Authors generally have a reputation for hiding behind the pages of their books. That’s not the case with T. K. Lee, who is a familiar face in the local theater scene.
Lee’s second book of poetry, “Scapegoat,” was published in September by Unsolicited Press, not long after he appeared on stage in Starkville Community Theatre’s production of “The Legend of Georgia McBride,” back in May.
Lee is also closely associated with two annual theater traditions in the area, the Summer Scholars Onstage Camp at Mississippi State University and the Tennessee Williams Tribute in Columbus. In 2020, Lee launched 10:4:TENN, a national 10-minute play competition celebrating Williams’ legacy that culminates with staged readings of the winning entries during the Tribute.
Lee’s penchant for working across genres and forms serves him well in his role as an assistant professor at Mississippi University for Women. His classes in playwriting are popular in both of MUW’s master’s of fine arts programs, creative writing and theatre education.
Lee’s new book “Scapegoat” is a follow-up to his 2018 debut poetry collection “To Square a Circle.” He envisions continuing the same narrator’s story in a cycle of seven total books.
In the meantime, Lee will return to the stage in January representing Starkville Community Theatre at the Mississippi Theatre Association Festival in Tupelo in the one-man show, “Underneath the Lintel.”
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Would you consider your poetry collections “Scapegoat” and “To Square a Circle” to be autobiographical?
I rather like believing that all art is, to some extent, autobiographical, at the least. Confessional, at the most. For me, it’s both in that what I create is as much a part of my story as where I come from, who I am, etc. But if by “autobiographical,” you mean “tells the truth,” then I need to make one point a little clearer: I am less interested in “telling the truth” and much more interested in “telling the emotional truth,” and that is certainly the case in how these two collections are related, as it were.
Do you approach writing poetry and plays the same way, or are they different processes for you?
It doesn’t matter what I’m writing, poem or play or short story, each one starts the same way, with a slow sense of suddenness. Which sounds paradoxical (which it is), but it’s as if I’m equal parts filled with an eagerness, a compulsion, to begin and, at the same time, burdened by an awareness akin to that feeling of “hurry up and wait.”
Every story, regardless of form, is a mystery, a puzzle, a bit of chess, a length of game, and that each comes with a requisite amount of time necessary to look, listen and seek out the ways in which the pieces fit, or to learn the rules of the game. I may start a poem or a play in a similar fashion, but the process molds to the shape of the story I’m telling.
You describe yourself as a teaching artist. What is your teaching philosophy?
Of the handful of years I’ve been teaching—23, in fact, as of this year—I think it was only four or five years ago that I finally settled on what I’d call my teaching philosophy, one that arguably blends my strongest beliefs as an educator, that 1) the one who is doing is learning, and 2) the student who feels cared for succeeds. And, conveniently, this blend of beliefs has already been perfectly summed up by Emily Dickinson in the poem “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking.”
What drew you to teaching at MUW?
Hands down, one of the big draws for me as a playwright, to the W and Columbus, is Tennessee Williams and the enduring impact of his literary legacy. The fact that I get to drive by his birthplace on my way to work each day never grows old. It rejuvenates me.
How do the creative writing and theatre education MFA programs at MUW support each other?
There is an overlap and I love being in it. Both MFA programs are still quite young. And the potential for their futures, respectively but also in those places where they overlap, is a magnificent thing to consider. And why shouldn’t it? Students who pursue graduate work are compelled by a higher calling, I think. To measure by a standard above just being “better than,” they seek to be the best in their fields. So it’s no stretch of the imagination to see the benefit of a joint classroom filled with theatre educators (in pursuit of “best practices”) and creative playwrights (in pursuit of “best words, best order”) focused together on the task at hand. It’s a win-win.
Emily Liner is the owner of Friendly City Books, an independent bookstore and press in Columbus.
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