I first met Mitzi Rapkin in 2023 at the Mountain Words Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado. She was there to participate in a panel discussion and to host a live recording of her podcast, First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing, with the poet, Jenny Qi. When I came upon Mitzi in the hallway after the recording, I stopped to introduce myself and to tell her how meaningful the interview had been for me.

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “Are you a writer?”

“Yes. I’m working on a memoir.”

“You want to tell me about it?” she said as we wandered toward a pair of chairs by a window overlooking a stunning mountain vista. I don’t remember exactly the questions Mitzi asked me that day–or the answers I gave. But I do remember feeling a deeper understanding of my own work after our conversation.

Mitzi Rapkin

Rapkin is the founder and host of the podcast, First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing. She has interviewed over 500 authors from around the world. She reads a book every week and has, since 2013, hosted and produced 50-52 episodes of her podcast each year. She has two MFAs, one in journalism from Northwestern University and one in fiction from Warren Wilson College. She lives in Basalt, a community just outside Aspen, Colorado. (For more information on Mitzi and her podcast, visit her website.

Almost two years after our first meeting, I find myself—with great pleasure—on the opposite side of an interview with Mitzi Rapkin. Here’s what she has to say about her life and work.

CC: The first time we met in Crested Butte a few years ago we had a long conversation about my memoir. I’ll never forget how you drew me in with your perceptive questions and deep curiosity. Where would you say those qualities come from?

MR: I’m an only child. As a kid, I lived in my imagination. I read a lot, I pretended, I played imaginary games. I think that gave me empathy for what it’s like to be another person. I’m sincerely and authentically curious about people and their experience of life. I’m sure being an only child is part of that. Another thing, I think though, is that I’ve had this kind of existential loneliness all my life. Asking questions doesn’t solve it, but it gets the attention off of me.

CC: Can you say more about existential loneliness and how it may play into your sense of curiosity?

MR: For me, maybe this means the separation from the world that is obvious because we each live in a finite body and are singular human beings. Maybe it just means a deep-rooted loneliness of the soul. Maybe it’s the search for meaning; I’m not exactly sure. When I’m in a flow state—which for me mostly happens in creative endeavors but can certainly happen on a mountain bike—I can reconnect to myself and to a universal energy in a way that is deeply comforting, soothing and restorative. I am eternally interested in other people’s conception of self, belief, philosophy, religion, ideas and creativity. Maybe in some way it’s a somewhat healthy means of moving my mind from the focus on me to other people.

CC: You read a book every week. It seems to me that you use the book to start the conversation but, almost always, the interview takes a turn into something broader, something more personal. Do you plan your questions toward that end, or do you let the interview go where it goes?

MR: I let it go where it goes, and deep listening is an important part of that process. In most instances, I don’t do a lot of research beyond the book right in front of me; I use the text as my guide. That said, I believe very strongly that people create energy together. As soon as I feel a writer’s energy anything is possible. I might change where I go; I might even tell a joke; it’s just something I feel intuitively. My goal, my highest goal is transcendence. It sounds kind of crazy, but I see it like Maslow’s Hierarchy where we go from an exchange where I say something, you say something, towards maybe a more collegial conversation, towards a connection, and ultimately, transcendence. I think that only comes when you don’t have an agenda and when you’re truly listening. I’ve had moments like that in conversations over the years—which I love. I hope with each interview to bring out something an author has never talked about before or ask a question that facilitates a new discovery for them about their work.

As soon as I feel a writer’s energy anything is possible.

CC: The list of authors you’ve interviewed is extensive and includes many of my favorite writers. What’s it like to spend time with them? Do you ever get nervous? Have you ever been star-struck?

MR: There were people I was really scared to talk to—at least initially. George Saunders was one of them. He’s so beloved and kind. But I was mostly scared to talk to him because I believed I wasn’t smart enough. In the end, the conversation with him was a wonderful experience. And later, in an interview by a journalist for the magazine 5280, George Saunders said the nicest thing about my show. Hernan Diaz is another one I was nervous to talk to. After reading his book, Trust, which was very heady, I couldn’t imagine being up to it. But we had an amazing conversation. We talked about things he’d never talked about with other people—and just after he’d won the Pulitzer. You never know how things are going to turn out.

CC: Would you mind sharing what it was that George Saunders said about you?

MR: Not at all. Here it is on my website: Mitzi Rapkin “is one of the most talented and passionate interviewers in the world. What makes her great is her precision and her genuine curiosity, which transforms the interview into an urgent conversation. The time flies by, and I always learn something new about my own work.”

CC: Wow, Mitzi! Is there still a dream interview out there for you? Someone you’d love to speak with, someone who you’ve not yet interviewed?

MR: I’d love to interview Colson Whitehead, but he’s never said yes. And I’d love to interview Annie Proulx. She’s one of my favorite authors. But I’ve also been very lucky. I’ve interviewed Alice McDermott—she’s another of my favorite authors, and I’ve talked to her four times. And, Ada Limón, whose work I love, I’ve interviewed three times. There are still the dream interviews out there, but really, I’ve been very lucky.

CC: As a journalist, a prolific reader, and an interviewer of hundreds of writers what would you say can be gained from reading books?

MR: Reading is travel for your mind. It opens up new worlds, new dimensions. There is so much you can get from books. I meet a lot of people who say, “I don’t read fiction,” or “I don’t read.” When we read a book, it helps us to understand ourselves; it helps us to understand others. There is so much insight into human behavior in books—even in books about Hobbits or about aliens. One of my favorite books is called “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell. It takes place on another planet, and it’s so insightful about what it means to be human, exploring questions of faith and philosophy and meaning and mortality and how we treat other people.

CC: Who do you see as your audience? Writers? Readers? Non-readers?

MR: All of the above. People’s attention spans are really short these days, and I think maybe fewer people are reading. First Draft is for readers and non-readers, alike. The interviews I do with writers are really interesting conversations on their own terms. They’re about very human experiences. They’re about life and so many different topics: whether it’s death in your family or difficult relationships or trying to stay grounded amidst grief. I feel like there’s often a spiritual component that emerges in these conversations, and that is my favorite moment—when they go beyond the topic of the book. Talking about the book is simply the taxiway for the flight of a conversation that can go in a whole different direction, which it often does. For me, those are the most meaningful moments.