Emerging Form

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. ...

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 ho...

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...

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...

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-warm...

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 live...

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 yo...

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 hav...

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 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 th...

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 w...

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 y...

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 lo...

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 m...

Staying Open to Meet the Moment with Rosemerry on Breathing Wind A 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 Fr...

Writing a memoir is so much more than writing down memories–it’s shedding layers of stories we’ve told ourselves for years, seeing ourselves in unflattering lights, opening up to compassion, and exposing our underbelly. And it’s powerful medicine. In this episode, we talk with Laura Davis about the story behind her memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars : A Mother-Daughter Story. In her blunt, bra...

For Phyllis Cole-Dai, mindfulness is “keeping my head and my heart where my body is … here and now.” In this interview with the poet, writer, community leader, and editor of the popular Poetry of Presence anthologies, we explore the role of mindfulness in a writing practice and how mindfulness helps our writing be in service to a larger community. How can our creative practice help further social...

What happens to our writing when we begin with an I-don’t-know mindset? Our work becomes more loose, more fresh, more playful, more true. We speak with authors and teachers James Navé and Allegra Huston about their book Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow . It’s a practical and fun episode with many tips for escaping the rational mind and allowing your...

Artificial intelligence is affecting creative industries–for instance Hollywood screenwriters–and frustrating creative writing instructors with papers turned in composed by ChatGPT. How dangers is AI to creative careers? Can it be helpful? How do we move forward in a world where human creativity and technology work together? What is the creative’s role in building a bridge between AI and the rest...

How do we share our art with the world? In this episode of Emerging Form, singer/songwriter and incredible performer Emily Scott Robinson talks about the creativity of connecting. How do we help our audience feel seen? How can “mistakes” create bonding? How do we change energy that feels “off”? How do you make the same material feel fresh for yourself time after time? It’s a practical, heart-openi...

What business skills are most helpful for a creative career? And if you didn’t get a business degree, how might you best get these skills? Who might you rely on? How can you find play and creativity in the business side of your artistic dreams? We speak about this and more with fine art photographer Marisa S. White, co-founder of the True North Art Gallery. Marisa S. White is an award-winning arti...

When Laura Tohe went to school in the Navajo Nation, there were no books by Native writers for her to read. “That was an invisibility I grew up with,” she says. She knew she wanted to be a writer, she just didn’t know how. In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with Tohe about how she found support from writers such as Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz and Rudofo Anaya who encouraged her to write about wh...

How do you create a project that at the same time reaches toward grief and toward joy? What does it ask of our creative practice? What does it take, practically speaking, to make it feel cohesive? In this special episode of Emerging Form, the co-hosts talk about Rosemerry’s new book, All the Honey , which releases April 18 from Samara Press. They talk about how to select poems for a collection and...

Instead of sweating the small stuff, what if we honor the small stuff–with curiosity, with wonder. In this episode of Emerging Form, we talk with podcaster and video editor Flora Lichtman about her work as host for the listener call-in podcast “Every Little Thing,” which was essentially an “exercise in curiosity.” We discuss who can best tell a story? How do we most courageously and interestingly...

One of the best ways to support your creative practice? Try new things . In this episode, David Epstein , author of the New York Times #1 best seller Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World , talks about why many streams of interest, novelty, and beginner’s mind are important. The conversation touches on science, music, sports, art and even parenting. Highlights: Epstein debunks the...