Letters to a Young Artist

Anna Deavere Smith is a working actor, respected teacher, nationally known playwright, and recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant. LETTERS TO A YOUNG ARTIST is an interesting, humorous, practical, and profound series of letters she wrote to a young artist over a five-year period. Every bit of the author's own life experiences is brought into this insightful audio presentation. Read by the author in a wry and touching tone, the production has a narrative style that is relaxed and direct. The vocal characterizations are so well done that it's easy to visualize each character. For an artist of any age, the advice is indispensable. This audio presentation is worth listening to again and again. M.R.E. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

November 7, 2005
Actor and playwright Smith casts her reflections on the creative process, the artist's life and the acting profession as a series of brief letters addressed to a fictitious teenager. Defining artist
broadly, Smith (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
) shares advice not only from painters, dancers, writers and actors but from a bull rider, a boxer and a dentist. Her advice is often directly practical: how to deal with stage fright, face an audition, even keep well ("Stay hydrated"). Smith treats concerns of the spirit as well: how to cope with disappointment, depression and feeling alienated. The letters have the immediacy of a genuine correspondence, replying to an imagined request for information ("How did you find your mentors?"), remembering a special moment ("It was summer the first time I moved to New York") and reporting on the present ("I just got a call from my agent saying there's a job for me on a television show"). What emerges most persuasively is Smith's sense of the complex interrelationship between one's art and one's everyday life. With a pithiness that wards away the preachy, Smith succeeds in conveying the pain, the joy and the effort that characterize a life on the stage and in the world.

March 15, 2007
Actress and playwright Smith has written an enlightening book for everyone who is, or dreams of, being an artist. It's arranged as a collection of letters directed to an imaginary artist named BZ, a teenager in an urban school who won the mentoring services of the author for five years. The letters are "responses" to questions proposed by BZ. Smith talks about what being an artist means to her, the value of discipline and self-esteem, and who "The Man" is, literally and figuratively. Her stories are entertaining and informative, providing advice gleaned from not only her life but other people as well. Encouraging, honest, and practical, Smith's advice covers not only being an artist but also being a human being in an artistic world. Recommended for all libraries.Beth Traylor, Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libs.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.