Paulette Perhach

Dark Circles – Paulette Perhach

Paulette Perhach’s project for the 2021 Jack Straw Writers Program is an exploration of mental health, anxiety, and addiction. In her conversation with curator E.J. Koh, they discuss meditation practices, the influence of research and travel on writing, and the vulnerability that writing can demand. “There’s a kind of nudity in writing. . . . I think that that’s when, you know, those moments in a reading where the room holds still. . . . You see that and it’s like, ‘the writer is taking a real risk.’ Hopefully, in the service of deeper truth.”

Music by Andrew Weathers, produced in part through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.