My Mentor’s Mentor Text: An Interview with Paul Lisicky about Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell

By Amy Beth Sisson

Pictured: Paul Lisicky

Paul Lisicky’s latest book Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, is part Joni Mitchell playlist, part fan letter, and part memoir. It is rich in explorations of writing craft such as the importance of mentors and how work in other art forms informs writing. The book has an elegant and complex narrative structure, alternating close listening to Joni’s compositions with vignettes about Paul’s life as a writer, teacher, partner...