Filmmakers, Writers & Artists on Connecting through Creativity
How does art change the way we see and experience the world? Art has the power to offer transformative experiences, but what about the lives of artists who give so much of themselves? How can we balance creativity and personal well-being while still making work that is true and meaningful?
This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.
Literary Critic · Historian of Science · Educator
Author of Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science
There is a stronger connection between Dickinson and Darwin than the proximity of history. Or the universality of literature. They both understood natural science and the natural world in ways that seem strange and somewhat surprising in the 21st century. Their 19th century attitudes to nature and the study of it are so different from ours that when we trace their stories, a vanished world begins to emerge. The more I consider these figures together, the more I feel their world and my world. come alive. Darwin and Dickinson illuminate each other. By reading them together, we can start to understand the interconnected relationships that animated 19th century poetry and science.
I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really - 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together. I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.
I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really - 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together. I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.
Bookseller · Poet · Author of How to Protect Bookstores and Why · How to Resist Amazon and Why · Picture Window
The thing that unites my poetry and the nonfiction writing is my main obsession as a writer. It's the question of, how do you live meaningfully in late capitalism? As corporations and global capitalist forces take over the world, what does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life? Bookselling captured my imagination and my heart as soon as I started working at the bookstore because I could see the potential for this great, amazing community-oriented work.
Bookseller · Poet · Author of How to Protect Bookstores and Why · How to Resist Amazon and Why · Picture Window
The thing that unites my poetry and the nonfiction writing is my main obsession as a writer. It's the question of, how do you live meaningfully in late capitalism? As corporations and global capitalist forces take over the world, what does it mean to try to have a meaningful human life? Bookselling captured my imagination and my heart as soon as I started working at the bookstore because I could see the potential for this great, amazing community-oriented work.
Writer · Director 1947-2024
What happens is a space is created. And maybe it’s the only space of its kind in the world in which two absolute strangers can meet each other on terms of absolute intimacy. I think this is what is at the heart of the experience and why once you become a reader that you want to repeat that experience, that very deep total communication with that invisible stranger who has written the book that you’re holding in your hands. And that’s why I think, in spite of everything, novels are not going to stop being written, no matter what the circumstances. We need stories. We’re all human beings, and it’s stories from the moment we’re able to talk.
Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. Music courtesy of composer Max Richter.
President & CEO of the National Constitution Center
Author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.
President & CEO of the National Constitution Center
Author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.
Coordinator, Phd Programme, Environmental Sustainability & Wellbeing · University of Ferrara
Co-editor of Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies
The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other.
Coordinator, Phd Programme, Environmental Sustainability & Wellbeing · University of Ferrara
Co-editor of Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies
The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other.
Portuguese Jazz Musician
I had so many people around me when I was young– famous poets like Ary dos Santos, one of Portugal’s greatest poets of the 20th century. Sometimes he would be there talking with my mother, and I had this information that was getting in, but I wasn’t aware of it. And then in the early days, when I had just started playing, I was really into modern jazz, which was very instrumental, so I didn’t really pay attention to lyrics. It took me a while to get interested in Portuguese music, and in that mixture between jazz, Fado music and Portuguese popular music. For a while I was into the importance of a good poem. Now what moves me most of the time is that mixture of cultures— trying to do something that you cannot find in other countries. If you are into a lot of American jazz, for instance, you can play great music, but you are always playing music that started elsewhere, you know? And for a European like me, it’s challenging to try and find what makes you different in such a big market. What sound can you try to create that you wouldn’t hear in France or in Japan or in New York? So that's a very difficult challenge, actually, because you try to get really into your heart and your emotion. And I think Portugal has a lot of good emotions in its popular music that you don't find elsewhere. The music I make always has a kind of nostalgic ambience. It's not always sadness. It's a melancholic approach that is very hard to put into words– you just need to feel it.
Portuguese Jazz Musician
I had so many people around me when I was young– famous poets like Ary dos Santos, one of Portugal’s greatest poets of the 20th century. Sometimes he would be there talking with my mother, and I had this information that was getting in, but I wasn’t aware of it. And then in the early days, when I had just started playing, I was really into modern jazz, which was very instrumental, so I didn’t really pay attention to lyrics. It took me a while to get interested in Portuguese music, and in that mixture between jazz, Fado music and Portuguese popular music. For a while I was into the importance of a good poem. Now what moves me most of the time is that mixture of cultures— trying to do something that you cannot find in other countries. If you are into a lot of American jazz, for instance, you can play great music, but you are always playing music that started elsewhere, you know? And for a European like me, it’s challenging to try and find what makes you different in such a big market. What sound can you try to create that you wouldn’t hear in France or in Japan or in New York? So that's a very difficult challenge, actually, because you try to get really into your heart and your emotion. And I think Portugal has a lot of good emotions in its popular music that you don't find elsewhere. The music I make always has a kind of nostalgic ambience. It's not always sadness. It's a melancholic approach that is very hard to put into words– you just need to feel it.
Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winning Novelist, Poet & Clinical Psychologist
We become the stories we tell ourselves…I started writing around the time I learned English because we moved to the States soon after my fourth birthday, and so I was here for kindergarten into elementary school. I grasped this new language just as I was learning how to also put things onto the page. Those two things really happened at the same time for me. I entered this world where I felt very different and very other, for all intents and purposes I was set to be raised in Kuwait. And then that of course got turned upside down after the invasion by Saddam. I think that so much of my trying to make sense of the world had to do with the displacement, exile and these experiences that my parents had experienced but then that I had as well as we were fleeing the war. It’s hard to know because I think that language was being formed in my brain at the same time that these things were happening.
Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winning Novelist, Poet & Clinical Psychologist
We become the stories we tell ourselves…I started writing around the time I learned English because we moved to the States soon after my fourth birthday, and so I was here for kindergarten into elementary school. I grasped this new language just as I was learning how to also put things onto the page. Those two things really happened at the same time for me. I entered this world where I felt very different and very other, for all intents and purposes I was set to be raised in Kuwait. And then that of course got turned upside down after the invasion by Saddam. I think that so much of my trying to make sense of the world had to do with the displacement, exile and these experiences that my parents had experienced but then that I had as well as we were fleeing the war. It’s hard to know because I think that language was being formed in my brain at the same time that these things were happening.
Novelists, poets, activists, translators discuss the Art of Writing and The Creative Process.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University
Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill
As writers, it's our job to write what will become clichés. Not to write clichés, but to be original enough that we make something that people are still saying for hundreds of years to come. And if that's what you're doing, that's pretty powerful. When I'm writing a poem I'm making a world. And if I can stick to that, then I have to believe that once a poem is out in the world, another world has been made, another way of living, another way of thinking, another way of seeing things.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University
Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill
As writers, it's our job to write what will become clichés. Not to write clichés, but to be original enough that we make something that people are still saying for hundreds of years to come. And if that's what you're doing, that's pretty powerful. When I'm writing a poem I'm making a world. And if I can stick to that, then I have to believe that once a poem is out in the world, another world has been made, another way of living, another way of thinking, another way of seeing things.
The Creative Process: Podcast Interviews & Portraits of the World’s Leading Authors & Creative Thinkers
Inspiring Students – Encouraging Reading - Connecting through Stories
The Creative Process exhibition is traveling to universities and museums. The Creative Process exhibition consists of interviews with over 100 esteemed writers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Hilary Mantel, Neil Gaiman, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tobias Wolff, Richard Ford, Junot Díaz, Marie Darrieussecq, Michel Faber, T.C. Boyle, Jay McInerney, George Saunders, Geoff Dyer, Etgar Keret, Douglas Kennedy, Sam Lipsyte, and Yiyun Li, among others. Artist and interviewer: Mia Funk.
