J Wortham, 2025 Rabkin Prize winner

J Wortham is a sound healer, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, author of a forthcoming nonfiction collection “Work of Body,” and a 2025 Rabkin Prize winner. You can read their full bio at our website.We invited J to have a conversation about their work. The interview is accompanied by a newly commissioned portrait of J in their home office in New York featuring an art piece by Alisha B Wormsley.The interview has been gently edited for length and clarity.Mentioned in this episode:* Black Futures edited by J Wortham and curator Kimberly Drew (One World, January 2020)* Still Processing podcast* “In Defense of the Traditional Review” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker, July 2025)* “For ‘Purpose’ Cast, Navigating Revisions Became a ‘Juggling Act’ ” by Salamishah Tillet (The New York Times, June 2025)* TikTok Queer Ultimatum Season 2 review by J Wortham* Channeling, J Wortham’s Substack newsletter* Writer Rebecca Solnit* Hilton Als’ Instagram account* Hanif Abdurraqib’s Instagram account* Sculptor Simone Leigh* Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 2023)* “ ‘I will Never Forget Any of It’: Brittney Griner Is Ready to Talk” by J Wortham (The New York Times Magazine, May 2024)* “The Artist Upending Photography’s Brutal Racial History” by J Wortham (The New York Times Magazine, May 2021)* “The Lives They Led: Wafa Al-Udaini” by J Wortham (The New York Times Magazine, 2024)* Stars and Stars with Isa podcast* Writer Colleen Kinder* Dear Lord, Make me Beautiful by Kyle Abraham* Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies at the Brooklyn Museum (2024)* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha by Julia Masli* Black Quantum Futurism books* The Lightning Field by Walter D. Maria* Roden Crater by James Turrell* The Star Axis by Charles Ross* Storm King Wavefield by Maya Lin* Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt* Native American mounds in Madison and Dane County, Wis.* Jupiter MagazineThis episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The interview was conducted by Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the eExecutive dDirector of the Rabkin Foundation. The portraits were made by artist-photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews also includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer; Johnathon Olsen, editor; with research and copyediting by Katie Avila Loughmiller and Karen Samelson. Music is by Flint, HaHaHa, Ben Hendler and Loya. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rabkinfoundation.substack.com