The Spark File with Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien

Season 7 is officially in the books! In this season finale of The Spark File Podcast, Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien look back at some of their favorite sparks from the year — from Expansion Anxiety and Dopamine Reset, to Good Teachers / Bad Teachers, A Good Cry, and more. Along the way, they revisit the ideas that changed how they think, the tools that continue to shape their creative lives, an...

Fear vs. Intuition: How Do You Know Which Voice to Trust? When you're facing a big decision, how do you know if you're listening to intuition... or fear? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan and Laura explore the often-confusing relationship between fear, instinct, and intuition. Why is fear usually the loudest voice? What does intuition actually feel like? And how can we tell the diff...

What do a trad-wife time travel thriller, influencer culture, motherhood, nostalgia, and the deep human need to be seen have in common? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Laura shares a spark inspired by the bestselling novel Yesteryear—a story about a modern trad-wife influencer who suddenly finds herself living in the 1850s - a life she’s been romanticizing online. What follows is a fasc...

What if one of the greatest creative gifts you could offer someone… was your attention? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien explore the transformative work of Nancy Kline and her groundbreaking book Time to Think. Together, they unpack the idea of “thinking environments” — spaces where people can think clearly, creatively, and courageously because they are b...

Feeling stuck, numb, overwhelmed… or just weirdly “off”? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien explore the brain’s four major feel-good chemicals — dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin — and the surprising ways creativity helps activate every single one of them. What starts as a conversation about burnout and anhedonia turns into a hopeful deep dive i...

What if the people in our lives came with warning labels, gift receipts or invisible instruction manuals? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Laura and Susan explore the invisible “rule books” we all carry — the hidden needs, sensitivities, communication styles, expectations, and emotional landmines that shape our relationships and creative collaborations. From feedback preferences to frien...

What if the muse isn’t something you wait for, but something you meet? In this episode, Susan and Laura explore the evolution of the creative muse — from ancient Greek mythology (yes, daughters of Zeus included) to modern-day metaphors like demons, geniuses, broccoli, and even… a monkey driving a speedboat. Along the way, they unpack a powerful truth: The most creative people aren’t waiting for in...

What if the reason you can’t stop obsessing over that one random thing… is actually because something in your life is going really right? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Laura and Susan dive into Expansion Anxiety – the sneaky psychological pattern that shows up when you’re leveling up creatively, professionally, or personally. Just as things start to expand, your brain tries to pull yo...

What’s the difference between a teacher who changes your life… and one who almost shuts you down for good? On this week’s episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan brings a spark from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — a story about a young writer learning the difference between truth and storytelling, and the teachers who shape (or try to silence) her voice. From a compassionate mentor who helps Francie h...

What if the parts of yourself you’ve been hiding from yourself… are actually the key to your creative breakthroughs? In this episode, Laura takes us into the world of Carl Jung—by way of a late-night deep dive into Jungian psychology (and yes, just the tip of the iceberg). Along the way, she breaks down the difference between Jung and Sigmund Freud in the most Spark File way imaginable, using ever...

What if the thing your creativity needs most… isn’t more effort—but more delight? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, we’re diving into the deceptively simple, wildly powerful practice of The Artist Date — a concept from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way that might just change your creative life. If you’ve been pouring energy into making, producing, solving, and showing up — but feeling a li...

What is creativity… really? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, we dive headfirst into one of the most slippery — and surprisingly limiting — questions in the creative world: how do we define creativity in the first place? Along the way, we unpack why so many traditional definitions leave people out, explore the difference between “revolutionary” lightning-bolt ideas and the quieter, powerf...

What happens after the big creative push? In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan and Laura dive into the all-too-real experience of the creative hangover — that strange, tender, sometimes disorienting crash that can come after a big creative risk, milestone, performance, launch, or emotional lift. One minute you’ve done the brave thing. The next? You’re flattened, fragile, weirdly ashame...

What do we do with the grief that doesn’t come with a funeral, a clear ending, or even a name? In this tender and powerful episode of The Spark File Podcast, Laura shares a spark about “Ambiguous Grief” — the kind of loss that lives in the in-between. It can show up in a relationship that ended without closure, a loved one who is here physically but no longer fully here, a dream that never quite g...

What happens when the thing you reach for to soothe yourself starts quietly stealing your time, your attention, and your creative life force? In “Dopamine Reset”, this week’s episode of The Spark File Podcast, Susan shares her deeply personal experience of getting hooked on TikTok during a season of illness and exhaustion — and what helped her find her way back. Using insights from Dr. Anna Lembke...

Our latest episode of The Spark File Podcast, Flip the Script, is a dark spark with a bright creative payoff. When Laura has a vivid, unsettling dream she perceives as a warning about allowing strangers into her life, it sends her spiraling into the cultural storytelling we’ve been fed about “charismatic monsters”… and the powerful, necessary work of changing perspective. Using Jessica Knoll’s Bri...

This episode of The Spark File Podcast, Creating Community is your reminder that creativity doesn’t thrive in a vacuum — it thrives in connection. This week, Susan and Laura talk about why community isn’t just “nice to have”… it’s essential to our mental health, our physical health, and our creative longevity. They dig into the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on loneliness, the heartbreak of creat...

What if creativity isn’t a lightning bolt… but a mashup? In this episode, Laura shares a Blue Man Group–born concept that can instantly dissolve the “I’m not original enough” spiral: Creation by Recombination—the idea that most innovation comes from connecting existing things in a way no one’s connected them before. From Blue Man Group’s paint-splattering, percussive “existential hang,” to hip hop...

In this week’s episode of The Spark File, “I Love You vs. Small Talk,” Laura opens up a BIG spark (100 pounds of topic in a five-pound bag): love—romantic love, friend love, family love, self-love, love of strangers, love of pets… the whole sprawling, life-saving universe of it. Along the way, Susan and Laura tumble into the brave stuff: why “anything other than I love you is small talk” (thank yo...

In “Making for Minnesota,” we’re asking a question that feels both tender and urgently practical: when the world is loud and scary, what can you make? Susan shares what happened after our free workshop Be the Change, But How—and how (per Martha Beck) creativity can interrupt anxiety by flipping a different switch in the brain. From there, we follow the sparks straight into Minnesota: community act...

This week on The Spark File, we’re cultivating delight with an episode we’re calling “Words We Love.” Susan went spelunking through her massive digital spark file and emerged with a glittering haul: words that crack us up, words that soothe, words that make you feel—dare we say—carbonated. We talk effervescent, herkle-durkle, mudita (the joy we feel for someone else’s good news), glugaveder (windo...

In this episode of The Spark File, Laura and Susan celebrate the art, science, and deep humanity of a good cry. Sparked by poems, personal stories, and a lovingly unofficial “research study,” they explore why tears are not a weakness—but a powerful form of emotional intelligence and creative release. You’ll hear why emotional tears literally help flush stress from the body, how “easy criers” may a...

This week on The Spark File, we’re asking a question that might just unclench your whole nervous system: How Easy Can It Be? Susan shares a beloved Spark from our brilliant colleague Kate Kayaian (“How would this feel if I let it be easy?”), then takes us on a joyride through filmmaker Cyrus Bates (aka The Mental Level), NBA legend-in-the-making Tyrese Haliburton, big-wave surfing wisdom from 100...

A Window; Not a Mirror is your new permission slip. In this episode, Laura shares a line she overheard in a NYC café that snapped her nervous system into clarity: “You cannot walk into the asylum and let it convince you that you’ve gone mad. Remember: it’s a window, not a mirror.” Together, Laura and Susan unpack the difference between healthy self-reflection and chronic self-blame—why “everything...

Life attracts life. So if you want more creativity, more connection, more possibility… you can’t wait it out on the couch. In this episode of The Spark File Podcast, Laura revisits The Alchemist and uncovers why pursuing your creative calling isn’t about chasing a guaranteed outcome—it’s about choosing aliveness. We talk fear, failure, love, upper limits, and the quiet danger of staying “safe.” If...