Rumpus contributor Andrew David King interviews Austin Kleon at The Kenyon Review’s blog.

Kleon has a knack for altering a text to make it his own, and talks at length about creative originality:

“I guess what I’m interested in is why ‘originality’ is a trait we look for in art at all. It’s like ‘authenticity’—what does it really mean to me for something to be ‘authentic’? Why do I need something to be original or authentic for me to like it? For it to mean something to me? Sometimes I’ll be in a new city and it’ll be dinner time and someone will say, ‘Oh, let’s go to this Mexican place—it’s very authentic.’ And I’ve started saying, ‘Don’t take me to the authentic Mexican place. Take me to the good Mexican place. If they happen to be the same, that’s great.'”

You can catch past Rumpus coverage of Kleon here, here and here.