The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience cover image

The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

How Bestselling Author Natalie Goldberg Writes

Aug 2, 2024
35:19

Bestselling author and teacher, Natalie Goldberg, spoke to me about igniting a revolution with Writing Down the Bones, meeting creative block in a cemetery, and her latest, WRITING ON EMPTY: A Guide to Finding Your Voice.

Natalie Goldberg is a poet, teacher, author, painter, and 24-year student of Zen Buddhism who teaches writing workshops based on the methods presented in her popular bestseller Writing Down the Bones. The book has sold over a million copies and has been translated into 14 languages.

Her latest is Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice, where the author “... shares her inspiring personal journey out of a devastating period of writer’s block and back into a life of growth, creativity, and healing.”

Described as a guide to “… discovering how to write through the emptiness in order to fill up the world with compassion, healing, and renewed liveliness.” Publishers Weekly praised it as "... a refreshingly honest look at the struggles of the creative mind."

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In this file Natalie Goldberg and I discussed: 

How her Zen practice informs her work

Her early life as a poet

When New York publishers made fun of her, at their peril

Why she hates the diagnosis “writer’s block”

Finding catharsis in writing a personal history

And a lot more!

Show Notes:

NatalieGoldberg.com

Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice by Natalie Goldberg (Amazon)

Natalie Goldberg Amazon Author Page

Natalie Goldberg on Facebook

Kelton Reid on Twitter

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