Maya Kucherskaya: “Creativity is online with the sky”

Psychologies: Who are these people who want to learn how to write?

Maya Kucherskaya: The average age is 30-32 years, although there are both students and people over forty. Professions are very different, employees of large as well as small companies, advertising agencies, journalists, teachers, IT specialists, operators, historians, political scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, always a couple of bored young mothers and one or two psychologists per group. There are distinctly more female representatives, approximately one to three. This is understandable – women, in principle, love to learn, and most importantly, they are ready to admit that they need it.

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What do they want, what do they strive for?

M.K .: They want, you won’t believe it, to write better – more expressive, deeper, more professional. The vast majority of our listeners are beginners, standing at the threshold that has yet to be crossed. Other desires are built around this. Many of those who have withered their souls at work and are hungry for other food do not want to talk about indicators, efficiency, not about the inanimate, but about literature, heroes, images, learn new names, read fresh books. In a word, he wants to dive and completely immerse himself in the literary environment.

And how do they change during training?

M.K .: It depends on the form of training, we have two of them – an intensive course and a 10-week course, and these are two different stories. I’m still a fan of the intense. On the long course, everything was the same, but as if in slow motion, not so sharp. At the intensive, by the end of the first week, that is, by the middle of classes, everyone suddenly gave up. We opened up, began to communicate closer, discuss each other’s texts bolder and smarter. There was such a thinking team, communication of extreme density was brewed, when people did not want to go home after classes. And those who could, did not leave! We went to a cafe, walked around Moscow for half the night, then met again on the weekends. Do you know what was the happiest day of my life? When I spied on this – how they gather, wait for each other and then go somewhere further in a friendly crowd. In the summer, at the end of our classes, we had two couples at once! I think this is a good result.

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Do you think this is a feature of your School or is this the case in all courses?

M.K .: I know that about the same thing happened at the autumn workshop of Dmitry Bykov – his young poets rallied, began to make friends, run to his lectures, which took place outside the school, and – attention! Much better than writing poetry! Because it is not enough to explain some important things about metaphor and metonymy, composition, cliches, people need to be charged, filled with this solar energy of creativity. Our School is also such a solar battery. Therefore, I try so hard to create an atmosphere of utmost openness in the classroom: when you are open, not tense, you are free, because there is no creativity without freedom. Creativity is online with the sky, God, well, that means you have to throw your head back, open up towards – any weather – clouds, snow, wind – it’s fun, but it’s scary, it’s a position of endless vulnerability, but without it you can’t nothing will come of it. You will not hear anything, neither the shudder of the sky, nor the flight of heavenly angels. And you won’t write a single line of talent.

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What do the participants of your courses write about, do you have any favorite topics?

M.K .: In the summer, several stories appeared at once, absolutely beautiful, about expecting a child, about pregnancy, about babies – because there were several young mothers sitting in the class at once. And so … yes, it’s just that everyone cares about life, the relationship of a man and a woman, parents and children, a person and a person. Once a crazy grandmother came to our class. Very elderly, in some strange panama. And she demanded that we not persecute her, she said that she would stay, no matter what the cost. And despite all the persuasion, she stayed. Sat all two hours. Quiet, meek. After that, sketches with different versions of her fate, one more poignant than the other, appeared in the portfolios of several students of our workshop. Of course, I didn’t ask them to write about it. It just hit everyone.

What is the most difficult part of your teaching experience?

M.K .: The most difficult thing is to show what the cliches are that our consciousness is captured in, to destroy this hard shell of stamped expressions, to return people to their childish state, when they looked at the world, not knowing what it is called. To help everyone turn into Adam again and start giving names to animals, objects, phenomena.

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What prompted you to try yourself in a new role – the organizer?

M.K .: Tired of doing the same thing. For twenty years I’ve been more or less going in circles – teaching, journalism, writing my own lyrics. But it turned out that there is no less drive in starting your own business than in creativity, but what am I, this is creativity! Excitement is frantic, the desire for everything to work out, and the delight that so many people managed to connect and such a magical choir has formed – we have great teachers!

I was also tired of the fact that in Russia, despite the working Literary Institute, there was no tradition of teaching people to write well, just as it was not. So only geniuses write well, our nuggets. Or maybe even talent. Our project is patriotic in the best sense of the word! We are raising the level of Russian belles-lettres.