Why Do I Write ~ Randall Mann

WHY DO I WRITE ~ Randall Mann



I write because I am an addict, addicted to (say it) negative capability; to the strange engagement of the mind and simultaneous self-forgetting. To that fuzzy coming to after hours of wordplay.

I’m no theorist, but I suppose I write to hold fast to yet hold at bay the minutiae of world, to make some sense of the nonsense.

(I live in San Francisco, which provides endless bewitching non-sequiturs. “Look out,” a young woman warned me in front of Dolores Park a couple weeks ago, “there’s killer tofu about.”)

(I am drawn to words like oral sex or good shoes, like a Prather Ranch burger at Slow Club or a dawn walk on Ocean Beach.)

I write for much the same reason I sleep on one side of the bed only: I am pitilessly shaped by my past; I love constraint; I am, god help me, hopeful.