Part of DIALOGUE: Artists at the White House
Published: Issue 1, Summer 2009
Interview by JASMINE MAHMOUD

AYELET WALDMAN is an author and essayist, who performed at the White House Poetry Jam with her husband, author, Michael Chabon.

Describe performing for the President of the United States and the First Lady. Exciting, intimidating. And oddly not as anxiety-producing as you might think. They are such down-to-earth, welcoming people. They seem like such a normal family, that they put you at ease. What really freaked me out was being on that stage with all those superstars who were so much more in their element than we were.

How did you and your husband prepare for the evening? What was the intent of your performance style—witty banker about the power of words? I was on tour, so we wrote it over the phone. Neither of us writes poetry, and we didn’t have enough time to read an actual essay. We had an idea to convey and we had to come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t be too earnest. But neither of us is a performer, and I guess that’s pretty obvious from the tape.

The evening was, in many ways, a new conversation between artists and policymakers. What came out of the interaction between politicians and artists? Did the President or First Lady say anything about arts advocacy, arts education or arts policy? There was a tremendous amount about politics—Jamaica's piece on Hawaii was probably the first time a lot of people considered the fact that Hawaii was colonized by the United States. Both the President and First Lady spoke about the importance of art and culture, and how they plan to open the White House to traditionally-excluded voices and experiences.

In your performance, you joked with your husband about using “the pen is mightier than the sword” line at the White House. But there’s truth in using literature and the arts to make effective change. What are your thoughts on the power of words (over the power of war)? Well, that joke was meant to lighten the tone, but of course that was the whole point of what we said. That literature and art informs who we are as a nation. In Obama’s arts policy there is a great paragraph (that Michael wrote):

America’s artists are the guardians of the spirit of questioning, of innovation, of reaching across the barriers that fence us off from our neighbors, from our allies and adversaries, from the six billion other people with whom we share this dark and dazzling world. Art increases the sense of our common humanity. The imagination of the artist is, therefore, a profoundly moral imagination: the easier it is for you to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes, the more difficult it then becomes to do that person harm. If you want to make a torturer, first kill his imagination. If you want to create a nation that will stand by and allow torture to be practiced in its name, then go ahead and kill its imagination, too. You could start by cutting school funding for art, music, creative writing and the performing arts.

Was there a new sense of community that came out of the evening? If so, does that community have any political potential? Certainly on a personal level. I bet Lin-Manuel Miranda dinner that he couldn’t get James Earl Jones to say, “Luke, I am your father.” I lost. So we’ll be dining together soon. On a political level? We'll have to see.

How have you been influenced by the evening? Dude! I got to go to the White House! ‘Nuf said.

What are your upcoming projects? I’m on tour right now for Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. I have a novel, Red Hook Road, out next spring, and I’m working on a pilot for [a] TV series.

The first issue of The Arts Politic is themed “The Economy Issue.” You’ve led a career as a successful author. How does the economy affect your writing? I support myself with my writing. We’re artists, sure, but we’re also busy trying to raise a family. When people have less money they buy fewer books, and that’s scary for us.

The breadth of your career—from public defender to celebrated writer—has broached both politics and arts. Have you found synergies between the two fields? If so, what are they? My first books were all inspired by my short career as a Federal Defender. The Mommy-Track Mysteries were about a former public defender turned stay–at-home mom who solved crimes to keep from going insane. My novel Daughter’s Keeper was about the Mandatory Minimum drug laws and how arbitrary and draconian they are. Then I slowly began easing away from that subject. But I do still have a political axe to grind, and you can see that in my nonfiction where I’ve addressed issues like the violations of prisoners’ human rights, the farce that is Bush’s prescription drug benefit, the criminalization of reproductive behavior. TAP