I don't have to be in one place anymore as a writer.I've got family in Seattle.I have friends now in many places. I feel so lucky that I can go and live in a place like Bali for several months and think, "Wow, mine is not the only way to live in the world." You know that abstractly. You live in a village, you experience it; that really jars you loose from your prejudices and preconceptions.

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Originally Published on FutureHealth

Welcome back for the second installment of my conversation with Robert Fulghum. I listened to What on Earth Have I Done? in my car recently and I liked very much that you read it yourself. It was much more personal and made me feel like I knew you a little better. Did you ever consider having someone else read your books?

No, I've read all of my books through audio. And now, the most intimidating thing, I don't know if I'll do it or want to even try, is to read the novel. I don't know if you've seen this novel. It weighs seven pounds! And it's two volumes about the size of War and Peace. The thought of reading that, well, I don't know. But I think it's important that, if a reader can read well, and I have a reasonably comfortable voice, then you really ought to do it. Because I think, when I write it's like I'm telling you a story, like I'm talking.

Okay. Well, you can do it and you did do it. But what I want to know is, do you actually enjoy reading your books aloud? Do you ever think to yourself "Hmmm, I really like that part" or "What was I thinking?"

I must say that the first time they asked me to do it, I thought, "Oh, this'll be a piece of cake." Well, if you have no experience whatsoever in a recording studio - and the first one was recorded before a lot of the digital technologies came along it's a grind. Because they'll stop you and make you go back and pick up this little word and that little word and it's one of the most exhausting things I've ever done.

Now, they can pick out the exact microdigital thing and they mark it, they fix it. Everything goes much faster now. But still you've got an invisible audience in front of you. That's why I do them I sit down and act or think as if I'm sitting in a chair with a glass of wine, telling someone the stories rather than performing. And I don't think I've ever pulled it off. It's hard not to think of yourself when you're recording in a studio with all these people around that you're performing. But, that was my goal.

It's work; it really is. And it's becoming weirder because of the technology. It used to be you're sitting in the studio and there's a sound engineer and there's another engineer who's overseeing the whole thing and there's four people who were involved in this. Now, there's you and a guy behind the board and the supervising editor can be in Boston or New York by phone, talking to you and the engineer at the same time and it's all in the ether. You're not sure if you exist yourself for a while!

You have to listen to it afterwards to make sure you really do!

It's very disembodied.

It sounds like it. Over the course of a year, you now reside in three different places: Seattle, Utah and Crete. Does this semi-nomadic life help to keep your powers of observation fresh?

I don't have to be in one place anymore as a writer. I've got family in Seattle. I have friends now in many places and because of the success of my novels and writing in Europe, I've got several places I can go and I could live there for several months because I know people there. I would like to be, and think of myself, as a citizen of the world. And I want my kids to think of themselves as citizens of the world. And to have the opportunity, in the later years of my life to make that a reality, has been an extraordinary privilege. I feel so lucky that I can go and live in a place like Bali for several months and think, "Wow, mine is not the only way to live in the world." You know that abstractly. You live in a village, you experience it; that really jars you loose from your prejudices and preconceptions.

When you're in Utah and Crete, do friends come and visit or do you just immerse yourself in your retreat and separate yourself from your other life?

Well, the plan was, when I came to Utah, and this was twenty years ago, that I wanted a place where I could really get away and be shut off from all the usual kind of incoming of my life in Seattle. I didn't have a phone, no mail delivery, no incoming, no news of the day or anything. I really came to write. Well, now, twenty years later, I've got an incredible number of friends, a large social life. I have a big sign that I hang on my gate. It's made out of metal and it actually says "GO AWAY!"

Does it work?

First, they come and say, "Is something wrong?" And I say, "It is now, because you didn't read the sign." People are very respectful. Nevertheless, over time I have large life here, same thing with Crete. I thought I'd go to Crete and really get away. That didn't work either. And I can't help knowing people, and plunging into the culture and stuff like that. So, it's very hard to hide. You can stay away from the tyranny - it's a very useful tyranny - the cell phone, the Internet, all of that stuff. In fact, I'm writing about this for my website today. It's hard to both remain engaged, remain caring and at the same time not to get drowned by the tsunami. That's one of the great conundrums of the twenty-first century.

I look at your website and I think, "One person cannot read all this in one day. And if you wait until tomorrow, there's a whole lot of new stuff. You can't even catch up with your website."

That's entirely true. None of us even reads everything there. It's impossible. You wouldn't have time to write or observe if all you were doing was reading.

You have to make some choices. And I try very hard to do that, the same way with my own writing. I'm very much involved with a lot of organizations and a long-time member of the Democratic Party. And my best friend is Jim McDermott who is a Congressman from Washington. And I really care and, as a Unitarian minister, have been involved in causes all my life. But, at the same time, if I'm going to be able to write about something that isn't being written by 20 or 35,000 bloggers every day, I try to think about what can I add to the flow, as opposed to the glut, that might be useful. And my skill seems to be looking at ordinary, everyday aspects of existence and try to make sense of it. I try to write about what I know and stay away from what other people do far better than I will ever do.

You're hugely inventive, with or without the advantage of wine. A couple of stories that I particularly liked were your bug Olympics, and your essays about the players. How do you determine who's a player?

You know I wish I knew. And I've struck out at times. I have the feeling that if you pay attention to other people, you are aware on subtle levels that the other person has a sense of humor or an openness, and you click. I was in a bookstore in Moab this morning. And there was a blond lady I'd never met waiting in the gift wrap line for something and I looked at her and thought, "She's a player. I just know." And it was like we'd known one another for a long time. We just clicked in. I don't know how to describe it any other way - you just have a sense that you clicked with someone else. It might be a bus driver or a taxi guy, whatnot, just boom, the connection happens. When that happens and I'm in a wiggy mood, I'll see if people want to play. And sometimes, I've found that Asians who aren't born in this country don't get my sense of humor. I've laid some eggs in a Korean barbeque joint a number of times that I won't go in to. But they weren't players, let me tell you.

But you get up and get back on the horse.

Well, yeah. But, what's the risk? The risk is people think you're nuts. And we frequently think people are nuts. The real risk is that you wouldn't have found someone who had a warm and ongoing sense of humor and that is worth the risk.

I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't take much to entertain me. You can put me down almost anywhere to sit for several hours and just watch people. And it's very hard not to be able to come up with fiction stories, based on what you're seeing or social questions about what's going on with the human environment and that's kind of how I make my living. "Look at that!" And you see what I see.

You give us new eyes to see every-day things and that's a gift. Let's pause here, Robert. When we come back, you can tell us more about life on Crete and what it was like to be part of the band Rock Bottom Remainders with Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver and other writers.

Part One of my interview with Robert

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.


Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.

When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"

Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.