Walter Tunis, Candace Chaney, Wendy Miller and I don’t spend a whole lot of time together. We’re usually in different places, seeing different shows, eating different food, or living our non-journalistic lives. But Saturday morning, the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning is gathering the four of us together to discuss our roles as critics for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
We’ll be talking about what led us to reviewing, how we approach reviews, what critics we like reading and other stuff about the profession.
Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole) the much-feared food critic in Disney's "Ratatouille."
Personally, I am really looking forward to hearing what my colleagues have to say, because it is a diverse group of voices. Walter, our pop music critic, has been at it for nearly three decades and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience. Wendy has been writing restaurant reviews for us for a long time, and in recent years has become our lone food critic. Candace is still relatively young in her role as theater critic and has shown incedible growth in her years writing for us. I am in the reporter-critic role – mostly reporting – and wear something of a critic-at-large hat, particularly here on le blog.
So, that kind diversity will lead to a lively discussion, and I suspect we may touch on topics like:
- What is the critic’s role in an arts community?
- Do you have to be able to do the thing you are critiquing to be a qualified critic?
- How do we feel when our critiques are critiqued?
