Studio Luce

Supporting Positive Tourism in El Paredón

El Paredón is a special place. It is a small fishing village nestled within the Sipacate-Naranjo National Park, defined by mangrove forests, volcanic sand, world-class surf, and a vibrant local community.

By shifting our focus away from standard short-term vacation rentals and toward longer, mission-driven residencies, we aim to encourage a slower, more respectful model of travel. Longer stays allow artists to integrate into the village rhythm, support neighborhood businesses, and brings like-minded individuals to the village.

To make this accessible, we’ve established dedicated, subsidized artist rates for the villa, including reduced pricing for stays of 14 nights or more. This is significantly lower than when the house rents normally, and offers a unique opportunity for an extended stay, especially when split between numerous creatives.

How to Book

Private residencies are exclusive to artists, writers, musicians, and creative collaborators, with a minimum stay of 7 nights. Because our calendar fills up quickly, we encourage reaching out early, especially if you are planning a longer stay.

Direct Inquiries: studioluceresidencia@gmail.com

Thank you for being part of this journey with us. We can’t wait to see what you create here.

Warmly,

The Studio Luce Team

5&5 with Peter Silberman of The Antlers

Ben Davies Crisp — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:02:32 GMT

Few bands have meant more to me over the last fifteen-plus years than The Antlers. Like many, I first fell in love with them through Hospice, a concept album centered on the relationship between a hospice worker and a terminally ill patient. Heartbreaking and beautiful in equal measure, it’s genius shines even brighter on their recent live release, where Peter Silberman’s lyrics take center stage.

While Hospice put them firmly on the map for many, The Antlers—anchored by Silberman's songwriting and Michael Lerner’s drumming—have built a rich, seven-album catalog. From the hit-heavy Burst Apart through to the simmering beauty of Familiars, right up to their gorgeous latest release, Blight, their body of work is so uniquely consistent, with not a weak LP in sight. Add in Silberman’s quiet solo gem, Impermanence, and he really has one of the best indie band discographies I can think of.

It’s impossible to do their music full justice in such a brief introduction, but if you don’t know Peter and The Antlers, I really do encourage you to go have a listen.

It was an absolute treat to chat to Peter and host him on 5&5 to discuss the artists and creatives who have shaped his work.

5 That Shaped Me:

The Wonder Years

I’ve loved this show my whole life, and rewatch it every few years. Something about the tone and mood hits a particular spot for me. It’s melancholic and nostalgic, but funny enough to keep from being bleak. And I think it does a masterful job of juxtaposing stories of childhood with the political and cultural climate of the time.

Raymond Carver

His stories occupy a similar space in my heart to The Wonder Years. I discovered his writing around age 20 and I return to his stories almost every summer, which was the season I first read Where I’m Calling From. His writing heavily influenced my earlier work like Hospice, less in style than tone. Every story leaves me hanging with a kind of unresolved sadness that’s hard to describe, but is everywhere once you become aware of it.

Yo La Tengo

Quite possibly my favorite band of all time. I’d have thought others like Radiohead would take that title, considering how obsessed I was with them when I was a teenager. But Yo La Tengo might be the only band I’ve consistently listened to since then, and I’ve only come to love them more as I’ve gotten older. Beyond their music, something about the way they present themselves to the world is admirable to me — humble and private, content to just keep making varied and interesting records until the end of time. They don’t seem to take themselves too seriously, but their craftsmanship is real and undeniable.

The Simpsons (Seasons 1-8)

I grew up watching The Simpsons and continued to watch these early seasons on repeat all through my 20s and into my 30s. I’ve likely seen these episodes hundreds of times at this point, and could recite much of it from memory. I have a few friends with whom Simpsons references are its own language and shorthand. I think it’s safe to say this show is fully responsible for my sense of humor. Though my music has been described as “dead fucking serious”, those that know me will tell you I’m constantly making jokes and am not very serious at all.

The Beatles

Alright, this may seem like an obvious choice, but hear me out. I’ve been listening to them since I was a very little kid, and my relationship to their music has evolved throughout the course of my life. They taught me that a song can be anything, sound like anything, have any shape to it, that there are no rules whatsoever. Sgt. Pepper was my favorite album when I was 9 years old, and my first experience of a concept album. I would lie on the floor listening to “Within You, Without You” in the dark, with my lava lamp bubbling, experiencing the inklings of an altered state brought on by music and atmosphere.

In my teens, they showed me you could make accessible, tight pop songs and wild noise experiments and have them live on the same album. In my 20s, George opened my eyes to the spiritual potential of songwriting, setting me on a path to change my mind and my life’s trajectory. In my 30s and beyond, listening to them has served as a constant reminder to follow my creative instincts and ignore outside expectations. The circumstances change but the music lasts.

5 On My Mind:

Soul Music

I’ve loved classic soul as long as I can remember, and have gone in and out of phases of obsession with it. The most recent phase was brought about by discovering an amazing local radio station, Fox Oldies. In between the occasional jangly 60s bubblegum pop, they play a lot of seriously deep soul cuts. So I’ve been leaving that station on in my car all summer, and building my own long and sprawling soul playlist, which includes popular staples like Otis Redding and Percy Sledge, but is mostly those less familiar like The Originals, George Jackson, Bettye Swann, etc. I’ve been trying to learn how the songs work, too. Charting the chords, learning to sing them, attempting to write my own.

The Dark Wizard

Watched this documentary a few weeks ago and was so moved by it. I’ve seen a handful of climbing documentaries, but Dean Potter was the first subject that has felt relatable. He was an artist, deeply in touch with the spiritual nature of his work, inspired by recurring dreams but battling an addiction to peak experiences and above all else, his ego. His feats were superhuman, but his struggles were deeply human.

The Way

I found this book in a local bookstore, published some time in the early 70s. The pages are so old, they tear if I turn them too quickly. By its own description, it’s “An anthology of American Indian literature”, which includes perspectives on the many aspects of the plight of indigenous people in North America over the last couple hundred years. There are first-hand accounts of interactions with the encroaching government and settlers trying to push these people off their ancestral lands. There are explanations of the complex internal politics between and within tribes. There are even jokes among the indigenous people, mocking the encroachers. It’s a difficult but illuminating read.

Anna by the Window

My friend K Hover brought us to a screening of this film they acted in a few years ago, which is only now being released. I knew nothing going into it, and didn’t know what to expect from these young independent local filmmakers. But it was so good — beautifully shot in a mostly guerilla style throughout NYC, following a grieving son as he skateboards and subways around the city with his late father’s briefcase. It’s surreal and vibrant and a bit cryptic. An added bonus was the cameo by a sweet white pitbull, who attended the premiere and pretty much stole the show, walking around the theater eating popcorn off the ground and licking faces.

Graze the Bell - David Moore

So, full disclosure that David is a dear friend and bandmate in Cowboy Sadness. But his latest record remains my favorite of this year. Solo piano in its entirety, incredibly dynamic and emotional without being melodramatic or sentimental. One of the most purely human recordings ever put to tape, and certainly unrivaled in this age where such a feat as this one is incredibly rare. The album feels like a celebration and eulogy for humanity and all our potential, limitations, and capacity for love.

Peter Silberman is a singer, songwriter and producer based in New York’s Hudson Valley. He is best known as the front-person and primary creative force behind the long-running indie band The Antlers. His writing explores relationships, grief and mortality, drawing inspiration from Buddhist philosophy and the natural world.

The Antlers Instagram

Ben Davies Crisp is a Californian-based author whose debut short story collection, And So I Took Their Eye, was published in July, 2025. His writing has appeared in Electric Literature, The International Times, Huck, and others.

He serves as an editor for the Ginosko Literary Journal , is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, teaches at California College of the Arts, and is the co-founder and director of Studio Luce, a Guatemalan writing retreat and artist residency.

If you’d like to be featured on 5&5 send Ben a message on Instagram.

5&5 with Guatemalan Designers, Nada Duele

Ben Davies Crisp — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:18:14 GMT

Nada Duele are a sustainable design studio based in Guatemala, dedicated to the creation of design objects and accessories that blend traditional craftsmanship with a contemporary vision. Led by multidisciplinary artists Gigi MacDonald and Mariano Orellana (Mariano also designed the Studio Luce logo), they create some of the most stunningly original pieces you could hope for. From their rugs to their ironwork, glassware to clothing, Gigi and Mariano’s work is endlessly creative, exciting and unique (Studio Luce is home to so much of their work). For anyone visiting Guatemala, their new store in Antigua should be a must visit (they also ship!).

It was a pleasure to host them both for this special two-person edition of 5&5. Read on to discover what inspires their unique vision, and be sure to check out their work! And subscribe with the button below to receive more 5&5’s in your inbox.

5 That Shaped Me - Gigi

Sculpture: Henry Moore, Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi

These are three sculptors who really informed my design aesthetic, and who were very present in my mind when I was developing the visual language of Nada Duele. I remember going to a Henry Moore exhibition in Toronto in my twenties and just falling hard. His work had a real impact on me... it changed the way I thought about form, volume and creating in general. All three remain huge inspirations.

La Nouvelle Vague

The French New Wave was a huge inspiration for me in terms of storytelling. I remember there being a very clear before and after discovering that school of cinema. It completely shifted my understanding of what filmmaking and storytelling could be: looser, more intimate, more playful and less concerned with following the rules.

Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon by Devendra Banhart

This album felt incredibly important to me when I discovered it at 19. There’s this cheeky naïveté that Banhart does so well that really hit me back then. Whether it directly inspired me or not, I don’t know, but it was definitely playing in the background while I was learning how to be creative and figuring out what my own creativity looked like. I still love how he never seems to take himself too seriously.

Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky’s work, and more specifically his lines. I was obsessed with the way he drew lines... the looseness and movement of them, and how something so simple could carry so much personality and emotion. That stayed with me.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

It was the most romantic book I had ever read, and I think, in a way, it still is. It had a huge impact on me because I was completely enamoured by this idea of loving someone so deeply, connecting with their art on such an intimate level, and being part of a creative movement together. That whole world felt incredibly seductive to me. And Patti is just so fucking cool.

5 That Shaped Me - Mariano

Mid-Century Modern & My Mother

I grew up in a very creative home. My mom is a collector and self-taught restorer of Mid-Century Modern objects, with over a thousand pieces, from large furniture to smaller design objects, mostly hand-made. Growing up, we’d always go to vintage shops.

She taught me how to recognize handmade objects and that really stuck with me, the value of handmade, timeless pieces. Later, when I started my career in design, I’d often go to the objects in our home for inspiration. It was like living in a mini Mid- Century Modern museum, curated by the most creative person I know. My design idols are Ray and Charles Eames, Isamu Noguchi, Pierre JeanneretK==

Ce Jour-Là by Willy Ronis

This book completely changed how I see the world. When I graduated high school at 17, I took a gap year and moved to France to learn a new language, culture, and figure out what I wanted to study. One day, walking around a small city called Laval, I went into a media store and came across Ce Jour-Là (That Very Day) by photojournalist Willy Ronis.

In the book, Ronis curated some of his favorite photographs, and tells the story of how he came across each moment, describing his emotions and how his best photographs often came from things he never intended to capture. It taught me to be present and pay attention to everything happening around me. I can now get much more inspiration from a walk or a metro ride for example, than from a museum or gallery.

Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar has been my favorite filmmaker since I saw Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, I was probably 18 or 19. I love how unapologetically visual his films are: the characters, colors, furniture, clothes, architecture and objects. Most of all, I love that nothing feels afraid of being too much. Something incredibly beautiful can exist next to something completely absurd, in the characters, the scenery and of course, the plots.

There’s humor, drama and chaos happening within the same frame, and I love that. I think it really shaped my taste for maximalism and contrast, and inspires me to create visual identities and pieces that have a personality of their own.

Early Tools: Microsoft Paint & PowerPoint

I started school in 1999, so I grew up in that era when commercial computers were changing fast. The day I discovered Paint at school in technology class I couldn’t believe it. The first thing I did when I got home was check on our computer to see if we had it, and we DID. 6 year old me would spend hours fighting with my brothers for computer time. It was never enough. The same thing happened when I discovered PowerPoint, especially WordArt.

When I was 11 my parents briefly had a small deli/convenience store close to our house and using PowerPoint, I would make some of the flyers for weekly specials. So I guess, thanks, Microsoft for having cool tools. It’s funny that I’m only now realizing my passion for graphic design started there. Also, shoutout to my dad, he had a PALM device and he would let me use it all the time to draw on the app it had, that little built-in pen it had would feel like such a professional.

The artists on my iPod.

Around the early 2010’s I started exploring music on my own. I was lucky to come across artists that changed the way I experienced music and culture early on. I was into artists like The Strokes, alt-J, Chet Faker, Frank Ocean and Lana Del Rey. They all sounded completely different, but what connected them for me was how strongly they seemed to create their own worlds.

Lana was one who influenced me the most. I discovered her on Tumblr, when Video Games came out in 2011, and I became fascinated by her ability to turn music into storytelling. Her songs felt like characters, places, memories. I started listening to music differently. Whenever I hear a song I love, I’ll immediately start imagining the music video, the setting, the characters, the colors.

This period in alternative music taught me the power of a concept and storytelling, that a simple idea can become much bigger when you build an entire world around it. Music strongly influences the way I approach visual storytelling and design.

5 On My Mind - Gigi

Luca Guadagnino

I can’t stop thinking about his films. To me, he’s reinventing the wheel in terms of filmmaking. They’re romantic, thrilling and pure aesthetic joy. And the set design...c’mon!! Such beautiful films.

Wet Leg

I’m obsessed with their new album, Moisturizer, and specifically “mangetout,” but really with them as a band in general. They have this rare ability to sound like they couldn’t care less while writing absurdly catchy songs. It’s deadpan, sarcastic and slightly chaotic, but the music is incredibly tight. Love them!

Haruki Murakami

I always come back to Murakami, and somehow he never bores me. There’s something about the worlds he creates—the loneliness, surrealism, strange little details and dreamlike quality that I can return to over and over again..

Ananas Ananas

I’ve been really into this LA-based creative studio run by two female designers who merge design, food and art. Their approach feels so contemporary, and I love seeing new and unexpected ways of relating to design. They create installations and food performances where all these disciplines blur into one another. It just feels so fresh and modern.

Craftsmanship

An obvious one for me, but craftsmanship is something I will always come back to. I’m endlessly fascinated by the talent of the artisans we work with, and by artisans around the world who use generational and traditional techniques to make extraordinary things with their hands, with honesty and intention. Glass, wood, ceramics, iron, textiles, natural fibres... I will never get tired of it. It’s ultimately one of the biggest reasons Nada Duele exists.

5 On My Mind - Mariano

Neil Krug

I discovered Neil through Lana’s albums, he has photographed most of her album covers and creates the imagery around them, documenting the process creating a world for each record. He also collaborates with other artists I love, Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

I started following his personal projects as well. Every piece is rich in many things, color, texture, emotion, concept, they all feel like paintings. He quickly became one of my favorite photographers/visual artists. An artist I look up to and an inspiration to explore the world of analog photography.

aLex vs aLex (AKA Sofia Insua)

I first met Sofia briefly through mutual friends around 2018, they mentioned she was a singer and I’ve followed her work since. Her recent solo project is really exciting. I love the music, the styling and the graphics, which are all honestly 10/10.

She’s an artist I genuinely think is worth paying attention to. Her music is contemporary, experimental and very intentional all at once. She has also toured alongside artists I already love, including Rusowsky and Chet Faker, which makes me even more excited to see where she takes the project next.

Mena Guerrero

One day, walking through a neighboring town with some friends, we passed a house on a corner. Through the door, we caught a glimpse of paintings and were immediately drawn in. Mena was at the entrance and offered us a tour. That day she was finishing paintings for her first exhibition.

Since then, Mena’s practice has taken her far beyond Guatemala, with exhibitions and projects across Europe, Asia and Latin America. She is a transdisciplinary artist, moving between painting, sculpture, installation, performance, voice and poetry, bringing together art, philosophy, anthropology, research and experimentation.

In both form and thought, she has become one of my favorite artists. I’ve also had the opportunity to collaborate with her, co-creating the visual identity for one of her projects, La Procesual, a space for artistic learning and encounters. Watching her practice grow from that first glimpse of paintings through a doorway to an increasingly international career has been really special.

Frede Studio

Frede Studio is my personal favorite jewelry brand. I’ve always been drawn to jewelry, but it’s not every day that I come across a studio with such a distinct identity where every piece is handmade, slow-made and completely unique.

Founded in Montreal in 2023, Frede Studio has been a project I’ve admired since day one. Frede’s approach to jewelry is chef’s kiss. Every piece feels like it has its own personality, and I always get the feeling that the silver is still in liquid form when I look at her work.

Frede is also a close friend I met through Gigi, who has been her best friend for years. I love being surrounded by people whose creative practice I naturally connect with. Earlier this year, we collaborated through Nada Duele, co-creating three pendants inspired by rocks and shells collected on beach walks. I also worked with her on the studio’s rebrand, creating a custom logo inspired by the organic lines in her jewelry.

Fueguita Studio

I’m wrapping this up with Fueguita Studio, one of my best friend’s brands. Fueguita creates upcycled, one-of-a-kind clothing and tableware. Each piece feels alive through the studio’s use of color, pattern and texture. Saci, the creative mind behind the project, grew up in Hungary and often saw her grandmother embroidering. After moving to Guatemala, she found embroidery, a familiar craft that became a bridge back to her roots.

I really admire the brand’s commitment to sustainability. What never fails to impress me is Saci’s ability to see potential in what others have discarded. Her curation of pieces before they are transformed is a rare instinct/talent. She seems to already see the new piece hiding inside the old one.

As you can tell by now, I’ve chosen several people I know, or that I’m close with for this section. Not simply because they are my friends, but because I genuinely admire what they do. I feel very lucky to be surrounded by so many creative people who inspire, support and challenge each other. I really believe in community, and in using every space we have to celebrate not only our own work, but also the people and projects that are close to our hearts.

Nada Duele is a sustainable design studio based in Guatemala, dedicated to the creation of design objects and accessories that blend traditional craftsmanship with a contemporary vision.Founded in 2019, the studio collaborates with master artisans across Guatemala to craft unique, responsible, and timeless pieces, ensuring the preservation of traditional crafts while supporting job creation.

Each creation tells a story of heritage and sustainability. Through recycled blown glassware, lambswool pieces, stone artifacts, and iron accents, Nada Duele celebrates Guatemala’s beauty and traditions while promoting an environmentally conscious lifestyle. The studio is led by multidisciplinary artists Gigi MacDonald and Mariano Orellana.

5&5 with Songwriter, Jeffrey Silverstein

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:30:34 GMT

Photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/maiagryskiewicz/

5&5 is back, and this time with singer-songwriter Jeffrey Silverstein. Jeffrey only came on my radar recently, yet I’ve been playing his music non-stop ever since. He already has two albums under his belt, with his third, Doggone, arriving October 22nd (with lead-single, Out of Tune, featuring some vocals from the brilliant Devendra Banhart).

Described as “loner-folk, cosmic country, and kraut-laden choogle,” Jeffrey’s sound is tailor-made for long summer evenings, floating out as you crack open a beer and light up the BBQ. Cinematic yet classic country, blending an endless groove with mellow folk, it deserves everyone’s attention.

We were so happy to host him on 5&5. Check out Jeffrey’s choices below and go explore his music.

Curated by

5 That Shaped Me

Old Joy

It’s hard to argue with a film that stars Will Oldham, has a soundtrack by Yo La Tengo and is directed by Kelly Reichardt. I love art that is centered around friendship between two people. Even better when it’s a road film. I love the pace, dialogue, and subtle comedy Reichardt achieves while adapting the Jon Raymond short story of the same title. ‘Sorrow is nothing but worn out joy.’ That line will stick with me forever. This is the movie that made me want to live in the Pacific Northwest.

Concert for Bangladesh

My dad showed me this concert film for the first time while I was home from college. Something about seeing George in that white suit ripping through ‘Wah-Wah’ did something to me. I’ve been a ‘Geroge guy’ ever since. It’s also the first time I witnessed his friendship/love for Billy Preston during the performance. That take of ‘That’s the Way God Planned It’ is never far from my mind.

Easy Rider

I’ve made this film my entire personality at times. Another road/buddy film that I never tire of. Minimal dialogue, perfect performances from Hopper, Nicholson, and Fonda and a legendary soundtrack. ‘Do your own thing in your own time’ has been a mantra of sorts for me throughout the years.

Freaks & Geeks

The greatest one-season television show of all time. Endlessly rewatchable. Such a poignant and moving depiction of being a young person. I often joke that I’ve more or less become Mr. (Jeff) Rosso, the Grateful Dead loving guidance counselor played by Dave Allen.

The Devil & Daniel Johnston

I love hearing music that feels human - music with mistakes, where you feel like you’re hearing the person’s true self. I don’t think I had considered how much I valued this until I found this documentary and Daniel’s music. I felt like I kind of ‘woke up’. There is always equal part joy/comedy and pain in Daniel’s music. I’m always looking for art that sits at that intersection.

5 On My Mind

Misha Panfilov - Days As Echoes

Misha doesnt miss. He’s output is remarkable - he seems to be acutely aware that the most important thing is to keep going. I put this album on when I need to slow my mind down, when I’m not sure what else to listen to, and when I need to get back into my body. I love introducing people to Misha’s music, feel grateful to call him a friend/collaborator, and cannot wait for the day he comes to the states to tour.

How to With John Wilson

This is the only show that makes me miss living in NYC. I love how John treats everyone of his subjects with dignity, respect, and curiosity. Every episode is strangely fascinating and oftentimes leaves me in tears. Really just one of the best television series I’ve ever seen. Highly recommend listening to John on WTF with Marc Maron.

Impossible Way of Life

I have never listened to a podcast more consistently in my life. Hosts James Younger and Johnny Payne have done something really special - turned a podcast which inehernely is just two really good friends talking about the music they love into an entire community of musicians, producers/engineers, and music lovers at large all supporting one another as we figure out how to keep it together in this goddamn impossible way of life (participating in the music industry at large).

Buddy Emmons - Steel Guitar Icon

I am so lucky to live in a city that has so many top tier pedal steel players. I’ve learned so much from each of them — many of whom cite Buddy Emmons as their true north when it comes to technique, tone and style. Steve Fishel has written a fascinating biography and loving tribute to a true pioneer on the instrument. It expands your view of such a groundbreaking artist and his impact on country music, jazz, and beyond.

Perfect Days

Perfect days is a damn near perfect film. It is a reminder of what is lost everyday when we don’t operate from a place of gratitude and curiosity. It really made me miss having a cassette player in my car.

* Jeffrey is the second person to pick Perfect Days, after Laura Quirke of Lemoncello. A must-watch.

Meeting at the intersection of the loner-folk, cosmic country and kraut-laden choogle, from Doggone’s opening pulse of rhythms to its closing cascade of synths, listeners encounter a musician fully rooted in the creative community around him and firmly held by the life he’s built over the last decade.

Where his past several releases saw the New Jersey native settling into life in the Pacific Northwest – observing, appreciating, getting the lay of the land – and finding his footing in the alt-Americana sphere into which he unexpectedly fell, with Doggone, he’s immovable, intentional, and most of all, at peace.

Committed to nurturing his local circle, he called upon a faithful group of Portland-based collaborators, a rolodex of heroes-turned-friends, like producer-composer Ryan Oxford (Y La Bamba, Rose City Band), bassist Alex Chapman, and drummer Dana Buoy (Akron/Family). Together they gathered at the Center for Sound, Light and Color Therapy to record Doggone, which was then mastered by Amy Dragon (Big Thief, Nathaniel Rateliff and Moon Duo).

He also left plenty of room for others to be welcomed into the fold, with freak folk hero Devendra Banhart offering guest vocals on the album’s lead single, ‘Out of Tune’, which is out today. Built around a mellow country groove and dreamy cosmic pedal steel, it’s a sweet and chilled out indie love song about being in sync with your person, moving through the universe as one while still upholding your individuality.

Call it comfort, call it kismet – what resulted with Doggone was nine tracks backlighting life, love, and purpose, like doggone wonders held up to the light. The album explores themes of community, aging, carving out your own version of success, planting seeds and growing roots, and the impact of place on creative work.

Jeffrey’s latest album exists in a world between worlds. One is a nether region of cinematic eyelid movies, definitely set somewhere out west in the nighttime. The other is earthbound and rooted and in daylight and swings with the best of my guys - JJ and Jerry and Dr. John and all the best ones. This is a world I wanna live in… this record is right in my wheelhouse.” -

Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats)

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If you’d like to be featured on 5&5 send Ben a message on Instagram.

5&5 with Author, Rosa Rankin-Gee

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:59:28 GMT

There are some books that, as you’re reading them, you know you’ll end up recommending to everyone you know. Dreamland—Rosa Rankin-Gee’s second novel and soon to be a BBC series—was one of those books. Part dystopian political thriller, part love story, I couldn’t stop reading it, thinking about it, and then talking about it to anyone who showed an ounce of interest. Following it up with her recent brilliant novel, My Only Boy, just cements Rosa’s position as one of the most exciting, interesting writers out there.

My Only Boy tells the story of a surprising romance between ‘Elle, who has dated only women for as long as she can remember, and Ed, a writer billed as “the great gay novelist of our times.”’ It is a love story told with such delicacy, joy and warmth, yet it unfolds against the backdrop of a frighteningly plausible future Britain: one of rising temperatures, creeping fascism and mounting desperation. It not only pulls you into this terrifyingly believable future but also forces you to ask questions of yourself: what would you do, and how would you act in this world? Would you resist the growing oppression around you, stand by in silence, or even, as Rosa explores, become complicit?

Simply put, My Only Boy is one of the best books of the year, and everyone should go down to their local bookshop and grab a copy.

It therefore goes without saying that we were delighted to host Rosa on Studio Luce’s 5&5 and get her ten picks.

Curated by

5 That Shaped Me

The Sound of Music

I watched this probably once a week through my childhood. Its length was part of the initial appeal - allowed a film? pick a long one - but it’s also beautiful. I will talk about the relationship between musicals and anti-fascism/imperialism to anyone who will let me (granted, I haven’t found that person yet) but there is something that has been very formative to me in my own work about the collision of the infinitely personal and the broader political. At this point, the music is sewn into my body.

Z for Zachariah – Robert C. O’Brien

When I was an early teenager I did a quiz (the internet was basically all quizzes then) which was supposed to be able to predict whether I was male or female due to my answers. My result: 99% male, mostly due to the fact I had answered ‘yes’ to the sentence ‘in certain lights, nuclear war is exciting’. Monumentally stupid of me, and I do not think this any more. But apocalypse, and surviving it: it’s always captured my fear and my imagination. I blame Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien for this.

Chet Baker: Best of Chet Baker Sings

I also know every note of this album. I have given it to people I have loved, both requitedly and unrequitedly. Mostly unrequitedly. I still, after so many listens, hear something new each time, and it is suffused with melancholy and nostalgia which is (I’m sorry everyone) part of my mode as a writer, and probably a person.

The Fauvists / Pierre Bonnard

On the other side of melancholy and nostalgia: joy, brightness. The first time I went to Paris my whole body and brain said yes to it: I wanted to live there. The same thing happened to me the first time I saw the work of the fauvists - the explosion of unnatural colours, the freedom and dance. It felt impossible to me that they could not have been happy as they painted. Bonnard is not a fauvist, but there are moments. His retrospective at the Musee D’Orsay a decade ago was the first time I had a Stendhal moment. The sheer beauty, the scale and tenderness of it; tears streamed down my face.

Bad Girls (specifically Helen and Nikki)

I ummed and erred about which bit of lesbian culture to shout out here, but I have to be true to my roots. Bad Girls was a not-excellent TV drama set in a women’s prison. A place where you will always find…. Lesbians. One particular storyline - the head of the prison and a clever, bookish inmate - captured my imagination for years. I would watch and rewatch scenes. My stomach would flip. It took more time than it should have to truly understand why.

5 On My Mind

Love Themes

I love Love Themes. Even the idea of them - that the composer is going to attempt to capture love in musical form. I particularly love the Love Theme from Spartacus by Alex North, its swoop and soar. I love how it can be reinterpreted, and how love changes each time, but also keeps some kind of essence: the Yusuf Lateef version, Daudi Mitsiko’s, Bill Evans. Love Theme was an alternative title for My Only Boy.

The Line of Beauty

In the aftermath of finishing a novel, I often come across a novel (someone else’s!) where I think - that was exactly what I was trying to do; they’ve just done it better. With my first novel, The Last Kings of Sark, it was Bonjour Tristesse, not the subject matter, but the mode. With My Only Boy, it was Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty. It came out 21 years ago. I think it’s a perfect thing. I finished it standing in the queue at an airport in Florida, tears streaming down my face, and just thought: what an extraordinary feat.

Subaru WRX

I only learned to drive last year, cruising into my late 30s, and I did so on a Subaru WRX - a turbo-charged, stick shift rally race car with a hood scoop and tight clutch (I don’t know what any of these things mean). It’s my late father-in-law’s car. He loved it. I drive it ferociously badly, but I’m getting better and driving has opened new worlds for me. It changes the shape of the landscape, it changes the sound of music. Car people know this particular car is a work of art. So they are very surprised when they are stuck behind me, when I’m maxing out in 3rd gear.

Children of Men

For my past two novels, I’ve spent a lot of time in close-future Britain. In Margate 2039, with sea levels crashing inland; in London in the next few years, with an extreme-right coalition in power. Cuaron’s adaptation is impeccable in its world building. The opening of that movie is so flawless - every beat counts - that I teach it.

Loved and Missed

I suffer from that common affliction of forgetting every book I’ve ever read as soon as someone asks me what I’ve liked recently. A novel I don’t forget is Susie Boyt’s Loved and Missed. I first read it in one sitting in the library. It’s deft, haunting, funny, spare, devastating. I have certainly ruined a few birthdays and Christmases by giving it to people as a present. But they eventually recover, and then pass on the beautiful pain.

Rosa Rankin-Gee is the author of three novels. Her first, The Last King of Sark, won Shakespeare & Company’s Paris Literary Prize. Her second, Dreamland, described by Bernardine Evaristo as “a bold, cautionary and uncompromising imagining of a near future-climate dystopia” has been adapted as a major 6-part drama for BBC One, airing later this year. Her most recent novel, My Only Boy, (“electrically entertaining” - The Times; “smart, beautifully written, joyful and terrifying-without doubt, Rankin-Gee's best work yet” - Prospect) came out in May 2026 to critical acclaim. Rosa’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, The Paris Review Daily, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Guardian, among others.

Follow Rosa on Instagram

5&5 with Author and Musician, Jessamyn Violet

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:52:22 GMT

A new 5&5 is here and this time with the brilliant Jessamyn Violet. Jessamyn is the author of novels Secret Rules to Being a Rockstar and Venice Peach. She also works as a producer, director, and plays drums in the band Movie Club.

Anyone lucky enough to have seen Jessamyn read alongside her husband, Vince Cuneo, knows she's one of the most captivating performers around. Incorporating live music into her readings, she brings a fresh energy and atmosphere that transforms what can sometimes be a static book reading into something vibrant and immersive, allowing audiences to experience her words in an entirely new way (here’s to more book events doing this). We were therefore delighted to host her for 5&5.

Curated by .

Five That Shaped Me

Francesca Lia Block

As a teenager growing up in a suburb outside of Boston, my world was pretty small and closeminded. Reading FLB’s Weetzie Bat rocked my world like fireworks showing me how big the sky was above me. I was inspired by how much more colorful the world could be if I could just get out there. Brimming with vibrant, offbeat SoCal characters, flavors and imagery, this book and the ensuing whole Dangerous Angels series were like portals to a place where I could soak up all the magic from another universe.

Tom Robbins

I’ll never forget the roller coaster experience of reading Tom Robbins as a teenager. Jitterbug Perfume was the first book of his I opened. Eventually I read and loved them all. He was clearly having pure fun with his job, and it was contagious. The talent on a line-by-line level mixed with bendy, twisty, surreal and sexual plot lines to form quite a potent literary cocktail. So potent that it struck a mad creative spark for me, a bit of a hall pass to do what I wanted. Tom Robbins shows us the pure joy of writing, and his books are steeped in the glorious freedom found within the union of imagination with language.

Natural Born Killers

Oliver Stone blew my mind with this one. The movie felt like an art house secret weapon to my rebellious teenage brain. The way it looks, sounds, feels; the content and characters are so searingly twisted, anarchistic, and romantic in the most deranged way. There is so much meaning and societal commentary packed into it in the coolest ways. I watched it over and over. The in-between shots that are warped, burned, distorted in gorgeous ways that add to the feel. The scorching lines that cannot be forgotten. Juliette Lewis singing, “Guess I was born, naturally born, born bad…” in a jail cell before running into a window. The acting is incredible, plus the soundtrack completely rocked my world. It was a film that torpedoed me into the adult world. I felt older and more experienced just watching it.

Kurt Cobain

This is a cult artist you’ve probably never heard of. But seriously, Kurt’s beliefs and artistic sensibilities affected me profoundly. At a time when sexism was blatant, he compulsively spoke up for women. It made me feel a particular hope I didn’t get much. He railed against anyone who participated in sexism, bullying, machismo, and racism, regardless of the popularity of these viewpoints in the 90s. He supported lesser-known bands he loved—a trait that makes any popular artist much more endearing, in my opinion. He actively tried to get them attention, he wasn’t pulling the ladder up behind him whatsoever. He was far from an angel; he was obviously very flawed and disturbed, but he still proved a giant artist because he made so many people feel so many things.

Tori Amos

Tori and her first three albums got me through the darkest times of my adolescence. Her punk-level pride in baring her own exceptionally unique and powerfully talented soul made me feel strong on my weakest days. The bare-naked depth of her lyrics inspired me to dig deeper in my own writing and thinking. Her songs soothed me like the coolest lullabies, coaxing me down from any ledge. They became anthemic life rafts, keeping me afloat under her stunning spell of melodic ferocity.

Five on my Mind

X

This punk band from Los Angeles has withstood the tests of time in ways that continue to inspire me. Their first album Los Angeles came out in 1980 and with it arrived their own completely organic and unique sound. All four original members are still playing together and they still sound amazing. The crushing duel vocals of Exene and John Doe are iconic. I want to interview them to explore the sheer tenacity and sustainability they’ve shown over the last 50 years. When you watch them in The Decline of Western Civilization they are as quirky and cool as they are still today. They also do a ton in the literary world: Exene is a published poet, and John has published multiple amazing in-depth books about the history of the punk scene in Los Angeles.

Quentin Tarantino

In general, this guy has written and directed more kickass movies then any human being deserves to make. But what keeps Quentin on my mind these days is the Vista Theater. He took over the beautiful and historic theater in East Hollywood, keeping ticket prices cheap and showcasing both new and classic movies only on film. When I buy a $11 dollar movie ticket, spend $10 on a Diet RC and a bag of popcorn, and sit down just in time for the cartoon previews, my eyes mist up, my soul is so hungry for the experience. I absolutely adore going there and witnessing his own personal way to give back to movie lovers and preserve the parts of going to the movies that he grew up inspired by. Artists preserving the programs and venues within which they themselves got to develop is imperative to keeping the cultural scenes alive in this country.

Muck Rock

I moved to Venice because I fell in love with the vibe as much as the aesthetic, and no street artist ties in with Venice more than the master herself, Jules Muck, aka Muck Rock. Her iconic art covers businesses and homes, garages, fences, vans, tee shirts and trucker hats. She even tattoos from time to time. Jules tours the country several times a year with her dog in a van, setting up commissions and doing impromptu murals everywhere she can. On top of being a highly sought-after muralist, Jules leads addiction meetings out of her backyard and still very much makes herself accessible to punk and underground artists looking to collaborate. She paints the side of a liquor store in my band Movie Club’s music video “Navy Seal,” and was down to work with me on an indie publishing budget to design the cover of my book Venice Peach. She is nothing short of a local hero.

Mae Martin

What can I say? I just love Mae. When I first saw their show “Feel Good” I was like, “where has this person been my whole life?” Their brand of comedy is uniquely appealing and nostalgic to me. Mae mixes the dark with the light, the self-awareness with self-deprecation, and their earnest brand of sarcasm/sensitivity/sketchiness is brilliant. Mae also works on so many different forms of art: stand-up comedy, acting, writing, drawing/painting, making and performing music, directing. They move between art forms without worrying about whether their people will follow them. I think Mae is out there kicking ass at an incredibly difficult time to kick ass, and I hope they feel how important they are to the artistic universe.

You

YOU. Yes, I mean you. You’re on my mind right now. If you made it through this piece, I thank you for taking the time to see me. These oversaturated times have made us all feel invisible to some degree. As I look over this list, I realize there are a lot of bigger names on it. Artists who got to make such a profound impact on me and countless others born before the ‘90s, simply because we were limited to the physical objects within our reach. We had to borrow or own a copy, and once we did, we treasured it, revisiting it over and over. Their art wore grooves in us. We could quote entire movies, speak in song verses, reread books until the pages crumbled at the edges and the spine fell out of the cover.

It’s near impossible to make such a deep impression these days. Even musicians selling out giant venues or authors on bestsellers charts can be completely off a lot of radars. As for indie artists, it can feel like a very costly full-time job just to stay on twenty peoples’ radars for more than a day. It’s truly unparalleled times, and I want you to know that you matter. To me, and to every other artist out there, whether they acknowledge it or not. In a time when it feels like there’s not enough to go around, it’s even more important to celebrate each other’s accomplishments. So, to everyone who I can’t see reading this right now, I’m rooting for you. Let’s all keep going, if only for that incomparable feeling of satisfaction we get from making the best art we can with the tools at our disposal, seeing it to the finish line, and releasing it into the abyss without fear or expectation. Let’s be racehorses with blinders on, knocking our tired hooves against the dusty track, focused only on producing things that matter deeply to us.

And let’s allow this to be the modern definition of true success.

Jessamyn Violet is the author of novels Secret Rules to Being a Rockstar and Venice Peach. She also works as a producer, director, and plays drums in the band Movie Club. More info can be found at jessamynviolet.com.

Jessamyn's Instagram

5&5 with GoldFlakePaint

Studio Luce — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:08:38 GMT

Music journalism isn't what it used to be. I miss teenage Sunday mornings spent waiting outside the local newsagent, desperate to grab the latest copy of Q, NME, or Uncut and delve inside their pages to discover all the new music inside. Hours upon hours, month after month, year after year, poring over every page, devouring every review, interview, feature. That was until so many publications began to disappear from our shelves as the music world moved online, and the algorithms began to dictate. Just like that, a particular thrill was lost from my life, and the lives of so many others.

That was until I found GoldFlakePaint.

Though I only discovered GoldFlakePaint a few years ago, it was founded back in 2010 by Tom Johnson, and is quietly setting the standard for what music journalism ought to be. GoldFlakePaint proves that music writing can still deliver such joy, passion and fun into our lives, serving as a vital counter-weight to the way most consume music. I’ve found more incredible music through GoldFlakePaint in the last two years than any streaming algorithm could ever throw at me, and really can’t recommend it enough to any music lovers out there.

With that in mind, it was a true delight to host GoldFlakePaint on 5&5 and read what Tom had to share. Check out his choices below, and make sure to subscribe to GoldFlakePaint to keep essential, independent journalism alive.

Curated by Ben Davies Crisp.

GoldFlakePaint

5 That Shaped Me

The Modern Leper – Frightened Rabbit

I hope anyone reading this has a song that genuinely changed their life, because it’s a special kind of relationship to carry with you. I was very lost within the course of my life when Frightened Rabbit released The Midnight Organ Fight, so I’m not sure if I found it or it found me. Maybe both of are true when it comes to the things we love the most. I used to listen to The Modern Leper, the album’s opening track, on the walk home from work, learning how to time it perfectly so that it ended just before I got back to a house and a version of my life I knew I had to leave. This song gave me the energy to make that leap and it changed the trajectory of my whole life. It sounds grandiose, but it’s true. I still think “you can tell me all about what you did today” is the most romantic line ever written.

Kelly Reichart

The fuzzy details around it have washed away with time but I have a really strong memory of watching Old Joy and Wendy & Lucy, two films by Kelly Reichart, in the space of couple of days and it having a really profound effect on me. I’ve always loved film, it was the only thing I wanted to study when I was thinking about university but that dream passed me by. Both of these film are so…slight, small snapshots of life in just a short space of time, but both are so incredibly human and moving. I think both reflect the kind of music I love the most, the way I write about it too, perhaps. Gentle explorations into the fabric of this funny thing we call life.

Raymond Carver

Much like stumbling upon Reichart’s films, discovering Carver’s short stories was another moment where my reaction was ‘wait, you’re allowed to do that?”. They’re also mostly small, sad, and strikingly human too. I can’t remember now how I found his work, but I’m not sure I would have started writing myself without it. The way he can paint such vivid portraits of people and places in such a small amount of time is endlessly fascinating, some of his stories last just a couple of pages but leave you feeling like you’ve inhabited an entire world, an entire person. They’re often sad, sometimes mean and unflinching, but they can be beautiful too, even when bruised. There’s always a single line or word that brings the whole thing together even if the wider piece is left somewhat ambiguous. Like Reichart, however he approaches his work it’s only ever interested in the heart, whether that’s one full of love or pain.

August & Everything After – Counting Crows

I tried to think of the ‘earliest album I loved that I still love today’ and the best answer I could come up with was Counting Crows debut. There are some truly bad moments on this record, but it has a kind of endearingly sincere heart that I’ve carried with me since my early teen years and still digs away at me today. It’s something to do with the grandeur, I think. The earnestness that underpins it all. It begins with a snapshot of a person walking out a front door, before the the songs quietly open out across the street, the town, the whole world. There’s a lyric about the protagonist always being able to hear a train if they listen closely enough, which conjured an image in my head 25 years ago and has always stuck with me. It made me dream big in my small world.

Elliott Smith

Though I don’t listen to his work very much at all these days, for a whole number of reasons I don’t need to pick apart here, Elliott probably had as profound an effect on the shape of my life as anyone else. Though some of his songs are almost too painful, he was also a far brighter, more playful songwriter than he’s given credit for, and some of his ‘love’ songs are among the most beautiful ever written. It wasn’t all death and darkness, is what I’m trying to say, though it’s so hard to differentiate that from his work now. However, there was a time when his music felt like one of my only true companions. His lyrics provided me with the name of my blog that has become a huge part of my identity and fundamentally changed my life. And he brought me one of my best friends in the whole world, who I got an Elliott Smith tattoo with. Thanks, Elliott.

5 On My Mind

Biita Houdei - This Bed Was Made For Me

Sometimes in my work I’m lucky to hear things before their wider release. I’ve been so obsessed with this with forthcoming debut record from Biita Houdei that I’ve had to force myself to stop listening to it until it’s properly released. She made it with Sahil Ansari and the wonderful songwriter Hayley Heynderickx, in Haley’s first lead production role, and it’s this beautiful, magical, weaving of stories and traditions, colour and characters. It feels wide and free and alive, like a rush of growth after warm rain. I was going to say it sounds something like Vashti Bunyan fronting a folky version of Animal Collective but then I remembered that already happened. If you like their collab’ then go and check out the first single from the album which is out now. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Nirvanna the band, the show / the film

I’m not sure there’s a better feeling than stumbling upon something that has existed for years, that should have found a way into your world, but somehow didn’t. Until it did. That’s how I feel about Nirvanna the band the show (& the film). I can’t believe it’s existed all this time without me knowing. I can’t believe I could have lived my life without these silly boys in it. It’s up there with best of the best; one of the silliest, funniest, perfectly crafted comedy shows (/films) I’ve ever seen. The show was a cult success in Canada, running for two series, and then the film followed last year, and took the whole thing to a mind-blowing level for what was essential a charming but silly sitcom. And I almost missed it altogether. Good to know, good to remember, that life can change in instant.

How to… with John Wilson

Even when I’m just writing about a song, I think I try and approach from a point of being fascinated by the person at the heart of it. What are they saying, and why are they saying it? Where are they speaking from, and to who? I think all of the nuances that come with those questions open up an entire world to explore, parts of which you can make sense of, others you absolutely can’t. I think John Wilson is the genius of this form of exploring. A documentary maker from New York, his show ran for 3 seasons and features him wandering around NYC with his video camera, showing us simple scenes, or meeting characters, all of which he then weaves together to form the narrative of each episode: ‘How To Watch Birds’, ‘How To throw out your batteries’, etc etc. It is a hard sell in written form but it might be the greatest thing a human has ever achieved. Weird, raw, grotesque, charming, heartbreaking, and so relentlessly, painfully funny. I can’t even begin to fathom how he pulls it off. The GOAT.

Thomas Dollblaum - Waterbird

I’m not huge on lists and rankings, but if you pushed me I think I’d pick Thomas Dollblaum’s new one as my favourite record of the year so far. The whole alt-country thing is having a big renaissance right now (MJ Lenderman adds drums and vocals here), but I’m sure this record would have cut through regardless, it’s that good. Birds Of Paradise is his second record, released last month on the excellent Dear Life Records. It’s all gold, but I’m a sucker for a ballad and it’s a grey, heavy day as I write this so I’m particularly obsessed with ‘Waterbirds’. Something to do with the sense of space, something to with the dust lying upon it all. Dollblaum has a Masters in Poetry and that shines through on his lyrics, which are rich and vivid throughout. ‘Waterbirds’ could be a Carver story, in the details, in the vague and enigmatic nature of it. “Don’t you ever hear me? I guess I’ve only been screaming in the back of my head,” he sings as the whole thing sways in the (ugly) setting sun.

Real Estate by Deborah Levy

I bought this from a second-hand bookshop without even reading the synopsis because I’ve loved the few bits of fiction I’ve read by Levy. It turns out it’s the third part of in her Living Autobiography series, but the three books that are only loosely connected so I dived in. I’m quite a slow reader usually, but I ripped through this and found it fascinating and beautiful. A memoir about her life as she approaches her 60th birthday as a divorced woman who lives alone, it’s both beautiful and odd, a winding journey through the different places she calls home during this new chapter of her life. It’s witty and sarcastic, profound and absorbing. I’ve never been an underliner, but there were so many passages in this that me physically react and that I had to scribble down and save for another time. As a friend said to me, she is the queen of saying things simply and honestly. Which gets to the heart of it, I think. “All writing is about seeing new things and investigating them. Sometimes its about seeing new things in old things.”

Launched in 2010, Gold Flake Paint is a gentle online space that shares thoughts about new music alongside occasional in-depth conversations with artists and carefully curated monthly mixtapes.

Over the course of 16 years GFP has been a music blog, physical magazine, cassette label, radio show, live promoter and many other things too. Though many people have played a part in its story, GFP is now run solely by its founder Tom Johnson, who lives in a quiet town by the water outside of Glasgow, Scotland.

5&5 with Singer-Songwriter Le Ren

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:22:49 GMT

5&5 is back and we’re delighted to feature singer-songwriter Le Ren.

Le Ren is a Canadian folk musician and singer-songwriter based in Montreal, Quebec, originally from Bowen Island. If you haven’t listened to her work, you should do so immediately. Le Ren’s is the kind of voice you don’t forget, mixing her gentle folk with piercing lyrics on love, friendship and heartache.

Her debut album, Leftovers, was one of the best albums of 2021. It’s a stunning collection of songs. Her next album, Don’t Be Funny Without Me, will be released in August this year, and you can read more about it below. She has also released two EP’s, and two albums with folk band, Maybel.

We’re so please to host her on Studio Luce’s 5&5. Have a read of her answers below.

Curated by

5 That Shaped Me

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

My dad used to read this to my sisters and me when we were little. I loved the faeries, and I especially loved that one of the characters was named Bottom. The Michael Hoffman film adaptation was a highlight because Rupert Everett as Oberon is HOT!! We named our dog after that character, although I’m not sure the hotness factor was the reason.

Les Miserables soundtrack

I listened to the Les Mis CD on repeat when I was a kid and had absolutely no idea what the musical was actually about. I spent countless hours performing “On My Own” around the house. These days, I bring it to karaoke, where it reliably ruins everyone’s night.

The Secret of Roan Inish

I grew up on Bowen Island, where we had exactly one video store. The selection was small and oddly specific, which meant all of us island kids developed a somewhat skewed sense of what a “classic” movie was. In my mind, everyone knows this one, but apparently not. It’s mythical, spooky, and contains a particularly memorable montage of kids repairing an old thatched cottage. 10/10.

You Were Here – Sarah Harmer

A perfect album. I only really *got it* after I was cheated on and listened to “Coffee Stain” over and over:

There’s a coffee stain

Around your eye

And lines that I don’t recognize

Everything changed

From being okay

The night that you came home

So late

Long live S.H. Our Canadian Queen.

Peter Pan book illustrated by Greg Hildebrandt

Around age thirteen, I played Peter at Tír na nÓg theatre school on Bowen Island, and it was a career highlight. Though I love the play most of all, this book was a whole world for me. Every illustration kind of glows.

5 On My Mind

Circe - Madeline Miller

I read this in two days and cried because I missed the main character when I finished. I still think about her. I love how Circe is a background character in the Odyssey and how the author gives her a full life. It’s so descriptive and, dare I say, lyrical. Her other book, The Song of Achilles, is also devastating which I like >:)

Hacks

Just finished this series and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Some of my favourite love stories are between friends, and I think this is a perfect example of that. Hoping for a Schaefer & LuSaque spinoff.

A Song for You

Great bio written by Whitney Houston’s ex-lover, coworker and friend. I liked the photo pages in the middle, more books should have that. I also enjoyed all the descriptions of Robyn watching her sing (i.e., at church or doing the national anthem). “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is still one of my favourite songs.

Laci Kaye Booth - True Love

This song has been on my mind. I love country music because of the puns and wordplay within the genre, something that is very fun a-chord-ing to me. In this song, the narrator finds out her ex is with someone new and asks, “Is it true love?” But we don’t know if she’s saying TRUE LOVE or “true, love?” Throughout the tune, she plays with that phrase in different ways, but ends with “it’s all true, love.” GOD. I learned it immediately on guitar.

My Nephew

I don’t know if this counts, but I am thinking of him constantly. He’s only a couple of months old and is changing so quickly. My grandma is 101, and I love seeing photos of them side by side. I’m thinking of them both a lot these days.

On Don’t Be Funny Without Me (DBFWM), Le Ren tells us, “I love the man I wanted to be,” as a matter of tender fact. She is funny while devastating, self-aware and a little self-deceiving. Across the record, she holds those contradictions close: shameless and ashamed, honest but still searching for a version of the truth that hurts a little less.

At its core, DBFWM explores love, jealousy, and the uneasy ways the two often intertwine. Across the album, Le Ren reflects on emotional entanglements from her twenties and the lingering push-and-pull between attachment, envy, and self-awareness. The result is a record that is both tender and sharply observant, balancing sincerity with a quiet, self-protective humour. Le Ren, if you didn’t already know, is the funny one.

After touring extensively opening for acts like Jeff Tweedy, Devendra Banhart, and Men I Trust, Le Ren returned to Canada to record the album in Mountain Grove, Ontario. Self-produced alongside old friends Fez Gielen and Jonas Bonetta, DBFWM carries a distinctly Canadian sensibility—Le Ren’s lyrics are imbued with that northern endurance, like watching the sunset fade behind the cracked asphalt on avenue du Parc, or from the parking lot of your favourite On Route. Sonically, DBFWM is more expansive than its predecessor: fuller arrangements, layered harmonies, and driving instrumentation that complement Le Ren’s angelic vocals. The record evokes the warmth of classic influences like Emmylou Harris and the emotional edge of Gillian Welch, while remaining firmly rooted in her own evolving voice.

Don’t Be Funny Without Me ends where it begins: with Le Ren craving an uncomplicated, pure love—something closer to her relationship with music itself. In doing so, she sings her evolving, aspirational self into being. Aching and intoxicating, the record feels like a post-breakup road trip with your best friend: no fixed destination, a trunk full of baggage (literal and figurative) and mottled sunlight warming your face through the car window.

The record is out August 28, 2026.

Le Ren's Instagram

5&5 with Bestselling Author, Xochitl Gonzalez

Studio Luce — Tue, 26 May 2026 14:13:46 GMT

This week on 5&5 we welcome the brilliant .

Xochtil is the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning novel Olga Dies Dreaming, the Reese’s Book Club Pick Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and Last Night in Brooklyn, a USA Today national bestseller and Best of Spring 2026 by TIME, Amazon Books, NPR, and more.

We were delighted to host Xochitl and talk about the work that has shaped her, along with the artists and ideas continuing to influence her today.

Curated by Ben Davies Crisp.

5 That Shaped Me

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

I believe this was the first novel I ever read... and there’s an easter egg reference to it in the beginning of Last Night in Brooklyn, if you can find it!

Anything Spike Lee

Who better portrays Brooklyn in film, honestly? I can tell you it’s been a difficult brainstorm trying to imagine anyone else adapting Last Night in Brooklyn.

Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery

I was asked the other day who was my favorite literary heroine, and all these years later, it is still Anne of Green Gables

Saturday Night Fever

These days I’ve been working on my memoir, Need Blind, and have been going back to this movie as such an exemplary tale of Old Brooklyn culture and class at its best... our old mom and pop shops, the economics of layaway, the intensity of relations, the fashion, the dancing, what a time....

Latin Freestyle

I went to see Freestyle: A Love Story off Broadway in March when Justina Machado was on, and just had such a blast, not only because of the show and la gente, but because with my memoir I was already deep in memories of many Saturday mornings past I spent scrubbing our stoop, listening to our Latin freestyle...

5 On My Mind

Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton

What a coincidence (but no surprise) that this powerful song has been trending lately, as it was responsible for such a breakthrough in my last novel when I was finishing it a couple years ago. Last Night in Brooklyn really wouldn’t be what it is without THIS particular song, but you have to read it til the end to see...I still listen to it and cry!

The Battle for Brooklyn

What an amazing documentary that brought back so many scattered memories from a certain time: what our urban life and landscapes used to look like, the energy of our people to fight for them, government corruption and the tricks of the wealthy waiting at every corner...it captured all this and more for a small but mighty special place, in a way I haven’t quite encountered again.

Arlene Gottfried

A few months ago I walked into a random tiny bookstore in Bowery and I couldn’t believe I actually found a book collection of Arlenes! She just photographs New York like no other, and I had been obsessing over her and buying a piece of hers for a long while... This collection is now one of my most prized possessions.

Gods of New York – Jonathan Mahler

This was the last book to make me cry, surprisingly, as nonetheless an excellent example of narrative mixing with investigation.

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

Finally got to read, at my literary agent’s recommendation based on an idea we discussed, since I was straight up in the club when it first came out. But getting to it now, I was able to just luxuriate in it and loved it... What a wild epic!

is the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning novel Olga Dies Dreaming, the Reese’s Book Club Pick Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and Last Night in Brooklyn, a USA Today national bestseller and Best of Spring 2026 by TIME, Amazon Books, NPR, and more.

She is a contributor to The Atlantic, where she was recognized as a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Xochitl's Instagram

Studio Luce | 2027 Open Call Dates

Studio Luce — Thu, 21 May 2026 18:26:49 GMT

Dear friends,

We’re delighted to share our Open Call dates for 2027.

Based on feedback from previous years and from applicants, we will be hosting four open call residencies next year. Each residency will last 13 nights and is open to artists of all disciplines, including writers, musicians, painters, photographers, and more. This is a change from previous years and is intended to bring different disciplines together to encourage inspiration and connection.

We are also offering two free scholarship places specifically for Guatemalan applicants. As ever, every paid residency spot also helps support the El Paredón library and the salary of the local librarian, Mhajo.

FIND OUT MORE

2027 Dates

APRIL 18 – 30
- Application Deadline: November 18, 2026
JUNE 6 – 18
- Deadline: January 6, 2027
AUGUST 1 – 13
- Deadline: March 1, 2027
OCTOBER 3 – 15
- Deadline: May 3, 2027

Additionally, we will be increasing our artist invitations in 2027 to creatives we love and admire, as well as welcoming more private residencies for groups looking to reserve Studio Luce. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.

5&5

We hope you’ve been enjoying our new 5&5 series. We’ve loved speaking with so many incredible artists about what inspired them growing up and what continues to inspire them today. So far we’ve featured , Jared Lemus, , Laura Quirke from , and .

We have some really exciting guests lined up for the coming month and can’t wait to share them with you. Subscribe to Studio Luce or follow us on Instagram to receive them each week.

5&5 with Filmmaker, Tomas Leach

Studio Luce — Tue, 19 May 2026 16:43:54 GMT

Next up on 5&5 is filmmaker, . Tomas’s films have won multiple awards, played festivals worldwide, and been exhibited at The Guggenheim, The Pompidou Centre and The Tate Modern. His first theatrical feature documentary ‘In No Great Hurry’ - about legendary photographer Saul Leiter - featured on many best of the year lists. His second feature ‘The Lure’ about Forrest Fenn’s wild treasure hunt in the Rocky Mountains was EP’d by Errol Morris and described as “Gorgeous” by Vice. He has made films with gold-medal-winning Olympians, prison baseball teams, and more.

5 That Shaped Me

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner – Werner Herzog

When I was just starting to make films, I was obsessed with Werner Herzog. He truly made things differently, in all senses. This fairly short documentary is an amazing example of how he elevates things into the mythic realm. He’s clearly fascinated by the psychology of human beings - that’s the machine that powers all his great works. And that’s what I connected to. With his documentaries like this one, there also just seems to be a curious, truly instinctive way of making them that gets to a depth that not many other filmmakers do.

Protection – Massive Attack

I couldn’t decide which Massive Attack album to choose but Protection is probably the one I’ve listened to most. I think it opened my eyes to how you can be eclectic, have different influences and references, work with all sorts of collaborators and still create something absolutely in your voice. I also once saw Daddy G and Robert Del Naja walking down a street in Bristol humming The Wannadies, which was particularly memorable.

Autoportrait - Édouard Levé

A stunning book that feels like it can’t possibly work. Lists of facts and details about the author presented seemingly without emotion. But then you tumble deeper in and find yourself incredibly engrossed. Much of my work is thinking about how we understand ourselves, and how we present ourselves. How the details all matter. And how observing them portrays someone better than the big statements. This book was pivotal in that.

Sleeping With Ghosts – Don McCullin

I wanted to be a photojournalist for a brief moment before I discovered filmmaking. And McCullin’s work was one of the reasons. So direct and powerful and intimate.

He had this ability to show people in the context of what they were living in searing and open way.

Daniel Kitson’s comedy.

In my teens, I used to listen to comedy tapes to fall asleep. I’m still not really sure why or how that worked but it seared this connection to the form. Daniel Kitson is a British comedian who’s just constantly trying new things and doing things his particular way. A mixture of storytelling, theatre, and stand-up. It’s sentimental, ambitious, pretentious and silly. I feel a deep affinity for it.

5 On My Mind

Telephone Tales - Gianni Rodari

I read a few of these short stories to my daughter’s class the other day and I had to read one of them (Telling Stories Wrong) three times because it had them all cracking up so much. It’s such a brilliant framework for a book: a set of stories that a father (an accountant who often travels for work) calls his daughter with each night at bedtime. They are a mix of imaginary fables and tall tales that sort of sound possible but are also utterly ridiculous and sublime.

The Anthropologists – Ayşegül Savaş

I’ve become a Savaş devotee and I’ve read almost everything that she’s published in book form. This is such a deeply deceptive book. It feels like one of the most insightful and understanding books I’ve read for ages. It feels so tender and observed and funny and right.

The New Eve is Rising – The New Eves

I’m not really sure how you describe this band but they make kind of English folk punk, spoken word, rock magic. The description doesn’t matter anyway. The feeling I get when I listen to their music is this heady blend of inspiration, excitement, and a desire to run through a window and tumble into a timeless wilderness.

Cristina Velásquez - Somos Animales Poéticos

The photographs in this book have all sorts of hidden, sometimes playful depths to them, weaving memory and identity and self-mythology. But the accompanying texts, described as poetic or literary fragments, have a tenderness that show a sensitivity and perception that makes me look at the photographs all over again with brand new eyes, and places me in the heart of them in a genuinely surprising way.

Nest - Hlynur Pálmason

I think Pálmason is one of the great visual and humanist filmmakers currently working today. His new film, “The Love That Remains,” is just exquisite. I love his playful, personal way of not only making the long form films, but everything else. This is a short with his kids building a treehouse. It’s brilliant and funny. It feels real, but can’t all be real, and that’s the kind of combination I love.

is originally from the UK and studied there before working at Fabrica, Benetton’s famous creative institute in Italy.

His films have won multiple awards, played festivals worldwide, and been exhibited at The Guggenheim, The Pompidou Centre and The Tate Modern.

His first theatrical feature documentary ‘In No Great Hurry’ - about legendary photographer Saul Leiter - featured on best of the year lists and was described as “A beautiful film about a lovely man” by The Guardian and “Neon Poetry” by The New York Times. His second feature ‘The Lure’ about Forrest Fenn’s wild treasure hunt in the Rocky Mountains was EP’d by Errol Morris and described as “A fascinating portrait of their enduring appeal, and this country’s inexhaustible possibilities” by Indiewire.

He has made films with gold-medal-winning Olympians, prison baseball teams and Trevor Noah and have also directed commercial work for clients such as Adidas, IBM, Ikea, NASA and more.

Tomas is currently preparing two fiction features from his own screenplays, and is in production on a non-fiction feature about the language of birds.

He is also relaunching his short film series Little Scraps of Paper, about artists and how and where they keep ideas.

is a Californian-based author whose debut short story collection, And So I Took Their Eye, was published in July, 2025. His writing has appeared in Electric Literature, The International Times, Huck, and others.

5&5 with Laura Quirke from the band Lemoncello

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:26:16 GMT

For our new 5&5, we welcome Laura Quirke, singer-songwriter and one half of Irish folk band , whose new album Perfect Place pushes their sound into exciting new places.

From her collaborations with Joshua Burnside to Lemoncello’s excellent self-titled debut album, Laura’s work has always been evolving: you enter a record expecting one thing, only for something brilliantly unexpected to emerge.

Their latest album is a perfect example. A warm blend of electronic textures, synths, and layered production woven through their folk roots.

We were delighted to host Laura and talk about the work that has shaped her, along with the artists and ideas continuing to influence her today.

5 That Shaped Me

The Morbegs

This was an Irish TV show that was half in English, half in Irish. It was quite surreal and dreamlike in a very particular Irish way. It’s magical and weird and funny but also it’s really cute and wise in dealing with all the emotions that humans go through day to day. And it has an iconic theme song.

Lisa Hannigan - Home

This album was the soundtrack to my late teenage years. I was blown away by the way the lines were phrased, how normal everyday feelings and interactions between people were articulated. It hit a place in me at that coming of age time in my life and really got under my skin.

‘Your heart sings like a kettle

And your words, they boil away like steam

And a lie burns long while the truth bites quick

A heart is built for both, it seems

You are lonely as a church

Despite the queuing out your door

I am empty as a promise, no more’

Barbara

I had a period of my life where I was obsessed with French language culture - the food, the art, the clothes in all the old black and white movies. I fancied myself living in Paris, writing in cafes with a cigarette out of my mouth. I got really into learning and translating the songs of French language singer-songwriters from the 60s, 70s, 80s time and came across the work of Barbara. Her songs are all stories, little monologue plays and the intensity and dynamic of the way she sings it, really spoke to me. With French chanson there’s often a twist in the tale - with this song ‘La Solitude’ she describes somebody following her around all the time and at the end of the song reveals that it is Loneliness that is following her. I live for the drama.

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

This was one of the first big hefty books I read the whole way through. I remember finishing it and just sitting there staring into space on a train taking it all in. It felt like someone had lifted a curtain on how people could be so good and so evil, as if through feeling what happened to the characters in the book, I really understood that intimately - rather than it just being something I was told. It’s such a bleak story in so many ways, but there’s hope in the characters and how they keep going. The friendship between Lee and Will Hamilton especially really moved me.

Gerald Manly Hopkins

We’re back with the drama. Gerald Manly Hopkins was a very angsty Jesuit priest. From his poems it seems like he really struggled to believe in God. Or that God was breaking his heart. It is very odd that as a 16 year old girl I couldn’t get enough of Gerald Manly Hopkins but I think it was something to do with the musicality of his poetry, how he made up words and how he used the sound and rhythm of words to describe things. Not sure what else do a teenage girl in the 2010’s and a desperately depressed Jesuit priest from the 1800s have in common.

5 On My Mind

Nala Sinephro – Space 8.1

This album is medicine. Harp, horns, saxophone, synths, layered electronics. Ooh my my it’s so good for the soul. I probably should be paying Nala Sinephro a wage for the amount of times I’ve played this album and used it to calm myself down.

Perfect Days - Wim Wenders, Takuma Takasi

This film about a Japanese toilet cleaner and the day to day simple routines of his life is so beautiful and inspiring. I haven’t seen a film that has struck me as much since.

Marina Abramović ‘ Walk Through Walls’

I’m really loving Marina Abramović’s memoir. This was gifted to me by a friend. I was telling her I needed a sense of perspective and to be inside someone else’s world for a while and she got me just the thing to do that. Her life story is absolutely jaw dropping - both with such painful tragedies and triumphant achievements - and through it all her sense of possibility, adventure and incessant need to create.

Miranda July - It Chooses You

I read this book on the way home from LA recently and it was a very fitting book to read after being in the United States for a few weeks. In it, Miranda July goes around interviewing people who are advertising things for sale on the Penny Saver- a classifieds booklet that came around by post in the late 2000s. Most of the people interviewed hadn’t adapted to the world of the internet yet. They are all selling objects as random as the next - Care Bears, tadpoles, Christmas cards, baby leopards and hair dryers.

July has the most amazing talent for getting right down to the heart of it with each person and finding the truth about what brings each person joy, disillusionment and loneliness. It really reveals the vast differences and isolation of class in a place like LA. Her questions are laden with her weird disarming sense of humour and honesty throughout. I was so moved by it. It’s a brilliant thing.

Ode to Final Fantasy - The White Mages/Peter Broderick

A beautiful album. An ode to the music of the Final Fantasy video game series for lovers of the games and people who don’t know anything about them. The music was originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu and written on early midi instruments for the games. Peter puts his own uniquely brilliant spin on the pieces with piano, synthesizers, voices, violin, percussion. My favourites are Eternity, Memory of Lightwaves and Atonement. Half of the proceeds of this record go to Doctors Without Borders as well which is cool, bringing the whole fantasy thing into the real world a small bit.

It’s hard not to feel seen by Lemoncello, a band whose live performances and recordings shimmer with the tones of modern Ireland. Their upcoming release, Perfect Place, evolves from the band’s folk-soaked roots and confidently explores intricate new shapes. Marking a bold new chapter for singer-songwriter Laura Quirke & cellist-arranger Claire Kinsella, Perfect Place is imbued with assuredness, encompassing full band recordings that weave synths and electronic percussion into the band’s staple organic sound.

Through an intimate and devastatingly personal style of storytelling, the new album reflects upon the modern tension between togetherness and alienation & the chaos of human nature with radical acceptance and compassion.

Perfect Place follows on from the band’s debut self-titled record, which received critical acclaim from BBC Radio 6 Music, Clash, The Line Of Best Fit. Described as “direct and refreshing”, “cathartic” by critics at Mojo and RNR, the duo speak to listeners in the way that an ex or an old friend might- cultivating a sense of consolation that leaves audiences forgetting there’s a world outside of the venue. Lemoncello’s body of work is equally familiar and confronting, driven by the palpable chemistry of a long-term friendship.

Words by Kelly Earley

Ben C. Davies is a Californian-based author whose debut short story collection, And So I Took Their Eye, was published in July, 2025. His writing has appeared in Electric Literature, The International Times, Huck, and others.

5&5 with Jared Lemus, the PEN America award-winning author of Guatemalan Rhapsody

Ben Davies Crisp — Sun, 03 May 2026 18:05:47 GMT

For our third edition of 5 & 5, we’re delighted to welcome recent PEN America winner and former Studio Luce resident, Jared Lemus. His 2025 collection, Guatemalan Rhapsody runs across Guatemala and the US diaspora. It’s a kaleidoscope of voices, narrative styles, places, backgrounds, and experiences. “Rhapsody” describes it perfectly. Short stories doing what they do best: whole worlds in a few thousand words, pulling you in and keeping you there, everything echoing after you close the book. There’s a reason it won a PEN.

We were thrilled to speak with him for 5&5 and learn more about the art, music, TV and films that have shaped him, both in his younger years and what continues to inspire him today.

Curated by Ben C. Davies.

Five That Shaped Me

Jesus' Son by Dennis Johnson

It showed me how sparse writing could pack a punch. It also taught me how to write substance abuse in a realistic way. I think there are writers who think shock and awe is the way to go when writing things like this (think Requiem for a Dream, Chuck Palahniuk, and Irvine Welsh--all of whom I love) but Johnson does it more subtly, leaving the reader to imagine--and nothing is more gruesome than that.

Drown by Junot Diaz

It was the first time I'd seen shirts off, no shoes, bare knuckle literary writing. It reflected pieces of the life I knew growing up, pieces I hadn't seen in other "canonized" writing before. It felt good to see the portrayal of lives closer to the ones I know.

Selfish Machines by Pierce the Veil

I was a lost kid wandering around Little Rock in my Converse and blasting this album on repeat on my MP3 player. It spoke to me about heartbreak and hoping and creativity. Vic Fuentes, the lead singer, has a beautiful voice and I still listen to him occasionally, when I'm writing.

A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! at the Disco

I'd never heard anything like it before. It was so weird. It was, as some of my friends dubbed it, "clown music," but I thought it was super cool. I was also a mime in highschool, so the videos piqued my interest. Not to mention it was difficult to make out the lyrics, which taught me that sometimes the melody is enough to carry a good line, you just have to find the right words.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik by the RHCP.

I could get stoned and lie on the floor and just listen to these bass lines that rocked my bone marrow with these lyrics I didn't fully understand but could groove to in my head. It also taught me the opposite of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out in that sometimes the rhythm and undercurrent of feeling/the atmosphere can propel narratives as well.

Five On My Mind

Breaking Bad

I love less-than-likeable characters and how the audience is manipulated into, if not siding with them, at least rooting for them for some unexplainable reason. Plus, it really is one of the best examples I can think of that shows escalation in story-telling; you overcome one thing and all of a sudden something worse happens because you avoided the last thing that tried to kill you. It's the opposite of "you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from." It's my favorite show of all time.

Surrealism Paintings (Specifically by Dali and Magritte)

They make the familiar unfamiliar; and that's what good art should do. If I could go back and see Dali's painting for the first time, I would view them one square inch at a time because you think you know what's coming next, and then it's not that thing but it somehow is the only thing that makes sense for the painting.

Kendrick Lamar

He's a lyrical genius and his voice is magic. He's one of the GOAT's but he's grounded and talks about things that actually matter: racism, parental trauma, poverty, etc. DAMN will be forever on repeat in my headphones.

JID

Oh my god, he can rap his ass off, and I aspire to write my ass off in the same way. You can tell he shows up to write something good and scraps anything that isn't. I work the same way: Kill your darlings.

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto '“Che” Guevara

He did for South America what I hope to do for Central America: a project in epistolary form about my travels from the bottom of Panama to the top of Belize. One of the people’s heroes. He’s what Anthony Bourdain would consider a traveler, not a tourist. And that’s my goal in the world and in literature as a whole.

Jared Lemus is a Guatemalan-American author and winner of the 2026 PEN America/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut short story collection for his book, “Guatemalan Rhapsody.” His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Story, and elsewhere, and his debut novel, “Magic in the Land of Eternal Spring,” is forthcoming with Ecco-HarperCollins in the Spring of ’27.

He holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently the Kenan Visiting Writer at UNC-Chapel Hill.

5&5 with Luke Goebel, author of Kill Dick

Ben Davies Crisp — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:03:16 GMT

For our second edition of 5&5, we spoke with Luke Goebel, author of the new literary thriller Kill Dick, and screenwriter of films including Eileen and Causeway.

Kill Dick () , Luke’s new book, is exactly the kind of fiction that feels necessary right now, given the state of the U.S. On paper, it’s a story about the opioid crisis, about Los Angeles, about the bleed of a country hooked on its own contradictions. In reality, it’s bigger, darker, and more unsettling than that. Kill Dick drags its fingernails across the American psyche, through inequality, hypocrisy, and all that violence humming just beneath the surface, and refuses to look away. It’s a book everyone is talking about. Seek it out.

We loved talking to Luke for 5&5, digging into the art that shaped him, the work that rattles around in his head, and the pieces that keep pushing him forward.

Curated by Ben C. Davies.

5 That Shaped Me

Less Than Zero — Bret Easton Ellis
I didn’t understand Los Angeles until I understood that nobody was really there. Just surfaces, transactions, a kind of spiritual vacancy that somehow felt like freedom. This book gave me permission to look at beauty and rot at the same time and not resolve it. That’s basically everything I do.

Play It As It Lays — Joan Didion
The coldest book I’ve ever loved. It’s like being handed a scalpel and told: don’t flinch. The rhythm, the blankness, the refusal to explain—this is where I learned that withholding is a form of power.

Body Double — Brian De Palma
Pure sleaze as high art. Voyeurism, artifice, sex, panic—everything staged and fake and somehow more real because of it. This movie taught me that style isn’t decoration. Style is the thing. If it doesn’t have a pulse, it’s dead.

Eyes Wide Shut — Stanley Kubrick
The dream logic of power. Sex as ritual. Wealth as a closed system you can glimpse but never enter. This movie rewired how I think about scenes—less about plot, more about atmosphere and dread and the feeling that something is always happening just off-screen.

The Bible — God
I love God. I am shitty and good. It’s complicated. I wrote a book about killing my enemy, but I’m supposed to forgive. Is this all a metaphor for myself?

5 On My Mind

The Shards — Bret Easton Ellis
This book unlocked something structural for me. The way it moves—memory, paranoia, time folding in on itself—it made me rethink how to tell a story without pretending control. It’s less about what happened and more about how it feels to remember what happened.

Sturgill “Johnny Blue Skies” Simpson

The city when it empties out is the real version. You see the seams. You feel the loneliness. Everything I’m writing right now comes out of that—just moving through it, watching it perform itself; all while listening to a Sailor’s Guide to Earth by our main man Sturgill “Johnny Blue Skies” Simpson or his new dash at Eddie Murphy’s hit single “Party All The Time,” recorded on a bet with the help of Rick James who produced and helped Eddie Murphy with the 1985 hit song. James wrote, produced, and sang backing vocals on the track, recorded at a home office studio up in Buffalo, New York, for Murphy’s album How Could It Be.

Los Angeles at Night
Not a work, but it might as well be. The city when it empties out is the real version. You see the seams. You feel the loneliness. Everything I’m writing right now comes out of that—just moving through it, watching it perform itself.

The Big Sleep — Raymond Chandler
I keep coming back to how little the plot actually matters. It’s all tone, rhythm, attitude. Confusion as texture. I’m interested in that right now—stories that don’t hold your hand but pull you through anyway. I’m adapting this book into a movie right now.

Driving through Joshua Tree National Park (at dark with my lights off beneath a moon.)

My Co-Writer and Anna Delvey and I went driving in my 1994 Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer through Joshua Tree, under a large enough moon to drive with my headlights off for an hour and a half, through the Cholla Gardens through Jumbo Rocks and the park. I no longer ever want to drive with my lights on in the dark. I know this is a very bad idea.

Luke Goebel is an American novelist, screenwriter, producer, and publisher.

He is the author of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, winner of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, and the new novel Kill Dick.

He co-wrote the films Causeway and Eileen, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway; for Causeway, Brian Tyree Henry received an Academy Award nomination.

Goebel is co-owner and president of Tyrant Books and lives in Los Angeles.

Subscribe to Luke’s Substack here:

He serves as an editor for the Ginosko Literary Journal, is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, teaches at California College of the Arts, and is the co-founder and director of Studio Luce, a Guatemalan writing retreat and artist residency.

5&5 with Musician, Lael Neale

Ben Davies Crisp — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:41:58 GMT

Photo Credit: Alexandra Cabral

For our first edition of 5&5, we couldn’t be more excited to feature musician and artist, .

Lael has released three in the last five years with producer Guy Blakeslee. Each album builds upon the last, deepening her singular sound and producing some of the most interesting, creative music around.

It was a treat to have her take part in 5&5, exploring the art that helped shape her, and that continues to influence her today.

www.studioluceguatemala.com

Curated by .

5 That Shaped Me

Harold & Maude
My mom rented this for me and my brother when I was about 14 & I became completely obsessed with it. I loved its dark humor mixed with deep emotionality. And what made it so emotional to me was Cat Stevens’ music. It was the first time I had the thought, wouldn’t it be incredible to make music specifically for a great film.

The Carrot Seed – Ruth Krauss
This was the first book I remember reading - a board book. About a little boy who plants a carrot seed & despite everyone saying it wouldn’t sprout, he held fast to faith that it would grow & he watered & weeded the soil until one day a massive carrot grew. Perfect analogy for the life of an artist. A story that’s kept me going for many years for little outside validation to show for it.

Blood On the Tracks (Bootleg Version) - Bob Dylan
This I discovered in my early 20s. I don’t even know how to find this exact bootleg version anywhere. I had it on a CD & listened to it over and over and over. It wasn’t about what he was saying in the songs, but the ineffable feeling of those specific versions. It made me want to create worlds people could retreat into through the album format.

Brave New World
I read this in High School because a guy I had a crush on recommended it to me. I feel it is single-handedly responsible for my current values: individual expression over collective compliance, distrust of scientific advancement (because it can be used as means of control), and an understanding that technology & consumerism can be used to anesthetize people & make us surrender our freedoms for the sake of the short-lived pleasure of things.

Steve Keene
My parents aren’t aesthetes, per se, but our house was filled with paintings by a local artist named Steve Keene. I didn’t understand who he was until much later when I learned he did artwork for bands such as Pavement, Silver Jews, etc. His work was influential because even from an early age I got the feeling he kind of dashed the paintings off without being too precious about them. He also sold them cheaply, thus the reason my parents had so many. His approach informed the way I paint & sell my work.

5 On My Mind

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office Documentary
I saw this a few days ago & it has really stuck with me. It explores the life of John Lilly - neuroscientist turned countercultural mystic who studied dolphins to understand consciousness. While it was difficult to see the dehumanized way he experimented on dolphins early on in his career, the work led to mass movements of people protecting whales and dolphins because he showed the world they are advanced, conscious, communicative beings.

Seth Speaks – Jane Roberts
I read a lot of “channeled” material, but my favorite books are the Seth series. In the 1960s Jane Roberts began channeling an entity who called himself Seth. The core message is that you create your own reality & are an author, not a victim, of your life. It addresses subjects from non-linear time, reincarnation, & utilizing the inner senses to perceive deeper layers of reality. Reading it reminds me to question the beliefs I have that may not be helping me & to work to re-write the story of my life each day.

West with the Night – Beryl Markham
I found this book in the airport before tour. It is a memoir by Beryl Markham who was an incredibly inspiring woman born in Africa at the turn of the century. The fact that she was the first woman to fly a plane from England to North America is almost the least interesting part of her story. She raised and trained racehorses & led safaris for rich men in the uncharted country, now known as Kenya. Her life was wild and vivid and her writing is some of the best I’ve ever encountered. She stands as a muse for me now - motivating me to live with more courage & a sense of adventure... and to write.

Lord Can You Hear Me - Spacemen 3
This song has been looping in my mind. I’ve been listening to a lot of work by Sonic Boom (1/2 of Spacemen 3) because I’ll be recording with him in Portugal this summer. I love it because it marries American gospel/traditional with their signature spacious, hypnotic soundscape.

Madge Gill
A friend just shared the artwork of Madge Gill with me because he thought I’d appreciate it. It seems we’re both into the checkerboard pattern. She was born in the late 1880s and made these incredible intricate ink pieces that she says were created in a mediumistic way, channeled by a spirit named “Myrninerest” (my inner rest).

Lael Neale is an American musician from Virginia.

Neale has released three albums in the last five years. In 2022, she released the single “Hotline,” which was named one of Paste magazine’s “Best New Songs.” Her third album, Star Eaters Delight, was released in April 2023, followed by her fourth studio album, Altogether Stranger, on May 2, 2025.

Neale’s minimalist drone pop draws inspiration from the Transcendentalists, the alienation of modern life, and a rich array of musical influences—ranging from Dionne Warwick and John Lennon to primitive American gospel and Spacemen 3.

He serves as an editor for the Ginosko Literary Journal, is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, teaches at California College of the Arts, and is the co-founder and director of Studio Luce, a Guatemalan writing retreat and artist residency.

5&5: A New Series from Studio Luce

Ben Davies Crisp — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:17:50 GMT

Studio Luce has always been about supporting and elevating other artists. Its name comes from the verb lucir, meaning to shine/illuminate.

Our new series, 5&5, is an extension of that idea.

It is a way of speaking with creatives we admire–artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, photographers–and asking them about what has shaped them and what shapes them now.

Where their taste comes from. What they return to. What continues to guide their work. What art has had a lasting influence on their life…

We are interested in the architecture behind their creative life. The films, records, books, shows and images that formed someone early on, and the things they keep close today.

The concept is simple. Each time, we ask two questions:

5 That Shaped Me
5 On My Mind

5 That Shaped Me
Five cultural works that had a lasting influence on your taste and how you see the world. These can be films, albums, books, TV, photographer, art, that felt important early on or changed the way you think or create.

5 On My Mind
Five things you’re currently drawn to now or can’t stop returning to. Recent or ongoing, across film, music, books, TV, and the arts.

More coming soon.

From the team at Studio Luce

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Discounted Residency Spot Available

Ben Davies Crisp — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:53:27 GMT

One Spot Left: Writing Residency in Guatemala
Residency Dates: May 10–18
Apply by: Sunday, April 5
Discounted rate: $600

Due to a cancelation, we have one final place available for our upcoming writing residency at Studio Luce in El Paredón, Guatemala.

This is a hands-off, writer-led experience. No strict schedules, no pressure to produce a finished piece, just uninterrupted time and space to focus on your work, however that looks for you.

If you’re looking for time to write, reflect, and reset by the ocean, this is your moment.

Apply now before the final spot is gone.

Find out more: www.studioluceguatemala.com

Studio Luce | A New Guide, a New Video, and our Final 2026 Dates

Ben Davies Crisp — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:48:30 GMT

There are only 12 days left to apply for our final artist residency of 2026!

Artist Residency: October 25–November 6
Application Deadline: March 31, 2026

Don’t miss this chance to work on your art in Studio Luce this year.