Arts Episodes

“Our job is not to make the audience believe in one thing or another. In fact, the worst kind of story you do as a journalist is a story that you make to prove a point. And that's not a good idea. Our job is just to report the truth.” – Amjad Tadros

“We think of writing as something that happens in isolation, but writing really is best when it's done in community, when you have someone to bounce ideas off of, when you can have that back and forth that gets out of your own head and gives you fresh perspectives you probably wouldn't have thought of.” – Dianna Gunn

“Tap into your own inner creativity. It's there. It's always has been there, and your story matters.” – Abbie Emmons

"Don't wait for your life to become less busy before you honor your creativity." – Nataliya Falevich

“Where people get stuck is when they find themselves doing a lot of what I call ‘rocking chair tasks,’ which are those things where, like, you feel like you're in motion, but you're not going anywhere.” – Kate Kayaian

“When I started having grandkids, I found that a good way to keep them entertained and to keep them from misbehaving was to tell them stories. So, I told them stories.” – Dr. Caroline Crocker

“I got my first rejection letter when I was 11… But I kept with it, and eventually it paid off.” – William Bernhardt

“Work tirelessly on the things that you love. Don't worry about ‘failing.’ Don't worry about producing work that you don't think is any good, because that's an essential crucible that you have to get through.” – Scott Dikkers

“Being out in nature and in the wilderness has always, always provided me with something, whether it be the answer I needed or something that I didn't even know I needed.” – Lisa Michelle

“You have to feel valuable within yourself.” – Toni Ann Johnson

“For any endeavor or enterprise in the creative field, you have to think of it as a job. Even if you only can do it an hour, a day, or two hours a day, even if you have to get up really early in the morning and before the kids are awake.” – Steven Pressfield

“Our grief is not linear. Our grief is not written in this perfect front to back story. Grief is all over the place, and it's messy, and it's hard. But there's also there's so many joyful moments that you can find in it if you look.” – Erica Richmond

“Song is just a piece of art, and it's kind of like a landscape painting is a piece of art. It is reflective of the landscape, but in no way can it take in the full majesty of the landscape. It's just a picture of it, and it should inspire us to want to examine the real thing.” – Michelle Nezat

“I still have a lot of ideas. I'm not done just because the Social Security Administration says I've only got three years left, doesn't mean that that's all I have left.” – Teri Brown

“When you write something, when you compose something, when you paint something it’s such a deep inner process for the creator himself or herself that I think it's always a process of working with your own being and discovering things about your own being, and healing some issues in yourself.” – Chris Nielsen

“It's amazing how everything scaffolds on top, all the skills scaffold on top. You still have to stay current, but all of that has just been a wonderful foundation.” – Jean Burgess, PhD

“We just felt like, you know what? If we don't do it now, we're never going to do it because too many people wait until they get older and then they never end up leaving.” – Alison Gieschen

“Writing and publishing your book are two different shoes. Writing a book is really just 50%, and the foundation. Setting everything up to marketing to all the layout stuff is another 50%. So, write a good book. That's important. But also, take some time with publishing.” – Wiebke Tasch

“Imagine it's your last day on Earth. What song would you write?“ – Greig Watts

“I had written before, and I would stop. Either life would get in the way or my own perfectionist tendencies. So, I just made the intention that I'm not going to stop. I'm going to finish this whether it gets published or not.” – Lori Zoss

“One thing I try to do in all of my novels, no matter how serious they are, I like to have comic relief. I like to have the reader smile and go, ‘oh, that's funny’.” – Adele Royce

“I never forgot that. That was asked of me in July of 1971. I had just left medical school. I was in Ohio. I was one of 35 doctors, but I was the only black doctor, and I was asked that question. And so how do you how do you forget that?” – Dr. Otto E. Stallworth Jr.

“There is a reason why I'm writing her story. So, I gave myself permission to write her story to get all these feelings out of me. And once I gave myself permission to do that, I did not stop writing.” – Laura Frost

“Don't let the metrics and all the followers kind of get you down. If you can help one person today, make them smile, solve a problem, or make them understand that they are loved and appreciated. You've done your job for today.” – Allen C. Paul