Storytelling, Empathy, and Empowerment: Author Colum McCann

 

Can storytelling change the world? Author Colum McCann is uniquely suited to answer that question. McCann is the co-founder of Narrative 4, a non-profit organization that promotes empathy and peace through story exchanges. He is also the author of several novels and short-story collections, including the recently-released book, Apeirogon. His work has earned him several international awards and honors, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin IMPAC Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China, an Oscar nomination, and more.

When and how did you decide to become a writer?

I was fascinated by writing at a fairly young age. My father was a journalist. I loved going to his newspaper offices with him. And I loved meeting writers. Our house was so full of books that you could not see the wallpaper. It was around the age of ten or eleven that I really began to think about stories. And I worked as a very young journalist myself, reporting on local soccer matches at the age of twelve. I became a full-time journalist at the tender age of 17. I wrote my first book when I was 23 but it was awful, I mean seriously awful, so awful, in fact, that it got rejected by several publishers -- and it deserved to get rejected. I eventually published my first book, Fishing the Sloe-Black River, when I was 28.

Do you think of yourself as a change maker/activist?

I think of myself as someone who allows change, who inspires activism. It is others -- like you -- who perform the real change, the real activism. I don't get out on the streets as much as I write books that seek to get people out on the streets.

How did growing up during the Irish troubles inform your approach to storytelling and your interest in using storytelling to increase empathy?

Enormously. Watching the Troubles in Northern Ireland led me to questions about peace and belonging. I wanted to understand what was on the other side of the wall. I also wanted to understand the impulse behind the violence. I wanted to know who my supposed enemy was. We find this out through listening and story-telling.

How do we keep from becoming cynical, jaded, or angry given all of the conflict and trouble in the world?

We embrace the cynicism. We embrace the jaded. We embrace the angry. And then we say, it's not enough to be so jaded, it's not enough to be cynical, and it's kind of pointless to be so angry. Optimism grows from the far end of cynicism. A good optimist must be a pessimist too. And she must know how that optimism is far more difficult -- and therefore more beautiful -- than pessimism.

Your book, Apeirogon, focuses on two fathers who both lost daughters to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Was it hard as a father to write about that?

Being a father is always hard when you are confronted with grief. But I was given strength by the men who actually suffered through the real grief of losing their daughters. They want to turn their grief into something so much more valuable -- peace and wisdom and understanding.

What inspired you to create Narrative4? 

Actually it was my friend and co-founder Lisa Consiglio who was the real creator of Narrative 4. She had the vision all along. She dragged me along, kicking and screaming. But she was right from the very beginning. I have been the benefactor of her series of revelations. Narrative 4 is my family now. It is where my heart resides.

What is your ultimate goal for the organization? If we had a time travel machine capable of taking us 10 years into the future to celebrate the success of Narrative4, what would we see?  What accomplishments would we be celebrating?

One of stated goals is the very modest (!) idea that we will one day be in every school in the world. I'd love to see that happen of course. But I think we should dream enormously. I think we should spread our wings. I think we should believe we can do anything we want to do. So, ten years from now, we will be celebrating every school in the world, including yours.

Think back to when you were a teenager. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Apart from a soccer player, I thought of myself as maybe a diplomat or a doctor. But secretly underneath it all I think I knew I was going to be a writer.

What advice would you give your 16-year old self if you could travel back in time?

Be unafraid. Go, go, go. Risk yourself. You have time. Embrace the extraordinary.

Is that the same advice you would give me today? 

Yes!

Are there any questions I should have asked but didn’t? Anything you’d like to add?

There are so many questions. It's an apeirogonal world. But you asked some really profound ones, so thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McCann!