Mack Ibrahim
ORP: What inspired you to begin writing or creating? Has that source of inspiration changed throughout your life?
Mack Ibrahim:When I was young, I used writing as a means of escape. As I got older, I began approaching writing as a way to engage with the world instead of hiding from it. What now inspires me the most is being in nature, especially in the Poconos or at the Del Water Gap.
ORP: Do you write or create with an audience in mind? If so, how do you consider the relationship between that audience and your work throughout your creative process?
MI: I do not often write with an audience in mind. However, as a writer of color, I am always considering how readers of color can connect with and see themselves in my work. Not all of my pieces directly engage with race, but I do hope that all readers of color feel welcomed into the conversation regardless.
ORP: Does writing or creating energize or exhaust you? What aspects of your artistic process would you consider the most challenging or rewarding?
MI: Each piece has its own amount of energy and exhaustion. Without fail, the most challenging part of writing is attempting to write without feeling sufficiently inspired, and the motivation to continue writing diminishes with every failed start. However, that only makes achieving a writing flow state even more satisfying.
ORP: How does writing/art influence your worldview, and how does your worldview shape your writing/art?
MI: Art is present in the natural world, and alongside it, and because of it, we create art. My art, my writing, is a reflection of the world I witness and live in: of all the ways we have supported and failed one another. I believe that we not only have a physical responsibility to each other and the planet, but a spiritual one, and how we shoulder that responsibility is developed into and critiqued by the art we produce and consume.