Freelance Copywriter and Editor Jenny Kutner
This week’s Writer Wednesday is copywriter, editor and director of editorial at Hot Bread Kitchen Jenny Kutner from Brooklyn, New York!
Jenny enjoys essay writing and has been working one-on-one with New York Writing Room Coach Lizz Schumer. She also recently took a trip to Europe, where she traveled across England, Ireland and the Netherlands! Learn more about her below!
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
My favorite part of the writing process is when it ends! [laughs, cries, wishes she were joking] Seriously though, I appreciate getting some distance from a piece after finishing it, rereading it later and experiencing it as a complete, whole thing, fully separated from my brain. It’s not just about the sense of accomplishment or feeling of done-ness, but also about the wonders of the creative process. It’s cool to be able to make a thing that exists without me.
What does your writing workspace look like?
I try to write at my desk, which is actually a large cork dining table that my partner outfitted with drawers. He and I share it, so at least one half is always immaculate and the other (guess whose) always has miscellaneous crap on it: unopened mail, nail polish, issues of the New Yorker I’ll never read, etc. I sit facing a brick wall where I’ve hung a print of a woman writing longhand at a yellow table, with a green desk lamp pointed right over her head. The lamp looks like it could also be a witch’s hat, so I call her my writing witch.
What inspired you to start the book you’re currently writing?
I don’t know if what I’m writing is a book, but it might be! We’ll see. I’m primarily an essayist because that’s how I best process events or Big Ideas; the pieces I find myself working on lately don’t have any one inspiration, per se. They’re mostly attempts to explain my experience of the world to myself or communicate something about them to other people.
What is your favorite non-writing hobby?
I recently started painting (like, last weekend) and am really enjoying having a creative outlet that isn’t words. Otherwise, I want to say my answer is reading, which doesn’t exactly feel like a non-writing hobby but must technically count, right?
What is your favorite piece of writing advice?
Most sentences shouldn’t be longer than two lines on a page. Also, forgive yourself for not writing every day; it’s okay to have your own process.
What writing projects are you currently working on?
No one thing in particular, but topics on my mind and in scattered Word documents of late are: the psychic and political perils of American work culture, abortion, getting married as a child of divorce, prospective parenthood at what feels like the end of the world. More to come.
Follow Jenny on Instagram at @jennykutner.