Leading up to the premier of THESE STREETS at ACT Theatre in February 2013, TPR is releasing weekly online interview segments from the oral history portion of this project. The full length versions of these interviews will be archived at the University of Washington. This first interview, filmed at TPR, features Vanessa Veselka of the former band, BELL.
About Vanessa: Besides being a guitar player, singer and songwriter, Vanessa has been at various times a teenage runaway, an expatriate, a union organizer, and a student of paleontology. Her debut novel, Zazen, won the 2012 PEN/Bingham prize for fiction. Vanessa’s music is featured in THESE STREETS along with songs from other women in forthcoming interviews. As a single mom to a nine year-old daughter, Vanessa talks here about the social stigma that exists for young girls who retreat into solitude to learn how to play an instrument, and how necessary that isolation is for a budding artist. It’s a fascinating interview!
Filming by Wes Hurley
Interview conducted at The Project Room by TPR Founder Jess Van Nostrand- October 19, 2012