The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Climate Change, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Tech, Sustainability

“I was originally drawn to bees because they're social creatures. And as humans, I always wanted to know about ourselves and how we can be our healthiest selves and our healthiest society. Bees and wasps, and all of these organisms have been around for so long. Bees especially have been around for 100 million years.” Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph. D. , is co-founder and CEO of The Best Bees Company, the la...

Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph. D. , is co-founder and CEO of The Best Bees Company, the largest beekeeping service in the US. He is a 20-time published author and 3-time TEDx speaker. He’s on a mission to improve pollinator health worldwide as a means to support our global food system and support the transformation of urban areas from gray to green. He is the author of The Bee: A Natural History . “I was o...

"What drew me to the time period of the 70s was the real story of these magazines  Playgirl, Viva, Foxy Lady,  all the magazines that existed in this period. So it was a natural outgrowth of trying to tell a story that was inspired by, to some extent, real-life events. When I started developing  Minx , what struck me about the 70s, in particular, is just how similar it was to our ti...

Ellen Rapoport is the creator, executive producer, and showrunner of the breakout hit comedy series, Minx , for HBO Max. The series, which aired on the platform on March 17, takes place in 1970s Los Angeles and follows the story of an earnest young feminist who joins forces with a low-rent publisher to create the first erotic magazine for women. In May, it was announced that the series was renewed...

“It's a complicated issue. I think a lot of those bird disappearances come from the fact that we have massively intensified our agriculture. Large areas of North America and Europe are now under intense agriculture. They are sprayed with a whole variety of pesticides, which I think is also responsible for the fact that many insects have disappeared, so species that depend on farmland have clearly...

Stuart Pimm is a world leader in the study of present-day extinctions and what can be done to prevent them. His research covers the reasons why species become extinct, how fast they do so, the global patterns of habitat loss and species extinction and, importantly, the management consequences of this research. Pimm received his BSc degree from Oxford University in 1971 and his Ph. D. from New Mexi...

“I think art can engage with the body, the mind, and the imagination in so many different ways that can compliment modes of thinking, other modes of creating, thinking through, working through and devising. I was thinking about this in relation to the last 18 months and how the sciences have rightly been heralded as the great way of getting ourselves out of this pandemic, but culture is the way an...

Anthony Gardner is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Oxford, where he was the Head of the Ruskin School of Art from 2017 to 2020. He has published widely on subjects including postcolonialism, postsocialism and curatorial histories. His books include Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art against Democracy , and Biennials, Triennials and documenta: The exhibitions that...

“I really hope that kindness is preserved. I really think manners and being polite can go a long way. People are in such a rush these days. Everybody wants to acquire so much, and they forget to just be thankful for the little things in life. To slow down, how you move through the world and how selfless you are, holding open a door for someone, or just telling someone to have a good day. Those are...

Best-selling author Courtney Peppernell is from Sydney, Australia. Her poetry collection Pillow Thoughts was a worldwide success. Her Young Adult novels and poetry books have struck a chord with young readers and the LGBTQ+ community. Her other works include I Hope You Stay, Watering the Soul, as well as Hope in the Morning, profits of which were donated to assist relief efforts for injured wildli...

“The struggle for a planetary future calls for a profound epistemological shift. Indigenous ancestral knowledges are now providing a foundation for our work against climate change, one based on what I refer to as Indigenous economies of abundance—as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity. Rather than seeing climate change as apocalyptic, we can see that climate change is bringing about the de...

Candace Fujikane is an author and professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, teaching aloha ʻāina and the protection of Hawaiʻi. Having grown up on the slopes of Maui’s Haleakalā, Candace has stood for the lands, waters, and political sovereignty of Hawaiʻi for over 20 years. Her newest book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future , contends that “Indigenous ancestral knowledge...

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench , and Balm . She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Washington, DC with her family and teaches at American University. She discusses her latest novel Take My...

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench , and Balm . She was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and she was awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Washington, DC with her family and teaches at American University. She discusses her latest novel Take My...

"When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow...

Photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale shares her personal odyssey—from documenting the heartbreaking realities of war to witnessing the inspiring power of an individual to make a difference. Her award-winning work illuminates the unsung heroes and communities working to protect our wildlife and find harmony in our natural world. Hear her awe-inspiring stories of the reintroduction of northern whit...

"I am very concerned that the future seems to be consolidated among the 10 wealthiest, most powerful people in the world who are all white guys. And they're great. I know most of them personally. I have mad respect for them, but it's really concerning when a private individual can buy Twitter. It's very concerning when a billionaire can own one of the most important news organizations in the Unite...

Ann Hiatt is a best selling author, executive consultant, speaker, and investor. She is a Silicon Valley veteran with 15 years experience reporting directly to CEOs Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet). Ann consults with CEOs and their leadership teams across the globe on c-suite optimization. Ann has published articles in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Compan...

Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, a memoir on the climate crisis framed as a letter to Sherrell's potential future child. He is a climate movement organizer and has led successful campaigns to phase out coal-fired power plants, divest millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry, and pass a Green New Deal bill for New York State, legislation that...

“We become the stories we tell ourselves…I started writing around the time I learned English because we moved to the States soon after my fourth birthday, and so I was here for kindergarten into elementary school. I grasped this new language just as I was learning how to also put things onto the page. Those two things really happened at the same time for me. I entered this world where I felt very...

Hala Alyan is the author of the novel  Salt Houses , winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel  The Arsonists’ City , and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently  The Twenty-Ninth Year.  Her work has been published by the  New Yorker , the Academy...

James Fallows has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic for more than thirty-five years, reporting from China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, and across the United States. Winner of the National Book Award and National Magazine Award, he’s the author of twelve books and his work has appeared in numerous publications and on public-radio. For two years he was President Jimmy Carter’s chief...

Artist Donald Sultan rose to prominence in the late 1970s as part of the “New Image” movement. Sultan has challenged the boundaries between painting and sculpture throughout his career. Using industrial materials such as roofing tar, aluminum, linoleum and enamel, Sultan layers, gouges, sands and constructs his paintings—sumptuous, richly textured compositions often made of the same materials as t...

Aaron Dworkin is a multifaceted artist and entrepreneur with passion for diversifying and amplifying the arts. Epitomizing how art, leadership, and diversity all play a vital role in advancing our society, Dwokin founded The Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization that molds Black and Latinx classical musicians, and he serves on the advisory board for several prestigious arts organizations....

Aaron Dworkin is a multifaceted artist and entrepreneur with passion for diversifying and amplifying the arts. Epitomizing how art, leadership, and diversity all play a vital role in advancing our society, Dwokin founded The Sphinx Organization, a non-profit organization that molds Black and Latinx classical musicians, and he serves on the advisory board for several prestigious arts organizations....