William S. Burroughs’ Class on Writing Sources (1976)

Image by Chris­ti­aan Ton­nis, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

These lec­tures were record­ed in July 1976 at Naropa Uni­ver­si­ty in Boul­der, CO.

The first half of a class with William S. Bur­roughs dis­cuss­es var­i­ous sources for writ­ing, includ­ing dreams, voic­es (exter­nal and inter­nal), and cut-up, giv­ing exam­ples from his own work. Bur­roughs empha­sizes the impor­tance of ego­less­ness to the writer and presents his sources as a means to that end. In the course of the dis­cus­sion, Bur­roughs airs many of his ideas about con­scious­ness. There are ques­tions and answers halfway through the ses­sion.

End of a class with William S. Bur­roughs, fin­ish­ing with a ques­tion and answer ses­sion with Bur­roughs respond­ing to remarks about women, non-ref­er­en­tial images, non-lin­ear think­ing, and telepa­thy. (Con­tin­ued from 76p020-021.) Key­words: Beat Move­ment, Exper­i­men­tal Writ­ing, Aur­al Poet­ry, Con­scious­ness and Lit­er­a­ture.