Interview with Erica Cao :: Creative Friday
Spotlighting the interplay between creative and academic writing
Welcome back to Creative Fridays, a feature of On Humanity to engage and inspire readers to create new things and share your own creative journeys. The following was one of several email interviews conducted in early 2021 and originally published in the HiH magazine. It is republished here with permission from HiH. Some content may be out of date; the aim is to share these creatives’ pathfinding and thought processes. If you would like to be interviewed on anything you do for inspiration — or know someone who might — please reach out!
Erica's interests are in the arts, health, and civil society. She earned a PhD at Cambridge University's Centre for Music and Science and is currently a medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She co-founded Humans in Harmony in 2017 and is grateful to be continuing as an advisor with the wonderful team, supporting the ongoing and new initiatives at Humans in Harmony however she can.
Can you tell us a bit about your various writing pursuits?
Most recently it’s been more academic writing mixed in with clinical work. When I’m doing academic writing though, I find myself drawn to the creative side - I’ll often start the mornings with some creative writing (poetry, short prose) which then morphs into the academic project (e.g., my dissertation).
What inspired you to pursue the writing project you have been working on?
I don’t think the form of my writing project fell into place until the pandemic months, when everything about social care and health took fuller force and cohesion in my mind. I was inspired by the mentors and teachers whose classes I had taken and thinking about the necessity of a seemingly vanishing concept of the common good, which crystallized my ideas into “Common Time: Music, Empathy, and a Politics of Care.”
What does your planning process look like, whether in writing prose, poetry, or songs?
I tend to keep an eye out on lines in writing or music that startle, arrest me - the kind that makes you stop, reread, and savor. When I find that kind of a line or phrase, I’ll want to analyze it and highlight its sonicity - how it feels in the mouth, in the step, its syntax, its rhythm. Then I’ll want to try to create it myself, and sometimes that turns into a piece; or when I’m stuck I’ll turn to my favorite artists (poets in particular, Bishop has been a recent one, but also some beautiful academic writers and journalists!).
Do you employ feedback of any kind in your work? What considerations do you use to determine that a poem or a journal article of yours is complete?
Bringing my work outdoors, perhaps with a sunset or under a tree is its own kind of feedback. There’s something about having a distance to the work and change in atmosphere. A lot of it is being in that expanded state of being where you can calmly look at your writing and ask yourself if it feels right. A lot of time for me, whether in creative or academic work, that means asking myself if it feels genuine.
How do you usually go (or plan to go) about publicizing your creations? Is there a routine you default to or an avenue you have yet to explore?
A lot of the writing just happens, and then it stews and sits. I’m not sure if it’s going anywhere to be published, but it was something I wanted to write. Then, maybe, it finds itself out there in some way - either reformatted into a formal publication, or I come across a publishing opportunity and think of the piece. I’m always on the lookout for ways to learn and share my writing. It feels so rewarding when it resonates with even just one person.
Are you currently working on any particularly exciting project(s)?
Current exciting project: learning how to doctor! And a lot of that is the poetry of reflecting on some deeply personal and challenging situations of everyday human life. I’m finding this with my classmates in our reflection and conversations. Perhaps it may, when it feels right, morph into something to be shared more widely. There’s so much richness in that first exposure to clinical work that demands preserving, and I’m hoping I can do that this year.
How can readers of this Issue help your work(s) reach a larger audience?
Come join! I’m excited to share and collaborate on whatever projects might overlap in the journey of getting people organized and energized to make change or see beauty or create together.
If you would like your work or thought process to be featured in this publication in a future Creative Friday post, please leave a comment or contact me. If you’d rather not receive these twice-a-month Creative Friday emails, but wish to remain subscribed to the main section of On Humanity, you may adjust your email settings here. Please consider inviting your friends or collaborators to this publication, the abundance.dev community, or the anyhumans podcast.
Thank you both for this interview!
Music is a great source of inspiration and super glad to hear someone else feels the same way. Music was my first love as a child (even if my singing was, and still is, atrocious). Interestingly, someone had to point out to me how my other art influences, incl. music, a. would influence my writing and b. could make an appearance in my writing. I had, for some reason, separated the two entirely. But they are connected, or at least not mutually exclusive, and it seems this is very much the case for Erica.
I am new to writing, in general, and Substack, in particular. I take Erica's point about the work cooking in the background before we revisit and reflect on it being genuine / real / finished; I have seen the notion elsewhere, too, and it makes perfect sense.
What I would be interested in understanding in more depth is the interplay between giving our work the opportunity to stew, on the one hand, and the idea that we need to regularly produce writing for platforms, such as Substack, in order to gain and maintain readership, on the other. These days, more than ever in my opinion, there is a conflict, both internal and external, between 'slowing down' and 'being productive / efficient'. This game of tug of war spills into all areas of our lives, including the creative.
How do we, especially as new writers, deal with the need for time and lack of time, all at once?
I hope I have phrased this clearly :)