Session | Entering the Void: Sustaining an Artistic Career in the Digital Age

You provide the topic we provide the table (and the meal). Sessions are peer-led gatherings (12+ people) where conversations generate collaborations and move ideas to action. The recent preservation-driven removal of the Calder sculpture from the adjacent Hewitt Quadrangle has created an opportunity for discussion around the role of art in place making, history, and memory...

In this session, aspiring writers, musicians, visual artists, makers of film and television are invited to a frank conversation about the practical realities of making work—and making a living making work—in the digital economy. Join award-winning essayist and critic, William Deresiewicz, to talk about the nitty-gritty of establishing yourself, career paths, self-management, and more.

Bill taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer in 2008. His recent book, Death of the Artist, suggest that there is a new paradigm is emerging in the digital age, one that is changing our fundamental ideas about the nature of art and the role of the artist in society.

Come with questions and dreams.

Because seating is limited, registrants will automatically be placed on the waitlist and will be notified via email to confirm their seat.

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Lead sessionist

William "Bill" Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent speaker at colleges, high schools, and other venues, and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. His new book is The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.

Bill has published over 300 essays and reviews. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle’s Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and a Sydney Award; he is also a three-time National Magazine Award nominee. His work, which has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and many other publications, has been translated into 18 languages and anthologized in 39 college and scholastic readers.

Bill taught English at Yale and Columbia before becoming a full-time writer. He has spoken at over 160 educational and other venues and has appeared on The Colbert Report, Here & Now, The New Yorker Radio Hour, and many other outlets. He has held visiting positions at Bard, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges as well as at the University of San Diego. His previous books are The Death of the Artist, A Jane Austen Education, and Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets.

Bill is a member of the Board of Directors of Tivnu: Building Justice, a Jewish social-justice gap year in Portland, Oregon, and of the Advisory Council of Project Wayfinder, which runs purpose-learning programs in schools across the United States and beyond.

And, since you’re wondering, it’s /də-REH-zə-WITS/.