Emerging Form

How can you invite pleasure to be a part of your creative practice? In this bonus episode with professor and poet Brad Aaron Modlin we talk about his heart-opening, blood pumping, joy-raising way to start a creative day; ways to dismantle our fear of not being good enough; and how changing the genre can open surprising doors.  Brad Aaron Modlin ’s book Everyone at This Party Has Two Names won The...

What kinds of creative habits work best for you? How do different practices bring out a new flavor or new thrill in your art? We talk with professor and poet Brad Aaron Modlin, the Reynolds Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at University of Nebraska, Kearney , about various challenges and approaches he’s used with his students. We also talk about how engaging with strangers is an important part of...

If you’ve noticed that being outside improves your creativity, you’re right. We speak with Florence Williams about the science of awe, why cultivating openness is your muse’s best friend, and specific ways to nourish your creative practice by engaging with the natural world. We also talk about the writing of her new book, in which she studies how we recover from heartbreak. It’s an episode that ap...

“Put on your zeitgeist hat,” says Holiday Mathis, syndicated astrologer and author of How to Fail Epically in Hollywood, “then pour everything you can into the part of your art you can control.” In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk about how to gather “textures” from daily life for creative practice, what she’s learned from writing, editing, publishing and narrating her new novel, the importa...

Lauren Fleshman knows firsthand the challenges of being a female runner, and how some of the greatest challenges come from the system meant to support athletes. In this episode of Emerging Form, she talks about how and why she came to write her memoir, “bringing a pulse to the research.” She tells us about the challenges of trying to write a book during a global pandemic while parenting young chil...

How can looking back at your creative practice over the last year help steer you forward into next year’s creative practice? Join Christie and Rosemerry as they do their annual review of things they’d hoped might happen, what really happened and where they think their creative lives are going next. The conversation reveals several epiphanies about creative practice vs. career, what really matters,...

“Art gathers  us,” says poet aaron a. abeyta. In this episode, we talk with the celebrated poet about his newest collection of poems and letters, ancestor of fire . In this episode, focus on what is the work of the writer? How do we save language? What are the benefits of writing longhand? How do we give voice to what is broken? How does repetition echo storytelling? Why is it important to write w...

Paying attention is an essential part of creative practice, and in this episode, we speak with comedian and TV writer Chris Duffy about how he transforms what he notices into a career in comedy. He also talks about why jokes and poems are versions of the same thing, how to structure a comedy set, why math is so important to comedy, how to maximize a laugh, the importance of vulnerability and how t...

Image: Rosemerry and her daughter definitely succeeded in making a delicious chocolate beet birthday cake. What is success? How have your ideas about success changed over time? Who is someone you think of when you think of a successful person in your field? How has their success made an impact on you? What risks have you taken for success?  In this conversation, co-hosts Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer...

“There is a magic to stories well told,” says novelist T.A. Barron, and in this thoughtful, heart-opening, life-affirming episode, he explores how story weaves through every part of our lives. He talks about how he went from rejected novelist to successful business leader to best-selling author. He speaks of the story as a boat containing treasure–and of the magic not only in his stories about Mer...

Creative projects are rewarding, but let’s be honest: they’re also hard. Today’s guest, Steve Magness, is an expert on doing hard things and he has some good advice on how to break through. Steve discusses the benefits of a quiet ego, how to feed and reward the positive voices in your head, how shifting to talking to yourself in second or third person can help you quiet negative self-talk, and how...

Emerging Form is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new episodes and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Imagine researching a theoretical global disaster that, while you are writing your book, comes to pass. In this episode, Emerging Form welcomes Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh, who were writing their non-fiction book Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of...

In all of our other shows, we have talked about creative practice and how you develop your own voice, your own identity, how you make your own creative mark. And in today’s episode, we speak with poet and performer and teacher Kim Rosen, who will guide in thinking about the opposite–how we might let go of our creative identities as we age, and why that is essential work.  Kim Rosen, M.F.A. , autho...

How has creativity served us in times of trauma? Last year, Christie and Rosemerry released an episode mid-September about the very difficult life events that had occurred for them in August–Christie’s father’s nearly fatal stroke and the death of Rosemerry’s son. As we come back from a much-needed summer break, we revisit the past year to look at how things have changed–and stayed the same. In th...

Noticing and being present are two essential ingredients for creativity, and in today’s episode, writer Laurie Wagner discusses how travel can facilitate creative traits like these and help you connect with your muse. She tells us about how being in a foreign place helps her move slower and see things anew. “Our lives are passing, and we think we are going someplace,” she says, but meanwhile life...

How does a book come together? We speak with Rachel Feltman, author of Been There, Done That: A Rousing History of Sex, about the evolution of her book, from first inklings to years of research to organization to completion. She explains how she answered the burning question, “How do I make this a book and not just a pile of words?” Her secrets include A 500-mile ride on a tandem bike, a morning r...

Need inspiration? Look to other arts. This practice, known as ekphrasis –the art of making art inspired by other art, can “fill the well” and create a rich field of ideas to play with. In this episode, Rosemerry offers a provocative list of specific ways one might engage with another work of art and gives examples from her recent poems responding to the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and the music...

Some projects take on a life of their own–what begins as a side project might grow into a life-style change and new career. But how do we know if or when to end it? How do external factors influence it? What do we learn about adaptation and trust? In this episode of Emerging Form, we bring back podcaster Laura Joyce Davis, host and executive producer of the award-winning narrative podcast Shelter...

Walking. So simple, and yet putting one foot in front of the other is one of the most profound things you can do for your creative practice. In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with award-winning poet and painter Valencia Robin about how walking has inspired her practice. We bring in science to support what we all know intuitively–moving the body helps open the brain. And Robin (as we call...

“You wouldn’t yell at a preemie baby,” says poet, lyricist, playwright and teacher Alison Luterman. In this bonus episode, we talk about Alison’s “coaxing” approach for her new work, about patience, self-compassion, starting the morning without screens, the benefits and detriments of having many projects at once, and, of course, the importance of coffee.  Alison Luterman 's four books of poetry ar...

Is talent necessary? Is it possible, with devotion, hard work and help and time, to develop a creative practice that doesn’t come to us naturally? In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk again with poet, lyricist, playwright and teacher Alison Luterman. As an exuberant young girl who loved to sing, she was told by a choir director to just mouth the words. For decades the wound festered. “It is h...

Ninety-seven percent of people who begin a novel don’t finish it. But what about all the people who finish it and then set it aside? What happens to that novel in a drawer? Well … sometimes it goes to novel heaven and finds a publisher–and we have proof. In this episode we talk to Holiday Mathis (who was our guest in episode 23 , The Daily Grind), and she tells us how she wrote her new novel, why...

How does a poem emerge? So many ways to do it right, says Rosemerry. But in this episode, we take an intimate and critical look at one poem, “For When People Ask,” and talk about the genesis of the poem, how it changed and transformed, how the metaphors grew and how people responded to it. We also talk about saving first drafts–or not, trusting the process, leaning into uncertainty, letting our cr...

How can we better navigate difficult topics when telling personal stories? In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with podcasting host Arielle Duhaime-Ross about their podcast episode “My Cousin Baptized My Dead Relatives Into the Mormon Church” which aired on VICE News Reports. We talk about steps they took to understand the story from different perspectives, how the narrative form emerged, ho...

Photo of Stéphanie by @steph_stf_photography “Is my career done?” That’s what aerialist Stéphanie Ortega wondered when her touring with Cirque du Soleil abruptly ended at the onset of the pandemic. We speak with her about the fear, anger, and loss of identity in the wake of losing her creative practice–and how she found resilience, purpose, and new ways of pursuing her art before the proverbial sh...