just leaning into our strengths.

I had so many connections in publishing that I had and had been in contact with so many authors, it seemed kind of a shame not to pull those connections a little bit. So I’ve really expanded. I of course talk to Montana authors. Of course, I talk to regional authors. But post covid, I can reach out to anyone and have conversations over zoom and do phone syncs.

I think, because I read every page of every book that I talk about, I have to enjoy it. I have to be passionate about talking about it, and maybe even more to the point, I have to be really curious about both the author and the work. I have to sustain a conversation with this author for an hour-plus. I think it’s just curiosity. And because publishers get in touch with me all the time, and authors get in touch with me all the time, I constantly have kind of an inflow of information and books to consider.

KM: Montana, we both know, has a long, storied literary tradition. Missoula, in particular, has been a hub for a long time for writers. I’m curious if you have seen since you have been doing this show, any shifts in the patterns of what people are writing about where they live, what kind of books you’re seeing that are either from Montana writers or writers writing about this place or writing about the American West? Are you seeing shifts?

LK: I think so, and I can’t say definitively, but I have this conversation with a lot of writers. It’s about the growth that’s happening here. I think it’s inevitable that writers and just people living here are struggling with kind of the boom that’s happening, specifically in college towns like Missoula and Bozeman, but all around Montana. Covid really brought a lot of out of staters here. I think it’s actually really fascinating to have these conversations. These are conversations that often happen between friends at brunch or, you know, between families, and when I bring them to MTPR, and they happen in the form of, oh, “we’re talking about the Crazies (Crazy Mountains) in the in the case of Amy Gamerman.

But I also think while that feels novel to me, if I were to ask older writers, maybe part of the old guard that still exists in Missoula and around the state, I think they would say that that’s probably what’s always been written about, because the West has been changing.

KM: Do you feel like you have seen more women and/or non-white people writing about Montana and the West in recent years? I feel like, if we go back in our history of who the big writers were in Montana, there were a lot of white men. Is that changing at all?

LK: I would imagine, I can’t say definitively. I mean, Missoula has the benefit of the MFA program there, right? So they’re attracting a lot of out-of-state writers who are finding a home in Missoula and acclimating to the home that is Missoula or is Montana. I mean, you’re an author too. Kathleen, like, what do you think about that? Are you as an author in this landscape? I mean literary landscape and natural landscape. What are you seeing?

KM: I think it’s changing. I mean, especially from when I was growing up, I sure there’s a big shift in who writes about this place now, and especially, you see a lot more women writing about the West.

LK: I don’t mean to turn the mic away from myself, but as a writer, I know that you are attracted to class and talking about inequities in class, what appeals to you when you look at your next project, what appeals to you? What are you looking at?

KM: I think that Montana right now is absolutely ripe with so many stories about inequity in class and all of the things that have happened here, even in the last 20 years, from the roots of the Citizens United ruling that flooded the country with money in politics, there’s so many things that emerged from this place, from politics to class to culture, I think that I’m always less interested in outdoors writing, because I think that it is, it’s a niche that doesn’t appeal to me as much. This place is rich with stories about class and culture and what’s happening right now, with extreme wealth flooding into communities like Bozeman Big Sky and Missoula Whitefish.

LK: The distinction for me is like, there are probably myriad kinds of outdoor writing, or like writing towards the land. Because, yes, there are the fly-fishing memoirs and there are the classically written Westerns, or even the new contemporary Westerns. I think what I meant, though, by like they’re not going to go away, is that, because the land is such a big part of our blood here, that even if you are writing about class, if you’re writing about class in Butte, Montana, you can’t not be writing about the environment. You can’t not be writing about mining and extraction industry and the Berkeley Pit. It’s just so intertwined.

(Editor’s note: This is an abridged transcript that has been edited for clarity. The full conversation is available on the audio link)