Stephanie Pruitt is inspiring. I believe one day, her brain will be on display for all to see. You hand her a nugget, she makes it into gold. I mumble ideas, barely formed into a coherent sentence structure and she builds entire business plans around them. She is the queen of the brainstorming session and my go-to-gal when I want to volley ideas. I coined her nickname “Ping Pong Pruitt” because she is someone who naturally thinks outside of the box. The ideas she delivers sound so off-the-wall at times that, intuitively, you know they are worth pursuing.
She and I first became friends while attending the Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Periscope class. It was a six-week course focused on the pairing of art and commerce. Art + money = my favorite things!
Stephanie is a poet who brings a refreshing, anti-elitist spin to the genre. A child and adult can equally comprehend her words and that is her intention.
In her words, “If we’re trying to save the literary world we need to engage as many people as possible.”
Check out an excerpt from my interview with her from my upcoming book, Word of Mouth: Nashville Conversations.
“I’m a thrift shopper and love going to yard sales. Throughout the week I’ll make notes of all the yard sales I want to go to on Saturday. Perhaps the first five or six there’s really nothing interesting and finally, I find something that makes the day perfect. I wouldn’t appreciate it had I not gone through all of the others. It’s the same with poetry: there’s one line or phrase that brings the entire thing to life. It brings a sense of awareness to the entire poem that you couldn’t have achieved had you not read every line.
I’m a lot of times looking for an intense experience or idea. I use the phrase “aha moments.” I’m always looking for this one, big thing that I would never have recognized had it not been for everything else that led up to it. I’m almost an adrenaline junkie in that way.”
Words by Lily Clayton Hansen: www.lilychansen.net
Photography by: Danielle Atkins, www.danielleatkins.com
Stephanie Pruitt: http://www.nostarvingartist.net/
