TalentTrove

I’ve been nosing around TalentTrove, an online community for writers, musicians, comics, and other creatives.

On the one hand, community can help a lot: one thing that’s clear from reading Pictures at a Revolution is that everyone knew everyone. Even the people who weren’t successful: Dustin Hoffman was just about out of the theater, sleeping on his friend’s floor. Rod Steiger was going nowhere, Robert Benton (who co-wrote Bonnie and Clyde) was a magazine writer infatuated with Truffaut, trying his hand at writing an American nouvelle vague and occasionally playing jazz with a stand-up comic named Woody Allen.

But, on the other hand, they wrote and acted and made deals and got stuff done. And, to listen to Harris, most of them spent their time working, or hanging out with people who were working.

Building an artistic community of artists — not simply people who want to be with artists, or people who want to act the part — is a challenge.