Invasion of Privacy: Nate Bedell and the power of writing

I don’t think it crossed Nate Bedell’s mind when he came to The Lamron’s general meeting last Thursday that he would leave being voted our next Invasion of Privacy guest. Either way, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nate about his on and off campus life, the importance of his writing, and an in-depth retrospective of one soon to graduate.

Nate Bedell is a senior English major with a concentration in creative writing. Bedell came to Geneseo with this already set in stone, saying, “I [have] loved writing since I was a young kid, [and] always kind of knew what I wanted to do. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I would be a writer. It was a predetermined path; I never really thought about doing anything else.”

While creative writing at Geneseo is a fairly popular program, there seems to be an underlying anxiety about jumping into the program fully. What does the job market look like for writers? What can an English degree do? When faced with these realities, Bedell simply said, “If I do anything else, I’ll be sad and miserable. I’m not going to do something just because it’s a ‘job’ or will get me a career.”

Bedell mainly specializes in prose works, mostly fiction. However, after he began writing creative nonfiction in last semester’s workshop, he found that he may have stumbled upon a new calling.

“I ended up writing some of my best work [in that workshop]… I took it again this semester and put out stuff that was really well received. I don’t know, I might pursue more CNF [creative nonfiction] after college.” 

Bedell still has fiction dreams and wishes to one day create a graphic novel.

“Fiction lends itself well to nonfiction. You can take that prose-y kind of writing and use it for anecdotes from your own life…The transition felt more natural than I was expecting.”

On the subject of creative nonfiction, Bedell presented his piece “Fatigue” last Monday for his senior reading. For those who don’t know, creative writing majors are required to take a kind of capstone class at the end of their senior year aptly called the “Senior Seminar.” A major part of that class is the senior reading, which Nate crushed. 

“Fatigue” is an introspective piece that tackles Bedell’s life from when he was a young kid reading Goosebumps books under the blanket after he was supposed to be asleep all the way until current day in which his ‘fatigue’ is less physical and stems more from the systemic macro and micro racism he has either seen or faced. Near the end of the piece Bedell recalls his involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement and the march he attended in the Summer of 2020: “It was really hot out, fucking loud, just like foot-to-pavement. I felt powerful. You’re like a drop in the ocean, but it’s like a good thing. You’re all angry, but for a good reason.”

Upon his return to Geneseo for the fall 2020 semester, keeping in mind the events regarding the painted tree on campus, I asked Bedell how he felt about the situation given his active role in the movement. “The timing was a little too perfect. [...] The message was clear, bro, the message was clear. I didn’t join in at the time, which I kind of regret, but it was so loud. And in COVID, too, when everybody is masked-up and afraid to leave their rooms, then you have this demonstration where everyone came together, and it was heard—it reverberated through the entire campus. I was in Livingston at the time, and I could hear it for like an hour. It was powerful stuff.”

In terms of his role both in the workforce and continuing his activism going forward, Bedell made it very clear: “I literally don’t have a choice. I have to make my voice heard and be active. I gotta make up for lost time and keep fighting the good fight.” As was seen in his senior reading with “Fatigue,” the ball is already rolling in the way his voice can be heard in his work. Bedell has spent the last four years workshopping and refining his use of language, and while he said, “I wanna write about a lot of different things, not constrain myself to being ‘oh, that’s the guy who writes about Black issues’ or ‘that’s the guy who writes about protests,’” he also said “It will show up again for sure. I might even revisit that piece I read; we’ll see.”

In response to the classic question of what advice Bedell would give to himself as a freshman at Geneseo, he said, “Pace yourself. Don’t get discouraged cause you flubbed a few times. Put yourself out there more socially. Take a second to enjoy it.”

Another big thanks to Bedell for being a part of this interview and for giving some of his thoughts on writing, on his senior reading, and on the state of the world today. Make sure to keep an eye out for his name in the literary sphere going forward—I myself will be keenly awaiting that graphic novel.