For a surrealist writer, Kurt Vonnegut sure does give grounded writing advice.
In the latest episode of PBS Digital Studios' lost interview series Blank on Blank, the Slaughterhouse-Five author posthumously contemplates the art of writing.
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"I am now older than George Orwell when he died," Vonnegut muses. "I’ll soon be older than Jack Kerouac when he died. Anyway, I've wondered why all these people kill themselves and I think that writers, creative writers, are in the process of becoming. They are humanity becoming."
The meditation comes from an uncovered 1970 talk that Vonnegut gave to students at NYU. In the segment, he also discusses his parents and man-eating lampreys, which were featured in his short story The Big Space F*ck.