Podcast Conversation with the TW Editors
Happy Holidays from Talking Writing
Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and elsewhere.
Episode Notes: We’ve long anticipated this conversation, which bridges the multiple geographies and time zones of the TW team. The big role of technology in making this happen signals another shift in the digital evolution of Talking Writing. We want to meet each other, our readers, and artists where they are—and we find increasing opportunities for connecting online.
This holiday episode brings together our editors—Publisher Martha Nichols, Art Director John Vogel, Managing Editor Neva Talladen, and Nonfiction Editor Gabrielle (Gabi) Coloma—in a lively chat about our creative lives. We met by Zoom in early December, talking together for longer than expected. In this edited version of that conversation, we discuss how much doing creative work means to us and the many ways it has transformed our lives. We also talk honestly about feeling discouraged, including Gabi's admission that she's a "hesitant writer." (Note that Gabi was unable to participate in the latter half of the meeting.)
Artists often get caught up in day jobs or supporting roles at the periphery of the actual practice they want to engage in. Our own work as editors and producers of Talking Writing, while fulfilling and inspiring, adds up along with our day jobs, businesses, children, and relationships—the necessary “tolls” we pay to keep crossing into lives that give us so much happiness and meaning.
Through it all, our mission of finding meaning in personal stories remains, this time underscored by the reminder that seeking, creating, and supporting art is universal and community-centered. As Martha Nichols, TW's co-founder, puts it, art “reframes the way you look at the world, and we are very, very much in need of a new frame.”
This holiday episode is the last of the year, but the TW podcast will return early next year. At the close of 2022, we send holiday wishes to all our readers, subscribers, and donors—and the hope that your own creative life is full.
And one more wish: Please donate what you can now to help Talking Writing continue publishing and podcasting. Thank you!
Help TW Keep Publishing Next Year
If you'd prefer to send a check by mail, see the TW Donate page.
Publishing Information for this Episode
- “Brian Eno Reveals the Hidden Purpose of All Art” by David Marchese, New York Times, November 14, 2022.
- “Creative Breakthroughs: Ta-Nehisi Coates” interview with The Atlantic, Sept 27, 2013.
- Past music zines that John mentions: Rockpile Magazine and Skyscraper Magazine.
- Episode Music: All original compositions © John Vogel and used with his permission.
Art Information
- "Moon over Lieutenant Island" © Sanford T. Rose; used with permission.
