Amanda Kohr
what’s your craft / what’s your art.
[AK]. My craft is writing, though I also acted throughout childhood and into my college years. I think I started acting for the same reason I came to writing—to play in a world other than my own. It’s not that I dislike the real world; I love it. The trials and tribulations of being a human serve as some of the most authentic and accessible inspiration for making art. I just also really love my imagination.
So I suppose my craft has always been world-building and communication, which I think it is for many creative folks. Technically speaking, I write fiction, creative nonfiction, plays, and teleplays, depending on how I’m feeling. I love writing dialogue, which is why I think I tend to gravitate toward anything fictional. Throughout my entire life, I’ve made up conversations between fictional people, or even actual people in my everyday life. I remember practicing monologues to ex-boyfriends when driving alone in my car. I thought it was fun, and I’m not sure what that says about me.
That said, I also love finding broad or nebulous topics and crystallizing them as best I can, which is why nonfiction and essays can be exciting, too. I think all of my writing, regardless of the format, tends to focus on discovery and interpersonal relationships. I also make collages when I feel like mixing it up. Sometimes working with images helps my mind think differently.
how does nature speak to you.
[AK]. The first time I felt nature truly “speak” to me (at least that I know of) was when I was driving across the United States from my home state of Virginia to California. I was 20 and with my father and I remember seeing the red mountains in New Mexico for the first time and having “a moment.” I felt inspired, humbled, like anything was possible.
When I’m creatively stuck, nature provides both a respite and a reset button. It’s an opportunity to get off the screen and mix up my thought patterns. And since I live in Los Angeles, there are dozens of 2-hour road trips that serve as the best and most beautiful antidote to writer’s block. Joshua Tree, Ojai, and Lake Arrowhead are some of my favorites. Los Angeles gets a lot of flack, but I think it’s a great city, and I love living in California. It feels like a playground.
how does your art speak.
[AK]. As I mentioned earlier, almost all of my writing is a demonstration of my fascination with discovery and interpersonal relationships. I’d throw evolution in there, too. I love watching people change and grow, both fictional and in real life. I love watching humans be humans in their messiest forms. I absolutely love stripping away the facades and the ego and boiling it down to emotion, vulnerability, and truth. In my opinion, the best art makes something personal feel universal. And to do that, you need to capture the rawest and authentic parts of being a human, even the “ugly” stuff.
I’ve been told I’m too sensitive before, and I know I can be very emotional, but I think I’m (hopefully) attuning myself to use said sensitivity as a gift. I feel things very intensely, for better and for worse. But I don’t mind this. I feel like my life is richer for it. And if we’re able to communicate deep feelings in a way that fosters connection, then it’s all worth it.
where are you right now.
[AK]. I live in Echo Park, Los Angeles. I used to live in Portland, which I loved, and East LA actually reminds me a lot of that city. There’s a pulse here.
what does being a female artist mean to your work.
[AK]. It means everything, haha. Since women’s stories have historically gone untold, or our narratives dictated by male creators, it feels all the more important to me that I get out there and write, as well as support the work of other women.
can you describe yourself as an artist in your childhood / at what age did play merge into art.
[AK]. I was obsessed with writing when I was a kid. I’d carry around this lime green notebook and call it “my story.” It was about this girl (the protagonist) who got invited to this other girl’s house for a sleepover, but the protagonist was convinced this other girl was a witch and lived in a haunted house. In the end, they became best friends, because I was 9 and friendship was the happiest ending for me.
I think the play merged into art when I started writing in a journal my sophomore year of high school. I had a pretty melodramatic high school experience: I fell in love with my gay best friend, my ex and one of my best friends hooked up, I developed an eating disorder, I shoplifted and did drugs and got drunk a lot. The journals became a precious exploration and documentation of my angst, and I took soooo much stock in making sure they looked good. I used different colored pens depending on my mood and often highlighted important sentences. I remember one day I poured nail polish over the cover just because I love the way it dripped glitter. But yeah, that’s about when I started seeing writing as a form of self-expression and discovery, something that was still in sense “play,” but also something much deeper than that.
in the darkest of times, what material do you reach for.
[AK]. Brené Brown to uplift. Page-turning fiction to disappear. A fresh journal to come home.
if applicable, why do you sell your artwork.
[AK]. I sell my articles and essays because it feels good to be paid for something I worked so hard on, but writing plays and fiction is often an act of faith. I don’t know if anyone will want them or buy them, but I do it anyway because I want to.
I think there’s a lot to say about the relationship between art and money. Money is certainly a tool, and I believe in carrying an abundant mindset or not letting the fear of losing money dictate your life. But I think Capitalistic America has really embraced this idea of equating a dollar amount with worth, and that’s something that really bothers me. Still, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be paid for your creative work. It’s exciting to know that you can support yourself by doing what you love, but it’s not by any means a necessity for making good art.
describe a moment of a class, in academia or alternative learning that shifted your perspective.
[AK]. In my senior year of college, I was in a play called subUrbia by Eric Bogosian. The play was about a lot of things, but it was mostly about fear. It took place in 1993 in the parking lot behind a 7-11 in a suburb in Texas and all of the characters were in their early 20s. I had been acting for a while and had been lucky enough to participate in a variety of cool theatre projects, but during subUrbia something new clicked. Like I could get into the psyche of these characters and understand why they were making their choices, even if they were bad or good. I started looking at theatre (and in turn, writing) from a psychological perspective which planted a very important seed in my creative brain.
what is your current obsession.
[AK]. Taking risks. French press coffee. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Search Party on HBO. Trusting myself. The desert, always the desert.
Amanda Kohr (she/her) is a writer living in Los Angeles. She writes essays, fiction, plays, and tv pilots. Her work has appeared in VICE, Refinery29, Repeller, and others, and her plays have been performed throughout the country. Her favorite topics include relationships, sexuality, mental health, and growing up. When she's not writing, she's running off to Joshua Tree and rereading Women Who Run With the Wolves.
