Together in the Searching: Books for the Creative Process by Summer 2025 Writer in Residence Logan Phillips.
For most of the summer I’ve spent my Tuesday afternoons sitting with writers. They came to the Valencia branch of the Pima County Public Library from all walks of Tucson life: young and old, in Spanish and in English, arriving after having driven an hour or having walked over from the neighborhood. I’m humbled and amazed by how quickly the reservations for the sessions would fill—a waiting list!? To talk to the Writer in Residence? Tucson is a creative place, but to me, this demand points to something else: a searching.
For writers, so often we don’t know why exactly we’re pulled to write. There’s something there––just beyond where the words can reach––that we’re trying to touch. Some enjoy the challenge of the mystery; for others its a struggle to sit with the uncertainty, putting one sentence in front of the other. In either case, it can be a lonely pursuit.
So most writers who sat down with me were there for the camaraderie, to gain some sense that they were on the right path. There’s a desire for connection, for reconciling what we hold inside (memory, trauma, legacy, triumph) with the outside world. Some were looking to traditional publication for validation, while many others had taken production into their own hands: a Spider Man comic illustrated with colored pencils, a trilogy of self-published novels, an art book funded through Kickstarter, a spiral-bound compilation of family histories and photos.
I asked all of them a variation of the same question: what is your writing process like?
Over and over again I emphasize process: when, where, how do you write? What does it feel like in your mind and body while you’re writing, and afterwords? What do you always do? What might you be curious to try?
How might the act of writing be a reward in and of itself; for validation to come from experimentation and dedication, rather than from external validation?
We live under an economic system that is obsessed with final products, where products are produced not for their usefulness but rather for their ability to generate profit. This leads of course to over-production: how something is made matters far less than making as much of it as possible.
I don’t want my writing to fall into that trap. For me, the process is more important than the final product. And I find that if I give loving care to my process, I’m more satisfied with the art that happens through that process.
But how to do that? Well, during my residency I made this ‘book playlist’ that might be helpful (see below for links to PCPL catalog).
(At my core I’m a book nerd, and being a DJ I’m interested in how a well-curated combination of existing pieces can make a new whole.)
Widening the consideration of process out to include those around us, I’ve always found competition to be far less interesting than collaboration. Forming a writing group, a book club, even starting an open mic are all actions we might take to strengthen our own creative process by helping to lift up (and learn from!) those around us.
Tucson’s creative community is an ecosystem. Tending to it benefits all of us. We learn not only from books, but also though what we do, where we put in work, and who we join up with along the way.
Though we’re all engaged in our own writing projects, we’re not alone in our searching – even after the Writer-In-Residence has left the building.
