Arts & Ideas - The Creative Process explores Personal Growth, Education, Art, Creativity, Climate Change, AI, Wellness, Nature, Motivation, Mindfulness, Personal growth, Psychology, Science, Relationships, Technology, Women, Health

Can curiosity and empathy be taught? How can we expand our sense of solidarity through stories? In this episode, we explore the internal dialogues of artists, actors and writers to ask what it means to step into someone else's shoes.
(0:00) Novelist Jim Shepard discusses Literature as a Tool for Emotional Education and Exploring History
(2:05) Tony Award-winning Actor Neil Patrick Harris on Being Moved by Theater and its Ability to Bridge Worlds
(3:55) Novelist Katie Kitamura on How a Book is Made in Collaboration with the Reader
(5:00) Screenwriter, Playwright Laura Eason on Inhabiting the Hearts of Characters Different from Ourselves
(6:03) Academy Award-winning Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on the Art of Visual Storytelling
(6:37) Cinematographer, Director Benoit Delhomme on the Freedom of Handheld Cinematography
(7:19) Author Etgar Keret on Looking for Humanity through Shared Intention
(8:18) Viet Thanh Nguyen – Opposing Power through Expansive Solidarity
(9:27) Adam Moss – Author, Fmr. Editor New York magazine on “The Work of Art”
(10:29) John Patrick Shanley – Tony & Academy Award-winning Writer, Director on Finding Value in Ordinary Experiences and the Creative Power of Daydreaming
(11:56) Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist Nicholas Kristof on Why Individual Stories are Necessary to Generate Connection
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

In this special edition, we hear from our guests from across the arts and sciences. From composers and poets to forest ecologists and climate envoys, they tell the story of our planet. Moving beyond the data of destruction, we explore the intelligence of nature, the ethics of what we eat, and the empathy required to save our future.
MAX RICHTER, Composer, Sleep, The Blue Notebooks
CARL SAFINA, Author, Becoming Wild
ADA LIMÓN, 24th US Poet Laureate
CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy Award-winning Sound Eng.
SUZANNE SIMARD, Finding the Mother Tree
JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author, IPCC 6th Assessment Rpt
NOAH WILSON-RICH, CEO, Best Bees Company
INGRID NEWKIRK, PETA Founder
BERTRAND PICCARD, Solar Impulse Foundation
DAVID FARRIER, Author, Footprints
KATHLEEN ROGERS, Pres, Earth Day Network
ODED GALOR, Unified Growth Theory
PETER SINGER, Philosopher
GEOFF MULGAN, Another World Is Possible
CLAIRE POTTER, Welcome to the Circular Economy
CHRIS FUNK, Dir. Climate Hazards Car.
JENNIFER MORGAN, Special Envoy, International Climate Action
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website

How do writers develop their voice, showing us what is important in life?
ADA LIMÓN (24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Startlement, The Carrying) explains that her poetry begins with a bodily sensation or curiosity, not an idea. She values the space and breath poetry offers for unknowing and mystery, finding solace in the making and the mess, not in answers. She discusses being free on the page to be her whole, authentic, complicated self.
JAY PARINI (Author, Filmmaker, Borges and Me) calls poetry the prince of literary arts—language refined to its apex of memorability. He recounts how his road trip with Borges around Scotland restored him from depression and anxiety following the Vietnam War death of his friend.
JERICHO BROWN (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet, The Tradition, How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) discusses the rhythm of black vernacular and capturing "symphonic complexity of black life". He shares how he’s found a way not to think about personal risk as he’s writing.
ADAM MOSS (Fmr. Editor, New York Magazine; Author, The Work of Art) relates David Simon’s concept of the bounce, in which creativity gains momentum as it is passed between people.
VIET THANH NGUYEN (Pulitzer Prize-winning Author, The Sympathizer; To Save and to Destroy) discusses his path to expansive solidarity and capacious grief and how it works against the state's power to divide and conquer. He emphasizes that literature is crucial because authoritarian regimes abuse language; a commitment to the beauty of language is a commitment to truth, and fear is often an indicator of a truth that needs to be spoken.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

How can we use negative spaces in fiction to engage with readers’ imaginations? How are memory and trauma passed onto us through language? How do we become more than the stories we tell ourselves?
KATIE KITAMURA (Author, Audition, Intimacies) emphasizes that a book is created in collaboration with the reader, using negative spaces in the narrative structure to allow for reader interpretation, paralleling the space between audience and actor in performance.
PAUL LYNCH (Booker Prize-winning Novelist, Prophet Song) discusses the richness and slipperiness of the English language in Ireland, shaped by the overlay of English onto Irish grammatical constructions, resulting in unique phrasing and a capacity to create new constructions.
DANIEL PEARLE (Screenwriter, Playwright, The Beast in Me) shares that audiences are fascinated by the unfettered, uncensored ID in characters, reflecting the universal fantasy of acting without consequences. He advises writers to put people who deeply irritate them into a play, as those characters often become the audience's favorites.
HALA ALYAN (Novelist, Poet, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home: A Memoir) describes her work as an excavation of the darkest hours and intergenerational trauma carried by her lineage, which has endured repeated exile. She links exile from the body to the larger patterns of not having a place in the world.
T.C. BOYLE(Novelist, Short Story Writer, Environmentalist) shares that the creative process involves a magic in reaching for the unconscious and the surprise of the creative process. He emphasizes that art and nature are our salvations, over money. He advocates for solitude in nature—alone on a beach or in the woods—to connect with the natural world.
ADAM ALTER (Author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough) discusses the axioms of creativity, noting that being around more people, even those who are "deeply incompetent," is generally beneficial for creativity by providing diversity of opinion and information, preceding the necessary time for solitary focus.
SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA (Booker Prize-winning Author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) explains his decision to write in the second person as a way of exploring the spiritual dimension of the internal voice. He posits that the "you" could be a spirit whispering thoughts, leading people (and nations) astray.
DANIEL HANDLER A.K.A LEMONY SNICKET (Author, A Series of Unfortunate Events) argues that his books for children and adults are not fundamentally different and says everyone's childhood is full of powerful emotions derived from ordinary injustices, noting that we cry hardest over hurt feelings, not global catastrophes.
ADA LIMÓN (24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Startlement, The Carrying) talks about her responsibility as a writer to honor her ancestors, specifically her grandfather, who had to sublimate his creative spirit for safety and belonging, leading her to prioritize grace and freedom in her own writing.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

How do our environments shape who we are and how we care for the world and each other? There are many solutions to climate change, inequality, and poverty around the world. How can we learn from them and transform our society?
Eiren Caffall (All the Water in the World) discusses the importance of embracing complexity and emotional flexibility in facing ecological grief.
Irvin Weathersby Jr. (In Open Contempt) discusses the transformative power of meditation and nature, drawing inspiration from Emerson and Thoreau.
Jay Parini (Biographies of Steinbeck, Frost, Faulkner…) on the significance of place in literature and life.
Natasha Hakimi Zapata (Another World Is Possible) explores the generosity and hope in people’s efforts to build better societies.
Audrea Lim (Free The Land) on how personal experiences with public lands influence our views on conservation.
Katie Kitamura (Audition, Intimacies) reflects on the role of landscape and memory in her novels.
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe (Philosopher, Founder of Emergence Network) discusses his awe for mountains, using them as a metaphor for humility and the search for meaning beyond oneself.
For more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
IG @creativeprocesspodcast