There’s something extremely unnerving about picking up the phone and hearing the voice at the other end say, in a Jersey accent, “This is Patti Smith.” Smith is, after all, one of the coolest people in the entire world. William S. Burroughs described her as a shaman; this does not strike me as inaccurate.

I always loved the idea of this day, and I often celebrated in my own way, so it was a nice opportunity to remember a lot of people. Coincidently, November 4 is the 20th anniversary of my husband’s passing, so I wanted to do something in his memory.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Vincent D’Onofrio. I was such a fan of Criminal Intent that he let me have a very small cameo part and I was able to do a scene with him and played an antiquities professor. And it was Vincent D’Onofrio! And I love The Killing so much the producer gave me a very small part playing a neurosurgeon, and I was able to do a scene with my favorite detective, Linden. You can’t imagine how exciting that was, even though I had a bun and was holding a clipboard in a white lab coat.

Does that relate to the making of art?

A person can’t really try to be an artist. I think that it’s a calling. What you can try to do is become better at your craft, to become more disciplined and, by practice, become a better draftsman, but I think people are artists or not. I think that if you’re an artist—well, whatever your vocation is, it doesn’t have to be an artist, if we’re really called towards something, it could be towards being a chef or a doctor or a parent or poet—you cannot not do it. You’re compelled every day to do it. And that seems to be what your vocation is, a vocation sometimes that chooses you before you choose it. But we were disciplined in that we worked every day. We didn’t have disciplined hours. But when I got married and when I had children, I had to become much more disciplined, and I learned to write early in the morning when my husband and children were sleeping so I could have time to myself. I would wake up around five in the morning and work until about eight in the morning. I did that for so many years, about 16 years, and I found that I’m now very comfortable writing early in the morning. When I was younger I thought artists worked at night, I was going to write poetry all night, but now I tend to like to when I wake up have a cup of coffee, then I like to do my writing.

Do people come to you in your dreams?

Sat 11/1, 10 AM Symphony Center 220 S. Michigan 312-494-9509chicagohumanities.org $20, $10 students and teachers

Sun 11/2, 4 PM and 8 PM Old Town School of Folk Music 4544 N. Lincoln 773-728-6000oldtownschool.org $125