Lost in Jersey
So close to NYC, New Jersey is a melting pot of creativity, ambition, and culture. Everyone has a Jersey story and on Lost in Jersey, we’re here to share them with you.
Lost in Jersey
The Devil and Murder Ballads - It's Jersey Baby
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From the shadowy Pine Barrens to the stages of New Jersey's most atmospheric venues, "The Devil and Daisy Dirt" brings cryptid folklore to life through an extraordinary blend of puppetry, murder ballads, and feminist storytelling. Our fascinating conversation with creators Alex Dawson and Dan Diana reveals the magical collision of their creative worlds.
Despite growing up a thousand miles and a decade apart, both men were shaped by similar influences – creature features like The Dark Crystal, wooded landscapes that fired their imaginations, and a deep connection to folklore. Alex, now a Rutgers University creative writing professor, brings literary depth and musical sensibility informed by his Southern upbringing, while Dan contributes Hollywood-level creature design expertise honed through work on productions ranging from Marvel blockbusters to indie horror films.
Their theatrical creation doesn't merely rehash the familiar Jersey Devil legend, but transforms it into something more nuanced. The massive 8-foot devil puppet (surprisingly small compared to their 13-foot outdoor creations) serves as a backdrop for exploring deeper themes about humanity, nature conservation, and dismantling patriarchal systems. Most powerfully, their protagonist Daisy's musical moment of resistance consistently draws cheers from women in the audience.
Ready to experience "History with bite"? Follow the links in our show notes to catch this selling-out production before it vanishes into the Pine Barrens mist. Have you encountered any Jersey folklore worth sharing? Let us know in the comments!
🐐 Jersey Devil, reimagined — folklore meets punk puppetry
💪 Feminist tall tale — Daisy Dirt flips the damsel trope
🎻 Live bluegrass score — haunting, foot-stomping Americana
🎭 Gothic vaudeville vibes — think Labyrinth meets Johnny Cash
🐾 8-ft creature suit — part monster, part misunderstood legend
🌲 Deep NJ roots — Pine Barrens myth told by locals, for locals
🕯️ Folklore meets horror — poetic, dark, and weird in the best way
🎤 Critically acclaimed — praised by Weird NJ, WNYC, Joyce Carol Oates
🎒 Professor-led storytelling — Rutgers meets backwoods gothic
🎭 Upcoming Performances in New Jersey
Links:
Tickets to The Devil and Daisy Dirt
Pinelands Preservation Alliance
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Hey Jeanette ,
Introducing the Jersey Devil show
Speaker 1Hi Rachel , so we just got off a really fun and interesting and maybe weird New Jersey-ish interview .
Speaker 2Yes , Spooky scary , creepy . Yes .
Speaker 1Haunted With Alex Dawson and Dan Diana . They are the co-producers and many more things than that of a show called the devil and daisy dirt , and we're going to put up all the links of where and when you can see the show . But um , alex is a professor of creative writing at ruckers , and dan , he has a 3d printing enterprise but creates these incredible puppets . And um , he does all this like makeup and creature creation , basically right yeah , and the show looks so good and so entertaining and so enjoyable .
Speaker 2We're gonna go . They're gonna be at tyrannies here in our area , but they're touring new jersey and you can go onto their website . We'll put it on our website , their link , and you go there see where they're going to be . The show is selling out , which I'm not surprised . It looks like a total , what I would say a hoot of a time .
Speaker 1Yes , and also just has like mystery and music . Beautiful music is so good . Yes , bluegrass folk music it's like horror , folk mystery and Pine Barrens and Jersey it's hard to explain . But it looks like it has so many links so that you can see what we're talking about .
Speaker 2Yeah , but I also wanted to point out something that we talked about in the interview . But I also wanted to point out something that we talked about in the interview . This isn't particularly about the New Jersey devil , but it has references to it . It has a nuanced , and they said that they didn't . They , you know they didn't need to tell that story again , cause everybody knows that story . But does everybody know that story , rachel ?
Speaker 1No , Did we know that story when we moved here ? No , I didn't know it for years .
Speaker 2Yeah , as I say in the interview , I learned it on what we do in the shadows , not because they represented it correctly but because I was like what is the story ? But here's the story , a quick story so that people know before we get into this great interview is that the New Jersey devil ? I have it here . It's a legend about being in the pine barrens . There was a woman over 250 years ago that had 13 kids and she was tired of having kids and she cursed the last one and said let this one be the devil . And supposedly this one became the devil , went through the chimney and all this kind of stuff and now haunts the Pine Barrens and it's hooved and has wings like a bat , has wings like a bat .
Speaker 1Yeah , I love how I put my arms up like that Like a bat , wings like a bat .
Speaker 2Yes , and people seem to still see it out there in the Pine Barrens . So that is the legend of the Jersey Devil , and so with that we will introduce you to this new show that everybody needs to go see . Yes , hello everyone , welcome to Lost in Jersey . It's nice to have you both .
Speaker 3Good to be here , thank you .
Speaker 4Oh yeah , thank you . It's Rochelle and Jeanette . Yes , thank you for having us .
Speaker 2Is it Rochelle or is it Rachel ? It's Rachel .
Speaker 4It could be Rochelle .
Speaker 1Yes , I mean it could , I could be , yeah , whatevs . It's such a common name that I appreciate that you gave it a flair .
Speaker 4Rochelle .
Speaker 1Yes , I'm going to go forward with that .
Speaker 2My name is really boring and you actually said it correctly , but it really actually is much more impressive . It's Jeannette .
Speaker 3It is , it's really .
Speaker 2Jeannette . Jeanne , sequa , exactly , it's not Jeannette .
Speaker 4Jeannette Chopin at Target Okay .
Speaker 2Anyway , all right , okay , well , welcome . We just learned about your show and it's fantastic looking . We're excited to learn more about it and learn about both of you , so let's get started . Tell us first , alex you're the one that I first made contact with , so tell us about yourself and about the show .
Speaker 1Oh you got to sort of weave in how you got to New Jersey .
Speaker 4Because I grew up on a horse ranch on the border of Alabama and Georgia and I came up to Jersey for art school . I teach at Rutgers University in the English department now , but way back when I went to Mason Gross School of the Arts , which is part of Rutgers University , and I was a visual artist . I got in because I was . There was a storm wreck sawmill on the outside of town that was run around with chain link . It's where me and my friends used to . We used to go practice being superheroes when we were like 10 , 11 , 12 . We used to do these sort of flips and jackknifes into these big mounds of mill dust . But then , as I sort of grew into a teenager , right , I got into graffiti , right in this very rural town , right , this town of 500 . And I would do all these sort of elaborate murals and it was a very dangerous place to be .
Speaker 4Of course our parents didn't know we hung out there the buildings were collapsing and , um , I photographed all those sort of murals , all this graffiti , right , this sort of urban art in this in the middle of the Piney woods , and um , I got into Mason Gross , um , uh , through that and um , you know , dan and I talk a lot about how we grew up , a thousand miles apart , a decade apart , but basically fed by the same things , right ? So I grew up on seeing movies like the Dark Crystal .
Speaker 1I love the Dark Crystal .
Speaker 4Yeah , things like you know the Thing , all these sort of creature features of the day , and Dan , I think mostly would rent the I would see , I would drive an hour
Alex and Dan's creative origins
Speaker 4. I wouldn't drive myself , but my mom was enlisted me as a movie buddy at a very young age . So seeing movies are movies right . Because she , her husband didn't this rancher , this cowboy , my stepdad didn't want to see any of those movies and so she would take me and so I'd see a lot of these , these really challenging , scarring movies for a kid . But I fell in love with them and Dan I believe I'll let him talk about it rented them on VHS tapes at the neighborhood video store . He grew up here in New Jersey but we both had access to woods , so I think my woods were probably a little bit more substantial . My stepfather owned a thousand carnivorous acres filled with swamps and and uh lagoons and um carnivorous or yeah , that's what I want .
Speaker 1I was thinking okay . I was like that seems really dangerous .
Speaker 3And I don't know about that . Creativity , it becomes carnivorous .
Speaker 4you know , it's funny because according to my mom that probably is a better word because my mom , whether or not she was trying to make the hot , slow world of Alabama a little bit more interesting or she actually believed in these things , I mean she just would testify to witches in the woods . You know , hair like beard , moss right , the sort of gray and wispy .
Speaker 1Oh , witch's hair .
Speaker 4And she said there was a whole world out there covered up in katsu . You know , forgotten things . So she very much sort of fed this kind of . I had these movies , my mom's actual belief in the occult and witches and ghosts , and I had my stepfather's love of outlaw country . You know he would sit on the lake , you know , hanging his beer bottle off his finger , you know singing along to Poncho and Lefty and all those things mashed together to sort of create my voice and my style . I'll let Dan talk about his upbringing , but we met on a production of Nosferatu 15 years ago . Dan did the makeup . We kind of found each other there and realized that we now had a new stand in for that . You know that childhood friend that had held our camera , that had watched our back , that had sort of our sidekick from back in the day .
Speaker 1That's nice that you were able to find each other in that way and support each other , even though you're bringing different skill sets that matches and marries to create your visions that are similar .
Speaker 4Yeah , absolutely . So when he suggested I think it was him that suggested the Jersey devil , I felt , you know , we sort of took a couple of trips down to visit , you know , the Pine Barrens and I felt very at home there . I felt like I could write an authentic story , you know set there , using my own rural upbringing .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 4And take it away . I'll let you .
Speaker 1Yeah , tell us about yourself .
Speaker 3Oh boy , you're from Jersey , right ? So yeah , I was born , born in Plainfield , new Jersey , growing up in the suburbs , you know I didn't really have a giant forest or carnivorous pine lands or anything like that .
Speaker 1Not everyone can yeah .
Speaker 3So , I would , you know , after the hockey game was done and my dad was passed out on the couch , I would , kind of , you know , look over , make sure he was asleep and crawl over to the TV and , you know , flip around to find something . And I stumbled upon this show called Monster Vision with Joe Bob Riggs , and it was this cowboy sitting in a set that looked like a trailer park , with 10 gallon hat , talking about how monster movies were made and interviewing people who made them , and interviewing people who made them and then showing those movies and every commercial break he'd give you a little bit more info about how this was done or how they got this screened at a local drive-in or something like this , and I was just drawn to it . Then , when I grew up , I lived by a small lake that had some woods around it .
Speaker 3Through friends , I'd met a guy who was a kid at the time , at my age , and we lived equidistant away from a local uh video rental store . So every Friday we would get on our bikes , we would meet at the video store , rent , rent a stack of uh , you know , whatever tapes look the coolest on the covers uh , regardless of the content inside and fire up the VCR and just stay up all night watching this and pointing this out . And how did they do this ? And you know , man , it'd be cool to make something like that . And so we got a little older , acquired an old camcorder from one of my aunts and went to the woods and started making monster films .
Speaker 3After high school I'd gone to a trade school in Pittsburgh that was opened up by the effects artist , tom Savini , who worked on a bunch of stuff in the 70s and 80s very well respected . In that scene it was kind of set about a half an hour south of Pittsburgh in like the very rural mid-Monongahela Valley . Fun fact about that town is it was kind of looked like a zombie apocalypse had rolled through the main street of town .
Speaker 3Perfect . So that was fun . Learned how to do all the technical stuff . Fun Learned how to do all the technical stuff . Came back to New Jersey , you know , played music , did art stuff for a while , lived in New York City for about eight years or so and that's about when Alex and I met and we did the Nosferatu thing . We loved it so much . We actually mounted our own version of Nosferatu in an old community theater based in a small church that was built in the 1800s that still had the wood rafters and stained glass . But that's where the stage was . That's awesome .
Speaker 3I ended up moving out west to Los Angeles . I knew one guy who did that stuff out in LA , so I got a job with him and moved out there , packed my truck up , left my office job and went out to make monster heads for a living , as you do .
Speaker 2Tell us some of the places that you worked in Hollywood I did some set works and puppeteering some makeup stuff , prosthetics .
Speaker 3I worked on Marvel films all the way down to you know a $30,000 monster film in the woods where , you know radioactive maggots are biting teenagers' heads off . So you know kind of the spectrum there . But my girlfriend at the time , my now wife , we both had some opportunities to come back east good work opportunities so we did that in 2019 . And then when I came back , the first order of business was for my fiance and I to get married . So we did that , upstate New York on top of a little mountain and Alex was our officiant . He married us . Actually , we're like who's good with words ?
Speaker 2Oh , yeah , Alex .
Speaker 3Wonderful .
Speaker 2So , and I think even at the wedding .
Speaker 3You know , we got married under a full harvest moon on Friday the 13th .
Speaker 1I was going to ask what Perfect .
Speaker 3Yeah , alex and I after the wedding saying all right , well , now that I'm back , what are we going to do ? Yeah , so that year we planned to do like a little DIY haunt in Alex's backyard where we would invite the town and kids to come through and they'd walk through the backyard . We had these stations set up with lighting and characters and each station had a little scene that would be acted out as people would come through and it told this story of the woods and the Jersey devil and kind of a PT Barnum kind of monster hunter who was on the hunt for the Jersey devil and you follow him through these different areas , ultimately leading past the witch in the woods , and then this you know 13 foot tall Jersey Devil puppet that I would make jump out of the woods with the light and the fog .
Speaker 1Oh my gosh , that must have been amazing to watch the kids' reactions .
Speaker 3You know , and that was the thing we were expecting to scare him out of the yard . But they ended up just staying Like ogling at this huge monster puppet and we had to push them out of the yard to get the next people through . So I think in that moment we were like all right , we got something here . Alex wrote the story and sent it to me and I read it and it just it really struck a chord in me , and not that it's such a unique or original theme , but one that I do adore is typically what people view , as the monster isn't necessarily the monster . It's second banana to the actual monsters , which are humans , and especially these terrible men who are around our lead character , who want to kill the Jersey Devil .
Evolution of a haunting collaboration
Speaker 3And it's up to our heroine to you know , to prove herself .
Speaker 2I read that people in the audience a lot of times cheer at certain scenes . When this is happening , for the protagonist and the antagonist it's like a little bit of a feminist like take on it , which I really appreciate that , and it makes it for a fun evening for people to finally get their vengeance .
Speaker 3Yeah , a little vicariously through this lead character . Yeah , actually we added , you know , alex wrote the lyrics to a song . Our balladeer Arlen , he , you know , put music to it and then he and our lead Jackie worked on this duet and you know we hadn't really heard Jackie sing . She is our second actor playing Daisy here . We wanted to give her this voice towards the end of the show to kind of really drive home that shift , that redemption story . I think the first time we did the song , and on the line where she really , you know , sticks it to the man , so to speak , yeah , like about a half a dozen women like cheered out in the audience . So we're like , all right , this works .
Speaker 4Well , you know , it's funny because one thing dan and I were talking I mean dan , dan and I have always been like almost always , on the same page . I mean , you know , we never , we're never making concessions . You know , I definitely . You know , dan's a co-producer , he's obviously the puppeteer and the fabricator , but we collaborate on using . You know , like I said , he's a co-conspirator , yes , um , and I like that word we always push each other further .
Speaker 4You know , you know I don't know if y'all have ever played those improvisation games , but the whole , the whole point of improvisation is you can never say no , that didn't happen . You can't , you can only take it one step further . And yes , and exactly but .
Speaker 1but yes , and Right exactly .
Speaker 4But not everybody I've collaborated with feels that way . And Jackie's amazing and Arlen's amazing and Jackie , the possibility of a song , you know , sort of came to fruition with Jackie , because Jackie would sing and our first Daisy could not . I wrote this song and the whole idea was that it was almost a murder ballad and Arlen and Jackie both pushed back on it because , as Jackie said , it was a little stabby , you know , and literally , literally , the character is fantasizing about a possibility of the next man who touches her . What she'll do , you know , and she's surrounded by she's no woman has ever felt that way .
Speaker 1I can't relate at all . No , yes .
Speaker 4But , but . But you know like it's . You know , as I said , I grew up on murder ballads , big part of country and Western swing and all that , but most of them ends with the woman not breathing at the end , right . So this flips the script . It's a murder ballad , obviously from the reverse perspective . You know , more like Wanda Jackson has a great murder ballad which is unusual in the Pantheon of these male driven ballads . And I think they were still a little hesitant , but I am so thankful for that cheering . I think it really . I mean , they did it beautifully .
Speaker 2The music I did listen to quite a bit . The music is just so good . I think that that , and in addition to what I've seen online , just the set , the storyline , which seems hilarious and just so entertaining , and the puppeteer , and then you top it off with , like this music that just seems like it's such a wonderful , you know , collection of things that for the audience to enjoy . Did you come at it or initially with thinking that it would have such a musical direction , or was it more about the visuals ?
Speaker 4It was always going to be these elements you know and it's sort of like you know you get to get . You know what are your friends good at , and you know Arlen is an old friend as well and you know we've collaborated on sort of other projects . It was always going to be like you know the narrator . It's sort of like a Pine Barrens our town , I think I say online , meets a cryptid ET . So you got your narrator right . Or the stage manager in our town .
Speaker 4That's me . I also play like a villainous deer hunter named Tasty Murder and , you know , a witch in the woods named Effie Evergreen , and then you have the ballad deer right , and we're sort of bouncing this story back and forth between us , right , and then you have this fever dream of action that occurs in the middle . And you know , throughout the play , daisy , who has been sort of you know it's , it is , it's not even slightly feminist , I mean in so much as you know , you know , a 55-year-old man can write , a 55-year-old white man can write a feminist kind of sort of piece , right , you know , it's very much about dismantling of this sort of patriarchy . And during the whole play , daisy has action , but very few lines , right , you know , and and they're , they're sort of very practical , move the plot forward . Lines there's no , there's no interiority , right , ok , I don't give too much away , but she sort of she , she laughs for the first time and then she grips the steering wheel so hard , her dishpan hands go white and start to shake and she yells , and then she gets up and I bring the microphone over and she sings and it's this pouring forth of emotion .
Speaker 4I think it was always a problem for us . I think that we were trying to figure out and Daisy was so contained that she was trapped and she was sort of boxed in by these men and we ended on a note of possibility but we needed to hear her roar . But anyway , it was always going to be these things . You know , I knew . You know every project I ever envisioned . Dan and I have worked together a number of times on things you know we just did . There's an outdoor sort of museum on things you know we just did . There's an outdoor sort of museum . It's a historic village in Piscataway called East Jersey Old Town , at the far end of Johnson Park , and that you know they have a bunch of . You know they have an old Puritan church and a blacksmith barn and a wagon shed and they hired us for several years to do these 16 performance theatrical kind of moving haunts . Right , you know that overlap history and horror . You know history with bite is how I think of it History with bite .
Speaker 1I like that yeah .
Speaker 4The last one we did one with George . You know , george Washington won the revolutionary war because he turned all his men into werewolves , you know . So if men with mustaches make history , what do men completely covered in hair do ? And then the last one we did was sort of the Terminator meets the Crucible . It was sort of time travel bootstrap kind of paradox with Puritans , and Dan created this . You know , when we do stuff outside the creatures are 13 or 14 foot tall .
Speaker 4So this devil though eight foot and huge in any space it's in , is very small for Dan .
Speaker 2Well , let's , yeah , yeah , one of that . Yeah , so go ahead . How ? How exactly are you ? You know , what is your preferred place to do these large ? Is it a church or is it ? Is there a particular place that you want to do these ?
Speaker 3This show in particular , which is kind of the first venture of Alex and I kind of , with this format moving this live . We
Behind the Jersey Devil performance
Speaker 3can just go into really any room that's tall enough for us and set up in an hour . Do the show break down in a half an hour and we're , and we're out .
Speaker 1A funny thing about your performance . Perform your performance list . A little tie-in to myself actually we saw where you're coming and we we are in montclair and you're coming to tavern , which we're so coming to see the show .
Speaker 3I can't wait I was just there . I was just there on sunday for like a street , walnut street fair .
Speaker 1I don't know if you guys are right yeah , but you have this quote on your site that says um , the the devil didn't go down to Georgia , he went to PA . But at Tierney's I actually played with my band . The devil went down to Georgia .
Speaker 2Yes , if you ever need a fiddler .
Speaker 1If you need a fiddler Rachel is .
Speaker 2I mean , she's so good . Yeah , make sure you get her business card .
Speaker 3So good yeah , Make sure you get her business card right .
Speaker 2I mean , yeah , I'll send you her video . She takes down the house every time she plays .
Speaker 4We want that . We want that . So bad yeah .
Speaker 3I think , as we move forward right , it's always this the two things we want . To stay relevant , I think is . You know Alex wants this like the outlaw country folk , bluegrass , musical element blues .
Speaker 1I love that .
Speaker 3And then mixing with the cryptid , because I mean , we have a whole backstory about what cryptids are , where they come from , what they do .
Speaker 1I hadn't learned about what a cryptid was , or I hadn't even heard the word until I was researching for this interview . If you can give our listeners sort of a description of a cryptid and then the Jersey Devil and how that ?
Speaker 3I think it comes from what ? Cryptozoology , which is the study of these animals , that there's no scientific proof that they exist but people actually believe that they've seen them Generally comes from folklore campfire stories and things like this , and of course , in our you know internet media world that we live in , that those kind of stories spread more like wildfire than staying around the fire . But we want to look a little deeper . It's like well , this is folklore , let's lean into that . There's got to be some magic behind some of this stuff . And so we just try to like kind of pull those threads and put a little bit of magic and wonder back into the world wherever we can .
Speaker 4The cryptid is a symbol of nature and I think when we did the Pinelands Preservation Alliance , we did their giant dairy barn down there . I mean they paid us and they paid us well , but we did it as a fundraiser for the Pinelands and they raised tons and tons of money because it was four sold out shows . There's a lot of messages in our , in our work . You know they're not just hey , look at these cool effects . We certainly believe in the sort of feminist message , but we , we believe right in our natural world and you know all our , our imagination was was fueled by artifice and things people had made . You know people like Spielberg and and Carpenter , but it was also fueled . You know people like Spielberg and Carpenter , but it was also fueled . You know we both spent all the . You know it was our imagination in the woods , you know , and using the woods . I mean we were doing makeup and using latex masks , but there was so much already there , right , there was so much shadow and just you know , just wonder and you know , and magic . That was just there in the natural landscape .
Speaker 4I want to say real quick about the places we look for . So Dan said we can go into a room . But as we sort of leaned into this , I think the first we started in a sort of a cow punk listening room in central New Jersey called the Old Franklin Schoolhouse and in the kind of patriarch of that place , the Gertrude Stein of that place , wrote a grant . So Middlesex County sort of gave us the seed money for this and then we would go anywhere that would have us , you know , I mean within reason . You know bars , and we did some libraries and stuff Within reason . You know bars and we did some libraries and stuff . But then we started , you know , really hit upon this idea of kind of running a vaudeville circuit and really looking for places that we loved , you know , places that had a lot of atmosphere . No-transcript , we're doing Philomoka , which is a venue in Philly that was originally a storeroom for mausoleums . So we're really interested .
Speaker 2That's so cool . The space is important . Yeah , the space is part of the show , the atmosphere .
Speaker 4And people seeing it multiple times because of how we try to work the space when we're there too .
Speaker 1I'm sure it changes the show too . It influences how it plays out .
Speaker 2I want to ask you a question about the Jersey Devil , because you talked about in the shadows , you talked about the pine barrens , and is there any mention in your show of that ?
Speaker 4So we , we don't tell the story of the Jersey devil that sort of well tried you know . Bit of folklore that everybody knows .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , yeah , it's . It's like you do hint on it , though you say you know so and so you know he died a few years ago . Some say he was shot , some say he was eaten by something that flew out of his chimney .
Speaker 1You know what I mean , so we make you know .
Speaker 3Alex makes little little pinpoints of recollection . But no , we don't tell like the Mrs Leeds story that's been done a million times .
Speaker 2Well , the funny thing is is that not everybody does know about the Jersey Devil story , so we'll recap it at the beginning , about a little bit about it .
Speaker 3And a little side note I want to say it before , but we kind of lost our place . My wife and Alex's wife behind the scenes have been an incredible amount of support , inspiration , I mean a lot of like really . I think the way it flows so well , the way certain parts connect and really hit the mark with different types of people , especially women , I mean that comes from our wives . You know what I mean . I mean we do what we can . Again , as to , you know , middle-aged white guys with beards , you know we go as far as we can with our creativity , but you know we , we definitely bring in our better half , so to speak , and we definitely bring in our better half , so to speak . And actually I think Sarah , my wife , is technically like our assistant director . She's sat in on many , many , many rehearsals and gave a lot of feedback and direction . When Alex has this idea , he's like what do you think about this ? It's brilliant . He's like , yeah , christy thought about it .
Speaker 4Great , that's great to hear . I was going to say yeah , Sarah , even in on uh rehearsals with the baby when you teach , because I , I , we , we did see that .
Speaker 1I'm sorry we didn't mention that sooner . Creative writing and the way you teach writing at ruckers do you find that the kids growing up and and as times have changed , do you find that their questions about what they feel okay to write have evolved ?
Speaker 4I think one of the the things that I really do and it's surprising how you need to sort of give them okay to write have evolved . I think one of the things that I really do and it's surprising how
Creative writing and authentic voices
Speaker 4you need to sort of give them license to write . You know , like a lot of them have parents from other places and you know this idea , you know of including words that the average reader might not understand right , giving them license to use words in another language and to not italicize them , to not other them in any way . I mean , if you have a character , you know an abuela or somebody you know like , have that abuela speak in Spanish . You know , and what that does for the immersion you know . I talk about writing from that perspective , immersion versus translation . So it seems they do need permission . They're uncertain that they can do that . I teach one class in children's literature and kids are very good at I mean , they don't know most words .
Speaker 4So , you have something like the BFG , which is , you know , Raoul Dahl is making up , you know , prods sprinkled , you know , and they figure out what it is . And so I push this with not just other languages but with the specialized vocabulary of a subculture , you know , I mean , if somebody is in the military , or you know if somebody is a farmer , or you know a mechanic , or you know whatever their interest is . Yes , you have permission to use words and in fact I demand that you use words that the reader doesn't know , that you use words that the reader doesn't know . So it's more , you know , sort of getting them comfortable , because constantly the students are reaching beyond themselves , right , which for me , you know , I'd have to be comfortable with that , but for the students it's like getting them comfortable reaching within themselves . And yes , I have something to say and yes , my experience is , you know , Valid and worth sharing .
Speaker 4In almost every instance wholly uncommon , you know , it's not even . You know like . We've all fallen in love , hopefully fallen out of love , experienced the loss of a loved one , but it's , like you know , helping the student , the writer , find that very specific experience they had with that universal experience .
Speaker 3I got about five minutes . If there's anything you want to squeeze out of me right now , I'm happy , to happy , to get it for you .
Speaker 2No , no , let's go ahead and wrap Do you have something , rachel quickly . What we usually do as we end these shows , by asking you to tell us something that you love about New Jersey . So we'll go with you first , dan .
Speaker 3I love and especially after living in Southern California , I noticed , you know , I missed autumn . I love the autumn season , especially in North Jersey , up into , you know , right around the border of New York State . It's just something you know , I think , since reading like Bradbury , you know , with the fallen leaves crunching underfoot is just something that always brings me to a really warm place inside of myself . I also love the difference in kind of geography , the diversity , and you know , beaches and mountains and forests and cities , of course , the access to the arts and culture which you know are abound around here . And you know , the pizza is good , it's true , those are great .
Speaker 2We agree with all of those .
Speaker 4And what about you , alex ? I'd probably say I mean I love a lot of things about New Jersey . I mean I love all that weird New Jersey stuff . You know it was through the project We've one been able to perform in some of those weird New Jersey places but obviously become friends with the Marks and you know so . You know Gravity Hill and you know the Devil's Tree and you know places like that . But I have to say Lucille's right , mama's Meatloaf at Lucille's .
Speaker 4OK so Lucille's Luncheonette in Barnegat is where this all started . It was probably about six or seven years ago . We were coming back from Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in AC . My wife Googled you know where to eat we had just seen you know , what they sort of threw up and said was
What they love about New Jersey
Speaker 4the skeleton of the Jersey Devil , you know , at the museum . And so this place right came up and it had . You know , there were pictures that had a giant wood carving , you know , like about seven feet tall , the Jersey devil , sort of right in front .
Speaker 4It was great . I mean , it was on Anthony Bourdain's food trail , you know . So it was this tiny space with , just like you know , half a dozen stools , half a dozen tables and they were wearing a shirt that said I ate with the Jersey devil , right , and that , of course , you know that fired my synapses and I was like , oh , I ate the Jersey devil . What about an appetite contest in which the prize is Jersey devil meat ? And I just went down a couple weeks ago with my , my friend , and they had heard about the you know the show , and oh , we have the copy of Weird New Jersey Magazine and you know , they were just really , you know it's just a great place and in the play it's not exactly that place , because I say the food's good . But you know the place is populated with some , some mean men , and I'm not suggesting in any way that lucille's luncheonette the real life lucille's is populated with those men , yeah , you want to talk about a warm , a warm embracing place .
Speaker 3I mean , yeah , that's lucille's , that's cool , that's cool . Well , that's great , we gotta go oh my gosh , we're definitely going , yeah down there yeah , I mean south jersey is like to the jersey devil what roswell is to you know the great , the grays .
Speaker 2That is a perfect closing comment today I love that that is great . The roswell of new jersey , that is great . Well , I I'm excited to see this show yeah , and I'm so glad that we got an opportunity to hear about the behind the scenes and how it all came about . Yeah , and we know it's selling out , so we'll definitely get our tickets early and tell people to do the same .
Speaker 4Thank you , Jeanette and Rochelle Rochelle , Rochelle , Rochelle Rochelle . Thank you , what is she ?
Speaker 2getting at the night .
Speaker 1Jeann , I only want room for one of us . Alex's theme . You know he likes to . You know , flip , be subversive and flip the script . I'm the exotic one . I mean you get to be from Texas , that's more exotic . Yeah , that's super exotic .
Speaker 3All right , thank you guys so much , it was a pleasure . Bye , bye , bye-bye .
Speaker 1This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and Jeanette Afsharian . You can find us on Spotify , itunes and Buzzsprout . Thanks for listening . See you next week .
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