Finding solace in artists' journeys: Recent Episodes
Radiotopia
Stories about making creative work and living a creative life are like eating a nourishing meal for me, especially when the artists let their guard down and go deep. These are some of the podcast episodes I keep coming back to, to make me feel inspired, connected, or when I’m in a hole that I need help digging myself out of.
I make a serialized documentary podcast called Not By Accident, about choosing to become a single mother and coping with being one. My background is in film making, teaching and administrating. More about the podcast at notbyaccident.net
Hearing Bjork describe how she works and breaking down the creation of a song piece by piece, layer by layer, is the ultimate masterclass for any person who makes things.
This is a story about a woman stuck in a creative rut, imagining the life she thinks she needs and heading towards it. After my own years of procrastination and fantasizing about perfect conditions for creativity, I can relate.
Whenever I’m really stuck on a story’s structure, I come back to this episode. It offers up the kind of storytelling tools that I used to run a mile from when I was young, idealistic, and rejected the idea of rules and formulas for creative work. Now I know they have their place and can really help you out of a bind. This series is all about making stories, in any format.
Finding that I couldn’t be the mother I wanted to be and do my job the way wanted to do it, I made the decision to jump, to follow my creative ambitions, to move to the other side of the world, to start this podcast. I took the irresponsible option.
Ann Kroeber has a passion and wonder for recording sound that is infectious, and you have definitely heard her work. She collaborated on the sound that seeped into your subconscious in films like Blue Velvet, The Black Stallion, The English Patient and Lost Highway. Hear how creative and how exhilarating recording sound can be, or if you don’t care about sound, how exciting and exhilarating the world can be.
Molly Crabapple has forged a path as an artist, illustrator and journalist and talks with great candor about what it took to get there, and her work drawing injustice and rebellion.
A woman who left the successful career that made her miserable to become a writer and had success with her first book, is blocked with her second. Full of insights and inspiration from authors Neil Gaiman and Elizabeth Gilbert.
Curiosity, reporting, writing, and the exploration of family secrets, with the author of Patient HM. Longform is a weekly conversation with a non-fiction writer about how they got their start and how they tell their stories. Always worth listening to.
Listening to this series is like going to a great school for radio storytelling. This episode has the added benefit of introducing you to the immersive podcast series Sound Matters. Two for one.
The experience of being immersed in this composer’s work, influences, and approaches to creative exploration was, for me, invigorating, moving and inspiring.
Thelma Schoonmaker has edited every Scorsese film since Raging Bull and their creative collaboration is legendary. Hearing her talk about it offers rare insight.
Michael Ian Black is a great interviewer and I found this episode with the blockbuster author was unexpectedly compelling, inspiring and genuine. Other (very different) favorites: Miranda July and Sharon Horgan.
This American Life producer Stephanie Foo is incredibly driven, focused, and really good at finding and telling stories in audio. If you want to hear more about making radio, listen to Tape.