Ms. Bridgette Davis is a journalist, a screenwriter, a director, an author, a producer and my professor. Just to mention it, she originally wanted to be a psychiatrist, but biology and chemistry classes caused her to change her mind (thank God!). Davis started her career at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, where she majored in English. Later, she moved to New York and got her masters degree in Journalism. Bridgett said she always wanted to live in New York. She first fell in love with the city from the movie, Barefoot in the Park, a comedy starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, which I remembered seeing also. From visiting New York when she was 18 and during her summers as a teenager, she decided to come here because it felt like home. The noise, the city that never sleeps atmosphere, the creative centers, and much more attracted her to the city and it was not like that in Georgia. Even being mugged in Brooklyn and spraining her ankle by falling down subway stairs has not deterred her from this place.
Besides falling in love with New York, while in New York, she fell in love with filmmaking. It started when Bridgett was writing a novel, which did not turned out the way she wanted, to put it nicely. Out of frustration, she decided to attended screenwriting classes at NYU with Janet Roach, who co-wrote Prizzi’s Honor, starring Jack Nicholson and Angelica Houston. She immediately fell in love with screenwriting because it mixed her other two loves, Journalism and Fiction-writing. Since then, Bridgett has become a director and a producer with such films as Naked Acts (which my class will see in December and I can’t wait) in 1998. The film has been shown in more than two-dozen festivals all over the world, such as in United States, Africa and Europe. She enjoyed traveling because she could be an ambassador to other countries and dialogues with people of different perspectives.
In addition to that, Bridgett was able to continue writing as an author and released novels like Shifting through Neutral and Lagos. She also has written essay for numerous newspapers, such as Washington Posts, Newsday, Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune in her hometown. However, out of all those career paths, the one she enjoys most now is teaching as a professor at Baruch. Teaching came natural to her and it gave her a way to blend all of her careers together. Now, Davis teaches Journalism and Creative writing and Screenwriting, but her favorite is Interdisciplinary Arts. She feels it provides her with an instant gratification because she can introduce her students to new and different things, listen to their reactions, and encourage and help them to express themselves. Bridgett loves how there are always new students each semester to influence and that makes it always seem fresh to her.
Interviewing Ms. Davis was definitely intriguing because she is such a creative person or as her friend said “artsy-fartsy” and she has had such an eclectic career. She has motivated to explore authors, such as Katherine Harrison (obsession novels), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude), Toni Morrison, Faulkner (As I Lay Dying), and Raymond Carver. Also, she sparked my interest in movies, like The Unbearable Likeness of Being, starring Juliet Binoche from Chocolat, which I have seen. Last, she gave great advice on some interested in journalism and creative writing and it helped me because I am interested in music journalism and songwriting. She said to have something to say, a point of view, and be passionate about something you believe in.