In 1963, LIFE Magazine asked author James Baldwin where he gets his inspiration. Baldwin responded: You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was reading books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. An artist is a sort of emotional historian. There’s a related quote I love from writer Kelly Hayes who says, “Everything feels unprecedented when you haven’t engaged with history.” It’s so true. History’s cast of characters changes but it’s ... (full story)