Emily Parzbok’s project for the 2022 Jack Straw Writers Program is a collection of essays centered on female archetypes. In her conversation with curator Michael Schmeltzer, they talk about how her relationship with these archetypes has changed over time and the grace in telling complicated stories. “I think I often want there to be confusion and messiness, but of the kind that isn’t painful, of the kind . . . that just really leaves space for the mystery of being human.”

Music by Ran Park, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.