ArtiGras Podcast · ArtiGras Fine Arts Festival

The MTV Rejection That Built an Award-Winning Journalist: Wilkine Brutus

·1 hr 15 min·4 clips

At a Jeju-do harvest festival, a woman touched his hair while 50,000 people watched.

The spark begins in childhood. Brutus remembers a Haitian household where stories were always in motion. They got louder, stretched a little, circled back, and trained him to pay attention. The host gives that memory space instead of rushing past it. She starts with his background, then lets the answer open into family, culture, and the habits that teach someone how to listen. Values come before biography. Brutus names school, home, and church as strong anchors in Haitian culture, then admits those values still did not tell him who his parents were as people. That question changes the feel of the conversation. He wanted to know his mother outside the lessons she gave him and the role she carried at home. Her story comes out slowly: being a teenager on a boat, arriving in this country, and becoming a mother young. Maps and Diaries grows from that kind of asking. Brutus describes the project as a way to gather private family histories and let the county see them as part of a larger local story. The frame stays close to home. In an area with a large Haitian population and a large immigrant population, recording those memories feels less like nostalgia and more like something people may need. The host catches the emotional point. She connects it to his idea that estate planning can be emotional and historical, not just financial. That lands for her too. She remembers wanting bedtime stories about life, not just books, because she wanted to understand her parents and herself. By the end, the episode is less about career polish and more about asking the questions while the people who can answer them are still here.

As heard by us

A reflective interview about legacy, memory, and family stories.

The conversation gives Wilkin Brutus space to connect his Haitian household, poetry, and family storytelling to the way he thinks about memory and community work.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for a warm conversation with journalist-poet Wilkin Brutus about Haitian family stories, identity, and preserving legacy through elder interviews.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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