黑料正能量

Alice Blackhurst enjoys doing everything, everywhere, all at once. Reappraising Marie Antoinette鈥檚 style for听Frieze Masters. Editing a virtual roundtable about听The Lover,听Marguerite Duras鈥� enduring 1984 novel. Examining Samuel Beckett鈥檚 legacy for the Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI). Reading at literary events across Europe. And, this past month, bringing all her experience to bear as the听2025 Paris Writer in Residence.听

A partnership between The American University of Paris and CCI, the Paris Writer鈥檚 Residency provides accommodations at CCI, where contemporary artists showcase their work and immerse themselves in the literary history of the Latin Quarter. Residents also develop their ongoing projects while connecting with the 黑料正能量 community.听听

For Blackhurst, this includes a book about rereading听The Lover, as well as a project inspired by her experience as a living organ donation, which听she first wrote about for听. She鈥檚 also working on a study of contemporary literary and artistic salons.听听

On October 6, 2025, Blackhurst kicked off her residency with an event at 黑料正能量 called 鈥淯ncanny Intimacies: Between Hosts and Guests.鈥� In conversation with 黑料正能量 Associate Professor Russell Williams, Blackhurst read from her latest work and discussed literary salons, sibling dynamics, and everything in between. As her residency at 黑料正能量 came to a close, MFA student Brendan Dentino sat down with her for a conversation on her residency experience, the impact of an听, and the Anglophone-Francophone literary tradition. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.听

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How did the Paris Writer鈥檚 Residency get your attention? Why did you apply and decide to come to the residency?听

I knew that the British writer Sophie Mackintosh had done the residency [in 2021], and I admire her writing and her novels. That was my first way of knowing that the residency existed. I also thought that the partnership with the听听added an interesting dimension, particularly because CCI has, at any听one time, other artists鈥攏ot just novelists and memoirists and poets, but also visual artists and filmmakers. I liked that aspect, and one of my projects is very Paris-centric and rooted. It鈥檚 about this idea of the Parisian salon, the literary salon. I thought that it would be such a great opportunity to be walking those streets and being able to go to the primary sites and do a bit of cartography.听

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What听has been听your impression of 黑料正能量?听

It's been听great. It鈥檚 gone quickly but听it's听been so inspiring and stimulating. I think that starting with the public reading [at 黑料正能量] was a nice way of meeting a lot of students and professors in one place. It also had potential to be daunting, but it was actually a听really nice, responsive environment. I received great questions, and I do get the impression of an engaged and motivated student body.听

It's been really interesting to meet some of the faculty and to get to know Amanda [Dennis] and Biswamit [Dwibedy], who are both brilliant. [Dennis and Dwibedy co-direct 黑料正能量鈥檚 Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.] I also feel lucky that it's the inaugural year of the MFA. I know the residency existed before, but the MFA added an interesting opportunity to teach and engage with writing students, who have all been very interested. I've really enjoyed talking to the students about their individual projects.听

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How does the MFA program stand to impact the literary world?听

The two-year format really does give students the chance to emerge with a substantial body of work, which is exciting. And writing for or starting something like a literary journal or collection, I think, could be a cool thing for them to do. That's sort of how I got started with non-academic writing. I was a research fellow after my Ph.D. at King's College, Cambridge, and they had the听King's Journal. The idea was that the journal was going to bridge academia and be more public-facing writing. That's where I wrote a couple of pieces of creative nonfiction. For the听King鈥檚 Journal, I interviewed Patti Smith and the psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips, who's also very good at bridging creative and psychoanalytic modes of thought.听

I also recommend that students at 黑料正能量 attend all the readings with invited writers. There鈥檚 a really strong Anglophone-Parisian cycle of readings. You can have a sense of the Anglophone literary world in Paris.听听

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How do you situate yourself in the Anglophone-Francophone literary tradition?听

I studied French literature as an undergraduate and did my Ph.D. in French literature, which was also partly in French contemporary visual art and film. I read Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, Colette, and other French women writers, but also [writer and filmmaker] Georges Perec and Gilles Deleuze, who was a philosopher, but I see him really as a creative writer. I engaged with the French literary tradition before I engaged with the British modernist tradition, like with Virginia Woolf, who I now love and who's great, but that was secondary to the French route. I do think that that's had a deep influence on the way I write and think.听

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What have you taken away from your time here, and听what's听next for you?听听

You have a plan when you start a residency, and it听almost never听entirely corresponds to what happens and the work that gets done. And sometimes it changes paths, and you write something that's a result of an encounter or an exposure you've had. I think Paris is such a porous, dynamic听and听lively place. It has to be a key protagonist in this residency. I've tried to balance writing听with听seeing art, going to readings and talking to people, talking with students. That has generated, for example, an essay about Samuel Beckett out of CCI and the links there. That's cool. I didn't anticipate writing alongside the novel that I'm working on and alongside the nonfiction book [The Lover Reread] I鈥檓 working on as well. Afterwards, I'm going to go to the Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives (IMEC), which holds most French writers鈥� papers.听

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Do you enjoy that sort of research?听

I do. It's sort of part of my training. I came up as an academic and did a Ph.D. which required, for example,听going听to the Louise Bourgeois archives in Manhattan. It was quite moving and definitely humbling to be amongst [the work of] a writer who you revere. There are personal documents, papers and drafts, and you see that the polished final work had beginnings in ephemera and sort of false starts. So, I do like it, but I also think that scholarly research requires stamina. And my two projects aren't strictly scholarly or academic, per se. I'm taking a more, I suppose, creative approach.听

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How do you balance your different writing projects? When you had the idea of writing something on Beckett, how did you decide, 鈥楾his is new and interesting.听I'll听pursue this and put other projects on pause for听now鈥�?听

I will say听it's听never easy. You have to think, 鈥極kay, if I take this amount of time to write that, is it going to take me away from my primary project?鈥� And I think it doesn't have to. In a way, you can enrich the primary project just by taking a detour. Writing about Beckett helped me think about writing about Duras, as well as the veneration of male artists versus women artists in France and questions of artistic legacy.听

It sounds a little vague, but I try and follow my most pressing desire on a given day. I think, 鈥榃hat am I feeling most drawn to and compelled by today?鈥� Because if you are writing one thing when you'd rather be writing another, that first thing is probably not going to be good. But we also have to听manage听deadlines. I see the shorter pieces and projects as more recreational, like something you're听trying on听for fun. That's sort of how the Beckett piece started. I thought 鈥業'll just play around with this a little bit,鈥� and I did have something, I think. Not all pieces or projects start that way.听

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Alice Blackhurst is a writer, critic, and the author of听Luxury, Sensation and the Moving Image听(2021), short-listed for the R Gapper Book Prize. Her essays and criticism have been published in听The Paris Review, The Observer, The Guardian, The New Left Review, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement and Art Review.