The Kid from Coffernam
September 24th, 2007The kid from Coffernam never existed… until I asked some friends to tell me about him.
I wanted to see if, in this way, “in a sense, collaborative writing [did] widen the distance between author/narrator and individual writer,” as one speaker posits in “Petals on a Wet Black Bough” (98).
This was a process story. I had friends gather around my computer and tell tales, react, do some searching. Some people required no elaboration—knowing he was a kid from Coffernam (whatever that means) was enough. Other volunteers enlisted the aid of five other constraints, constraints made up as the night of recording progressed, constraints based off the previous stories told.
I had meant to weave an analytical reader’s response into the master track, but the project became something all of its own—not academic, and not even an informal response to an essay. When my friends asked what I was responding to, why we were making what we were making, the original reason came second. The opportunity to collaborate superceded the scholastic motivations.
“The Kid from Coffernam” turned into “a ‘coming together’ of dissonant perspectives in order to restore the lived world, at the risk of imprecision and incongruity” (92). (I hope.)
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The voices on this podcast belong to (in one sense):
Valerie Cochran
Andrea Cochran
Lucas Tieman
Melanie Schaap
Hannah Smith
Lauren Schrieber
Megan Luepke
Tom Heet
Evan Bryson
Robert Herrold
Mike Rosenwinkle
Max Scourzo
Brekk Berg
This podcast was recorded in Hannah’s bedroom, 21 September 2007, on a Friday night.