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Animated Video of Kurt Vonnegut's Lost Lecture Describes What It Takes to Be a Writer

Nearly 45 years ago, Kurt Vonnegut dropped this timeless insight on an eager audience.

Katie Felber
By Katie FelberDec 02, 2015
Katie Felber
Katie Felber is a writer, comedian, and rapper based in Los Angeles by way of the Pleiades star cluster nearly 444.2 light years away. She first interned for GOOD back in '07 and made her mark by keeping the office stocked with tons of organic and affordable snacks. After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2010 with a B.A. in Rhetoric and Film Studies, she spent a couple years in the trenches of Hollywood producing comedy and avoiding reptilian shapeshifters at all costs. Her writing has been featured in Huffington Post, Thought Catalog, several hundred napkins in the Bay Area, and now recently, GOOD! When she is not pondering the philosophical distribution of space in Yogurtland and other mainstream food chains, she can be found alone in her room, blasting thousands of snapchats out to her wide network of virtual friends, or hitting up doctors on Tinder for free medical advice.
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Nearly 45 years ago, novelist Kurt Vonnegut walked into an audience of eager and unassuming NYU students and dropped some timeless knowledge on what it means to be a writer.

Does the artist really cure himself through his work? How can a writer piece together bits of truth about humanity in a succinct and engaging manner? Vonnegut explains that a writer needs paranoia for energy, as creative writers are constantly “in the process of becoming—they are humanity, becoming.”

This video transports you back to that lecture hall.

Check it out:

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