Paul Lisicky: On Writing a Love Letter to the Music of Joni Mitchell

Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship. A recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, he is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden. He lives in Brooklyn. Follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

In this interview, Paul discusses how a DM on Twitter led to his new biography, Song So Wild and Blue, the questions he poses for other writers about their own work, and more.

Name: Paul Lisicky
Literary agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary Agency
Book title: Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell
Publisher: HarperOne
Release date: February 25, 2025
Genre/category: Biography and Autobiography, Music, Performing Arts, Self-Help
Previous titles: Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, Lawnboy
Elevator pitch: A love letter to the music of Joni Mitchell, as well as to the mentors across my life. It’s a book about making a life in art, love, community, connection and letting go.

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What prompted you to write this book?

All of my books have nodded to Joni Mitchell’s songs in some way, whether to individual song titles or lyrics. During the pandemic, I wrote a draft of a book in which her music, and its influence on me, kept coming into the narrative through a side door. Joni likely wanted a bigger part in the book than I realized at the time.

At some point in December 2021, I posted a photo of Joni alongside her recent collaborator Brandi Carlile, to my (then) Twitter feed. I’m not even sure what I wrote in the caption. I’m awful when it comes to checking my DMs, but Rakesh Satyal, an editor at HarperCollins, sent me a message. He said, “Paul, would you ever think of writing a book about Joni?” I wrote back, faux nonchalant, “That’s an interesting idea.” He wrote, “Who’s your agent?” I told him my agent’s name. He said, “I love him, I’ll be in touch with him last week.” I should say that Rakesh had known my work, he’s a huge Joni fan himself—for years he had a show in New York in which he performed the songs from Blue. I should also say that the publication story behind my previous six books was never so simple or direct. Sometimes it took years for them to find their final home, which often took a toll, but this time it felt like — “magic” is an overused word. I’ll say kismet instead.

I suppose the lesson is to check your DMs.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Three years and three months—that’s shorter than any previous book. My original proposal was based on the album Hejira; I don’t remember the point of view I had in mind, but I do know that my own story was in the background. Rakesh gently said, “No, we want more of you here.” So, the second proposal was much more expansive, and it used pressure points from my own life to think about how Joni’s music, across the body of her songs from Clouds to Shine, might have helped to clarify a struggle. When I started the book, I was dating someone who was a big Joni fan. We came together through our shared love of her music, and the story became central to the first and final chapters. When I started the book, the general assumption was that Joni’s performance days were in the past—she was still coming back from a brain aneurysm back in 2015. But since then, she performed at the Newport Folk Festival and the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State and most recently at the Hollywood Bowl. My partner and I got to see her at Gorge, and the awe of that night became an important part of the book. We did not expect to see, in person, a resurrected, performing Joni Mitchell in our lifetime.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

My previous books had been published by indie presses. I always assumed that working with a big five publisher would involve a certain loss of input from me. The exact opposite has been true. HarperOne has run everything by me, from jacket copy to cover design, and we’re always quite open to my suggestions—and very appreciative. I said, for instance, that I thought the cover should have a graphic novel influence, and I got to see all the drafts from the most rudimentary sketch to the final version and offer specific feedback along the way. Everything about the final production is extraordinary, and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful to the team at Harper. It just goes to show that a team can make a beautiful thing together.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

My writing typically comes about through a long process of searching—writing many pages to find the core, the constraints, the structure. A lot of necessary mess. With Song So Wild and Blue, I had mapped out the structure in the proposal, all the while thinking, this could be dangerous. What if I’m fixing something in place before it’s had the chance to find itself? What if I’m predetermining the surprise out of the book? The truth was there were plenty of surprises, of a more granular form, along the way. In fact, having the sturdiness of pre-existing structure might have encouraged me to risk more on a sentence-to-sentence level. That revelation was huge for me.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

In many ways the book is as much a love letter to Joni’s work as it is all the mentors across my life, from my elementary school music teacher, Mrs. Hill, to friends and family and ex’s and animals and more—all the lessons learned from them. I didn’t initially intend to write a long act of gratitude, but it came out that way. Who are your mentors? How do we live in thanks to them?

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Rather than advice, I’ll pass on three questions: What books, music, art, film do you love? How does your own work talk back to them? What do they continue to teach you, specifically, on multiple levels?