Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/344
-What it was like to be a New York City paramedic.
-What the Jedi can teach writers when it comes to finding their voice.
-How the essence of being a writer is not what you’ve read in books but what you’ve experienced in your life.
-The importance of listening in writing and other creative pursuits.
-Making the transition from paramedic to full-time writer.
-Persevering despite Shadowshaper getting rejected 40 times.
-The support he received from Sheree Renée Thomas, Tananarive Due and Nathan Bransford.
-Writing the Other.
-Why we shouldn’t italicize other languages.
-Using humor.
-The advice that changed the entire trajectory of Shadowshaper.
-Why everyone should write a book (but not everyone should publish one).
-Why he spent the last year not writing.
-Finding comfort in writing his Ambulance Stories.
“The idea of sitting down and writing a book seemed so free. Because it was just me and the laptop.”
“That’s why I write. The world is destroyed and very much on fire.”
“The bones and blood of being a writer is what you’ve lived, not what you’ve read.”
“I feel like I’m writing to get the world to be what I know it to be.”
“I just didn’t know if it was in me to write a good enough book to be worth writing a book.”
12 Fundamentals of Writing The Other (And the Self) [Buzzfeed]
Sierra Santiago and the Invisible City - Daniel José Older - Wattpad
Website / Twitter / Instagram / Tumblr
Piper Thibodeau: Website / Instagram
Emilija Angelovska (born in Macedonia, living in the Netherlands) is an artist, educator, and change agent. She is fascinated with the popularity of community art projects and does a deep dive into creative communities in her Back to the Drawing Board podcast.
Emilija has shown her work in galleries in Amsterdam, Calgary and Edmonton, Alongside her artistic and research practice she holds professional experience from the Smithsonian Institution and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. In 2016 she was the recipient of the Kathleen & Russell Lane Canadian Art Award.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/343
-How she started her podcast as a result of having lost her creative community and wanting to make a new one.
-The ways that community informs the individual and the individual informs the community.
-Her advice for anyone looking to build a creative community.
-How art and life are so closely intertwined.
-The importance of surrounding yourself with individuals who might challenge your worldviews and experiences.
-The elitism of art galleries.
-How to create for the sake of creating.
-What she has learned from the people that she has interviewed on her podcast.
-Seeing teachers and professors as peers with individual opinions and tastes.
-Why it is crucial to have diverse individuals in your creative community.
-The symptom of quantity over quality caused by social media.
-Learning to not take what other people say about her work too seriously.
-Why adults should always be learning and exploring.
-The importance of sometimes doing absolutely nothing.
-Her love of books and why it’s fun to wreck them.
“Living a creative life is often times a lonely activity.”
“It’s very difficult to learn anything or to go anywhere if you are only communicating with people that have the same types of beliefs as yourself.”
“Whether you get bored and a new idea comes up or you are completely exhausted and your body simply needs time to settle, those moments of just doing nothing are really important.”
Back to the Drawing Board Podcast
things that art school did not teach me
Daniel José Older : Website / Twitter
Dan Berry is a cartoonist, illustrator, podcaster and educator based in the town of Shrewsbury, UK. He is a frequent collaborator with the author David Gaffney and is currently working on the follow-up to The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head; a book called Rivers.
Since 2012 he has produced the podcast Make It Then Tell Everybody in which he has spoken to over a hundred and sixty other artists about what they do and how they do it.
Between 2008 and 2019 he was the Programme Leader for the illustration, comics and children’s books degree courses at the School of Creative Arts, Wrexham Glyndwr University.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/danberry
-His fascination with being able to create something that puts ideas and images in other people’s minds.
-Being hospitalized from the extreme stress he experienced working as a designer for a marketing agency.
-His decision to quit teaching.
-How everyone has different responses to stress, and the value in being able to determine your own.
-The large amount of work that you can get done in one hour.
-The stress level of effort and “half-assing it” to aim for a B-grade instead of an A.
-Why he called his podcast “Make it then Tell Everybody.”
-Illuminating the “grubby underbelly” of the creative process.
-The BMX story and the false belief that growth in your career has to come from the outside.
-Telling people about your work, both old and new.
-Some of the resistances that his guests have experienced.
-How he gets past “page fright” – the fear of the blank page.
-How he interacts with his ideas and why he is wary of the ones that come into his head fully formed.
-Why he draws people as birds.
-The experience of drawing an entire comic in 24 hours and other forms of “stunt drawing.”
“It was a good and fun job. Up until the point it wasn’t.”
“Creativity is not a muscle that you can just flex. It’s also a gland and you’ve got to relax it.”
“I managed to convince myself that everything else was stressful aside from the thing that actually was.”
“You could be the best artist on the planet, but if you’re only drawing in your bedroom and never showing anybody, you basically don’t exist.”
“I had this belief that any growth in my career had to come from outside.”
“Trying to remain enthusiastic about something that isn’t representative of your current level of ability is difficult.”
“If it exists, then you’ve done it right.”
“Once you have something that exists, you have something that’s editable.”
Make It Then Tell Everybody | How artists do what they do
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
The Three Rooms in Valerie's Head by David Gaffney and Dan Berry
Dick Rivets & Other Stories by Dan Berry
Website / Podcast / Store / Twitter
Emilija Angelovska : Podcast / Website
Danielle Clough is a multi-disciplinary artist from Cape Town, South Africa who specializes in the mediums of embroidery, photography, graphic design and video art.
She has been profiled by Instagram, Colossal, CNN, Vogue and The New York Times and had her work and in various exhibitions in South Africa, The USA and Russia.
Her new Skillshare class shows the basics of how she creates so that you can give embroidery a try for the first time.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/danielleclough
-Her mindset when she made the decision to quit school and also to change career paths.
-Learning to trust our heart and our instincts when they tell us that things aren’t right.
-How we sometimes think too far into the future and put too much pressure on ourselves before, during and after the creation process.
-Her biggest takeaways from Red & Yellow School of Logic & Magic.
-Seeing herself as a brand instead of an artist and her work as a product as opposed to statements.
-Keeping her personal life out of her social media presence.
-Her perfect formula for defeating imposter syndrome (and also cultivating it).
-Her mental state while creating pieces that take longer than a month.
-How she often feels like she is the sum of the last thing that she created, for better or worse.
-Why she doesn’t like the word, “inspiration.”
-Her advice for anyone who wants to get started with embroidery.
“I stumbled into embroidery through a sequence of opportunities and mistakes.”
“As soon as you say you’re going to ‘stick something out,’ that’s probably an indication that it’s not right for you.”
“I always feel like I am the sum of the last thing I put together.”
“That motivation to actually turn something into something tangible is so much more important to focus on than those neurons firing for three seconds.”
“Trust yourself and trust what you love.”
Danielle Clough's Skillshare class
Red & Yellow School of Logic & Magic
“Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert
Skillshare / Website / Facebook / Instagram
Dan Berry : Website / Make it Then Tell Everybody
Donald M. Rattner is an award-winning residential architect and educator. As a consultant he draws on scientific research to help individuals and organizations maximize occupant creativity in workplace, residential, wellness, hospitality and retail environments.
In his new book, My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation, Donald draws on the latest psychology and productivity research to offer a practical guide to designing your home to optimize your creative potential.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/340
-Why you should have a designated creative space.
-The importance of nature in our creativity and in our mental and physical wellbeing.
-Facing your space and setting up your surroundings to make yourself more open-minded.
-How we feel more creative when we feel safe and comfortable.
-How music and sound affects our creativity.
-The best decibel level for boosting your creative process.
-The surprising benefits of napping to our creativity (and why it works).
-Idea seeding.
-How working walls can help you externalize your ideas, work through your ideas, collaborate and think bigger than you normally could.
-The debate on messiness and creativity.
-Some free, cheap and simple tactics that people can use RIGHT NOW to optimize their creative spaces.
“Creativity, health and happiness all tend to operate on the same spectrum with regard to environment.”
“Walls are for more than just separating spaces. They can be active agents in the creative process.”
“Ideas flow from the hand to the brain just as much they do from the brain to the hand.”
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina
Website / Facebook / Medium / LinkedIn