Episode 336: "Why I Write" by George Orwell - Short Story Summer Remix
About this episode
The episode discusses George Orwell's essay 'Why I Write' and explores themes of writing, education, and the importance of leisure in finding one's vocation.
For this week's installment of our Short Story Summer Remix, we revisit a conversation Angelina and Cindy had covering George Orwell's essay "Why I Write." Our hosts kick off the discussion about how much they each identify with Orwell's description of his childhood. In his story of learning to write, we see many aspects of a good education, even his inclination to imitate other authors. An important point Angelina brings up is Orwell's own struggle against the calling he felt to write, in contrast to having an ambition to do so. Angelina brings up a related story about musician Gregory Alan Isakov , and Cindy reiterates the idea of why we need leisure in order to find our vocation. Cindy and Angelina also bring out some of the qualities Orwell possessed that make a good writer. Maturity as a human being and as a master of a craft are crucial to certain forms of writing, as Orwell points out about his own work. Other topics of conversation include truth-telling in writing, the motives for writing according to Orwell, and the growing process of writers. If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in…
More episodes of The Literary Life Podcast
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- Episode 337: "The Celestial Omnibus" by E. M. Forster – Short Story Summer Remix
- Episode 335: "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant – Short Story Summer Remix
- Episode 334: "The Adventures of a Shilling" by Joseph Addison – Short Story Summer Remix
- Episode 333: "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield - Short Story Summer Remix
- Episode 332: "A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls" by G. K. Chesterton, Short Story Summer Series Remix
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