If you're struggling to come up with ideas, this episode is for you! You might be surprised at the power of just paying attention. That may sound too easy, but if you really do it (and it's SO simple), you'll find unexpectedly interesting things all around you. I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com , or contact me on Facebook , Instagram , and Twitter !...
Tosca Lee originally wanted to be a ballerina, but ended up switching to writing with some help from her dad while she was in college. Since then, she’s become a bestselling author of a wide variety of books, including The Line Between and its sequel, A Single Light. Tosca talked with me about her early writing experience, how the Kindle has changed things for authors, and the eerie feeling of writing a fictional pandemic shortly before an actual one hits. (And the one she made up is even scarie...
Welcome back for Creative Pep Talk #3! This week, we're delving into the deep, dark world of perfectionism. This is an overview of the evils of perfectionism, because to truly explore it would take more than 8 minutes, but I hope it'll get you thinking about how you fall into this trap, and what you might want to do differently to keep yourself out of perfectionism's clutches so you can enjoy your creative adventures instead of letting them torment you—because where's the fun in that? I'd love t...
My guest today knows what it’s like to believe you’re not creative. Lisa Townsend spent her first 27 years believing she wasn’t before having a creative awakening that led her to try EVERYTHING. We talk about what that looked like for her, and what she learned about fear, knowledge—what we have, what we don’t, and what we just think we have—and courage. These days, through her business, Change Your Badge, she uses what she’s learned creatively and professionally to help women get past their fear...
If you think permission slips are just for elementary school kids going on field trips, think again. Permission is absolutely vital to a healthy creative process. Listen for permission to give yourself permission! I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com , or contact me on Facebook , Instagram , and Twitter !...
My guest this week is opera singer Dale Travis, who has performed with companies all over the world in a career he never imagined as a child. Dale always loved to sing, but went to school for football. When an injury thwarted that plan, he auditioned for the choir, setting him on an unexpected path. We talk about his surprising leap to opera, how he lets the text and music teach him how to perform a character, the future of opera, and more. (And I promise you don’t have to be an opera fan to fol...
Welcome to the first in a series of creative pep talks—topics to help you get and stay unstuck in your creative process (aka your life). In this inaugural pep talk, I share my plan for these mini-episodes and tackle the age-old question of just who is creative—and why a lot of people believe they're not. These episodes will come out every other week, alternating with my regular interview episodes (those aren't going anywhere!). I hope you enjoy them. I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, an...
The idea of "talking to God" may bring up images of saints or prophets—or a disconnect from reality. John Roedel fits in none of those categories. He's an improv comedian and poet who started writing conversations between himself and God as silly one-offs during a crisis of faith, only to find them becoming deeper and more insightful over time. One of his pieces from a few years ago went viral in the spring of 2020, to his great surprise, when the newly quarantined public found itself reflected ...
Actor Richard Oliver has performed in film, TV, stage, commercial, audio, and even video games. He also directs for his own theatre and teaches acting. Richard has been named best actor by the New York City Indie Film Awards, and was a finalist for best actor from the Lockdown Festival. While we connected online thanks to the Minister of Chance, a Doctor Who spinoff audio series, we talk about everything from whether drama school is really necessary to the ways punctuation and breathing can help...
Author Nancy Springer has written more than 50 books, in genres ranging from mythic fantasy to magical realism to mystery. Her most popular novels by far are the Enola Holmes mysteries, featuring Sherlock's younger sister, the first of which is now a movie on Netflix. Nancy has often said that writing saved her life, and our conversation gets into the nitty gritty of just what that means, as well as her "free-range" childhood, what works in a novel that doesn't in a short story (and vice versa),...
This week, I’m bringing you a current teacher who’s a former colleague of mine: Lisa Houston, who started the drama program at the Pennington School and now serves as its middle school dean of students. Among other things, Lisa tells us how she rebuilt the drama program from the ground up, how it’s expanded over the years, what it’s like to take a group of high school students overseas to perform at a major festival, and how she’s seen theater impact the kids who participate in it, and even chan...
If you've listened for a while, you know I have a VERY broad definition of "creativity," and the show is called "Follow Your Curiosity" for a reason. Kyle Fletcher is a different sort of guest—he specializes in educating others about spirits and cocktails—with a journey that's all about the curiosity. Kyle has allowed his enthusiasm for, and interest in, the beverage world to lead him down a path that has included learning how to learn about the field, channeling his interest in performance into...
Paige Kaufman is an early childhood educator who went from teaching kindergarten to running a wellness center—all because she listened to the "nudge" telling her her it was time to do something different. A lot of us people would ignore that feeling, but Paige followed her curiosity into this new venture without knowing anything about starting a business. We talk about that journey, from the societal forces that make it difficult to follow that sense that we should do something we don’t expect, ...
My guest today is Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy and host of the Thrive by Design podcast. Tracy is a jewelry designer and entrepreneur who loves marketing. Even more than that, she loves helping other creative folks (and as we discuss, by “creative” we mean EVERYONE) get a handle on the business side of their work. If you’ve ever wondered how to make the leap from hobby to business, or if you’re struggling to find the balance between the work you love and...
What's your vision, or dream, for your life? Can you see it clearly? If not, you might want to consider making a vision board, and this week's guest, Angela Fareri, is here to tell us not only how and why creating a clear image for your life works, but how to make a vision board for yourself. Angela and I also talk about how vision boards and journaling can work together (we compare a process called "scripting" to mindsculpting—a coaching tool I use), and we discuss similarities between vision b...
Anne Marie Bennett has had a varied career—she’s been an elementary school teacher, has worked in a theater, and a SoulCollage(R) trainer and facilitator. She’s written several nonfiction books about her journeys with cancer and about the SoulCollage(R) process, but this year, she’s published her first novel. She joins me to talk about her creative history as well as SoulCollage(R), the shift to writing fiction, her fascination with and research into how celebrity affects those who inhabit it, a...
Over the last two episodes, we’ve heard from Todd Evans and Rachel Marianno, a brother and sister who grew up in an unusually artistic home and both became artists themselves. This week, their younger brother Orrin Evans joins me to round out the family and talk about his experience as the much younger child was similar and different, and how it influenced his career as a renowned jazz pianist and leader of the Grammy-nominated Captain Black Big Band. We talk about how he decided to leave colleg...
When your father is a playwright and your mother is a lyric soprano, you're unavoidably exposed to a creative outlook on life. This week is the second in a series of three episodes where we'll be hearing from three siblings from an incredibly artistic family, all of whom are artists themselves. This week, I talk to Rachel Marianno, the middle sibling, a teacher, school administrator, and poet in Philadelphia. We talk about what it was like to realize she was "different" as a result of the enviro...
When your father is a playwright and your mother is a lyric soprano, you're unavoidably exposed to a creative outlook on life. This week begins a series of three episodes where we'll be hearing from three siblings from an incredibly artistic family, all of whom are artists themselves. We start with Todd Evans, the eldest sibling, a poet who has started several open mics in the Trenton, NJ, area, and also started the Don Evans Players, which performs his father's plays and other classics. We talk...
This week—this month!—I have the honor and pleasure of talking with actor Paul McGann. He started his career in the West End, moving to TV with the BBC’s Monocled Mutineer , and to film with the cult classic Withnail and I . His credits also include Horatio Hornblower , Luther , and the Dickens adaptation Our Mutual Friend, and he’s narrated numerous documentaries. All that said, he’s probably best known as the Eighth Doctor from Doctor Who . In the second of two episodes, Paul and I talk about ...
This week—this month!—I have the honor and pleasure of talking with actor Paul McGann. He started his career in the West End, moving to TV with the BBC’s Monocled Mutineer , and to film with the cult classic Withnail and I . His credits also include Horatio Hornblower , Luther , and the Dickens adaptation Our Mutual Friend , and he’s narrated numerous documentaries. All that said, he’s probably best known as the Eighth Doctor from Doctor Who . In the first of two episodes, Paul and I talk about ...
Novelist Cindy Lynn Speer is one of my dearest writing friends. We met online years ago, and instantly bonded over our love of language and writing. We've never sat down and actually had a face-to-face conversation about writing, though—until now. Cindy Lynn is the author of five novels and a short story collection. We talk about how she got started with writing, what she's done in the publishing world along the way to getting her own books into print, the myths and realities of our ideas around...
Darcy Wade is an expressive arts therapist who knows what it's like to be derailed from her creative dream. As you’ll hear, one simple incident in high school destroyed her artistic identity, leaving her adrift through college. A chance interaction brought her back to herself and got her on the expressive arts path. If you’ve never heard of expressive arts, don’t worry—she has you covered as we talk about her early life as an artist, how she was thrown from that path and how she got back on it, ...
I couldn't resist this title for this episode, because it's true: Ryan Ward really did run away to join the circus. While that might sound silly, Ryan is wise beyond his years, having survived a deeply toxic relationship (which he discusses here), and reinvented himself, from changing his name to moving clear across the country to work as a circus performer and teacher. We talk not only about Ryan's history with the circus, but also about what he’s learned from his journey—how he interacts with ...
Zoha Abbas started her career as an advertising copywriter, and she’s here today to tell us how she got there, what it was like working for an ad agency (including the ups and downs of working with clients), and how she decided to take what she’d learned and help mere mortals figure out the best ways for them to market their businesses (as opposed to the ways everyone else says you have to do it). We talk about everything from how creativity can be beaten out of us, the power of standing up for ...
Alex Rudy started out drawing, and recording his own comic book audios, before taking a video production workshop in high school that led him to acting. While he took a few so-called detours along the way, everything he was curious about has factored into his creative life in one way or another, from being a wedding videographer to writing those childhood scripts, to using his drawing skills to bring his screenplay to life. Alex also has a podcast, The Artist Matters, where, like me, he intervie...
Desiree Argentina does a little bit of everything—in addition to being a school counselor, she's a writer, a travel blogger, a film production assistant, a podcaster, and even runs a cat rescue. Several of these are things she's learned by doing them, finding people to mentor her rather than studying up beforehand, which has given her experience and community right off the bat. Desiree has a lot to say about not letting perfectionism get in your way, exploring what you're interested in, followin...
If you're like a lot of people, you'll see this headline and want to run screaming, but I want to promise you that this week's conversation is anything but terrifying. Curtis Honeycutt, award-winning author of the Grammar Guy column that appears in more than 30 newspapers nationwide, has made it his mission to make grammar accessible and meaningful, not the stuff of high school nightmares. His book, Good Grammar is the Life of the Party , is a guidebook for the wary as well as the knowledgeable,...
Kelly Abanda's journey sounds like a movie: a woman takes a risk, leaves her "good" job to travel the world for three months, and comes back three years later. Along the way, she makes unexpected connections, stumbles into opportunities, and oh, yeah—survives a few close scrapes. Kelly's a big believer in following the intuitive impulses that led her on this journey. Not only do we talk about her adventures abroad, we also talk about why people think they're not creative, and how giving up contr...
Alison Miller describes herself as an uncertain adventurer and determined warrior goddess, and as you'll hear in this interview, she's earned both titles. Alison has lived on the road on her own since the death of her husband six and a half years ago, following her own inner compass the entire way. She's crossed the country eight times, carrying the names of those loved by people around the world on her pink teardrop trailer, seeking out love and adventure as she goes. She listens only to her ow...
