Featured Essay: Natalia Nebel on Writing in Chicago

The question of why I write can’t be separated from why I write in Chicago, because both writing and living in Chicago require a level of uncomfortableness not easy to justify. In fact, I think most writers, if asked, would tell you that they wish they’d been gifted with a different talent. Even in the best of times and the best of careers, writing is unstable and often, very often, does not provide financial stability, especially if you’re living in a city like New York, Los Angeles, or yes, for all its vaunted inexpensiveness, Chicago.

Orange County, CA

Living in New York or Los Angeles isn’t hard to justify, however. I’ve lived in New York, and I can say that while I was always anxious about money and potential financial catastrophe, the reasons for living in New York were obvious and the benefits were natural, almost ridiculously so, for a writer. They included easy contacts, intellectual stimulation, an almost over-availability of material. And while I haven’t lived in L.A., I imagine that the situation is similar there for anyone in the so-called creative industry. Not only is it the only place to make a certain kind of film, screenplay or TV show, but the weather is good, it’s almost always sunny, and the ocean is at your doorstep. None of these things can be said about Chicago. Terrible weather, a lake that freezes over in winter, and a creative world that’s marginal to the rest of the city are among the negative things about the writing life here.

It’s hard to build momentum in your career when writers are scattered, literally, all over Chicagoland, from lakefront to west and south sides, to the suburbs. In Brooklyn everyone is a writer, in Chicago you can go for days without talking to someone who has recently read a book. And this isn’t to say they haven’t done other things -- watched a movie or play or good television, tried a new martini, ice skated, sent out a well meaning petition to friends. They simply haven’t read a novel, or newspaper, or magazine. Some very smart people I know haven’t done this for a very, very long time. This lack of intellectual stimulation drains me at times, makes an impact that isn’t positive, since I’m not lucky enough to be part of the academic world. The sense I have that thinking about things thoroughly, criticizing things, isn’t done, can take away some of the writing impetus for me. Writers are difficult people in one respect -- they don’t take the status quo for granted, they don’t accept it outright. They can’t. It would be impossible to write if you simply gave the world back to the world without a filter, your filter, that isn’t cranky, really, but analytical. And this analytical side is not something that Chicago is known for.

En route to Staten Island

In New York City, analysis is a plus, you’re almost defenseless without it. In Chicago, analysis is considered a sort of contrarian, almost anti-social occupation. People don’t love spending hours arguing over politics and trashing our version of democracy here. They love being together in a more congenial, cooperative way. So. As a writer here and a naturally analytical person, I’ve always felt on the outskirts, uncomfortable with showing my whole self. In order to fit in outside of the writing community, I consciously tamp down a part of who I am. It isn’t always pleasant to do that, which again brings me to the question, why then do I live and write here?

Theoretically, I could live and write anywhere in the country.  And yet... I can’t come up with a good reason for not moving to New York, or Boston, or Portland or Seattle, except that, simply, Chicago is a good city to be in because it keeps you honest. You can’t develop an overly big ego here, one that would get in the way of your creative process. Chicago has given the world great writers and literature, which the Literary Hall of Fame does a beautiful job in highlighting. But for all that this city has given, it will always be known for its sports teams and Lake Michigan and its skyscrapers, its restaurants. The arts, including literature, come decidedly second. And yet. Perhaps it’s just this quality that makes writing in Chicago the worthwhile challenge that it is.

Not being understood, not being in any way lauded or even paid attention to, not being considered more interesting than anyone else simply because I’m a writer, keeps me  conscientious. The way that Chicago reins in the worst sort of ego driven work makes living here worth it to me, since it always drives me back to writing for the sake of writing.

I’m never around people who feel they’ve made it, despite the books they’ve published and awards they’ve won. And this is because writing in Chicago is a job like any other. The reasons I write, because I’m verbal, and love texts, and define myself through the books and essays I’ve read, means that I’ve accepted the precariousness of my finances compared to my friends who have quantitative skills. It also doesn’t change the fact that, deep down, I feel very lucky to be a writer. The unexamined life is not worth living, as the quote goes. Writing allows for constant examination, I feel blessed by that, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Lake Michigan

And as for Chicago, despite terrible winters and an under-layer of a kind of bottled up craziness those winters bring on, I’m proud of myself when I, when we, make it through another hard four months, and I like our particular, unpretentious craziness. Chicago, with its neighborhoods and assorted strivers and web of words from every corner of the world, creates a unique, at times harsh beauty, which I wouldn’t trade for another sort of beauty anywhere.

-------------------------------------

Natalia Nebel is a co-director, along with Alexandra Sheckler and Christine Sneed, of the literary reading series Sunday Salon Chicago. In addition, she reads short story submissions for Drunken Boat, and serves on the ShawChicago Theater Company board of directors. An author and a translator of Italian language into English, her short stories, book reviews and translations have been published in a variety of journals, inclucing Triquarterly, Fifth Wednesday Journal,Chicago Quarterly Review and Free Verse.