Emerging Form

How can looking at the past help us understand what to do about a current crisis? “I'm a firm believer that history can help give us perspective here,” says science writer Lisa S. Gardiner. She's speaking about her research with coral reefs, but it's an apropos metaphor for how our past experiences with creative endeavors can help inform our current struggles. In this episode, we talk about the importance of the book proposal (and tips for getting one done), the art of weaving the self into a story that's not memoir, and how essential our curiosity is to, well, everything.Lisa S. Gardiner is a freelance writer, geoscientist, and educator. She is the author of Reefs of Time: What Fossils Reveal about Coral Survival and Tales from an Uncertain World: What Other Assorted Disasters Can Teach Us About Climate Change. Her writing has appeared in Nautilus Magazine, Scientific American, bioGraphic, and Audubon, among other places. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when the subject of your creative practice scares you? Not only that, but what if you're scared, too, of what might happen when you put your work into the world? We speak with physicist and author Adam Becker about his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity, in which he writes about the terrible plans tech billionaires have for the future and why they won't work. Our conversation includes why doubt is a strength, being a planner vs. a pantser, why bringing your body into your practice is important, and why Adam spends time with trees.Adam Becker is a science journalist with a PhD in physics. He is the author, most recently, of More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. In addition to his books, he has written for the New York Times, the BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, and many other publications. He lives in California.Adam's first book, What Is Real? Find Adam on Bluesky This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Knowing your audience is everything for a storyteller, and sometimes that information comes in real time. “Within three minutes I am going to know if this is going to be terrible for all of us or great,” says storyteller Bil Lepp. In this bonus episode, we talk about how to respond on stage to an audience's laughter, what to do if you find yourself with an audience of middle schoolers, how to handle a show that doesn't go so well, and how he got started in storytelling.Bil Lepp is an award-winning storyteller, author, and recording artist. He's the host of the History Channel's Man Vs History series, the occasional host of NPR's internationally syndicated Mountain Stage. Though a five time champion of the WV Liars's Contest, Lepp's stories often contain morsels of truth that present universal themes in clever and witty ways. Bil's books and audio collections have won the PEN Steven Kroll Award for Children's Book Writing, Parents' Choice Gold Awards and awards from the National Parenting Publications Association. He's also the recipient of the Vandalia Award, West Virginia's highest folk honor. The Charleston Gazette calls him a “cross between Dr. Seuss and film noir.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Humor for the joy of it is reason enough, but in this episode we speak with storyteller Bil Lepp about how humor might also be a way to earn trust with an audience so that we might bring in difficult conversations. He offers techniques for how to craft toward a punchline and how to use a “Lego” approach to crafting multiple stories. We also touch on how storytelling builds community.Bil Lepp is an award-winning storyteller, author, and recording artist. He's the host of the History Channel's Man Vs History series, the occasional host of NPR's internationally syndicated Mountain Stage. Though a five time champion of the WV Liars's Contest, Lepp's stories often contain morsels of truth that present universal themes in clever and witty ways. Bil's books and audio collections have won the PEN Steven Kroll Award for Children's Book Writing, Parents' Choice Gold Awards and awards from the National Parenting Publications Association. He's also the recipient of the Vandalia Award, West Virginia's highest folk honor. The Charleston Gazette calls him a “cross between Dr. Seuss and film noir.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“Practice teaches us to have faith in the process,” says Andrea Barrett, National Book Award winning author. In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with her about her newest book, Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction. It's one of the most metaphor-rich, process-curious shows we've had yet. We explore the joys of rabbit holes, the importance of not knowing what we are looking for, the inevitability of false starts (and how to let go of the work we've done), why we shouldn't worry about writing unreadable first drafts, how to develop the muscle of intuition, and the questionable wisdom of how we teach creative writing.Andrea Barrett is the author of the National Book Award-winning Ship Fever, Voyage of the Narwhal, Servants of the Map, Natural History, and other works of fiction. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an NEA Fellowship, and the Rea Award for the Short Story, and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in the Adirondacks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“I turn to the poem, I turn to the page for a sense of hope, how to move through life, how to get through a day,” says Danusha Laméris. “I have come to a place where I trust the poem more than I trust myself.” In our second conversation with the award-winning poet, (We also interviewed her in Episode 29 on “the understory”), she shares from her newest collection, Blade by Blade, and we talk about how a writing practice grows us, how it allows us to “salvage time,” and how it helps us see how connected we other with the past and with others.Danusha Laméris' first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. A Pushcart Prize recipient, some of her work has been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Orion, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. Her second book, Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series), was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award and the winner of the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. She was selected for the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, and was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. She is on the faculty of Pacific University's Low Residency MFA program. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“Doing this book took me out of my comfort zone, into new fields I wasn't comfortable with,” says Alex Hutchinson, speaking of his newest book The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map. And so it is we speak with the expert on exploration about his own experiences of exploring in creative practice. Why are we drawn to what we don't know? How do we know when enough is enough? When is it better to build on what we know than launch into new territory? And what of that revelation that seems to stay just beyond our grasp?Alex Hutchinson is the New York Times bestselling author of Endure, a longtime columnist for Outside covering the science of endurance, and a National Magazine Award–winning journalist who has contributed to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications. A former long-distance runner for the Canadian national team, he holds a master's in journalism from Columbia and a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge, and he did his post-doctoral research with the National Security Agency. He lives in Toronto with his family. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How do the stories we tell become intricately involved with our identities? And how do we change the stories that are not serving us? In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with storyteller Kristin Pedemonti, founder of Steer Your Story, about Narrative Therapy Practices. We discuss unpeeling layers of stories, how to “thicken the threads” of a preferred narrative, the importance of play, and meeting “stuckness.”Founder of Steer Your Story, Kristin Pedemonti believes in the power of story to connect and heal. Recipient of the National Storytelling Network International Story Bridge Award, she's presented in 20 countries across five continents. Kristin serves as Storytelling Consultant and Coach for UNICEF Ghana and for the World Bank coaching staff to mine data to tell the human story. In 2005, Kristin sold her home and possessions to create and facilitate Literacy Outreach Belize. She donated storytelling and writing programs for 30,000 students and trained 800 teachers how to utilize their indigenous legends to teach creative writing. Her book: A Bridge of Stories chronicles this seven-year literacy project.You can also find her on: Instagram @kristinpedemontiFacebook: Kristin Pedemonti, Linked In Kristin Pedemonti This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can our creative practice extend to the way we treat other people? How might we build entire careers out of our creative dreams? These questions are at the heart of our conversation with Sherry Richert Belul. We also talk about creating a “seamless life” with no delineation between work and play and how to pay attention to (and act on) the creative ideas that “just drop in.”Sherry Richert Belul, founder of Simply Celebrate, helps people find creative, intentional, and impactful ways to celebrate life and to express love for family and friends. As a certified life coach, Sherry supports people in living their best lives, full of joy, success, engagement, and meaningful relationships. She is the author of Say it Now: 33 Creative Ways to Say I LOVE YOU to the Most Important People in Your Life, cohost of the Heart Wisdom Author Panel with Mango Publishing, and co-founder of The Secret Agents of Change kindness project. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Town + Country, and The Wall Street Journal.Say It Now: 33 Ways to Say I Love You to the Most Important People in Your Life Simply Celebrate This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Artificial Intelligence now permeates our daily lives. What conversations are we not having about AI? And how can creative projects help open these discussions about what is really at stake? In this episode of Emerging Form, journalist Evan Ratliff shares with us how he cloned his voice, connected it to a chat bot, and created a voice agent that took calls and made calls–both to strangers and friends–all in a voice that sounded as if it were him. He shares the project, his questions, his concerns, his discoveries on a new podcast, Shell Game. We speak with him about the genesis of the show, how having no prescriptive ideas on the outset can benefit creative practice, how financing your own creative project offers more creative freedom, and why it was so important in a program about AI to have all the content created by humansEvan Ratliff is an award-winning investigative journalist, bestselling author, podcast host, and entrepreneur. He's the author of the The Mastermind: A True Story of Murder, Empire, and a New Kind of Crime Lord; the writer and host of the hit podcasts Shell Game and Persona: The French Deception; and the cofounder of The Atavist Magazine, Pop-Up Magazine, and the Longform Podcast.Links:Shell GameEvan interviewing Christie on the Longform Podcast This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How does storytelling matter? Why might we bring in feelings about our children or a moment of being overcome with beauty into a book about, say, climate change? In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with Auden Schendler about the power of story, about how we are drawn to tell the stories we most need to tell, and how and why it's important to let humility be a part of our practice.Auden Schendler has spent almost thirty years working on sustainability and climate change in the corporate world, focusing on big scale change that rejects tokenism. Currently Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen One, he has been a town councilman, a Colorado Air Quality Control Commissioner, and an ambulance medic. He's the author of Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Sustainability Revolution, which climatologist James Hansen called “an antidote to greenwash,” and new this year, Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering our Soul, which historian Naomi Oreskes called “compelling and weirdly fun.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

There's an art to deep listening and eliciting enlivening conversation, and in this episode we speak with celebrated interviewer Mitzi Rapkin, founder, host and producer of the literary podcast “First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing.” Join us in an exploration of how to draw out authenticity and inviteConversations “with a life force of their own” that allow you to “go to a place you never thought you could go.”Mitzi Rapkin is the founder, host and producer of the literary podcast, “First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing,” which features a new author interview each week. There, she has interviewed more than 500 contemporary writers over the past eleven years, exploring the decisions and psychology that went into the writing of featured books, writers' themes and the human experience. Rapkin is also a journalist, fiction writer, certified integral coach, facilitator and fiction-writing instructor. Her company, Full Light Communications, helps clients articulate and achieve their vision through facilitation, coaching, and communications services. She is never far from a bar of dark chocolate. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“If you are sitting around waiting to be inspired, you won't get a lot of painting done,” says mixed-media artist Kellie Day. In this episode, we talk about finding inspiration, a practice of showing up, the difference between creating from the head vs. creating from the spirit, how “shadow careers” can be an attempt to get closer to our passion, the miracles that can come from mistakes, and working through self-judgment, and how to “open to greater creativity.”Kellie Day is mixed-media artist whose paintings hold serendipitous treasures including Sufi poems, stenciled spray paint, handmade stamps and bold drips of acrylic paint applied with a paint syringe, creating rich textured layers of collage and acrylics. This unconventional approach has caught the eye of major brands like Trader Joe's, The North Face, and Alpinist Magazine who have featured her work in their collections. She's also worked as a US Forest Service Ranger, firefighter, and graphic designer, and brings both structure and great freedom to her role as an International Art Mentor, helping women discover their artistic voices and explore their own creativity. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

It's our annual end of the year episode, in which we review the year that was and assess how things went. We share our revelations and highlights and what we hope to do better in the coming year. We also pick new words for 2025 to help guide our process and look back on our words for 2024 and how they served us.And we have news! Starting this month, Emerging Form is also a radio show on KVNF radio. You can hear us every other Tuesday from 6:30pm to 7pm mountain time.Christie's essay about living with uncertainty. The Scientific American feature story Christie wrote about metabolically healthy obesity. Uncertain, Christie's limited run podcast series released by Scientific American. The Unfolding, Rosemerry's latest book of poetry. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How does the writing practice help us know what we most want to say? How do we translate an intimate, interactive personal style into a practical, how-to book? In this episode of Emerging Form, we interview Rebecca Mullen who has spent decades as a marriage counselor and recently translated her experience onto the page. “My process as coach is as question asker,” she says. “When you are writing a book, it's not a conversation, it is one way. It's still important to me to be the coach pausing to ask questions, inviting readers to try this on. I wanted the book to have an interactive style and conversational tone.” We speak about how to organize your ideas, how to grow into an authoritative voice, how to get clear, and how writing a how-to book about marriage can profoundly affect your marriage.Rebecca Mullen is an artist, writer, and coach. She hosts the podcast Habits for Your Happily Ever After, and her TEDx Talk invites you to create peace at the dinner table with the stories you tell. Her brand-new book is called 6 Steps to Better Marriage Communication.Rosemerry on Rebecca's podcast: How Does the Death of. Child Impact Your Marriage Christie on Rebecca's podcast: How Science Can Help Your Marriage Communication This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How does creativity help us meet a difficult time? In this episode, co-hosts Christie Aschwanden and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer talk about ways that creative practice can nourish us, how it can help us envision a way forward, how it helps us to widen the lens and see beyond the moment, how it helps us embrace paradox, opens us to connection, and more. We hear from previous guests poet Jack Ridl and astrologer/filmmaker/novelist/musician Holiday Mathis, plus from listeners in our Facebook group, too, This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

When we asked prolific novelist Laura Pritchett to speak with us about writing fiction, little did we realize that not only would she offer us a host of practical advice about character, revision and ambition, she would also teach us about meeting our art with great self-compassion.  We speak about her two new novels out this year, Playing with Wildfire (Torrey House Press) and Three Keys (Random House Books), writing without a plot outline, and much more, including why joy must be a part of a fiction writer's practice. Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels. Known for championing the complex and contemporary West and giving voice to the working class, her books have garnered the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, several Colorado book awards, and others. She's also the author of two nonfiction books, one play, and was editor of three environmental-based anthologies. One novel, Stars Go Blue, has been optioned for TV rights. She's published hundreds of essays and short stories in national venues, most recently in The Sun, Terrain, Camas, Orion, Creative Nonfiction, and others. She directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University and holds a PhD from Purdue University. When not writing or teaching, she can be found sauntering around the West, especially her home state of Colorado. She particularly likes looking at clouds and wildflowers.Laura's websiteGOING GREEN: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Diver Edited by Laura Pritchett (with contributions by Christie and her mom, Ruth Friesen). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

When is lack of knowledge a writer's best friend? New York Times bestselling author and Guggenheim winner Richard Panek has found that starting from a place of relative ignorance allows him to research and then write about complicated subjects in a way that allows the average reader to find their own way in. We speak with Richard on the book birthday of his newest title, Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Space Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos. He discusses how he found the form for the book, his favorite punctuation and how it helps to create a more conversation tone, how blog writing informs his book writing, and trying creative things you haven't tried before. Richard Panek is the author of numerous books including The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, which won the American Institute of Physics communication award and was longlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. The recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts as well as an Antarctic Artists and Writers grant from the National Science Foundation, he is also the co-author with Temple Grandin of The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, a New York Times bestseller. His own books have been translated into sixteen languages, and his writing about science and culture has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Scientific American, Discover, Smithsonian, Natural History, Esquire, and Outside. He lives in New York City.Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Space Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“I believe that telling our story, even the story of a moment, the story of an emotion, is one of the most healing things we can do,” says James Crews, poet, teacher and speaker. His new book, Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Courage, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion blends poetry, essays and writing prompts to help readers tell their own stories. We speak about this unusual blending of genres, writing as a healing practice, and how to write titles and first lines that draw people in. James Crews is the editor of several bestselling books, including The Path to Kindness and How to Love the World, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, and on NPR's Morning Edition. The author of four prize-winning books of poetry and of the book Kindness Will Save the World, James also speaks and leads workshops on kindness, mindfulness, and writing for self-compassion. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont. AND The Wonder of Small Things just won the New England Book Award for Poetry! He also hosts a monthly writing community and sends out a weekly newsletter.To purchase signed books and join his newsletter: https://linktr.ee/jcrewsjrMore on James Crews: https://www.jamescrews.net/For info on his monthly writing community: https://www.themonthlypause.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

One of the most thrilling stories of creative inspiration is that of Rainer Maria Rilke writing Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies following a time of great international and personal upheaval. Translator and poet Mark S. Burrows shares Rilke's story with us and talks with us about the art of translation–full of creative conundrums and choices and impossible invitations. It's a heart-opening, deeply compelling episode about how we are all translators, “listening to the deepest voice” and how life itself is our greatest creative act. Mark S. Burrows is an award-winning poet, translator, and scholar. An historian of medieval Christianity, he is a much sought-after speaker and retreat leader in the US and Europe. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and currently edits poetry for the society's journal Spiritus. His most recent translation is Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus (2024). He recently published You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke (2024), cowritten with Stephanie Dowrick. He lives and writes in Camden, ME. https://www.msburrows.com/www.soul-in-sight.org  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

This week, Christie interviews Rosemerry about her new book, The Unfolding, out on October 1st. Do her a big favor and pre-order it now at this link. Rosemerry explains how the poems came together, how she structured the book and why the cover is pink. It's a wonderful conversation we know you'll love. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her most recent poetry collections are All the Honey (Samara Press, 2023) and The Unfolding (Wildhouse Publishing, October 2024). In January, 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief, bereavement, wonder and love through poetry. One-word mantra: Adjust. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“It took me years to reclaim my creative life as not other than my spiritual life but the very place my spirit flowers,” says Mirabai Starr award-winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker and a leading teacher of interspiritual dialogue. In this episode, we speak with Mirabai about how she created an intimate, welcoming tone in her most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground. We speak, too, about the intersections of creative practice and spiritual practice, the importance of the imagination, dismantling the hierarchy of the mentor/protege relationship, and how she steps out of the way to let “the [creative] thing” come through.In 2020, Mirabai Starr was honored on Watkins' list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Drawing from twenty years of teaching philosophy and world religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos, Starr now travels the world sharing her wisdom on contemplative living, writing as a spiritual practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss. She has authored over a dozen books, including Wild Mercy, Caravan of No Despair, and God of Love. Starr has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary contemporary translations of the mystics John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. Starr continues to teach seminars, workshops and retreats, both in person and through her online community, Wild Heart. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico. www.mirabaistarr.comwww.wildheart.spacehttps://www.instagram.com/mirabaistarr/https://www.facebook.com/mirabai.starr.author/https://www.harpercollins.com/products/ordinary-mysticism-mirabai-starr?variant=41325260668962 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can trying a new art form vitalize and fuel your creative practice? Christie and Rosemerry travel to Nashville to meet in person with their most frequent guest, Holiday Mathis, and converse about her experiences with learning about writing and performing stand-up comedy. The laughter-filled episode explores developing your creative voice, the benefits of a creative community, meeting your fears and showing up vulnerable in your creative practice, and much more. Holiday Mathis writes the daily horoscope for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and hundreds of newspapers around the world. In her decades-long syndication she's published almost nine million words on luck, the stars and the human condition. She's also a multi-platinum selling songwriter with songs recorded by Miley Cyrus, Emma Roberts and more. Holiday is the author of several books including How to Fail Epically in Hollywood.  Previous Holiday episodes:Episode 28: The Daily GrindEpisode 28 bonus: Extended Interview with Holiday MathisEpisode 63: Reviving abandoned projects with Holiday MathisEpisode 63 bonus: Holiday Mathis on creative processEpisode 80: Holiday Mathis Wrote a NovelEpisode 80 bonus: Audio Excerpt from How to Fail Epically in HollywoodThe blog post that started our friendship with Holiday: I Know Astrology Is B******t, But I Can't Stop Reading My Horoscope by Christie Aschwanden This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when a project grows way beyond its original scope? We talk with Nicola Twilley about her new book  Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves, originally envisioned as an article. In this episode we cover being fluid with our plans, research, rewriting, the differences between writing alone and with a partner, and how what looks like bad luck can turn into a blessing. Nicola Twilley is the coauthor of Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, named one of the best books of 2021 by Time, NPR, The Guardian, and the Financial Times. She is cohost of Gastropod, an award-winning podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Ambition. Perspective. Competition. Kindness. These themes are at the heart of our conversation with essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider. Drawing from his essay, “The Ones Who Turned Back” we talk about mid-life changes in creative practice, plus thoughts on the tension between doing what you want and doing what you are rewarded for (or what people expect of you) and why you want to stay not only young at heart, but young at mind.  Tim Kreider is the author of the essay collections We Learn Nothing and I Wrote This Book Because I Love You. His Substack is called “The Loaf” and he has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vox, Nerve, Men's Journal, The Comics Journal, Film Quarterly, and Fangoria. His cartoons have been collected in three books by Fantagraphics Books. His cartoon, “The Pain—When Will It End?” ran for twelve years in the Baltimore City Paper and other alternative weeklies, and is archived at the paincomics.com. Tim was born and educated in Baltimore, Maryland. He lives in New York City and an idyllic compound in the Ozark woods. His cat The Quetzal died in 2013. His new cat is Richard, who is a fool, an adorable little fool.The ReferendumThe Ones Who Turned Back This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“I had built up a lot of don'ts in my head about writing,” says bestselling author Paolo Bacigalupi. In this episode, we speak with the speculative fiction novelist about how he went from wondering if he would ever write again to publishing his new book, NAVOLA. We cover daily habits, discipline, pleasure, and meeting the negative voices in your head. Paolo Bacigalupi is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Paolo's work often focuses on questions of sustainability and the environment, most notably the impacts of climate change. He has written novels for adults, young adults, and children, and his new book NAVOLA releases July 9, 2024. He can be found online at windupstories.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What is our relationship with our bodies? Our past? The planet? The rest of humanity? We speak with Nadia Colburn about how she weaves together a yoga practice, mindfulness, writing, and activism to explore these questions. “Our writing, our living, our experiencing is deeper when we can come from a bigger perspective and bring all the awarenesses,” she says. We speak about common obstacles to creative practice, ways to include the body, how teaching affects her writing practice and how she came to write her most recent collection of poems. Writer, yogi, activist and teacher Nadia Colburn is author of two books of poetry, The High Shelf and I Say the Sky and her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Spirituality & Health, and dozens of other journals. She's been a professor at MIT, Lesley, and Stonehill College, and she is currently the writer-in-residence at Northeastern's Center For Spirituality, Dialogue and Service. She's also the founder of the Align Your Story School for writers which combines a traditional academic background with a more holistic, mindful approach. Nadia ColburnI Say the Sky This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What if we dropped our expectations and preconceived ideas about our creative practice? In this episode, we speak with elite runner, author Katie Arnold about how her Zen practice of “coming to whatever you do in your life with a fresh and open mind” has influenced her creative work. We explore the story behind her new book, Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World: Zen and the Art of Running Free, which tells the story of a traumatic wilderness accident and her path to healing. Plus, we discuss the choices we make around including other people's stories in our writing. Katie Arnold is a longtime journalist and bestselling author of Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World: Zen and the Art of Running Free (2024), which tells the story of a traumatic wilderness accident and her path to healing. Her critically acclaimed memoir, Running Home, was published in 2019. An elite ultra runner and student of Zen, Katie teaches writing workshops exploring the link between movement and creativity. A former managing editor at Outside Magazine, she has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Outside, ESPN The Magazine, Runner's World, and Elle, among others, as well as been a guest on NPR Weekend Edition Sunday and The Upaya Zen Center Podcast. She has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell and Ucross. Katie lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, Steve Barrett, their two teenage daughters, and two dogs.Christie's review of Katie's book, Running Home. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

When fiction writer Lydia Millet found herself “preoccupied by the overwhelm of the world,” she turned to writing nonfiction. “I thought if i tried to write about it I might think more lucidly about it.” We speak with her about her newest book, We Loved It All (part memoir, part bestiary), about the challenges and joys of changing genres, about the gap between her projections about being a novelist and actually being a novelist, and how books not only save lives, but souls. Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections. Her newest book is a memoir, We Loved It All, published this month. Her novel A Children's Bible was a New York Times "Best 10 Books of 2020" selection and shortlisted for the National Book Award. In 2019 her story collection Fight No More received an Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. She also writes essays, opinion pieces, book reviews, and other ephemera and has worked as an editor and staff writer at the Center for Biological Diversity since 1999. She lives in the desert outside Tucson with her family. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“Invest always in relationships before you need them, be vulnerable with them,” says Courtney E. Martin, journalist, author, podcaster and speaker. In this episode, she shares with us an essential question for all journalists and creatives and discusses how it shaped a specific project, plus she offers advice for living a creative life based on Parker Palmer's thoughts on “the tragic gap.” This is an episode focused on transparency, vulnerability, community and humility.Courtney E. Martin is the author of four books, most recently, Learning in Public, a popular newsletter, called Examined Family, host of “The Wise Unknown” podcast from PRX, and co-host of the Slate “How To!” podcast. She's also a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and FRESH Speakers, and the Storyteller-in-Residence at The Holding Co. Her literal happy place is her co-housing community in Oakland, Calif. Her metaphorical happy place is asking people questions. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

image: Eben Pariser and Molly Venter How do we get in the zone? What does that even mean for creatives? And how do we stay in it? And how do we get back in when kicked out? We speak with musicians and marriage partners Molly Venter and Eben Pariser about using the ancient technologies of poetry and music to help people tap into their subconscious and explore what treasure they have within them. Goodnight Moonshine is a guitar and vocal duet, and a musical marriage in all senses. The Duo combines the evocative voice and songwriting of Molly Venter, with Eben Pariser's adventurous guitar playing. The result is folk music with a depth of improvisation and tonal subtlety usually reserved for jazz. Molly is well known for her sublime singing in the prominent female-vocal-group Red Molly, Her voice has been called “biker-chick smoky,” and with Goodnight Moonshine she is in full force as a songwriter with a trance-induced stream-of-consciousness writing style.  Eben cut his teeth as a street performer in New York City, playing guttural music of New Orleans with his band Roosevelt Dime, but he was quickly captured by classic jazz, and his improvisational skills are a hallmark of Goodnight Moonshine's sound.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

It's all about balance–and in this episode we speak with botanist and writer Erin Zimmerman about choices she made in her new book Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood and the Fight to Save an Old Science. We also talk about the choices she's made as she balances motherhood and work, being an introvert and finding a writing community, pursuing her passions and finding meaningful ways to recharge. Plus how she was inspired by Charles Darwin's parenting. Erin Zimmerman is an evolutionary biologist turned science writer and essayist. She studied at the University of Guelph and at the Université de Montréal before traveling to South America to collect plant specimens, and then working at the Royal Botanic Gardens in England. In addition to her academic writing, her essays have appeared in publications including Smithsonian Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Undark, and Narratively. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

[image: Christie working with her Scientific American editor, Jeff DelViscio.]We live in a society that wants to know. And yet uncertainty underlies all of science–one of our most essential tools for understanding the world. What is our relationship with uncertainty? Why is this relationship so important? And what does it have to do with creative practice? In this episode of Emerging Form, Christie Aschwanden talks about her new short-run podcast, Uncertain, hosted by Scientific American. We discuss the genesis of the project, the importance of finding people who are also passionate about your project, being receptive to opportunities, how we can be smart about creating congruent projects, how trying new media can spark our creative practice, and the importance of encouragement.Uncertain from Scientific American https://scientificamerican.com/uncertainChristie's FiveThirtyEight story “There's No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science'” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

“The day is about certainty, answers, lists, data,” says author Annabel Abbs-Streets. But at night, she says, “I felt I could put my arm through to another world” — a world of creativity, inspiration, open-mindedness and insight. In this episode, we discuss her new book, Sleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self, which weaves science, memoir, and history into a powerful, intimate conversation about creativity and the night and why we (especially women) might find our empathy, creativity, and connection to the divine might be heightened after the sun goes down.Annabel Abbs-Streets is an award-winning writer of highly researched fiction, non-fiction and memoir.  Sleepless is her seventh book, and her work has been published in over 30 languages.  She writes regularly for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, and has spoken at literary festivals across the world. She has a degree in English Literature, an MA in Marketing, Research and Statistics, and is a Fellow of the Brown Foundation. She lives with her family  in London and Sussex.Annabel Abbs-StreetsSleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self Rosemerry's album on endarkenment, Dark Praise This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

When Kelly and Zach Weinersmith proposed a book on colonizing Mars, they had no idea that halfway through their research they'd change their position. Their title says it all: A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? What happens when two people who eschew conflict find themselves in a position of dashing people's dreams about space? In this light-hearted episode we talk about their research process, how they organized crazy amounts of information, their collaborative processes, negotiating critique with each other, how to make hard science more accessible and palatable to the public and how humor helps everything. Dr. Kelly Weinersmith received her PhD in Ecology at the University of California Davis, and is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. Kelly studies parasites that manipulate the behavior of their hosts, and her research has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, BBC World, Science, and Nature. With her husband, Zach Weinersmith she wrote Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, was a New York Times Bestseller.and Zach Weinersmith is the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and he illustrated the New York Times-bestselling Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration. His work has been featured by The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Forbes, Science Friday and many others. Zach and Kelly live in Virginia with their children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

It happens. We screw up. Sometimes, mid creative process, we realize we need to start over again. In this episode, we look at one of Rosemerry's recent midnight bouts with “uh oh” and how it became a chance to explore trust in the process and trust in the creative self. “It was so empowering, so exciting, so revolutionary for my creative process to have this ability to be able to move forward with compassion toward myself instead of shaming of the self,” she says. In this heartfelt episode, Christie and Rosemerry explore vulnerability, authenticity, the gift of struggle, radical acceptance and the benefits of creating a cocoon of tenderness for the creative self. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can you build a palace in your mind? We speak with Paul Hearding, the North American Champion for Reciting Pi, about how he used storytelling to memorize 16,106 digits in February 2020. He shares how his process evolved (obey the emerging form!) so that now, as he continues to memorize more, he's included rhyme. It's fun episode exploring passion projects and practical applications for story. After receiving his master's in Mathematics from the University of Delaware and teaching at the college level, Paul Hearding packed up his things and followed a lifelong dream of moving out west. That journey brought him to Telluride, Colorado, where he taught high-school math and science. Paul now runs his own tutoring business, nurturing an appreciation for the art of mathematics in his students while pursuing his own mathematical passions, including the practice of reciting digits of pi from memory. In 2020, Paul recited 16,106 digits of pi, setting the US record.He is actively doing original research in the area of finite fields and is currently researching permutation polynomials, a phenomenon in abstract algebra with applications to the information sciences, particularly cryptology. He plans to submit his dissertation this year and earn his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can a creative practice help us to meet what Rilke named the “dark hours of our being?” How can we participate in a more self-compassionate creative practice? In this heart-opening, soul-nourishing, deeply vulnerable episode of Emerging Form, we speak with comedian and poet John Roedel about how writing helped him wonder again and again “what if I go just a little bit deeper?” We talk about how through a daily writing practice in a period of personal struggle, he was able to become increasingly vulnerable, increasingly courageous about sharing his work, and increasingly connected to his own heart. John Roedel is a comic who unexpectedly gained notability as a writer and poet through his heartfelt pieces he shared on social media that went viral. He is the author of six self-published books that went on to become Amazon bestsellers, including—Hey God. Hey John, Upon Departure and his latest work, “Fitting In is For Sardines.”Offering a sincere and very relatable look at his faith crisis, mental health, personal struggles, perception of our world, and even his fashion sense, John's writing has been shared millions of times across social media. He teaches at universities and retreat centers across the US. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How does one go from writing articles to writing a full book? How does this change creative rhythms of research, scheduling and writing? In this episode of Emerging Form we speak with journalist Rebecca Boyle whose first book, OUR MOON: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are comes out January 16. We speak, too, about how to do creative work while parenting young children and how to find focus with a subject literally as big as the moon. As a journalist, Rebecca Boyle has reported from particle accelerators, genetic sequencing labs, bat caves, the middle of a lake, the tops of mountains, and the retractable domes of some of Earth's largest telescopes. Her first book, OUR MOON: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (Random House, 2024) is a new history of humanity's relationship with the Moon, which Rebecca has not yet visited on assignment. Based in Colorado Springs, Colo., Rebecca is a contributing editor at Scientific American, a contributing writer at Quanta Magazine and The Atlantic, and a columnist at Atlas Obscura. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Smithsonian Air & Space, and Popular Science. Her work has appeared in Wired, MIT Technology Review, Nature, Science, Popular Mechanics, New Scientist, Audubon, Distillations, and many other publications. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

It's the epiphany episode! Every year Rosemerry & Christie think back on the year in creative practice to see what we had hoped we might explore and do … and what actually happened. So many revelations in this episode! Full of laughter and sincerity, celebration and curiosity. We pick new words for 2024 to help guide our process, and of course, we hand out magic wands … though it's surprising what happens with them. Christies's 5280m essay Liz Gilbert interview This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Best way to tackle a creative fear? With a friend! We talk with comedians Chris Duffy and Zach Sherwin about how they offered inspiration and accountability for each other in a 101-day TikTok content creation challenge. We touch on creative habits, perfectionism, practical tips for negotiating TikTok, collaborative projects, the vicissitudes of algorithms, and metrics of success. It's a heart-warming, laughter-full episode full of friendship, fear, birds, and success. Chris Duffy is a comedian, television writer, and radio/podcast host. Chris currently hosts TED's hit podcast How to Be a Better Human. He has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC News, NPR, and National Geographic Explorer. Chris wrote for both seasons of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas on HBO, executive produced by John Oliver. He's the creator/host of the streaming game show Wrong Answers Only, where three comedians try to guess what a leading scientist does all day, in partnership with LabX at the National Academy of Sciences. He has performed live in venues as big as a sold out Lincoln Center and as small as a walk-in closet (also sold out). Chris is both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. Zach Sherwin is a Los Angeles-based comedian and the creator and host of The Crossword Show, in which a panel of comedians solves a crossword puzzle live onstage in front of an audience. In 2022, he published his debut crossword puzzle in the New York Times. His writing for the web series “Epic Rap Battles of History” has received multiple Streamy Awards and Emmy nominations, and the Epic Rap Battles in which he's appeared have amassed well over half a billion YouTube views and an RIAA-certified Gold record. His own YouTube videos have been viewed many millions of times, and his other writing credits range from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (The CW) to MAD Magazine. As a performer, Zach has appeared on “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” (FX) and “The Pete Holmes Show” (TBS), both long cancelled, as well as “America's Got Talent” (NBC), which seems to be doing just fine! Zach has also worked extensively as a TV audience warm-up comic, including at the 2023 National Spelling Bee finals. For more information on Zach and The Crossword Show, please visit www.crosswordshow.com.Zach's first video of the 101 day experiment: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Wow, it's been a minute! Today's episode is number 100, and we use the occasion to reflect on the origins of Emerging Form and how it has evolved since February 21, 2019 when we released episode 1. (We have been releasing bonus episodes every other week since episode 10, which means that this is actually episode 190!!)We also discuss what we've learned how doing the podcast has enriched our lives and our friendship.Episodes mentioned:Ep 2: Is talent necessary with Jenn KahnEp 76 Bonus Chris Duffy on Differentiating Between You and Your IdeasEp 28 The daily grind with Holiday MathisEp 9: how should we think of awards and contests (live show!) Ep 82 Bonus: Creative Pleasures with Brad Aaron Modlin Ep 57: How play can fuel creativity with Catherine Price  (and #45 protecting your creative time)Ep 88: Emily Scott on the art of performingEp 19: Creativity and COVID-19 with Peter HellerEp 79: Lauren Fleshman on Telling Her Story to Create Social ChangeEp 40: Envy, with Cheryl Strayed Ep 74: T.A. Barron on the Magic of StoriesEp 93: Melissa L. SevignyEp 77 Bonus: Aaron Abeyta ep. 77 bonus   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What guidance does the earth offer for creative practice? We speak with Jacqeline Suskin, author of A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression about how to rest, when to push, when to engage in reflection, when to seek inspiration. We explore the rhythms of the earth and of creativity, specifically focusing on autumn and how this season might inform your creative practice. Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Detroit. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.https://www.jacquelinesuskin.com/**Vanessa Zoltan explains why she believes “writing a bad novel is an amazing sacred practice” in this Slate article Christie and Rosemerry discuss: Don't Just Write a Novel This November. Write a Bad Novel. It's good for you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

We've got a quick announcement. You probably noticed that we didn't put out a new episode today. That's not because it's Rosemerry's birthday, though it is! Happy birthday Rosemerry! Nope, we are taking a short break, this week and next, to get ready for some great stuff ahead. We are one episode away from our 100th episode, which is actually more like our 180th episode, because most episodes have a bonus to go along with it.We are going to be going over some of our favorite moments from the podcast so far. In the meantime, Rosemerry and I are going to re-listen to ep 12, about saying no. We'll be back on Nov 16. Catch you then! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

As a culture, we spend a lot of our time watching tv and movies and reading and popular fiction, but we rarely stop to reflect on the influence these forms of entertainment have on our lives. In his new book, You Are What You Watch, data journalist Walt Hickey takes deep, fun, rambunctious dive into all the ways that movies, television, and other forms of pop culture are fundamentally important to how we experience the world, how we see ourselves and the kind of the values that we embrace. He explains how Jurassic Park inspired him to study math in college and got people interested in paleontology while also increasing funding for the field. He graphs how movies drive tourism and influence what kind of dogs people want. Best of all, the book contains an entire chapter exploring what stories do to their creators. Turns out, writing fan fiction puts a rocket on someone's ability to write. Walt Hickey is the Deputy Editor for Data and Analysis at Insider News. He  works on cool stories and supports the newsroom through data journalism. In 2022, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting. In Spring of 2018, he launched his creator-owned daily morning newsletter Numlock News. It's all about the cool numbers buried in the news. It's funny and makes you smarter. He also predicts the Oscars in the Numlock Awards Supplement, a seasonal pop-up spinoff of Numlock. He's the author of the new book You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everyting. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How could embracing change help grow and develop your creative practice? We speak with best-selling author Brad Stulberg about “rugged flexibility” and new definitions for stability, how your expectations might be inhibiting your creativity, how the way you define yourself limits or grows your creative potential, and much more. We also discuss why it sometimes sucks to succeed. Brad Stulberg is the bestselling author of Master of Change and The Practice of Groundedness. He writes for The New York Times and is on faculty at the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Public Health. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.Christie's TEDx talk about envy and how someone else wrote her book.Episode 73: Steve Magness on Doing Hard Things This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when science, spirituality and poetry weave together? We speak with heralded poet David Keplinger about his newest poetry collection, Ice, which he playfully describes as “poetry via the Pleistocene.” The book, and our conversation, explores emergence–the emergence of Ice Age animals once preserved in ice and the emergence of feelings and old versions of the self as the heart melts with age and self-compassion. We talk about how creative practice can help us move from “stuckness to spontaneity” and how it is creativity helps us “remember we are here.”David Keplinger is the director of the MFA Program at American University, recipient of two NEA fellowships, the Colorado Book Award, the TS Eliot Award (selected by Mary Oliver), the Cavafy Prize (selected by Ilya Kaminsky), the Rilke Prize, and the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He's a longtime translator of Büchner Preis winning German poet Jan Wagner. His new poetry book is called Ice, which combines a concern for climate change with a metaphor for inner light. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Versatility in writing across genres can be a great blessing for a writer, and in this episode we speak with Cameron Walker who works as a journalist, writes poetry and fiction, and has two books coming out this year—one, a book of essays, and the other is an illustrated book for kids about US National Monuments. We speak about how to push yourself in different genres, the importance of trust in your process, how gratefulness became an important part of her writing practice, and the challenges of telling a complicated story in a way simple enough for kids to comprehend without sacrificing the truth of the complexities.Cameron Walker is a writer based in California. Her journalism, essays, and fiction have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Hakai, The Missouri Review, and The Last Word on Nothing. She's won awards for her writing from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the American Institute of Physics, and Terrain.org. She is the author of National Monuments of the U.S.A., a book for kids beautifully illustrated by Chris Turnham. Her essay collection, Points of Light, is coming out this fall from Hidden River Press.Links:Cameron's website: www.cameronwalker.netCameron's Last Word On Nothing archive: https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/category/cameron/Cameron's beautiful book, National Monuments of the USA (with illustrations by Chris Turnham) https://www.quarto.com/books/9780711265493/national-monuments-of-the-usa This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is all about passion. What happens when a curiosity takes on a life of its own? How do you juggle a passion project with a full-time job? What are the benefits to working alone? How do you determine a project has chops? We speak with Christine Laskowski, who recently launched an independent passion project, T&J, a podcast devoted to 6th century Byzantium and the greatest recorded love story on earth, between Empress Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian.Laskowski is a Berlin-based, multimedia journalist with 15 years of reporting, music and storytelling experience from around the world. Her video and audio work has appeared on CBS News, NPR, FiveThirtyEight, and Vox/Netflix. Two years ago, she pitched and then supervised the first TikTok news account for the German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle. http://christinelaskowski.com/Christine_Laskowski/Home.htmlvimeo.com/christinelaskowski @laskowski_chttps://tandj.buzzsprout.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Creative projects have a habit of taking on their own lives and bringing the creator along for the ride. In this episode, we speak with science writer Melissa L. Sevigny about how her book Brave the Wild River: The untold story of two women who mapped the botany of the Grand Canyon surprised her and required her to tell a story different from the one she set out to write. She also shares how she managed to work a full-time job while researching and writing, how she created three-dimensional characters out of archival information and interviews, how the book let her know she was done, and what she learned from this project to apply to future projects.   Melissa L. Sevigny grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she fell in love with the Sonoran Desert's ecology and dark desert skies. She has worked as a science communicator in the fields of space exploration, water policy, and sustainable agriculture, and has a B.S. in environmental science from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Iowa State University.She is the science reporter at KNAU (Arizona Public Radio) in Flagstaff, Arizona and her stories have been awarded regional Edward R. Murrow awards and featured nationally on Science Friday. In addition to Brave the Wild River, she's also written Mythical River and Under Desert Skies.Learn more about her at www.melissasevigny.com or follow her on Twitter @melissasevigny. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Staying Open to Meet the Moment with Rosemerry on Breathing WindA special surprise! This week, instead of hearing Rosemerry as an interviewer, you can hear her as an interviewee, talking about the intersection of creativity and grief on Breathing Wind, a wonderful podcast that offers “warm, honest and insightful conversations for journeying introspectively through grief and loss.” Hosts Naila Francis and Sarah Davis talk with her about poetry as a practice for meeting each moment, her unfolding journey through devastating loss, how she's been carried by an immensity of love since the death of her son Finn, in the same year that her father died, and how grief has deepened her trust in that love while inviting her, over and over again, to say yes to the world. For their show notes for this episode, visit here.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe