Writing into the Void with Ruth Ozeki
5/27/202656 min
Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen priest. She recently published her first short story collection, The Typing Lady and Other Fictions. With characteristic wit and grace, Ozeki astutely explores themes of identity, longing, loss, and the clarity that comes with old age. In one story, a couple watches their ambitions roam the woods as ghosts; in another, an aging writer enlists her granddaughter to fake her death as a way of getting out of an upcoming book tour. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Ozeki to discuss what drew her to the form of the short story, how the Buddhist teaching of not-self informs her writing, how writing short stories can be an act of surrender, and the lessons she learned from caring for her mother in the final years of her life. Plus, Ozeki reads a short excerpt from one of the stories in the collection.
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First 90 secondsRuth Ozeki· Guest0:00
[gentle music] I never did find the typing lady's book, so I don't know what befell her or her protagonist. But this author's note is not really about their stories. It's about yours and mine, about how when we read a story, we bring our own lives to bear on it and make it ours, no matter what the writer might have intended. Stories are like that. They are collaborations between people who read and people who type. They are how we co-create each other and dream ourselves into being.
James Shaheen· Host0:35
[gentle music] Hello and welcome to Tricycle Talks. I'm James Shaheen, and you just heard Ruth Ozeki. Ruth is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. She recently published her first short story collection, The Typing Lady and Other Fictions. In my conversation with Ruth, we talk about what drew her to the form of the short story, how the Buddhist teaching of not self informs her writing, how the act of writing can cultivate empathy, and why she views stories as an act of co-creation. So here is my conversation with Ruth Ozeki. So I'm here with Ruth Ozeki, a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Hi, Ruth. It's great to be here with you again.
Ruth Ozeki· Guest1:20
Hi, James. How are you? It's wonderful to be back.
James Shaheen· Host1:23
Great. So Ruth, we're here to talk about your new book, The Typing Lady and Other Fictions. So to start, can you tell us