August Wilson on the Importance of Craft
We saw August Wilson's play Fences at Portland Center Stage a few weeks back. Before going, I read the Paris Review interview with him from. This response to the qualities that make a playwright spoke to me and seems of use for all creative writers as we work:
"Honesty. Something to say and the courage to say it. The will and daring to accomplish great art. Craft. Craft is what makes the will and daring work and allows playwrights to shout or whisper as they choose. A painter who has not mastered line and form, mass, perspective and proportion, who does not understand the values and properties of color, is not going to produce interesting paintings no matter the weight and measure of his heart, or the speed and power of his intellect. I don't think you can ever know too much about craft...All that is necessary then is ambition...which is as valid and valuable as anything else."
