Ginny Owens is an expert at
asking questions - she’s even written a blog about it. Perhaps I
should have asked her for tips before I interviewed her.
You see, I’m not a professional question-asker. I didn’t study
journalism. The first time I
interviewed someone, I sent them a list of questions via email, and they
typed up their responses. The second time I interviewed someone, it
was my brother. Ginny Owens was my third interview.
What was I thinking?
If you follow me anywhere other than this blog,* you know that I am
organizing a Ginny Owens concert. It’s the first big event of the arts ministry
I recently started at my church, and – horror of all horrors – it’s in one
week. As part of my publicity efforts, I set up an interview for Ms. Owens with
Ashley
Larkin. Then I thought, “I could interview her, too! We could talk about
the intersection of faith and the arts!”** Since I was already in touch with
her management, it was easy to ask, and a time and date were set.
I was pretty stoked.^ I was going to interview one of my artistic
heroes-of-the-faith. I had already done my research before asking my church’s
elder board for permission to invite her out here, but I went back and reviewed
a few things, anyway. I remembered, for example, that she’d studied creative
writing while she lived in New York City, but not that she’d taken her classes
at Columbia University.
So I reviewed my bank of Ginny Owens trivia. I spent some time thinking
about her songs. I re-watched her How I See It videos
and re-read a few blog posts.
I got all my CDs out and reviewed the track lists to see if anything suggested
a question. In the end, I came up with a list of topics to discuss and made
short, outline-style notes so I would remember them. For instance:
Currently
impactful Bible verse?
Her faith
journey; how she came to know the Lord, etc.
Her vocational
journey? I know some of that story…
The role of the
artist in society.
The role of the
artist in the Body of Christ and the local church.
Her role in particular?
I felt pretty prepared.
The day of the interview arrived. I had tested out my
headset-with-microphone, webcam, and Skype connection via a test call to my Mom
the day before, so I knew that was all set. I reviewed my ‘Topics to Discuss
with Ginny Owens’ list. I watched the clock tick down. I started to get
nervous.
Ugh. Not good. If I felt nervous when the call connected, would I
babble? Would I stumble over my questions? You just never can tell what you’re
going to do when interacting with someone whose work you admire. I remember
meeting Sara Groves in February. She
was lovely. I was ... awkward.
The time came. I let a few seconds pass by, because calling exactly as
the clock struck 1:00 seemed a bit excessive. I considered letting a whole
minute go by, but what if she was sitting there, waiting, and started wondering
if I was late? I couldn’t be late! I was the interviewer – the person because
of whom she was sitting there waiting. I pressed the button to start the call.
I got her voicemail.
To be continued…
*Like Twitter.
**What makes you think I’m a nerd?
^Enough that I just used the word stoked for possibly the first
time.
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