artist spotlight: Nadia Starbinski
Nadia is an independent author based in the Greater New York area. Having been writing her entire life, Nadia first publication, excerpts from the book i’ll never write, was long awaited and released in the Fall of 2017. Her second collection of poetry, riptides, was written as a sequel and released the following summer. She is currently studying journalism at a local university and plans on releasing a novel.
@nstarbinski / nadiastarbinski.com
What do you create?
“I’m most known for my poetry. I’ve been writing for years now. I started back in 2009 posting little blurbs on Tumblr, and it just kind of took off from there. Mostly little things that I would journal here and there, and I finally took up the courage to publish my work that I had over the years, and now I have two poetry books published and a couple collaborative pieces that I’ve worked with. Now, I’m trying to work towards the novel side of my writing, but I’ll always have a soft spot for poetry and prose, because that’s where I started. I feel like the short pieces are always the most meaningful because you have such a small window to make an impact on the reader.”
Sometimes, I feel like the meaning can get lost in a novel
“Absolutely. I’ve never been a strong reader and I always joke around about that in interviews and talking to professors.
You don’t have to read a lot to write well. You can even argue that it makes your work more original.
Yeah, or ironic. I have so many books that I collect, but ask me how many of them I’ve read, besides Catcher in the Rye and a couple other titles. As I’ve gotten more into this art, I think I’ve learned to appreciate it a lot more and I’ve found more patience for it. It takes a lot of time to sit down and read a book, and that’s why I’ve leaned more towards short stories, prose, poetry, because it doesn’t take much for you to be like, ‘wow.’”
It leaves you with something for a while.
“There’s a fine line between being inspired by something and biting off of it.”
rip tides, by Nadia Starbinski
Why do you feel the need to create?
“It started when I was younger. I haven’t spoken about this in recent interviews, but I was diagnosed when I was 10 years old with epilepsy. With the kind of epilepsy I have, it affects the temporal lobe, which a lot of it is memory and creativity. There is a certain hyperactivity in the temporal lobe with epilepsy which causes this sense of creativity, called hypergraphia. Van Gogh had it and a lot of other famous creators had it. I don’t really say that my need to create stems from my illness, but I notice that there is a correlation between when I am very, very sick, I write constantly. I fill up journals and I’m constantly asking someone to go out and get me new pages to fill while I’m in the hospital if I have a hiccup in my treatments. But, if I’m totally cool, calm, and collected, doing really well, I struggle a lot with content. It’s not that I don’t have any original ideas, it’s not crazy writers block, but I do see somewhat of a correlation between the two.”
I like the phrase “art never comes from happiness. I guess a variation of happiness is healthiness. It’s interesting how a lot of peoples’ art comes from where they are inside.
“Some people are really good at communicating their pain, but that’s never been me. I’ve always held my emotions in. Dating back to 2009 when I started writing little blurbs on Tumblr, when I was going through these hard times in my live that I didn’t understand, it was a way of getting my feelings out there.”
And being heard.
“Right. Being heard without really having to say it.”
What’s the last thing you created?
“Well recently I just released my collaboration with Tacai and Caleb. Which for me is a foreign concept, because I’ve never been one for that kind of stuff. Besides that, I’ve been working on a website and a lifestyle blog. I’ve been collaborating with my friend Ruben Soto who creates films and documentaries, and wanted to use me as a spotlight. We’re going to do a documentary about my huge show coming up in March.”
How do you brand yourself?
“In the past 6 months I’ve been growing a lot. I’m doing all of this myself. I don’t have a big name publisher or agency behind me. I’m doing all of this myself. I’m reaching out to people that I want to collab with, people that I think will help, or I’m getting messages from people who like my work. I get invited to do open mic shows and grow myself from there. I don’t want to be just another person on Instagram promoting Fit Tea or something like that. I think part of my brand is my support for local artists. Even if I get an offer tomorrow to work with a huge publisher or agency… I came from nothing, so I want to support my friends and their art and small-town agencies because if you forget where you come from then you lose sight of why you do what you do.”
And we have such a strong community of local artists coming from West Orange.
excerpt from the book i’ll never write, by Nadia Starbinski
“Exactly and I think that’s so important. Two months after my release, I got two huge interviews from local newspapers who wanted me on headlining articles to promote my work and support me and my journey when I just started out. That was ridiculously inspiring to me. I released my first book because I wanted to do something for me, for the first time in my whole life. To have the support of my own community was so inspiring.
I’ve grown so much and I’m growing with the people I’m collaborating with, people that I started out with and grew up with. I think it’s so important to remember what you come from. I know what it’s like not to have anything and I know what it’s like to have… enough.”
What do you do in your isolation?
“I love isolation. It depends whether I’m feeling inspired that day or not. Like I said, I love to journal. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good. A lot of it is on my phone, [*she showed me her Notes app, filled with pages of writing.*] You’ll see these on Instagram.
I write a lot. I send out a lot of emails because I’m trying to expand myself, and because I’m doing a lot of open mic shows, I’m doing a lot of prepping. I talk to myself all the time in my room.”
What do you do to relax?
“I don’t relax. I’m always manic and insane and crazy. [*she laughs*]
Funny enough, the city relaxes me. I love people watching. It’s very soothing to me. If you see the crazy small girl furiously writing in a book, staring at you on the subway, that’s me. Not plotting to kill you, you just inspired a character for something she’s working on. Having lived in the city for a few years, I consider the chaos of it more home to me than my quiet hometown. Since moving back home to the suburbs, I haven’t been able to sleep well. The quietness is so eery to me. It’s too quiet. I love the people.”
What’s the last album you listened to?
“I Used To Know Her Part Two -H.E.R.”
What are your tips for creators?
“There’s no such thing as writer’s block, and I say that because writer’s block is a voice in the back of your head telling you that you can’t do it. And when I say do it, I mean anything. I’ve come across so many teachers in high school that said that I wouldn’t do anything with my life. You’re gonna come across so many people in your life that are supposed to know more than you, your mentors, that you’re supposed to respect, but if you know something that true in your heart, then it’s true. Don’t let anything keep you from doing what is meant to be done. Like writer’s block. People say writer’s block is a thing that’s stopping you from creating because there’s nothing there.”
There’s always something.
“There’s always something. Some of my favorite pieces that I’ve written have come off of my head from time that I really felt like I couldn’t.”
Is there anything you want to say about your two books?
“My first book, ‘excerpts from the book i’ll never write,’ was exactly that. It is a compilation of all the blurbs that I wrote through the years. Most of them I have from my 2009 tumblr days, from high school, all the way up until I published it. It was just something I wanted to do for myself. I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship with someone that I really thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. It was one of the first real relationships that I’ve had. It was a bigger breakup than I’ve ever dealt with. There was no one to blame. I don’t think I’ve talked about it in such a raw setting, so I think this is good. It was one of those things that you always see in movies: you love each other but you can’t be together. And I figured, maybe it’s true. We were both going different places in our lives and I got too comfortable. I was so infatuated with being in love and really finding who I thought I was meant to be with and loving everything about life at that moment that I didn’t realize that I was missing out on MY life. I was happy and I was comfortable. Nothing can grow out of a comfort zone. Growth isn’t comfortable. So when we broke up I was really lost for a split second, because I thought this was it, I don’t know what Im supposed to do. So I came back home and I was cleaning my room and I came across this notebook of all of these blurbs that I didn’t realize I had. I didn’t even realize I wrote all of them until I came across a creative writing piece and I thought, wow, this is actually good. I had to do something with it. Fast forward, I got the idea to publish it. I was originally going to put it into a literary magazine, but I thought it wasn’t good enough. I always wanted to publish a book and I didn’t think it was possible. I was very motivated, so I did a ton of research about publishing and getting myself out there. I found out a way to turn the notebook into a book. I was able to submit a manuscript, and within two weeks, I had a book.
It kind of just went from there. It was really surreal when I got the first editing copy and saw my name on the cover. But it was deeper than just having a book. It was setting myself free. It was saying that I could do it, I can do something for myself.
A couple months later, when I wrote this one piece when I was up late journaling, something told me to name is “rip tides.” The next day, I was reading reviews of the first book and someone had said they wished there was a sequel. A lightbulb went off in my head, like, ‘rip tides.’”