The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of

Host: The night had settled heavy over the city, wrapping every street, every window, in a deep, sleepless blue. Inside the small apartment, a single lamp burned low — its light falling across a cluttered desk, stacks of papers, an ashtray filled with half-lived cigarettes, and the quiet hum of something unspoken.

Jack sat by the window, a half-empty glass beside him, watching the rain crawl down the glass like slow-moving thoughts. Jeeny stood at the desk, flipping through a worn notebook, her fingers tracing the grooves of handwritten lines as if they were scars.

The room smelled of ink, smoke, and the lingering ache of creation.

Jeeny looked up, her voice soft, reverent.

Jeeny: “James Baldwin once said, ‘The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.’”

Host: Her words hung in the air — heavy, deliberate — like a verdict handed down through time.

Jack: “Excavate, huh? Sounds like he thought writers were supposed to be archaeologists instead of artists.”

Jeeny: “In a way, they are. Every story, every sentence — it’s digging into the soil of who we are, where we came from.”

Jack: “I don’t buy that. A writer’s job is to create, not to dig up old ghosts. We invent worlds; we don’t resurrect them.”

Host: The rain tapped harder against the window, a soft percussion that filled the pause between them.

Jeeny: “But Jack, how can you invent anything true if you don’t know where your imagination was born? Baldwin wasn’t talking about nostalgia — he was talking about truth. About remembering the people who built the ground you stand on.”

Jack: “Truth is overrated. The world doesn’t reward truth; it rewards what sells. You write a story about suffering, no one reads it. You make it glamorous — they call you a genius.”

Jeeny: “That’s because most people don’t want to look at their own pain. But Baldwin did. He looked straight into it. He wrote from it. That’s what makes his words still breathe.”

Host: Jeeny moved closer, her eyes bright, her voice trembling with restrained passion.

Jeeny: “He was a black man in America, Jack. His ‘excavation’ wasn’t academic — it was survival. He wrote the truth of his people because the world refused to see them. That’s responsibility — not just to art, but to existence itself.”

Jack: “You think that kind of writing still matters today?”

Jeeny: “More than ever. You think because we have technology and headlines, we understand people? No. We’re drowning in information but starving for understanding. Writers — real writers — dig beneath the noise.”

Host: Jack turned his glass, the ice clinking softly, his reflection fractured in the windowpane.

Jack: “You talk like writing’s sacred. But I’ve seen writers tear each other apart over publishing deals, likes, attention. Where’s the ‘responsibility’ in that?”

Jeeny: “The same place it’s always been — in the words, not the awards. Baldwin didn’t write to be loved. He wrote because silence was killing him.”

Jack: “And maybe silence saves others. You ever think of that? Maybe not everyone wants to carry their people’s ghosts. Maybe some of us just want to forget.”

Host: The lamp light flickered, and a shadow crossed Jack’s face — deep, hollow, and almost tender.

Jeeny: “Forgetting doesn’t make you free, Jack. It just makes you hollow. The people who produced you — they live in your blood, your voice, your mistakes. You don’t get to erase them.”

Jack: “You sound like my grandmother.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you should have listened to her.”

Host: The air thickened. The rain outside became a steady curtain, washing the streets clean but leaving the room untouched.

Jack: “So what — you think every writer owes their life to the past? That they’re not allowed to just write about love or machines or the stars?”

Jeeny: “They can write about all of it — but even love, machines, and stars come from the same soil. The point isn’t what you write about; it’s why. Baldwin wasn’t saying, ‘write about your people.’ He was saying, ‘never forget they live in what you write.’”

Host: Jack’s eyes narrowed, but the defiance had softened. He lit a cigarette, the flame trembling before catching. Smoke curled upward like a thought unspoken.

Jack: “You ever think that kind of responsibility is too heavy? That it breaks people?”

Jeeny: “Of course it does. But so does running away from it. Either way, you bleed. Might as well bleed for something honest.”

Host: The wind rattled the window, and somewhere a distant train wailed — long, low, mournful.

Jack: “You make writing sound like war.”

Jeeny: “It is. But the battlefield is the self. Every word is a shovel; every sentence, a scar.”

Host: The lamp hummed faintly. Jeeny’s shadow leaned over the desk, stretching long across the papers, the words beneath her hand like quiet witnesses.

Jeeny: “Baldwin said he had to write because he was a witness. That’s what a writer is — not a god, not a creator — a witness to what shaped them. The streets, the pain, the laughter, the love — all of it.”

Jack: “And what if what shaped you was ugliness? Violence? You think people want to read that?”

Jeeny: “They don’t have to want to. But they need to. That’s the difference between entertainment and literature. One distracts you; the other demands you see.”

Host: Jack exhaled, the smoke rising slow, forming small clouds that twisted and vanished. He leaned his head against the glass, eyes distant.

Jack: “You know, my father worked in a factory all his life. He used to come home with his hands blackened from grease. Never said much. Just ate, smoked, slept. Maybe that’s the experience I should excavate, huh?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it’s already living inside you. That silence, that fatigue, that dignity — that’s where your voice comes from.”

Jack: “And what if I don’t want to write about it?”

Jeeny: “Then it’ll haunt everything you do until you do.”

Host: The rain slowed. The city lights outside glimmered through the mist, tiny, trembling constellations of longing.

Jack’s hand tightened around the glass.

Jack: “You make it sound like writing’s not a choice.”

Jeeny: “It isn’t. Not for people like Baldwin. Not for anyone who’s seen too much and stayed quiet too long.”

Host: Silence. The kind that feels like a heartbeat before confession.

Jack set the glass down, staring at the condensation forming a small ring on the table — a perfect circle, fading into nothing.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe every word I write is just my father’s silence trying to speak.”

Jeeny: “Then write it, Jack. Write until it’s heard.”

Host: She placed her hand gently on the stack of papers between them. Her touch was light, but the gesture carried a gravity — the weight of generations pressing through one simple act of courage.

Jack looked at her, and in his eyes, something cracked — the quiet crumble of resistance, the slow birth of understanding.

Jack: “Excavate the experience of the people who produced me…” (he whispered) “That’s not a burden. It’s a map.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And if you follow it honestly, it’ll lead you home.”

Host: The rain had stopped. The city outside gleamed under streetlights, wet and alive. A single beam of moonlight slipped through the window, touching Jack’s face, softening it.

He picked up his pen, hesitated, then began to write.

Jeeny watched quietly, a small smile forming — not of victory, but of recognition.

Host: The lamp flickered once, then steadied. The page filled with ink, the room with breath.

And in that fragile silence between thought and word, between past and present, the voice of a people — long buried, long silenced — began, at last, to speak again.