Shameless self-promotion

About a month or so back, a writer named Manny Blocker contacted me about doing an interview. Since I'm usually the one doing interviews, not the one being interviewed, I was excited for the change of pace. I knew Manny from my time running PSNCTRL and from his great online magazine The Tastemakers Society, and we have similar tastes in music, art, and design. There are some great interviews on his site. He's also contributed to The Royal, a well-polished art/culture mag put out by David Gensler and The KDU. Anyhow, you can peep the interview here:

TTS Mag interview: Matthew Newton

Putting together images for the interview was interesting. Since I'm not a visual artist, I don't have any specific pieces of work that nonverbally depict who I am or what I do. Really, for me, it's totally the opposite: I have words and experiences. So I put together a collection of images that reflected the content of the interview: photos of my family; images of handmade books I've released; my grandfather's old drawings; and so on. And of course, I can't overlook the stunning illustration (above) that Ben Tour did of me. The illustration permanently lives here.  

Being able to discuss the nuts and bolts of writing also made me think about my experience to this point. I'm usually very hard on myself about my writing. Sometimes so much so that it stifles or hinders my ability to produce anything that I deem worthwhile. Countless times during the past half decade or so since I've been seriously pursuing writing, I've considered quitting. Not because I don't want to do it, but because ideas weren't being expressed on paper the way I saw them in my mind. That translation, I suppose, is the challenge of writing. Recently, however, just in the past year or so, things have slowly started to change. I've lessened my workload, and taken on more fulfilling/challenging projects. I've also put more of a focus on viewing it as a business and not as just an interest of mine, which has dramatically shifted my work habits. I'm not sure where this was all headed really. So I'll leave it at that. I hope you dig the interview.

Related links: The Tastemakers Society, PSNCTRL, The Royal, David Gensler, The KDU, Ben Tour.